Fear of Writing?
Do you have it?
The fear of writing can be reality. There’s something about the white space that can be intimidating. I get that. Sometimes I look at the white space as a portal, an unknown, and that unknown can be frightening, but I also look at it as a space where I can run freely and roam where no one else has gone. That’s where I’ll be.
Would you like to join me?
My curious pen wiggles across the page, scribbling something I don’t yet know. I’m here to know the words, which it eventually presses into the white mass. As I try to understand what it has brought me to say, I find that my fear of writing has disappeared.
Into the whiteout, my pen is creating a form of identification, turning the page into something, something non-white, something to read, another form, another art form that can be held, that can be viewed. And someone else will come along and give a critique and there I am, pen held with my fingers, in hand, scribbling on a new page.
How did this come to me?
From the wonders of my traveling.
So I was driving in a blinding lake effect snow storm in Upstate New York this past weekend. Typical for that area, but when the car ahead of me — which I had been using as my guide — turned off of Route 365…
I had a problem.
It was nighttime. This is the worst possible time to be driving in whiteout conditions.
The pavement wasn’t plowed and the snow had already accumulated a few inches, wiping out any signs of a road. With the loss of the rear lights of the car ahead of me, I was snow-blind. There were no reflectors or mile markers to show the way, all signs gobbled up in a pointillism painting of white mass.
Did I need any more reasons to turn around?
As I carefully reflected on my drive back to the city, I came to these conclusions…
I’m not used to driving in blinding snow storms at night, especially on roads I don’t know well.
I don’t miss the snowy, cold north that increases my chances of aging prematurely.
I did notice the beauty in the morning with everything dressed in white. It was serene, which was in stark contrast to what preceded it.
So, yes, I have mixed feelings of this traveling adventure, but when I consider everything, this experience has left me with some extra white hairs, a better appreciation for pointillism paintings and a story to tell.
It’s the creativity that sprouted, which holds me.
I feel for any creature caught in that mess. I think of the soldiers in Valley Forge without shoes, boots or proper clothes, on that hill, with that wind, dying, dying, dying…does it really matter what land we’re speaking of? Snow and cold, especially cold without the warmth of snow can be debilitating.
Welcome to my writing journey.
I hope you’ll visit me next week — where I’ll do some investigative work.