The Pages
The
pages are blank waiting to be destroyed, their innocence taken away. Right now,
that’s only a thought, a distant idea that might or might not happen. It
doesn’t really matter if it does or not. There’s no shame either way.
This morning I woke up and had a number
of powerful images in my mind from strange dreams during the night. I was
living in an enormous house except that it was too big. The dimensions were so
unrealistic that attempting to put it into words is a waste of time. That’s why
I won’t write about it here. It will remain in my mind until it’s lost like all
those other fleeting thoughts that get pushed out and replaced by the most
current and engaging ideas.
So why am I sitting in front of these
blank pages? The answer to that is a mystery to me and I’d be grateful if you
could enlighten me. Do I think I can produce something extraordinary which is
better than anything ever written before? Do I? Of course I do but it’s not
happening today and this is why I’ve chosen to write in this way than in that
way.
When I was a child I had a typewriter.
Remember them? An error could not be corrected as easy as nowadays. It scarred
the page. Typing was not as smooth as it is on this keyboard. Each letter
punched the page and left a bruise on its white skin. It was very satisfying to
see my work on a page rather than on a screen. It was something I could touch
and smell. I didn’t like typing too much. It took a lot of energy to punch in
these letters on the white page. Ink was more precious than it is now and the
ribbon had a horrible tendency to become knotted in itself. There were some
days when I spent more time trying to regulate this machine than actually
getting it to perform my will.
There is also handwriting of course. I
keep my black journal at home. It’s not a moleskine unfortunately but a cheap
imitation. Sometimes I think if I had a moleskine I’d write a lot more. Wishful
thinking? Perhaps but it’s easier to make excuses than to take responsibility
for the lack of output I produce on the lined pages in my notebook which is not
a moleskine.
Keeping a diary was always a good habit
but reading back what I’d written was not an enjoyable experience. It was
better to simply write what was on my mind and forget about it. It felt good to
release these words onto the page and never look at them again. Occasionally I
tore up the pages and threw them out into the bin. These were not words I
wanted to share and besides who would even want to read them? They were
confessions, outbursts of anger or frustration, records of the day and musings.
They were not interesting. It was a form of therapy with a psychiatrist who was
very good at listening but not so effective at giving advice. That didn’t
matter though. What was important was that the words got out and didn’t remain
inside where they did no good at all.
Now where was I? Oh yes, the pages are
in front of me again. I have thought about a whole range of prompts such as
taking an object in the room and writing about it but I’ve done that too many
times. Have you tried the one where you close your eyes, open a book on a random
page, point at a word on the page and use that as your inspiration? It’s not
bad but I’m not in the mood for that. There’s also the one where you think of a
memory and recall it in your own words. Not a bad one that. It’s usually easier
to write about what you know than you don’t. Another one I like is the one
where you take a picture and use that as a prompt. It is a good one if you have
a good imagination but today there’s not much going on in my mind. It’s having
an off day and there’s not much I can do about that except stare at the page or
just continue what I’m doing now. At least I’m writing something. I don’t have
to share it or even save it. I can do what I want with it and no one need know
about it. Now, that’s a very liberating thought, isn’t it?
