Sometimes you just have to write. The subject doesn't matter, it's the drive that persists. Write. Let your fingers do the talking. From Q to P to A to L to Z to M... Just get it out.
It's a snow day and there's work. The tea has cooled and the honey is gone. Too late for coffee. No need to be clever. Just write. Get past the "nothing to say" and the "no time" and the noise of everything. Just write. Turn the spigot and water that keyboard garden. Write beautiful phrases of lush language. Or total crap. Just write.
There are no sidewalks here, just paths to follow. Walk along them. Let the world go away. Dim the lights a bit and let old photos shimmer in the blur. Play your records. Play Eh La Bas and St. Louis Blues and T-Bone Walker. Play Jacques Brel, Herb Alpert, Ray Charles, Lightnin' Hopkins. Good ol' Lightnin'. He may stumble - that one-time soul-blues drunken pioneer idol of countless roots rock duos - he stumbles and falls and you pick him up with the grace of Mother Teresa. Let Lightnin' do his thing. Let Mother do here thing. You do yours.
Write and sing and play. Be honest to who you are - and then get more honest. Be your own Corps of Discovery. Is honesty relative? Does Truth matter? Forget about it. Forget who you've been. Words are a scythe for your own stale attachments. Be who you are. Imagine your future in this moment right now. Right thinking. Right action. Just write.
Flowers bud in the spring and you, like the flower, find the winter all but deadly. The dark the cold the commercial nothingness of holiday hell. Shed your cynicism! Embrace the light! Get out and do something. Forget what your least-favorite aunt-in-law told you about playing it safe and sticking with security. Dullsville. You know this! The obstacle IS the path. Explore uncertain destinations. Be brave. Make the time to walk the dog in the snow along a frozen stream. Freeze your fingertips to a respectable degree. Walk through the cedar grove. Pause there. Nothing beats a good cedar grove in winter. And when you get back, thaw. Then write. Not for anyone. Just for you. Write. And keep writing. Keep it to yourself or announce it to the world. Do both.
The words are water and the fish in the water doesn't know what water is. Thank you, DFW. Be the fish. Swim. Let it happen and let it pass. Be active in the passing. Know when to say when but don't skip an opportunity. Scribble. Notate. Use your notepad - you do have a notepad, right? - (Write) - as it is by your bedside and in your coat pocket and in your duffle. When you're upstairs at Genna's Lounge and Lightnin' strikes like a two note solo so powerful and clear you are compelled toward silence. Write. Two notes can lead to an aria. But you won't know if you don't go. Get out there. Get gone. Do it. Do it again. And again and again and again. Be who you are (this is the key!). Be in the moment. Be open to new experiences. Recognize the glory of your own brief existence. Be in the moment repeatedly. Leave, but come back. Come back to the moment and write. Sometimes you just have to. Write.
