Words & Boxes

I have been thinking often about writing and writing often about thinking. 

I haven’t written a blog post in over a year. I stopped posting blogs because when I drafted something I felt uncomfortable. That is not to say I haven’t been posting or offered a public stream of content. I have been hanging out on the social media channels instead. And most of those posts have been on the store’s pages and feeds, not my own. My personal posting has been meager by comparison.

I want my posts to be authentic. And, all my drafts felt phony.

I have never been one to journal much. I have attempted journaling probably every year of my adult life and I have never managed to maintain a habit for very long. And, to my sister’s discomfort, I have destroyed almost all of the material I have created over the years.

When I journal privately I don’t actually write. I mostly just write words and draw boxes and connect them and then force out a few sentences that upon review I think sound self-absorbed and flat. Sometimes I just draw patterns. I do like words and boxes it seems the most, since they appear often in my notebooks. They must be my most authentic strokes. They may not even make sense to anyone. They make sense to me.

I like images. I like photographs and paintings and drawings and doodles and sketches and color and texture and light and dark and the stroke of a pen and the groove of a paint stroke and the worn edges of time and the beauty of composition of what surrounds me. I could spend days captivated by images and have come close to missing a night’s sleep by scrolling on my phone. I even like the way the images start to blend together when I become too tired to focus on each one individually.

I have known this about myself for a very long time. And, it seems a bit “out of sync” with my verbally robust personality. (I am a chatter box after all.) I think and process in two ways, verbally and by interacting with images. It is who I am at my core. These processes are polar opposites…one an endless stream of words and the other offers no words at all. It is how I find balance.

On this first day of 2018 I am writing to you – our blog followers – to say, I am ready to start posting again. I am going to add to the conversation my gifted sister has kept going without any contributions from me this past year. For which I am grateful. I am going to speak in my most authentic way. I am going to post images sometimes. I am going to post my drawn boxes and words sometimes. I may even write a bit. But, it will all be something I want to share with you. Please, please find your own connection with these tidbits and offerings. They are all open for interpretation.

Happy New Year.

SHARE THIS: