Pen-y Thoughts

My iGoogle page throws big thoughts at me on a daily basis via a Daily Literary Quote gadget.  I love it.  Somedays it is more profound than others.  Some days it seems to speak directly to my day, as though iGoogle Oompa Loompas planned it that way.  (They do spy on us, you know.)

Anyhow…here’s today’s quote.  My head is hurting just thinking about it.  It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend a while back about art and galleries and all sorts of smart person thinking.

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant.  It is not in itself the life more abundant.  It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself.  In becoming an end it defeats itself.

Henry Miller

Let’s chew on that for a while.  It’s good to think hard sometimes.  Think hard, until your head hurts.

I’ve read a few posts and a few chapters in books focused on finding material.  I must admit, there have definitely been days when I’ve struggled and grasped for material.  There have been many times in my life when I’ve thought (or said aloud), “I’d love to write.  I just don’t know what I’d write about…”

And then, there are days like today.  Someone has opened the floodgates and I could write forever.  I think back to my teaching and I hear myself telling my students, “Writers see the world differently.  They live more vividly than other people.  They see everything, feel everything, experience everything as something they could write about.”

I challenged myself, just a few moments ago, as I was washing my face and brushing my teeth (telling myself it was time for bed regardless of the work I had yet to complete), to test myself.  Take my own advice.  I will write about washing my face.

Here’s what comes to mind:

I close each day with a cleansing.  It begins with the muffling sounds of running water.  Water not running at an easy jog, but a sprint. The kind of running water that drowns noises around you.

As I wait for the water to warm, I stare blindly at my reflection, thinking hard.  I think of my face.  My day.  My tomorrow.  My family.  My heart.  My bed.  My books and my writing.  Without thinking, as the water warms, I pass the washcloth between my hands.  Back and forth. Squeezing. Shaping. Feeling for the warmth desired.

Once satisfied, my face is awakened back to reality by the cool, smooth, sweetness of cleanser.  I massage my skin, gently fighting stubborn mascara as I toss the events of the day around in my mind.  With each up and down stroke of my hands, I peel back a layer of thoughts.  As my skin is cleansed, so is my consciousness.

The texture of the washcloth, as it peels off a layer of pollutants from my tender face, pulls me back from the past and towards the future.  It will not be long before I find myself here once again.  Between then and now, much will transpire.  Am I prepared?  Will I be ready?  What should I expect from the world tomorrow?

The warm water rinses me clean.  I begin the healing process.  First, moisturizer.  Second, sleep.  Between the two, many, many deep breaths.  The cool, smooth comfort of my sheets.  The soft, supple support of my mattress.  The forgiveness of darkness.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the blessings of my day.  Allow me, tonight, to forgive myself for my weaknesses and mistakes.  Grant me the wisdom to learn from those shortcomings so I may do better tomorrow.  Bless me with the clarity of sunshine in the morning as I wake, and allow me to move forward in this journey.  I pray I begin this day cleansed and fresh; ready to love, ready to teach, ready to accept my fate.

Amen.

**From start to finish — approximately 15 minutes.**

Check this out…

The restaurant will be busy, filled with hurried corporate diners.  Waiters and waitresses will zoom past our table in fast forward. 

But, time will move slowly at our table.  In the air, charged with electricity and magnetism, that hovers above our stemmed water glasses and cloth napkins, words will spread smoothly between us like butter on bread.

We will lose track of time and linger over coffee as the lunch rush subsides.  As the restaurant quietens, our feelings will grow louder – filling the void in our ears.  We’ll season our time with laughter and quiet smiles.  We’ll soothe hurt feelings and catch up on half a lifetime.  Each of us, never wanting to forget this day, will privately memorize each other’s face.  We may never meet again.

As the sunlight matures, turning the white tablecloth to a golden yellow, we’ll pay our tab and slowly emerge from our quiet niche. 

The world will be abrupt and coarse compared to us as we make our way to the lobby.  There, we will outlive the remainder of the day and continue into the night, without tiring.  The sounds around us will fade from the busy hubbub of weeknight sounds.  From cell phones, travelers checking in, and valets fetching cars to the hush of the night staff’s whispered voices.  All we will hear, though, is ourselves.  Our tears as we speak of loneliness and wounds, both new and old.  Our joy as we share memories of less burdensome times.  Our thoughts and wonders as we reflect on the world around us.  We will entertain our hearts and our minds with each other’s company and conversation.

And, when the last darkness of night fades and morning emerges, we will recede.  Like a crab, we will retract into the safe privacy of our shell.  For the first time in what feels to be decades, we will not feel alone.

I am working hard.  I struggle daily.  If my hands do not meet a keyboard or put pen to paper, I battle with my writing, my craft, in my mind. 

There are not enough hours in the day.  The world is my distraction; and my inspiration, the same.  If only to have a ticker-tape flooding from my ears – as I am CONSTANTLY writing, working, thinking, feeling.  Listening to the words unfold in my mind like a quilt – waiting for me to wrap up in them and warm myself with their unique pattern and design.  Words are the calico of my life.

I am sneaky.  I hide my  notebooks, shut down the screen, and close off my betrayals from the world.  I should be grading.  I should be cleaning.  I should be reading, washing, anything but writing.  But, if I do not write, I betray myself.

I punish myself by withholding my words.  When the water is high and my legs are weary from treading in place, I forbid it.  I cannot write until I am productive.  Duties first, indulgences last.

But then, I dare imagine the day when my duty will be to write.  Will my feelings change?  Will I still desire it?  Still lose myself to the world within the cool white of a blank page?

And, what of the readers?  Will they lose themselves to the world within the black ink on my page?  Will the font, for them as for me, dissolve into the colorful world my letters write?