I used to think that writing was just about arranging words in neat little rows…my thoughts tamed and lined up on a page like stuck little traffic jams. Just string the words together, or so I thought. Like a glorified version of Scrabble.
Scrabble is unbearable to me. Bored Games are torturous affairs. Maybe the reason I have a zero tolerance policy for Scrabble is that the little squares for the letters look like word cages to me. Jail cells for trapping and holding words hostage. In the stark confines of neatness and rules. No thanks.
I can’t just randomly pull letters from a cloth bag – hoping the rows will eventually all make sense. That’s not a game I ever want to win.
I’m learning that to find the words I’m really looking for I can’t rely on chance and logic. Instead it’s become a slow process of uncovering what I’ve actually been writing all along. As far back as I can remember. I’ve been writing. Just to myself, silently with no pen and no paper. With ink that’s only visible to me.
Having told myself that writing was hard…rubbing pages away in frustration and feeling like my head was on a writers block. Thinking I needed to trim and chop those self conscious parts like a butcher. As soon as a ragged edge appeared, a piece of sinew showed itself, I’d have to cut that out. Make it presentable.
What if someone followed my meandering streams of words back to their source? I had this little ink well hidden in side me with its lid tightly screwed on. My liquid words weren’t yet ready to be hung out to dry.
It’s taken a long time to realise the thing about ink is that once you do let it dry, give it permission to hit the air and change state..nothing can wash it away.
It’s curing process, writing. Out in the full glare of the sun. With the breeze on it carrying away plain water until only pigment is left. Embedded like a tattoo, here to stay forever. It’ll get stretched and faded as my skin does over time.
Hopefully one day I’ll have books of these indelible marks. Each one daring to show itself and take up space on paper. I hope I’ll have the courage to regret them when I’m old and not bother to pull my sleeves down over them. There won’t be any shame.
Just like a tree has no shame in growing its rings. Inner tide marks of time which are exposed on a wooden stump for us to count. Each one a marker of daring to grow and expand into the unknown.