birds & escalator.

I am always cringing over my way of writing so abstractly. It is the safest and easiest way to write - it is also far removed from what is real.

I wrote a very long post tonight, in a word document, and it was crazy and about absolutely nothing. It was very pure stream-of-conscious nonsense. I had the feeling, which I get sometimes, that there is something something SOMETHING that I need to be writing about, but I can't seem to hit it. My hands shake, my arms clench, my shoulders get hot from all the muscles working. My heart races at the desperate need to create, though I hardly know what.

I deleted it all. It wasn't writing for the sake of a product, it was writing because my fingers just needed to move. But I bargained with myself, agreed that I could only delete it all if I wrote something else, here, for people to see.

But I'm not sure quite what to tell you.

I'm finding my voice and it feels right.
I'm noting stories that need to be told and I'm getting ready to tell them.
I am looking for my tribe, a lovely thought someone shared. My people are out there.
I am learning how to live through change and make the life I want.

satisfied mind.

I am feeling very stubborn. I don't want to write and I definitely don't want to write anything particularly beautiful or inspiring. I want my fingers to do their thing, somewhat removed from my brain and beating heart. I want some words to spill out of me and be cut off. I want to cast them out.

For my sake, I've told myself that I can write anything tonight. I can write anything as long as it's something. No order no structure no meaning no censor just write write write. My pride resists being told what to do, it resists criticism and even encouragement. But someone very wise said to me last night, "Write about it, write about it, write about it." I dropped my eyes and mumbled, "Ok. But maybe I don't want to write about it, maybe I just want to talk about it."

But he knew that really, I wanted to write about it. Or needed to. Whatever.

I feel angry sometimes. Angry over injustice in the world, over the suffering that is ignored, over the hurt and pain caused in the name of money or religion. I feel sad sometimes. Sad because people die and life is sometimes dull and we can never accomplish all that we hope. I feel discouraged sometimes. I cry when I shouldn't, I procrastinate when I should work, I read books by writers who are not very good but seem to be making a lot of money. People that I love dearly are unhappy sometimes, they work too hard, they don't have the things that they want, they feel dissatisfied and incomplete. There are other people that I want to love, but I don't try hard enough. The man at the corner rattling the cup for change. The neighbor who never says hello. And others, just the people all around. We should be loving them all. I don't always do it.

a man.

This man is so pale, his hair so dark, that he's translucent. I look and see straight through him. I see the red bricks of the church and the unnameable damp color of the sidewalk. I look under his feet and see no footprint, no footstep, no sound.

He walks slowly. Not the slowness demanded by age or injury, a slowness marked by some deliberation. Each foot lifts, quickly, rises to the height of the step, and then hesitates. It is brief, but if you stare like I do, you'll see it. And so he walks just above the sidewalk. His steps dig into the air, catch, and hold there.

Something makes his image crawl through my brain. Something makes it impossible for me to forget.

Both times I saw him, he carried a package. Both times, I forgot to look closely to see what it was. In my mind's picture, he is carrying an indistinguishable brown box. Both times I saw him, he carried it with both hands, held firmly, squarely in front of his body.

I hope I see him again. One more look, I suppose, and all my questions will be answered. I won't tell you the answers though. You might wish to decide for yourself. You might know, already, what pain he has felt and what keeps him up at night, still, so many years later. You might know, already, what he carries and who he's taking it to. You might know, already.

You might wish to look for him yourself. He might be walking just behind you on another damp sidewalk. You might be looking straight through him without even noticing. Now that you know, maybe you'll see.

at the beach.

Three years ago, I parked my car at Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown and stared out over the water. I was taking my lunch break. I was writing in a notebook. It was February. At that time, things in my life had taken a sharp turn. A plan had been shattered. Trust had been broken hard. Everything felt, in a word, bleak.

I sat at the steering wheel of my parked car. I gripped the wheel, shivered a bit, let the sound of waves fill my head. I remember looking out over the expanse of the bay and thinking, The ocean and the sky are the same color. I don’t know why, but it felt very profound. It was everything I felt. Life was covered with a thick gray blanket.

The ocean always has a way of pushing my thoughts out of my brain, in whatever form they’ll take. Something about the waves, something about repetition, something about the rhythm of introspection. Maybe this is why I couldn’t really be a writer until I came to know the ocean. And sometimes it is bleak. Sometimes it’s stormy. But peace doesn’t come from feeling peaceful, it comes from feeling everything as each thing passes.

