Thursday 5 October 2017

Blank Page



Though you started with nothing
Grew up being poor
Your artistic spirit
A boat with an oar.
You saw people and things
In a fantastical way
No matter the evil.
Only good would you say. 
Your terrible jokes,
And your outrageous tales.
Dinner conversation,
Would go off the rails. 
To portray your person
No other words will suffice
Except, "Nice to see you,
And to see you is nice"

-----------------------------------------

Today's cliché line - how do you sum up a person with a limited amount of words? When someone has a big impact on your life, no matter how much you say, it never feels like you can capture their essence. The thing that draws you to them and makes you feel happy to be around them.

Something  you often hear at funerals is, "They were a unique person." Everyone is unique in their own way, so saying that doesn't feel like it carries the impact that it should. I'm still undecided on whether calling someone "unique" is even a good thing, as I've been called "unique" a few times and it wasn't entirely clear if the person meant it as a good thing, or whether they were just trying to call me "weird" in a polite way.

The hardest part about writing is staring at a blank page. Once some words start coming out, getting the next words out is a lot easier, but finding the starting point is always hard. Strangely, I kinda wrote that poem backwards, starting with the last verse, then the second last, then the first, and finally the second. I guess that's why those brainstorming map things are such a powerful tool - you don't always think of the start at the start, and the end at the end.

MrFodder asked if I'd abandon my blog after the 365-day photo challenge is done. I think I'd definitely take an extended hiatus at least. I feel like the speed of my writing has definitely improved, but my creative reservoir feels drained, and sometimes I end up staring at a blank page with a topic I want to write about, but the words need to be painstakingly yanked out one by one. I can't remember if writing has always felt like this or not. I think I used to be able to just sit in front of a screen and record my thoughts as they come out.

I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that there are people who are reading this, and I know who they are. Am I second guessing what I write because I'm afraid of my audience thinking something bad about me? I always wanted my blog to be mostly honest, and there's another blog that I read recently that had this raw honesty that I've always wanted to be able to emulate. I've looked through some of my own past posts, and the one that I felt was the most honest was one that I didn't even remember writing, and it seems like I wrote it while drunk.

Not that I am planning to go on a major bender before every single blog post - plus, I had so many typos in that post that I'm ashamed of it! I've been thinking about all the people that I enjoy listening to, and the people that I go out of my way to spend time with. Something that they all seem to have in common is that I feel like I can be honest with them and not worry about them judging me for it - even though I know that they're probably judging me a little on the inside. Of course, it's incredibly unlikely that I'll ever be able to be 100% honest on the Internet without repercussions. Something I've written in the past will probably come back to bite me in the ass some day, and I don't even do anything particularly scandalous!

In the meantime, I guess I will strive for being mostly honest, and try to be accepting of other people's point of view. Because that's what PieFace would have done.

No comments: