A Blank Page
It’s been a long hot summer so far, and according to weather predictions it might continue.
I’ve been melting, and it seems that my brain has responded in kind having difficulty grasping words that are brewing inside of me. I really want to write, yet my page has been blank. All that I have been able to do to garner a sense of creativity and inspiration is to engage with the beauty and warmth of this season and to let the wonder of it all have the final say.
And so I have taken to night walking when I don’t have to worry about covering up from the heat of the searing sun, and where my gait takes on more of a slow dream like pace. The warm humid evening air wraps itself around me like a cloak, honeysuckle opens up and intoxicates me with her heady fragrance, and I feel the eyes of the creatures that have either gone to their place of sleep, or those that are waking up to the night that opens before them, watching me.
The most inspiring time of the day for me is this Summer dusk when the clouds stretch like a wispy vapor and settle as a soft cotton blanket over the western hills. As the sun begins his descent beyond and below the horizon his rays cast light that change the clouds palette into shades of purple and pink that must surely be impossible for the artist to capture.
Some things are better left untouched, unexplained and only to be experienced.
The only place I want to be in these moments is outside, under and enveloped by it all. I like to imagine someone looking in from afar at this picturescape, or perhaps a bird gliding high above surveying the earth below where I, as a walker, get lost in the vastness of it all. Here I am no longer an observer, but a participant. My being on the road allows the road to make sense, my viewing of the sunset allows the sun to revel, my greeting of the moon as she rises at the suns farewell invites her to tilt her moon-like grandmother face in my direction and tell me that all is, and will be well.
When I arrive back at the gate to my house, if the sun is still peeking over the horizon I keep walking; I don’t want to miss a thing. And when darkness descends, I feel content and happy to return to the rays that are cast from the tv and my current netflix series.:)
My walk is done.
For anybody who writes creatively, the words on a blank page only appear and take their shape as the writer makes way for courage and vulnerability. These two ways of being co-exist in the process. To write freely in my journal that you will never see (hopefully) is a beautiful practice enabling a blank page to hold and heal the musings of an often heavy heart. To open a new page on a computer with the aim to write something that might be shared is another. I want to continue to let courage lead and in those moments hope that in the vulnerability that comes from putting myself out there, my initial resolve to do so will win the battle of self doubt.
So I come into 2024 with what feels like a blank page. Oh sure, I know some of the outlines of the possible details, but there’s a great not knowing that also attempts to shroud my horizon. And this is where I find myself now. This is the season I am in. This is the invitation, opportunity and challenge that life offers. It might feel like the shapes on my page are slow in coming, but what I have available to me here, right now and in this place is my invitation and my destiny. Where do you find yours?
Gosh it feels good to write! I’m not sure that this little ramble is going anywhere public but if you are reading it you’ll know that courage overtook vulnerability on the home stretch, and I pressed publish as I fell over the finish line.
So ngā mihi o te tau hou koutou | Happy New Year to you all.
Enjoy filling the pages of your life this year, or perhaps watching them take shape to tell a story both anticipated or not, in both unexpected and surprising ways.
And here’s a little blessing to accompany you on your road, courtesy of Richard Rohr.