This past weekend, I drove out to the Cape for a day. I just had such a craving. I needed to be hit in the face with salt air. I needed to see the familiar things that trigger the home feeling inside of me. Saturday morning, I picked up a croissant at the Boulangerie and drove to White Crest Beach. I parked and sat in my car. The sun was very bright and the wind was blowing hard. I saw a handful of whales surface - just the spouts blending with rolling waves. I wrote there for two hours in my notebook. Sand was pelting the windows of my car and it was rocking a bit in the gusts of wind. I wrote until it hurt my hand to grip the pen. I mean, I was gripping it hard. I drank an espresso out of a Dixie cup.

forget.

Just start. I say it in my head often.

You think it’s no big deal. Just taking a break, just waiting a bit longer, you’ll do it later, and later, and later. And then you’re staring at the paper, staring at the screen and your fingers won’t move. They just won’t. You’re trying to form some thoughts in your head, but the attempt at awareness destroys every thought that was there.

A good practice is to write things and then forget about them. Just write it, write something, and don’t read it again. Save it in a file, in an email draft, in Google docs, in a notebook hidden on a shelf. Don’t read it again for a week, a month, a year. I think I learned this from Natalie Goldberg. It takes some of the pressure off. You might write something horrible, but you know what? You don’t even have to read it. You just write it down and tuck it away for some other time.

The beautiful thing that happens is sometimes you discover some magic in what you’ve written that, at first glance, you didn’t know was there. It might be sort of better than you first thought. You might sound a bit more inspired than you felt. But most beautiful of all is when you read something your hands wrote, but you don’t remember writing it. Suddenly you can look at your writing with some objective criticism, but also objective compassion. The words exist separate from yourself.

security in the sky.

Yesterday the inside of my head lit up when someone told me that the only real suffering is discontent. And I said to myself, This is how I live my life. I cling to what has been, I try to fight the change, I grasp for what is not here yet. Listen, I do this because I'm a human being. You do it too. We all do it. But the new awareness I've had is that I live my life with fear of suffering. And perhaps that fear is the real suffering.

It makes sense to me. Do you see what I mean?

Let me tell you about security. Here is the honest truth. Over the course of several years, I lost what was once a very devout Christian faith. It was the very core and center of my life. And the years passed and it slipped away from me and suddenly I saw it with new eyes and I let it go. Then, one morning, a sunny summer morning on some wooden steps with a plate of eggs in my lap, I was saying the words: I don't think I believe in God. I can tell you that it was relief and freedom because it was. I can also tell you that it was a new fear and loneliness that I had never known.

everything you know.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the courtyard writing and thinking about the ways a city makes us ignore people. And how the activists and campaigners outside my building play on the guilt that ignoring induces. There is a real living person there talking to you and you're just going to ignore them? I do. Across the street, in the alcove in front of the drugstore, there is usually someone begging. Head down, cardboard sign. They've written out the story of being sick and homeless, trying to make it West, trying to eat. I walk by someone there almost every day. I read their sign out of the corner of my eye and feel so wrong for ignoring them. Ignoring a human being. Everything I believe about myself, humanity, love - it is all caught up in that one moment. I never even hesitate. I keep walking.

For several weeks there was a man outside the drugstore collecting signatures for a petition to legalize marijuana. I passed him every evening as I left work and every evening he asked me to stop. Sometimes I'd mumble something, I'm running late, I'm in a hurry, I can't stop today. Other times I'd just walk on by.

This is all a good source of constant guilt for me. And I need some guilt if I'm ever to think hard about life and what we will make of it.

***

Yesterday, I sat down and told myself to write down everything I knew about guilt. That is how I started. It's good to think about things that make us cringe sometimes. Emotions are emotions and they are running our lives and our world. Are they? Even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones. If there is such a thing.

the notebook, continued.

Here's the deal:
Two months ago, I said I was going to finish the notebook. I only had seven pages left. More or less the moment I said those words, it became impossible for me to do it. I still wrote, finished two pieces, blogged, wrote in other notebooks. But something in me resisted finishing this notebook. I don't understand it so I can't explain it. I kind of lied a little, mostly to myself, and said it was done. Well, it wasn't.

I know this might seem insignificant - maybe it is insignificant. But it matters to me.

So today, holed up in Starbucks on my lunch break with an Earl Gray tea, I wrote the last seven pages. There, it's done. I want to throw it away something fierce, but I will not.

The notebook ended on this:

And now I'm staring at these last pages gripped with fear, fear of the beautiful words and the ugly words and myself. Just another face in another Starbucks scribbling things that seem so important. Well what is it? I will not throw it away. Keep on keep on. Stand in the long line and creep forward with each moment and word, stare out the window, look back and blink. 

***

different kinds.

I read some beautiful writing today. The kind that makes your palms tingly. The kind that makes you unconsciously hold your breath. I live for those moments. I can't tell you why, exactly, other than this: in those moments there's a wholeness in the universe and myself that is complete. It is the closest thing I can imagine to the absolute. And I know it's real when I read something and say to myself, Someday I'll write like that.

There are different kinds of writing in my life.

There's journal writing, which I have done on and off since I was 13 or 14. It's self-absorbed fear and heartbreak and mad love.

There's notebook writing, writing practice. I've really only been doing it for the past 3 or 4 years. And even then, I've really only been dedicated to it for a year or less. This is usually where I plug in freewriting, make lists and let ideas gather some energy.

say yes to yes.

Sometimes it's a Monday and you need to freewrite. Just garbage, you just need to get it out, clean out the gutter, empty the trash, get something moving through your head and your hands. I feel inspired today. I feel uninspired today. I have no desire to write about anything other than how much I hate my writing. I can accept it. These days come and go.

Lately, I have been easier on myself because I realize that, even when I'm not writing, I'm building the material in my head. I am always, always thinking about everything I see, about philosophy, about people, about life.

I know I still need to write though.

I can or I can't. I want to or I don't. Whatever.

I have been thinking lately about what I recently heard someone call chronic powerlessness. That is, he thought we all suffered from censoring and limiting our own dreams because we feel held down by you-name-it.  Power structures, social structures, relationships, religion. I see it all over in my life. We all get it, don't we? Sometimes I think it's nothing more than a coping mechanism - it is easier to expect less or nothing and never be disappointed. Well let me say it again: WHATEVER. I can deal with disappointment. I will not deal with fear and immobility. Write something, write something. Write.

encouragement & discontent.

I haven't done any freewriting in 4 days. Apathy and discontent have a strange way of paralyzing a person.  The cold air is numbing my fingers. I have a headache. The world is full of bad things. Excuses, all.

I have been thinking today on goals set and goals achieved, on the path we are walking and what comes at the end. There are too many things to make sense of tonight. Too much hurt in the world, confusion in my own life and others. Too many questions that I don't have the power to answer. Too many people being born, too many people dying, too much suffering, too much greed.

I am searching hard for something lately. I am here. I am creating the life that I want to lead and every day it is the life I want and every day I am grateful, grateful, grateful. It's a story that lots of people have lived and lots of people have heard, it's not original or unique, but it's mine and that's why I care.

I have to remind myself of things often, the things that I believe and don't believe. That I am committed and capable.

The answer is to write, it is always to write. Just reminding myself.

I read an interesting piece by Langston Hughes yesterday - I hadn't seen it before. It's worth reading.  Salvation - Langston Hughes

hurricane dreams.

I have been writing. I have not been posting. Sometimes it just gets too wild to share, or too wild for me to share. Or something.

I dreamt last night of a hurricane, but I was in the house I lived in when I was 13 years old in Elmore, Minn. I was herding people into the basement, we were packing up food, I stole a sandwich and wrapped it in foil and tucked it into my shirt. And suddenly I realized: we're overreacting. It won't be that bad. Then I lost my sandwich and went out into the rain.

Dreaming of a hurricane: This dream is considered to be a warning, because it alludes to an impending crisis when all old opinions, ideals, values and beliefs are being shaken. The dream suggests that you need to start shaping something new within yourself to cope with this personal crisis.  (http://www.dream-land.info/)

I wrote for 5 hours on Friday, mostly straight through, with breaks for tea. At the end of it, 10 pages of Microsoft Word single-spaced madness, I felt like something other than human. Here is one piece:

I am very deep now. It is a dream and I am being chased, I am in danger, and I can’t cry out. I open my mouth and strain with every muscle in my chest and neck, but still no sound. I am pursued and still no sound. I keep pushing until *pop* I am awake and tangled in sweaty sheets and screaming in an empty black room, screaming alone, screaming for someone to save me.

