I sit staring at the screen, locked in frozen admiration for the words not yet planted firmly in their place. Where are those words? What has become of them? My hands rest above the keyboard, ready to let fly with even the vaguest of notions. Where are the notions? Is this the dreaded writers' block that so many talk about? Isn't talking about it writing? Well, isn't it? Should I talk about the block? Talk around the block? Over or under?
Take a walk, instead. My mind is drained of, empty of, without thought of words. Words. Build with them, destroy with them. Tear down and recreate with them. Words have power to do either thing—build or destroy. Which will it be today? I am empty of meaning and without concern for the outcome. Just plug the words in any which way and see where they go. Nowhere. They go nowhere. It makes me angry that they go nowhere. Why angry? What is the point? Get a grip and just let them fly. Freedom of restraint and freedom to choose. My mind has hit a brick wall of indifference. Thoughts do not come readily to the equation. And why should I care? What does it mean that I seem unable to form a coherent story in my mind or out of it?
Lying in bed—or is it laying in bed? Either way, in those cool dark hours of twilight when the mind rambles between dream and reality, thoughts come unbidden and flow out unstopped into—nothing. There is no page to catch those thoughts. Those bursts of stories that seep out in the dark. Where is my pen? Beside the notepad on the table next to my pillow. Just there. If I reach for it, that little nudge of conscious effort shoves the words out of mind, out of sight, off the page. They spill onto the floor and skitter under the bed, playthings to the dust bunnies living there. New friends and old gather together as the dust bunnies laugh at my plight. What will she do? What will she do? She will turn over and go back to full sleep and let the words spill where they may.
Dreams are better, anyway. Dreams and more dreams shuffle around in my half-awake state, taunting me with their insanity and pulling me deeper into the crux of the matter. Crux. What a strange word. The crux of…life. The cross I bear. Weariness clamps its slimy fingers around my last coherent thought and I drift closer to the rocks and cliffs, waiting to be pounded down and out. I can't climb high enough for freedom, there is no purchase for my fingers to grab onto. I slip and slide back down into the darkness of cool shadows and lapping water. Whose dream is this, anyway? Why are there so many questions? and so few answers? Write the damned letter. Get it done. Unblock the flow of words and let them falter around in the dark where what? What happens in the darksome night of despair where angels fear to tread? And why do angels fear the treading? Ha! They don't.
Anger rises inside my gut, making me queasy. Anger that words no longer come to me unbidden. Pulling them out of my brain is painful. Let it go! Leave it alone. They will come when they want. But that is not good enough. I want them NOW! Not in their own good time. Now, when I am awake. Not at night when the slightest movement puts them to flight. I want the sweet flow of words in the daylight hours when I can see them and measure them and taste them with my mind and feel them with my fingers as they leap onto the page, fingers flying to keep up. I want them beating down the doors and storming the castle. Not all stopped up. Not under the bed hiding with the dust bunnies in the carpet. Not sliding under my pillow and away from my attempts to capture them and put them onto a page in the midnight hours where all the good ideas hide. Midnight madness, that's it. Only when drifting and letting go do the words come—unbidden—carrying a narrow horizon, a thin line between the writer and the dream.
Take a walk, instead. My mind is drained of, empty of, without thought of words. Words. Build with them, destroy with them. Tear down and recreate with them. Words have power to do either thing—build or destroy. Which will it be today? I am empty of meaning and without concern for the outcome. Just plug the words in any which way and see where they go. Nowhere. They go nowhere. It makes me angry that they go nowhere. Why angry? What is the point? Get a grip and just let them fly. Freedom of restraint and freedom to choose. My mind has hit a brick wall of indifference. Thoughts do not come readily to the equation. And why should I care? What does it mean that I seem unable to form a coherent story in my mind or out of it?
Lying in bed—or is it laying in bed? Either way, in those cool dark hours of twilight when the mind rambles between dream and reality, thoughts come unbidden and flow out unstopped into—nothing. There is no page to catch those thoughts. Those bursts of stories that seep out in the dark. Where is my pen? Beside the notepad on the table next to my pillow. Just there. If I reach for it, that little nudge of conscious effort shoves the words out of mind, out of sight, off the page. They spill onto the floor and skitter under the bed, playthings to the dust bunnies living there. New friends and old gather together as the dust bunnies laugh at my plight. What will she do? What will she do? She will turn over and go back to full sleep and let the words spill where they may.
Dreams are better, anyway. Dreams and more dreams shuffle around in my half-awake state, taunting me with their insanity and pulling me deeper into the crux of the matter. Crux. What a strange word. The crux of…life. The cross I bear. Weariness clamps its slimy fingers around my last coherent thought and I drift closer to the rocks and cliffs, waiting to be pounded down and out. I can't climb high enough for freedom, there is no purchase for my fingers to grab onto. I slip and slide back down into the darkness of cool shadows and lapping water. Whose dream is this, anyway? Why are there so many questions? and so few answers? Write the damned letter. Get it done. Unblock the flow of words and let them falter around in the dark where what? What happens in the darksome night of despair where angels fear to tread? And why do angels fear the treading? Ha! They don't.
Anger rises inside my gut, making me queasy. Anger that words no longer come to me unbidden. Pulling them out of my brain is painful. Let it go! Leave it alone. They will come when they want. But that is not good enough. I want them NOW! Not in their own good time. Now, when I am awake. Not at night when the slightest movement puts them to flight. I want the sweet flow of words in the daylight hours when I can see them and measure them and taste them with my mind and feel them with my fingers as they leap onto the page, fingers flying to keep up. I want them beating down the doors and storming the castle. Not all stopped up. Not under the bed hiding with the dust bunnies in the carpet. Not sliding under my pillow and away from my attempts to capture them and put them onto a page in the midnight hours where all the good ideas hide. Midnight madness, that's it. Only when drifting and letting go do the words come—unbidden—carrying a narrow horizon, a thin line between the writer and the dream.
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