some exercises.

Lately my itch to write is violent, uncontrollable, distracting. It feels like love, when you are powerless to harness your thoughts or do anything but be in love. Forcing myself to write regularly is working some magic on my brain or my fingers or something. I am learning to have grace and patience to ride the ebb and flow of creativity and motivation.

In the midst of all this violent-writing-love, I've encountered a new obstacle. I have too many things in various stages of being made. I've started writing in depth on a handful of ideas, I've written briefly on some other things and I also have The List (my writing prompts, exercises, ideas to pursue).

Writing exercises are my favorite way to regain some perspective, even if I don't know what I want to be working on. I do writing exercises to push through paralysis. I make lists. I bring the limp fingers to life again. I have slept on my arm all night long and now a stranger's hand is cradling my head.

Two writing exercises for today.

1. Write about all the places you have lived.
2. Remember all the details from the past _______. (insert: day, hour, year, etc.)

And so a detail:

Last night on the train I sat across from an old woman and a young boy. I stared at her socks for 10 minutes. She wore a long flowered skirt with a worn gray jacket belted and buttoned up tight. She had black flat shoes on, dainty, with a flower on each toe. The shoes were stretched and busted because she was wearing thick, bunched socks. Cream-colored, heavy tube socks. They didn't fit into her shoes, they were slouching down around her ankles and spilling over the toes and heels. They were wet.

She held a plastic container of grapes for the boy to eat. They got off at Downtown Crossing. The boy jumped out of his seat before the train had stopped and he spilled the container of grapes across the aisle. The woman didn't say a word - just grabbed his hand and pulled him out the door. I saw him look back at the grapes as the doors closed. The train started to move again and the rest of us watched in silence as, one by one, the grapes rolled by. 

I didn't listen to music or read on that train, specifically so I could watch people and remember the moments and details. I am spurred on by Natalie Goldberg's words.

"We have lived; our moments are important. [...] Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist." - Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones