Monday 16 November 2009

Writing to think

Sometimes I'd like to pare away all the little irritations, all the everyday stuff that gets in the way of life – what shall we have for supper? Is it time to leave now? Where did I put that pair of socks? Do I really have to finish reading 'To the Lighthouse'? I'd love to put all of those to the side and make space to write...about....what? Because actually, you know, that is my life – life is the thing that goes on while you're dreaming about tomorrow – I can't remember who said that, for some reason John Lennon comes to mind.

This isn't some terribly worthy post about how to write or what to write about but rather the dull ramblings of stuff in my head while part of my consciousness – probably somewhere deeply submerged – I work out what I actually want to write about. Do we even decide what to write about I wonder? At the moment at the front of my head I'm considering this rather sticky keyboard on which my clean fingertips are carrying out a rather grimy Riverdance – who on earth leaves a keyboard like it's had a tub of yoghurt chucked over it? Don't answer that one, not even in your head. This keyboard is in a public space which makes the very suggestion of misuse of a computer grim.

And then for a brief moment Microsoft Word stopped working – blank screen, a moment of binary pique at the suggestion it'd been misused as some sort of public sex toy. As if.

I can see how from just these few ramblings I have the suggestions of a poem; a collection of thoughts about being here now. Something to make something else from – the creative act rather like the spillage on the keyboard.


 

And my fingertips still feel sticky and I've still not thought of anything new or interesting to say but the desire to communicate – born out of a sense of boredom and the inability to get onto Facebook – has led me to meander in amongst the tall grass and weeds of my imagination. My subconscious happily tucked up in a Mariana Trench where the thoughts, all dressed in white woollen jumpers and wearing three day old stubble, worry about ever resurfacing or contacting the conscious again.

Hmmm.