What to do, after reading a friend’s fabulously crafted blog posts and finding myself, simultaneously, utterly inspired and also fearful of being incurably incompetent?
Why, write, of course!
Do the thing I fear I cannot do.
Dive into a sea of the thing that I am afraid may some day no longer meet me
when I shed clothes, meet arms above my head, and launch myself
head first into the cold, clear deep blue-green.
Like the sea, though, words have been there
always.
Ever since my first phrase: “horsey eat apple”, I have been friendly with these things that can be spoken or penned, these morsels composed of meaning and letters or sounds, depending on my chosen expression.
Somehow, like the sea, words have always been there
for me.
At times a little chilly or rough.
at times, better to look from ashore, from a far, or just to wade
along the edge, or to poke in a toe, or trail a finger splashingly through.
Sometimes, though, what is called for is a
dive. in.
with reckless abandon. with no care for the slimy seaweed
or stinging sea-going jellies. no care for whether the cold will
shock my bones like an electric fence tested
with full bare hand on a cold, goat-feeding
morning adventure.
No matter.
No mistake.
I have not been mistook.
words are like water. they flow from me, like tears do
towards the sea.
when I am sad,
they
come.
when I am happy,
they come. The words, and the water.
That’s how I know I’m alive. And they flow,
and sometimes they come in gasps, or spurts, or little hiccuping sobs.
and other times their trill
from my pen is like the sweetest joyful giggle
I have ever sung.
My body speaks... 