Writing

There's something romantic about writing. Especially writing with a pen. Besides the occasional to-do list or bill signature, its rarely done for pleasure. I'm going to do an exercise.

Okay I wrote down a stream of thoughts on paper. There were too many to record them all. I noticed that using a pen to write held me back a little.

First, when writing on paper, I have to write slowly. My thoughts have to slow down, almost to the point of stillness. The pen is rather intimidating. I haven't felt anything romantic about this yet. If I make a mistake, I have to start over. Think it out all over again. What was I thinking? What was that thought? Is there a point or main idea to all this? Hold that thought. I have to finish this one first. I'll go back to that later. Wait, what was I thinking?

Slow. Down. And take the risk I might forget what I was going towards, or where I started. Just. Write.

I notice that writing down my passing thoughts with a pen is like driving down a seldom used back-country road. It takes more time. When I type on a computer, it's like taking the highway.

A back-country road might be bumpy, but it still gets me somewhere. There are new sights along the way. I slow down for the bumps and see what's around me. Even if I come to a dead end, I can backtrack, and revisit everything I just saw. There aren't many distractions on this road. I pay attention to small details.

On the highway, I get to my destination faster, and racing thoughts become speeding drivers whizzing past me. I notice them in my peripheral vision, briefly. Then they're forgotten. I miss a lot along the way. I'm going too fast. I'm typing 100 wpm. Or driving 80 mph. It's all the same hypnotic cocktail. Highway hypnosis. Add a cell phone and some music and a beverage and it's like I'm not even driving at all.

The highway is more evolved though, and I imagine most great writers type up volumes of books under the influence of divine inspiration at an incredulous pace. If a writer writes for a living, he is monetarily and circumstantially motivated, and he'll create even when he's not inspired to. A writer practices and eventually, perhaps, learns to pay attention to small details on the highway.

Must there be a thesis or main idea or elaborate story or agenda?

The writers I read and wrote about in college usually had a drug or alcohol problem, or both. Or they were earning a living in desperate times. Or they fell into it from a privileged educational background which gave them a full command of the English language. Some simply had an incredible story to tell, with editors to help tell it.

There is a language in the mind that, without arbitrary symbols exposing it in laymen terms, speaks in colors, melodies, and introspective judgments. A kaleidoscope lens through which we perceive the world. We recall our present struggles, future goals, and distant memories.

At present, I enjoy my job. A new school year began today for two of the girls I babysit. While they were in school, I enjoyed a long walk with their three-year-old little sister to a playground, where she and I had a picnic on the grass in the shade. Later, back at the girls' house, I played with My-Little-Ponies, Play-Doh, and sidewalk chalk. And the parents sent me home with a brown paper bag full of leftovers from their dinner party the night before.

I also enjoy being single. I wonder why the Old Testament is against it. I think the Eunuchs, they called them, the single people, were treated as outcasts. But Jesus thankfully clarified that it wasn't such a bad thing. Thank God for Jesus, clarifying all the Old Testament nonsense. I mean it wasn't really nonsense, if you understand that people were having sex with their moms and with animals and stuff like that. Obviously God had to lay down some strict rules for those creepy sinners.

My single self has been revisiting activities I enjoyed as a kid, as well as some new activities. I went rollerblading for the first time in over 10 years. I'm playing guitar. I'm cooking more often. I take long walks. I eat ice cream cones on those long walks. I call and talk to my 92 year old grandma. I read books. I go to Yoga.

I've been babysitting kids for 20 years now. Many are grown up. Some have children of their own. Some have drinking problems. Some have extraordinarily successful lives. But I don't really know them anymore. I will only ever be connected to their past selves. They are older and changed now. Change is not always a good thing.

Maybe I could be a writer someday. I enjoy solitude, probably a little too much. I like to lay in bed: reading, stretching, facebooking, or listening to my dad's sermons online through little headphones. I watch episodes of "Intervention" and "Locked Up Abroad," on A&E and National Geographic websites.

So maybe I'll write. I'll write about something, or nothing, or potential somethings in-between. An Adirondack Author named Charles Brumley once told me, "When you write, mostly it comes out bad. But you keep writing. And you'll get a little bit of really good stuff eventually."

I guess that's a hopeful thought. We'll see.