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YELLOW PAD
Sunday July 21, 2019
Spell bound.
On days when I sprint in early-work-start mode, I don’t open windows wide to let morning freshness waft in; windows closed, drapes drawn, rushed routine. Stillness, silence, feeling clammy …
Isolated from all disturbances.
Phenomenal.
Isolation from fresh breeze.
This writing room becomes cone of silence surrounding my busy head.
Thoughts bridge my synapses coming to a rapid boil, no matter how fast I hit these keys, one overlays another, my mental notepad ablur in scribbles on yellow page – reduced to sticky note, bullet points of subjects like a grocery list.
Ideas invade, work day ahead invades, email from last night invades as does one from this morning and suddenly I’m in the rabbit hole of distraction. One might think this silent box would help me avoid this mind trap but it seems to make my mind buzz faster. Faster. Faster still …
Suddenly I was watching Steve McQueen in the Great Escape and Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, remembering their mind-numbing stays in solitary confinement – and I wondered if their ‘real life’ equivalents at least had yellow pad, a pen …
Solitary is a word I’ve been wrestling. Solitary as in isolated. Solitary as in alone. Solitary as in lost in this world. Solitary as I’ve never been. Suddenly re-energized – this ‘warming (due to lack of circulation) box’ of a writing place wants to roar with output – this column, its requisite 272 words, and mountain of writing ideas to climb. And nuggets I didn’t have eight minutes ago.
Phone rings, rhythm broken, imagination retreats – tortoise, alert yet distracted, watching and listening, no longer in solitary.
Spell, broke …
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