Any writing, anything real, even anything shallow, means you must confront the blackest parts of humanity. This is art: even the most beautiful work has the deepest evil of the world in it. They exist together, as one. All it is the lighting. See: look behind the bushes in the sparkling sunlight and there a spider is consuming its prey alive, slowly, deliberately. Listen: ten bars after the song ends, there is war and death. You know they’re coming. Don’t look away. I know you want to and so do I – but there is nowhere else to look.

The feeling is this: much writing and suddenly I am in a very dark state. I am thinking too much, too hard about evil in the world and evil in myself. I am swimming in circles, swimming in the thoughts and as I type I feel my face scrunch up in fear and disgust, my nose wrinkles, my eyes shut. And so I pause for a moment, take a breath, make some tea. When I sit back down and raise my fingers to the keys, the feeling is pure revulsion. I don’t want to go back in it, I don’t want to go deeper and I don’t want to find more. It is too heavy and hot and dark inside – I want to stay out in the clean air. I wonder sometimes if this is me or if this is the writing.

At the end of 10 pages and 5 hours, I wrote the following:

I don’t want to write anymore. Only 30 more minutes. I hate it. I hate writing. I hate these words and my fingers that are typing them. I hate this brain that thinks writing is good and I hate the dull fluorescent lights and the computer humming and the hot sunlight blasting in through my window.  30 minutes. I can do it I can do it I can do it blankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankb

But there is still this: "Every day, I give myself the same encouragement, and every day, I need it again."

***

I read back through some of last week's writing today.  Yes, some of it is dark.  Ok, a lot of it.  Yes, I need to get it out of my brain and onto the page.  But I also need to come back out of it and remember the beautiful moments that make up my days.

For example, today:

-I walked briskly to work this morning and was not too hot, not too cold.  Amazing fall, I love you.

-At work I made an individual cup of coffee with my brand-new, bright-red, individual-coffee-cup-maker.  Awesome and happy.

-I sat at my desk in the afternoon and thought in my brain, Man-oh-man I wish I had a snack.  Not 30 seconds later, my co-worker walked in with a bag of cheesy-popcorn she didn't want.  Do you want the popcorn?  Yes.

-Still hungry this afternoon, I thought about pie and realized that my life's purpose might honestly be: Make pie.  Or: Eat butter.  It's a tough one.  I resolved to make more pies and eat more butter.

-I finally have money (so to speak) to go grocery shopping.  So I made a grocery list tonight that included more than: peanut butter, can of beans.  It included: expensive olives, expensive cheese.  Cool.

-After a leisurely walk home, I enjoyed a hot boozy apple cider and a roasted tomato, caramelized onion, balsamic quinoa salad for dinner alone in my quiet apartment.

-Then I watched the moonrise in Medford through some haze and low clouds. Over the scary wires and oversized spotlit American flag and above the din of cats fighting. But it was beautiful.

The point is just that life is good.  There is always good love, good people, good food -- and for that I am grateful.

freewriting on friday, #2.

For the last two days I have been thinking and writing about the year I turned twelve.  It's strange to write your way into memories - things you have forgotten that keep rising up from the well.  There's a lot to say: understanding of self-awareness, social hierarchies, perceptions of the world.  And there is more writing before it can be anything.

I realized today that I was trying too hard.  I was trying to find a theme in what I had written, some underlying message, maybe even a loose moral lesson.  I have killed a great many things by over thinking them, so as soon as I realized what I was doing, I stopped.

To make a break in my mind and catch my creativity again, I did some freewriting on other topics.  The piece of freewriting that I am going to copy here is the real thing.  I just let it go.  When I freewrite with a computer, I have a hard time keeping up with my thoughts by typing.  Hence the (many, many) typos.  I have to work hard to get to the place where I can just let words come out of me without any rules.  Every bone in my body wants to correct the mistakes and delete the things that are uncomfortable to say or to read.  But I'm just going to lay it out there and let it be.

The prompt: Write about a time you felt spiritual.

