Monday 11 February 2019

Caught in a Backwater.

I’ve been writing words for others to read for over thirty years, and for the last sixteen years writing has been my primary focus. It’s what I do, but at the moment it’s what I’m unable to do.

The calendar for February is replete with things I have to engage with but which are unwelcome. It’s full of those impish anxieties which force the mind into a narrow corridor of resigned functionality, and functionality does not encourage the practice of writing. Writing needs flow not functionality, and the flow is currently stifled under a blanket of dull cares. And so the wings of imagination are clipped and the bird is grounded while the minor matter of mere thought – and occasional dread – takes centre stage. It’s why this blog is bedridden and running a fever at the moment.

But I exaggerate. This blog was never anything special anyway, but it was my nothing special and I miss it.

I rarely miss things, you know. The only thing I can be guaranteed to miss is my freedom when it’s denied me. I was thinking only last night that I wish I were the kind of person who is able to connect with close friends instead of being programmed to keep an arms length of a distance between us, the better to observe and work out and assess and judge. I wish I were the sort of person who could run into the arms of some precious person I’ve missed dreadfully during their absence and hug them with real feeling. But I’m not. It’s an interesting snippet of irony that the only person I’ve missed dreadfully over the past decade was never there to be hugged in the first place and I still miss her most pointlessly. I suppose it’s all in the genes and I should feel amused since I’m usually amused by ironic humour.

This evening I was minded to write a post about why February is the dullest month of the year. The words came dropping in as usual but the flow was missing. Flow is so important, you know, for without it a piece of writing is like a stagnant backwater which the fish avoid for lack of oxygen, languishing in foeted isolation while the teeming river runs on regardless to the welcoming sea.

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