Flow

I'm surprised that it turned out to be nice day. I would not have expected it to go so well from the way it started.

I had overslept and started late. In slight panic, I took the chair in the backyard. (That's when the Timekeeper's guests came and looked at me curiously. I looked distracted.) I wrote; trying to remember how to answer the Questions. The Questions that had one general answer: Do not ask, do what you must.

How? Which task?

Like the ants. You know how they work with diligent unquestioning. That  seems to work well for them. They weren't spared from the bad things in life, of course, but nature gave them just enough IQ to do what they must. Over and over again. Even when shit came flying their way, they didn't quit working. In a way, their practice kept them sane and strong. I can't imagine building an anthill if I were at an ant's size. I can't imagine how I would have felt if I were an ant and lost all my food.

Yes, I kept writing. The guests came and went. The headphones in my ears guarded my attention within my mind's gates. I fiddled with strings of ink on a bed of paper.

I explored just one question (out of the dozens that haunt me daily) from a safe place. A place that offered all the assurance to sustain a whole day. Whatever I was going to find there would harm nobody.

It wasn't art. It wasn't creativity. It was just flow; in and out and about a place that I didn't recognize, but it was safe. I was sure I was going to know my way back. And I did.

Tracing my steps back, I deemed everything I found there worthy. It might have rebuilt the relationship with the voice within. It might have saved the rest of the morning. It might have jump-started self-awareness, after all. (Because I have been procrastinating from living at all. I have been paralyzed with reluctance.)

And that almost made my day.

What made my day was that the writing in the morning protected me from the grief at sunset. It saved me from spiraling into despair. It soothed my worst tweets. It guarded me from Anger. And it will send me to bed on time tonight.

These little things. I don't know how they start themselves. I don't know how they came to surround me with their little protective tasks. The little tasks that kept me afloat. The little floaters that kept the sun at its perfect height when I held your hand as I wrote. (Remember that golden afternoon? When I wrote about the things that are worth protecting and fighting for?) The little-little lines that came floating into this page. The little page in the sea of words and blogs and endlessness.

They all started from the little dot at the beginning of every sentence, strung together with forgiving forgetfulness.