Thursday, June 12, 2008

This is What I'm Feeling at This Particular Moment in My Day

Sometimes
I wish I could just listen to music
Tune it all out but the words and the sound
And then also read whatever I wanted for however long I wanted
Because there are a lot of books
And if you haven’t noticed
I love books, and if there was a word stronger than love
I might use it in place of love, I am enamored by books.
By the stories, the words, the worlds, the characters, the people who write them.
The covers, the ideas, the people who know the people in the books.
The whys, the wheres, the hows, the whos, the whats of a book.
And the desires to just write one of my own and see it on a shelf.

The stories that sweep inside me are stuck for now.
Hidden away, but they’ll come out, maybe.

Cuz I can’t see them just sitting there, inside, cramped behind an old wood-burning stove in an empty cabin filled with cobwebs. That’s my head right now. I need to get in there, remove the musty sheets from the weathered furniture, open the drapes and the blinds, fling open the windows that have been stuck far too long and let the fresh air in. To inhale what I know is already in my head, to breathe deeply, and then exhale it all out into a story. I want to see the glimmering dust specks floating through the streams of clean sunlight reaching to me; little shimmers to inspire writing.

And then write it.

Because that’s what I desire most. Most days that’s what I think about.

How about you?

What’s in your cabin, and how can you clean it out?

4 comments:

Amanda said...

You know what? Dust doesn't get any thicker or take any longer to clean if you leave it a week or a month. Your kids will not grow up and recount tales of their childhood in a spotless house, but they just might tell tales of their uber cool mum who spent time with them, was interested in them and wrote some great books. I think you should hang up your housework gloves once a hygienic space is achieved and plop down in your favourite writing chair and just do it. Oh poo, didn't someone already use that line? Well I'll borrow it, they won't mind.

Do you want to be sitting in your dotage with a cat on your knee wishing you'd done it? Neither do I.

Elizabeth Byler Younts said...

boy o boy...my cabin is full of story ideas, books I MUST read, and 1 novel in need of revising b/c I truly believe in its potential and 1 nonfiction that needs A LOT of work. my cabin is busting open!

Janelle... said...

I absolutely loved the way you described the space in your head and the condition that it was in. I would read a book by you any day of the week!

My cabin isn't a cabin. My head is a room (an old mansion library, perhaps) that is crammed to capacity. Floor to vaulted ceiling covered in shelves which in turn are full of things. There are boxes full of pretty bags, papers stacked upon books, baskets overflowing with yarns and faux flowers, and knick knacks galore. So much chaos I can't figure out where to start. I want to, I really, really do, but the place is just too full and I am too overwhelmed. And the most overwhelming part is that it's all covered in an inch of dust because everytime I think of beginning, I open the doors, have a panic attack and walk right back out.

*sigh* Maybe this year I'll get in the library.

KC said...

Hmmmmm....I think you are talking figuratively!!!......

My cabin is full of words from people who haven't always helped the self esteem. I have allowed them to occupy space in the cabin. I need to open the cabin window, let them out and rearrange the furniture so that the "dumping ground" for that stuff is not too familiar.