There’s a phrase every editor I’ve ever worked with begs me strike: can’t not.
I know, I know. It’s a double-negative. It’s confusing. Two negatives equals a positive not only in math but also in the English language, and who wants to be brought back to seventh grade math class?1
But sometimes this double negative is the only thing that seems to appropriately capture the sentiment of the sentence at hand. Sometimes the combination of these two words tells the reader something its positive cousin could not.
Take for instance the following two sentences:
I can’t not get my hands dirty in the backyard garden.
I can get my hands dirty in the backyard garden.
The two sentences hold completely different meanings. There is a desperation in the first. If I do fail to garden, I will not be whole. Digging into soil makes something in me come alive; I must get my hands dirty in order to survive.
The second, of course, implies choice: I can choose to get my hands dirty in the backyard garden, because if I open up the sliding glass door and walk into the backyard, I will inevitably, probably (somehow, maybe) cake my hands with dirt.
Or I might not. Because if it is something I can do, then it is also something I can choose not to do.
Which begs us ask the question: what is it that thing you can’t not do?
Last week, or perhaps it was the week before, the effervescent Charlotte Donlon2 posed a question on Threads: “If you don’t write for money, why do you write?”
It’s a valid question. Whether or not you call yourself a writer, writers write for a myriad of reasons. Some folks write because it’s their livelihood. At the end of the month, it pays the bills and keeps the lights on, and this more-than matters in the end.
If we’re honest, I imagine some people write because of the fame that comes with it. That, of course, has never been my story. I am not a New York Times bestselling author, nor do I garner a following of hundreds of thousands of human beings that might tip me over the edge to becoming a bestselling author.3 Fame is not in the cards for me, although maybe it is for you.
Some people write because it makes them feel special or validated;4 some people write because writing envelops them within a community or a group of like-minded individuals. There are, perhaps, a hundred right answers to this one question of writing. I am not here to declare a single answer the overall winner to Charlotte’s question.
Here’s what I did say, though: “Because I can’t. I can’t not write!”
Perhaps like gardening, I can’t not write. A seeping desperation creeps into my bones. Give me a piece of paper or some sort of blank page. Put a pen or a pencil between my fingers, place my pointer fingers on “F” and ‘J” — just give me something so that the words that live within me might bleed onto the page.
“Give me liberty, or give me death!” Patrick Henry once exclaimed,5 for in this writing we find life. In this writing we are made free.
What then, I ask again, is that thing you can’t not do?
In Christie Purifoy’s new book, Seedtime and Harvest,6 she writes about how her father knew the place they called home. Growing up, his need to cultivate an intimate relationship with the land spilled over, into Christie’s childhood:
Today, for most of us, a relationship with the ground beneath our feet feels optional. It is something we can pursue, like a hobby, or ignore in favor of travel or in deference to a long commute. But not for my father when he was a child. And not for my father when he was an adult. The farm taught him well, and he could not - he would not - leave or brown backyard to its own devices. He would transform it into our Texas Eden, and it would feed us mulberries and blackberries and plums. It would give us cobbler and jam and bouquets of heirloom roses.
Cultivating the land was something Christie’s father couldn’t not do. It was as much a part of him as the clothes he wore on his back and the names by which he was called.
I can only hope the same for the rest of us, whatever our can’t not, whatever that buried thing that finds a home deep within our souls.
So, what is it for you? Do tell.
I actually really liked my seventh grade math teacher. (Hi, Mr. Watson!) But seventh grade math? Not so much.
Charlotte is a cultivator of spirituality + writing like no one else. If this combination is your cup of tea, do check out her offerings!
Do authors with small followings make NYT bestselling lists? Yes, sometimes, yes! Does it help to have large followings and is this why traditional publishers make such a big deal out of platforms? Also, yes. There’s so much to say about this subject, and also so much that’s already been written about it. Go on down that rabbit hole, I double-dog dare you!
Four on the Enneagrams, I’m looking at you.
“Give me writing, or give me death!” Pretty sure that’s also what Patrick Henry said, even if history’s records sometimes get the third word wrong.
I loved this book and am excited to check out the first two books of the trilogy, Garden Maker and A Home in Bloom. Also, if you’re a fan of gardening + writing, do pull up a chair and check out our half-hour IG Live!
I can’t not try new foods. Silly I know, but it keeps me up at night knowing there are spices or cuisine I haven’t tried yet. I know how ridiculous it sounds but here we are.