I love it when I feel a blog post coming on. It is silent, coming from somewhere in the middle of my chest but radiating through my brain - a tingling sensation. I sit at the computer and stare out the window sensing the words rising into my fingers. And then all of a sudden I begin to type. Clickity-clack at the keyboard, fingers flying. Sometimes I know I have misspelled or written something awkwardly but I press on regardless. Simply needing to get out whatever it is that is rising up and out of me at that moment.
And then ... I stop. Pause. Think about what I have written, sometimes even read it over changing a word or grammatical point here or there. This leads me onto yet another thought or feeling, a different idea or turn of phrase, and on I go. Invariably Ada senses something is happening, developing. If she is lying further away from me, she suddenly jumps onto my desk with a chirp and a purr and watches from her little bed perched by the computer.
Of course something inside me is percolating and rising to the surface as I start writing, even if it is only a description of how I write my blog. Perhaps I am not yet aware of the feeling or thoughts behind why the urgency to write - why now at this moment. The reasons might come to me while I am in the process, or sometimes the idea is already there, clear, firm, strong, assertive. Sometimes the inspiration is revealed to me at the very last sentence. I am always amazed when the final sentence, phrase or word just comes out at the end - almost as if somewhere in my brain I always knew how this was supposed to begin and just how it needs to end. As if there was a plan all along.
And sometimes, I find out only later in the day, or even days later, why the urge to write became so intense at that moment. What, in fact, I was really writing about ...
On Monday I noticed a status update by Geneen Roth on Facebook:
Think of The Voice as a GPS from the twilight zone. When you follow its directions, you spend your life trying to find streets that no longer exist in a city that vanished decades ago. Then you wonder why you feel so lost.
Was she writing to me directly? These past two days I have been thinking intently about these words, written in exactly this particular way, even talked about them in therapy, shared the phrase with a friend while walking in the Wissahickon yesterday afternoon - yes, I have been working on The Voice all of my life. But never has it been said so clearly, succinctly - made so much sense to me right here and now in this stage of my life.
My writing thread loses its focus. Ada suddenly needs to play with her toy mouse, my sister-in-law chats with me on Facebook, life partner stirs and calls up "Good morning," as he scrambles for that first cup of coffee.
Time to start my day.
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