I felt spiritual during the church choir in Brewster. I can't remember what the song was or when the choir sang it, but it was beautiful and big inside and I fell right into it and felt something of god all around me. I had goosebumps across my arms and tears in the corner of my eyes. I was playing the organ and I felt so full inside, like something was flowing in me, like the waterfall that is so big and loud you can't hear the person speaking right next to you and I didn't have the power to even listen, just to take it in through my ears (almost wrote eyes, music in through the eyes, I like it). I think it's so interesting to reflect on the spiritual experiences I have had in church and what that means for me, someone who is struggling very hard to figure out where I land. I don't believe in god, but...? The question is big and hard. I have had spiritual experiences in church, moments were I felt surrounded by something larger than myself. I have felt it in the familiar hymns during Christmas eve. I have felt it in familiar Bible verses being read, hearing united voices reciting a creed or prayer. And I felt it in the song that the choir sang. I don't understand spiritual or what it means. I know what it used to mean to me and it was actually something to be fought I think. I was raised to elieve we aren't supposed to feel things about our faith, it's just given to us and just shut up and take it. It's so weird: Luther rejects logic and reason (as the Devil's whore) but demands this cold, emotionless faith from us. Well he understood (I guess) and so do I that emotions and feelings are fickle and sometimes perplexing - not always available to guide us to the truth. I understand that. I have feelings that I don't understand every single day. Spiritual in church spiritual in church I completely lost my train of thought can't rememb erwhere I was going Ok right I remember thinking about what SPIRITUAL means I guess I always think ofit as being something very large or something that makes me feel very small. I get the exact same feeling from a susnet and the ocean. Especialy the ocean. Looking out onto something so big so much bigger than myself I look out and I'm in it and I cant type fast enough to connect workds to my thoughts I am making typos left and right and even backspacing a lot still so the ocean and bigness and I'm swallowed up and somehow that makes us feel safe and maybe that's a place every human being is longing for and hoping to understand. we get the same thing from love, love of people, love of family, we get that feeling from what what else? maybe people who seek adventure, mountain climbing, rock climbing, sea kayaking, skydiving, all of those things make us feel small and somehow that feels good. Or maybe it isn't at all to do with bigness and smallness but being surrounded. You are surrounded by the sky at the top of a mountain. You are surrounded by the light in a sunset and the w aves catch your feet again again again. And in church, you are surrounded by people who are supposed to be your people. But more and more I realize that church and faith, well that's a gathering place for people looking for the thing we want and need as human beings. i don't know what that thing is but the church It's a place for looking, you can't find anything there. It's just a lot of people who are all desperately looking looking looking. It's ag ethering place for the the looking people. They have to amek things for themselves to find.  I have too much baggage and too much to sort through in my mind, too much influence from those around me. I just need people to talk to me about it, I need to talk about it. I need to sit down with every person I know and say, Tell me what you think about god. even people i don't know, every person I see I just want to ask them, TELL me how you do this how do you figure out god and life tell me how you do it we're all people in this together and i need to know how everyone else is doing it I need to understand how we as human beings make these choices (10 minutes).

Finally, a thought for this weekend.

Love me when I least deserve it because that is when I really need it. - Swedish Proverb

crazybrain.

I have been turning my brain over and again, trying to sort things out, trying to make some sense. I have things to say, but when I start to type, my eyes glaze over a bit, maybe I black out for awhile - then I look up and see nonsense all over the screen. Probably because today I have crazybrain. Do you know the feeling?

My mind is full, but almost violently, like thoughts are ricocheting against the inside of my skull too fast and hard for me to hold onto them. It happens. Sometimes life overwhelms us, sometimes for no apparent reason. It happens.

I used to feel the desperate urge to write at these times, but I was completely paralyzed by the chaos, by my inability to organize the thoughts and make sense of them. I have begun to understand that I can let myself ramble sometimes. There doesn't have to be an order, there doesn't have to be an end-product. So it's weird and you sound crazy in the head - so what? The process of writing, even if it's a bit wild and frantic, can be it's own sort of therapy. I read this book about a year ago. The lesson I took from it: be kind to yourself and let the act of writing your story be a way to heal.

It also has taken me some growing and learning to understand that exploring the depth of human feeling means sometimes you are afraid. Sometimes you don't understand where your thoughts come from, sometimes the brain doesn't make sense for a day. Just let it be. There's nothing wrong with you. If you're a thinking person, you'll have questions you can't answer and feelings you don't understand. Just let it be. Keep thinking; plumb the depths. A human being is a piece of work that doesn't always make sense. Just let it be.

I won't share all of my wild and frantic freewriting, but here's a piece from today. No prompt, untimed.

