Silence Still Speaks

A blogging friend of mine complained recently about how she missed writing. There were so many things running through her head that she wanted to write about. So many things, in fact, that she needed to “get the words out of my head; it’s getting crowded in there and I need a pressure release valve.”

True, writing can be a form of venting as well as an artful way to grant tangible shape to mental shadows. Sometimes, though, the shadows can be so murky that it is hard to coax them from the nether regions of mood into visible light. There are times when the flurry of life’s actions can produce an avalanche of words. Other times, events can turn and become the bottleneck damming that very flow.

It’s been four months since I last blogged. For some reason, though life kept moving forward at its usual warp speed, the words never assumed their own nascent presence—to break away and make any sound or take any shape of their own. Perhaps it’s that small matter of sound barrier. Or its equivalent in the realm of light. If there is a life barrier, is it possible to break it?

With all that has passed, how hard it has been to make myself sit down and write; how unusual for me to see myself saying this. I determined yesterday: tomorrow I will write.

Last time I wrote, it was a goodbye message for the one whose partner just joined him. Phone call, 4 a.m. I lose again all ability to put words on paper.