Sitting by the River

I’m just gonna write. It doesn’t really matter what. The wind never blows in the same direction two days running so why should I? You never know what’s gonna turn up really. I mean, you think you know. You may even be convinced you know. Then the world throws you a curve ball. Like this text. It has a voice. My voice. But when do I ever speak? And when have I ever been able to write coherently without trying too hard? Yet here I am writing and thinking this ain’t so difficult. All I do is think something, then put it down on paper. Except, when I purposely set out with that intent, the words dry up. Something dams the river and I’m left starring at a dried up river bed – the empty page. Only not right now. Right now it seems I’m Charles fucking Dickens. Words are tumbling out in an endless stream, like projectile vomit only nicer, if you know what I mean.

Why don’t I write like this all the time? Write about what we know. That’s what we’re told isn’t it. Maybe that means something slightly different from what the words are actually saying. Maybe it’s saying, write what we naturally write. Let the river flow naturally and then just cast our stories onto it. Like leaves. Let the water take them on its bubbly, whirly chaotic journey. They’ll end up somewhere. Caught on some dipping branch or piled up in a soggy mulch in some backwater. Some may even make it to the sea. It doesn’t matter where they end up. It only matters that we cast them out onto the water, expecting nothing in return. It matters only that we tell our stories.