I have crazybrain today. Why am I scared of losing people? It takes over my head some days. I don't like it. I hope I'm not the only one out there who gets crazybrain and who calls it crazybrain. I mean, I started crying at my office. At my office. Do people really do that? I know that if I want to go anywhere with my writing I have to take the leap and cut the veins open and just put it all out there but I am afraid to do it, being so vulnerable, afraid people won't love me and yes, I'll admit it, sometimes I want to write because I want people to love me and acknowledge me and acknowledge my experience. That is something to say. Get it together. Get it together. There are hard things in life. We all know this - some dwell on it more than others. I am obsessed with loss, in particular the loss of people. I know it's weird. I'm especially obsessed with thinking about how people deal with the loss of other people. The feelings that they have. What are those feelings like? What do those feelings look like when you close your eyes? What do those feelings taste like? What color are they? I feel like a zombie my eyes are glazed over don't know how to get the words out days so long days long days long blankblankblankblankblank. Ok, here's what I really need to say. It's fear. It hurts to lose the people you love. You'll survive because people do, but it would hurt. But the more you let yourself love someone, the more it will hurt when one day they're gone. That is a terribly morbid and depressing way to think and I don't believe I'm doing it consciously. But it's there. I'm living for what-comes-next instead of now and I don't mean to and I don't like it. Ah man, I am crazy in the head today. What the hell. Loss loss loss. That woman's blog, the one who lost her husband suddenly. The woman at church who's husband died in a sudden accident. The sign on the door of the hair salon, "Closed: death in the family." Seeing the face of a woman who has just lost her husband. Those feelings must be the most acute form of loneliness. To be known by others is a very deep human desire and to have it fulfilled and then destroyed, to know that everything you shared with a person is now only known to you, man that is human suffering. And here's where I get hung up: it happens all the time, everywhere, every day. People lose spouses, fiances, girlfriends, boyfriends, parents, grandparents, children, friends. It happens and people pick themselves up and carry on. They get out of bed in the morning, they walk the dog, they go to work, they come home and make dinner. And yes, some people have that great holy thing in the dark that they can reach out to in fear, and maybe that helps and maybe that's the point and maybe that's why we have it. It happens all the time. What the hell. Write it out.

Yes, I am scared to show the crazy thoughts. But it's good to know we aren't alone. It's good to talk and to talk about hard things. It's good to be with other people and to let them inspire you.

There are bad things in the world. There are also good people. It's important to be reminded of this often.

freewriting on friday.

Freewriting is like a slap in the face. No matter how often I do it, I am still surprised by the feelings it evokes. And it's sort of like running. I think to myself, I don't want to run. I want to get into bed and eat ice cream. But then I run and I feel good and happy.* Same thing with freewriting. I think to myself, I don't want to write. I want to read a book and check the weather and go to sleep. But then I write and I feel cracked open inside. Which is good, even if it isn't always happy.

And it doesn't matter how often you do it. You will be surprised by the words you write down. Freewriting takes you to "first thoughts" (as Natalie Goldberg calls them), uncensored and somehow almost separate from yourself. I promise, there are things in your brain that you don't even know about.

I have been in love with the idea of freewriting for a long time; only recently have I actually experienced the real thing. First, let me tell you how I do it.

1. I find a spot. At a table in a coffee shop, in my bedroom with the door shut, at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, on a bench in the park.
2. I set a timer. I'm a fan of 10-minute intervals. Usually I'll do a whole string of 10-minute intervals, but I haven't reached the point where I feel ready to set the timer for longer. 20 minutes? 30 minutes? Scarytime.
3. I start the timer and go. I just write, sometimes starting with a prompt or some idea that's been floating through my brain. Very often I get stuck and I write the word "blank" over and over.
4. When the timer rings, I stop. I immediately write (10 minutes) even mid-sentence and then decide if I want to go for another 10.

That's it. It's really not hard. The only rule is keep going. Don't stop and think, don't check for grammar and spelling, don't erase or delete - just go.  For a long time I thought it was hard and didn't really try. I'd freewrite here and there without a lot of commitment and didn't produce much of anything. But when you set the timer and stick to it, you'd be surprised. You get over the first blank hump and then something breaks loose a little bit. And you keep going. I always know when I've really broken through because my handwriting gets crazy and loopy and not at all like myself. In controlled situations my writing is very elegant and tidy. When I get into the freewriting groove, it gets wild.

