Thirty-One Thoughts on What?

So what am I thinking about? What are the thoughts or articles or photos that lead me to pop open Facebook so I can share with someone? Anyone? What longings make me antsy, squirm, furrow my brow without realizing it, wake with me at four in the morning, make me want to divert my mind? Sad, uncomfortable. Ah, yes - bastards. Most of these thoughts, I sense, deal with longing. Longing for someone who for whatever reason, physical or otherwise, can’t be with you. And longing, too for parts of yourself that feel illusive - slippery, evasive, MIA - dreams, talents, raucous laughter, a sense of home, and hopes that now seem too scary to hold on to lest you disappoint yourself. I don’t know about you, but the vast majority of my longing springs from a desire to be creative, to live a creative life, to reach my potential. I want to take the vivid ideas in my head - colours, memories, images, words, sounds - toss them together and see what lands. The end result is often satisfying, but more and more I realize the process is what’s exciting. Challenging. Telling.

So what’s the problem? Why the longing if you’re free to do whatever the hell you feel like doing? That’s where the discomfort comes in - the ‘inconvenient truth’ that indicates that, for the most part the distance between myself and action is self-imposed. (It’s also the gift because in the end, I know where the options lie). And I think it’s the distance between the two - longing and action - that bedevils me the most, that bedevils most of us. I’m going to take as my jumping off point, for these thirty-one entries, creativity. And yeah, that gives me a lot of leeway. My own need to create, yes, but also what stymies, fascinates, moves, and perplexes me. Thirty-one entries for a month with thirty-one days. And because some days invite inspiration more than others, there may be a couple of entries on one day and none on another. Some long, some blink-and-you’ll-miss-them short. And what I hope is that any of you reading this stuff will use my posts as a jumping off point to comment about whatever comes to mind, because what the hell is the point of musing if you can’t bounce ideas off someone? And if you just want to read and not comment, that’s cool, too. In fact, thank-you for whatever you do here, for caring enough to spend a few minutes here. xo