Thoughts, topics of interest, points of view, stories and poetry. Some posts also feature my own photographs - here, as well as on the 'valleyguardians' blog. While I don't mind my material being used, I would ask the courtesy of acknowledgement by name or link. A thank you would then follow.

Thursday 17 May 2012

Mindful Measures

"It's just like riding a bicycle," they said. 'They' being family and friends. All well-meaning and all beaming at delivering this age old advice.
Oh yes?! I could ride again if I had a bike, of this I am sure. But write again...
I mean, cycling is balance and pedal power. Writing though, means baring your soul, reflecting your inner thoughts and this kind of sharing is on a wholly different level to the leisure sport of riding a bicycle.
So I started, tentatively after an absence of two and a half years, not knowing where the words would come from, how I would shape them or how they would be perceived. And if nothing else it has been nerve-wracking.
Submitting an entry for the WriteUpCafe monthly contest seemed the answer to the absence of writing in my life but it pretty soon clouded all else and I found myself picking away at the completed sentences, half-listening to conversations as I wondered how my writing would be received.
I should have remembered the habit words have to creep up on me, infiltrating to the point where I type in my head as I speak, unable to stop the keys from clattering away.
Maybe it was just that I was still getting used to the new laptop, I thought at one point when, in casual conversation in the elevator, the keys tapped merrily in my mind's eye as those around me spoke. But no, it continued as I offered tea to my mother, then it spluttered on while I made supper and when I finally sat down to watch television it became overwhelming as my fingers raced to keep up with what was said on the screen.
Too afraid to sleep lest my dreams become keystrokes, I read till my eyes were dry and scratchy and lo and behold... silently, surfacing keystrokes claimed my rest as surely as they had claimed my waking hours.
What to do? How to deal with this before it became too much?
Fortunately, my imagination was up to the challenge and halfway through this morning I managed to master the intrusion, relegating it to its rightful place.
How, you may ask?
Easy - remembering that this was happening in my head was the breakthrough (how could I have missed that) and I took charge, upgraded my mind's eye typewriter to a laptop, silenced the keys to a whisper and then selected it to work in the background.
And from now on, whenever the keystroke clutter starts to intrude, I'll simply click on the buttons I have created and deal with the craziness that comes from having collected a cache of words by not writing for so long.

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