So let me tell you about my first, real, honest freewriting experience. I tried it in college and afterwards, but never lost control (which is the whole point). This past holiday season, I lost control and ohmygod it was something else. My flight was cancelled (as often happens when you're trying to fly in or out of Minnesota in December). A friend offered to pick me up and let me stay with her for the few days in St. Paul (yes days) until the next flight. Unfortunately, this meant sitting at the airport and waiting for 6 hours. And then sitting at the apartment for 2 quiet days while she was at work. Obviously, I could have entertained myself with TV and trashy magazines, but instead I told myself I would write. It started at the airport. I just said, Ok girl - write for 10 minutes. I started to write about the man outside waiting for a ride, writing about who he might be waiting for.  I did it and the words just came and so I did another 10 minutes. And another and another. All said and done, I filled 40 pages of a notebook in less than 3 days. A lot of it was garbage, but the floodgates just opened.

Since that experience, I have become a firm believer in the timed freewriting practice. I have been awakened to my own ability to create and surprised by the words I have to say.

Try it.

And now for some freewriting. The prompt I started with, Write about being cold.

It was the first day of fall today the first real fall day. I've been looking forward to it the whole summer. I can't understand why, but lately I hate the heat more than anything. So I was walking to work this morning and it was chilly and I had been so happy that it wasn't hot and then my toes got cold. I was walking in flip-flops and my toes were cold. And I got to the office and had to sit cross-legged in my chair to warm up my feet. And so I was thinking about discontent. You know, how I can spend an entire summer complaining about being hot, and then the very first day I'm not hot, there I am complaining about cold toes. My lord, that is discontent if I ever saw it. Blank blank blank blank I was also thinking about cold faces. I'm just having one of those days where I feel a little out of it, who knows why. Maybe I didn't sleep too well, maybe I shouldn't have had cheese and beer right before bed, but I feel tired and groggy and headachy and wishing I was wearing my glasses and not my contacts. So I was staring at my computer this morning just staring at a spreadsheet and I realized I was making the lemon face. The lemon face. I can explain the lemon face. It's when your resting face looks angry and your mouth gets all twisted up and you don't even realize it. Your resting face isn't peaceful and happy it's sour. I used to say that to my mom all the time. Mom, you're making the lemon face. I guess maybe it runs in the family. I just read something not too long ago, a list of good things you should do and one of the things on the list was "work on your resting face." The face where you're just reading a book, walking to work, staring at a spreadsheet. Make it peaceful and happy. It makes me think of blank-face disease, which I have. Also a family trait. I often think that I look happy and smiley when my face is really looking blank. No one's mentioned it lately, but I had a friend once who would make a face at me every time I was making blankface - just to let me know that I had absolutely no expression. So I had cold toes this morning and I had a lemon face and it's true, it's true: all I'm thinking about is laying out in the warm sun. I'm looking out the window and thinking about a Cape Cod summer day at Newcomb Hollow and laying out in the sun, drifting in and out of sleep, reading a book, splashing in the ocean. Man I miss the Cape and I've only been gone for a month. Well it's time to embrace fall because it's here. I'll get in the groove - I'll bust out my scarf and my mittens and some knitting needles and I won't wear flip-flops to work again and I do love fall. Eating squash and apples and drinking hot drinks and being chilly and sleeping under a big comforter. I do love all of those things. Blankblankblankblank this makes me think of how, by accident, I've stopped drinking coffee. Lately I cannot seem to get up early enough to make it, can't walk to work carrying it, can't afford to buy it and so I've just stopped drinking it. It's surprising but I feel (10 minutes).

Of course, I want to delete not 10 seconds after I finish. Believe me, I know it's just rambling. It is nothing special. You probably don't care. But it's just some proof that I'm working the muscle. I can also tell you that this is nothing compared to my real freewriting - the stuff no one sees. My real freewriting is weird and nonsensical and scarycrazy. I'm still not brave enough to put it out there, even if only friendly eyes will see it. So we've got some self-censored unimportant rambling on our hands here, but per our agreement, I will not delete.

Remember: to be brave, sometimes you have to start small.

*Ok, one time I went running and I didn't feel happy.  There were some unwise lunch decisions before the run and I'll say no more.  Except: think twice before eating a plate of stuffed quahogs right before you run.