interior world

Dear Byrd,

I heard a news story on Harvey Pikhor’s death, he met his wife through fan mail, she was teaching creative writing to prisoners. She wrote him about how she tried to help the inmates develop their interior world. After I had Walter I sometimes felt on the edge of sanity with the world as I knew it out the window and a whole new world I did not know. When my sanity was thinnest, I could think about it very crudely, and I thought that sanity for me was based on writing (art of any type, the interior world) , running (or other exercise, the body…), and socializing. Until I heard this story about Pikhor I hadnt really articulated that devoting time to writing, and not having done much ‘art’ in the past few years, was part of my overall burnout and dissatisfaction with working too much.

It is kind of funny though to think what it means to develop an interior world, like having imaginary friends, or wallpaper designs, or music running through your head. You cant really see anyone else’s to borrow good ideas. You can only show the products of yours so development and living the interior world is largely personal. All the fast entertainment and media can easily fill the void and take up interior world time too.

How do you guys develop, save time for, enjoy, etc, your interior world?

Love,
Mom