Day 3 of 27 - A Busy Day

 June 23, 2021

 

It’s 6:28 pm. I’m in a bit of a panic because my mind is a blank and I need to write today’s words. When I woke this morning I felt blurry from sinus pain but my mind was fizzing with thoughts on what I could blog today. Then the day bustled on and one thing followed the next. Now it is evening. A fine blue sky with streaks of white feathery clouds hovers over a canopy of green, lit gold by the setting sun. But my head hurts and not a single idea remains. I groan, I wish I had written them down, but really, the day hurried me through it. I had little control over the hours.

 

A friend who read day one of this experiment nailed the impulse behind it. She said, ‘I think the isolation and stress of COVID have dulled most of our brains, and just getting back to trying to use words on the regular has to be a good thing!’

 

My brain does feel like it’s shrunk during the last year and I felt a need to flex its abilities to express, describe, and communicate. In small, lightweight steps. I don’t feel able to tackle the deeper things I am feeling – like the grief of losing two people I care deeply about in the space of just a few days, about two weeks ago. It is too hard to take the vastness of that and put it into a single blank page. 

 

I also needed to challenge a belief that has grabbed my voice. That I cannot create sitting in one place. I need to wander, I need to sit in coffee shops, I need to be on airplanes, I need to meet my friends. I need, I need, I need – everything beyond this desk and these four walls here. How can I create otherwise. I sheepishly discussed this with a friend who I have a weekly Wednesday conversation with. We try to explore our limiting beliefs. He’s a visual artist and he smiled. He too had grappled with the same. Unfortunately the conversation moved elsewhere without us finding any insightful resolution. So I must scuffle on, see where this experiment leads. 

 

The light on the buildings in the near distance is truly beautiful.  The west side all lit up, glass reflecting the fading sunlight, the other in cool shade. Soon both light and shadow will mix into night.