I show up to write each day but it’s sometimes hard to turn up at the page with nothing around me. The room I’m in has no interesting elements or items within eyeshot. The computer desktop on which the writing page itself sits is completely bare. All intentionally reduced. That I have a twinge of disquiet with this may indicate that I’m just a wee bit resistant to the unadorned emptiness.
To sit in this way is like a diet for the mind. And it compels me to go deeper within to find the true source of my inspiration.
I notice there’s a single jagged piece of duct tape stuck on the side table. It stands out in a room so intentionally devoid of interest. It’s untidily stuck there and feels random and entropic. And in it’s discordance I see its beauty. Something so worthless and inconsequential and yet it’s the most attention-grabbing item in the room. So perfectly unconsidered. It’s not even trying and yet it has me writing a paragraph describing, considering it. It’s ugliness has become the source of its attraction. It refuses to blend in. Two inches of silver duct tape stuck to a board; I salute you.
I think the hardest part of my writing practice is the willingness and ability to just sit restfully in the absence of words. Which is also the foundation of the words. There can be this agitation sometimes. A resistance to dropping into relaxed quietude. The mind habitually demands food, inputs. Monkey mind looking for a banana.
Chill monkey, chill. Sit quietly and the banana will come to you.
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