Recently I was talking to a writer who described something she did whenever she
moved to her writing table. I don’t remember exactly what the gesture was—there
is something on her desk that she touches before she hits the computer
keyboard—but we began to talk about little rituals that one goes through before
beginning to write. I, at first, thought I didn’t have a ritual, but then I
remembered that I always get up and make a cup of coffee while it is still
dark—it must be dark—and then I drink the coffee and watch the light come. And
she said, Well, that’s a ritual. And I realized that for me this ritual
comprises my preparation to enter a space that I can only call nonsecular …
Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the
contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious
process. For me, light is the signal in the transition. It’s not being in the
light, it’s being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some sense.
