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When we create, we produce something tangible, born out of our deepest selves. It's an effort to express the inexpressible. I don't know that we ever truly can match the wordless images in our minds, but occasionally all the planets align and we hit that sweet spot. I have experienced a small handful of those moments, when I sit back after reading something I wrote and feel an immense satisfaction that I communicated those inner feelings properly.
In this lifetime, I believe that I was destined to write. I learned to read at the very young age of three, with daily visits to my maternal grandparents who lived next door to us. Local banks used to hand out yearly calendars with small gold painted pencils in a clip at the top of the calendar. My grandmother found those small pencils the ideal size for my wee hands to manipulate. I would visit in the morning and she and I would make the walk to the mailbox together, stopping frequently along the lengthy driveway to investigate various wonders. Upon returning with the daily newspaper for my grandfather to read, I would sit on my Granny's lap and she would go through the alphabet with me on scraps of paper. We would then take sections of the newspaper after Grandpa had finished reading them, and I would learn words from the articles, then I would write short sentences with those small gold painted pencils in the white spaces between the articles. Pulling recognized words together, Granny and I would create a short story. I would then transfer my small self over to my Grandpa's lap to read to him what I had created, laboriously trailing my tiny finger over the scribbled words. By the time I started kindergarten, I had a firm grasp of the rudiments of reading and writing.
I don't believe I've ever looked back since then. I remember having an almost overpowering urge to read, read, read....everything I could get my hands on. Throughout elementary and high school years, I wrote many a report and essay, but it didn't occur to me that this would be something from which to create a career. For some reason, because writing came so easily to me, I didn't consider it as a career option. It took me a good stretch of years in many iterations of industries to begin retracing my roots and coming back to those elements of childhood.
These days, I am comfortably at home again, deep in the embrace of words and the process of writing. I write both for work and for personal satisfaction. I never find a tedium to it. There are certainly times when the Muse abandons me and I go for long stretches of time remaining silent. Those stretches of time feel somewhat odd, as though a part of me is missing, but I have learned to not push the process. Those stretches of silence are necessary, and allow me to tend to other areas of my life for a while. I come back to the world of writing refreshed and renewed, and the words flow again with color and texture and energy.
This recent renewal cycle, air was my Muse. The flow of it, how it can whip and tear at the earth, how it can paint patterns upon water, sand, rock and metal. It can carve expression lines into every object on the planet, given enough time. This is what came out of my fingertips....
I sat, isolated
looking inwardly
my focus on the cadence of my breath
and the wind teased
prompting me to lift my eyes
and regard the dance before me
my mind stepped up
into the sky
taking bites of the air
plucking harmonies and weaving them
into gossamer, silver-shot plumes
...and leaving them dancing there
whence they came
punctuating the autumn day
with a curious level
of strength
my own
like unto the wind
invisible
until applied with sureness
carving indelible expressions
emotions from depths
that shape who I am
emotional currents
...revealing in my eyes...wisdom
from a well of experiences
....breath, life, peace...dreams...
swirling now
eddying across my soul
presenting my true Self
....whence it came?
rich and gossamer
silver-shot plumes
...dancing in the air
