speechless vs. writers block

I know how to chatter. Especially when I'm feeling good and especially when I honest to God have something good to say. Well, at least, "good" in my head and by my standards. Yet usually by the end of the day I end shaking my head, thinking, "wtf was all of that?''

Literally. Just "W.T.F.".

(Some days, it's actually "What the fuck?" But I'm back to patching up my inherited sailor mouth from my father and I have reduced and censored my vulgar words to mere letters... It's difficult to stifle my inner Tupac but this strategy seems to work and satiate my expletive cravings that so clearly run in the blood.)

It's always a surprise when my chatty self comes out. Personally, I believe my natural state is more along the lines of pensive and withdrawn. I am a thinker not a talker. Thats why I like to write.

Lately though, I've been able to talk quite a bit. Traveling, solitude and family do that to you. It's exhausting to be constantly talking, especially when its only about yourself, its actually rather boring and makes me incredibly self-conscious.

I haven't been able to write as much as I like. Probably due to the fact that I ran out of paper in my journal at the beginning of August and have yet to get around to investing in a new one. It's now August 19th and I am just now figuring out why it's taken me so long...

By the end pages of my last journal, I was struggling to come up with anything worthy to be put down on the paper. Maybe it was because I wanted to end the book strong regardless if the beginning and middle were rubbish. Endings usually shape entire stories.

Usually I'm not like this. I very much write in stream of consciousness and rarely judge what I write-- especially before it is even written. Even if it is ugly on the page and it its truly garbled up nonsense, I will love it dearly and treasure it. I'm vain like that.

Yet, writing never feels like my own-- it (being the ideas, thoughts, plans, stories, theories) simply show up and decide it wants to be remembered. It's almost as if my writing is completely out of my own control and I am simply the scribe for some outer creative genius that I don't have any conscious control over. Romans once believed that creative thought was actually born out of a 'daemon' which is basically an outer body genius, this Genius is where your creativity comes from so in turn, you can't really take credit for anything good (or bad) that it choses to filters through you-- because it's not really you.

I feel that, I know that. Sometimes I'm surprised by the thoughts the bop around in my head.

Anyways, I have been confusing my absence of genius as writers block. I saw it as something that needed to be bulldozed through. Brute force usually does the trick for this problem. Not the usual method I would take. I'm not necessarily a forceful person when it comes to problems or confict. If anything I avoid conflict like the bubonic plague.

So, nonetheless, I tried to force thoughts out, tried to get words out to form sentences that form ideas. Of course, this failed. And the silence loomed on.

I have little patience with silence of thought. I get bored, I get restless, scared, nervous. When it occurs for long periods of time, I literally am on WEB Md researching brain tumor symptoms and affects.

It's been especially frustrating lately though, because, you see, I have a poor memory, I constantly am forgetting not only to lock the front door but what important idea breakthroughs I have made. And writing helps me remember and helps me live out my true intentions. And right now, is a crucial time I want to remember for the rest of my life.

It's rotten timing to fall short in writing.

Here's the first and only analogy I am willing to think of to help paint the picture of my troubles: I'm standing on the beach. I walk to the edge of the surf and watch wave after wave hit the sand. The water sparkles and shimmers in the sun. I admire its beauty and immediately I want capture it, bring it home and store it on my dresser, so I can admire it every morning when I wake up and every night before I got to sleep; so I can share it to my friends when they visit; so I can store it in my pack when I leave home; so I can treasure it forever. Its possible, I've done it before. Yesterday I had a bottle just perfectly shaped to store the beauty I saw in the mountains. But today I don't have the right bottle to capture this beauty in the water, I have a different shaped one that is all wrong in every way... This wrongly shaped bottle wont do this magnificent beauty justice... So I'm at conflict. Do I wrongly capture this beauty or do I let it reside untouched and unscathed and wait to return, hoping the beauty will still be there, when I do have the right bottle?

Maybe this is too detailed and complex of an analogy for such a simple idea.

Basically what I am trying to communicate is that I have been confusing this supposed writers block with speechlessness. It's not that I don't have anything to say... I have plenty to say. (There is plenty of beauty!) It's honestly I am speechless, I have no words to capture the beauty.

I am wordless.

With writers block there are two cures, take a legitimate break--busy yourself with other hobbies until you forget about writing completely then the winds or some metaphysical moment will redirect you back to pen and paper-- or just keep writing, regardless of the trash that sprouts from your finger tips and eventually your niche will return.

But speechlessness is different and I am at a loss of what to do about it. Force wont work but neither will forgetting about it. Both do injustice. So as I wait for an answer, waiting for someone to deliver that perfectly shaped bottle, I am loyally and fiercely watching that beauty in the waves to make sure it wont disappear. I don't want to froget.

So this has to be the first step. To take the most basic step of word thought:

List making.

The List of the currents of my mind:

1. Last night in Colorado and I am still warring with Mr. Gaston (aka insomnia).

2. Tomorrow I will board my 16th and final flight of this summer.

3. Thinking a lot of little Ajiatu lately.

4. Say hello to new secretary for Schools for Salone.

5. Nanny: check. Swim coach: check.

6. Needing a haircut desperately.

7. Looking forward to September.