Because I Can… the random thoughts of Marc Scott

There was a time, not so long ago, when words flowed.  All I had to do was open my laptop, position my fingers over the keys, and let them do the talking.  My job was simple.  Check for spelling mistakes.  The rest just seemed to happen.  I honestly didn’t have to try or think or even edit really.  Give me 20 minutes, and there was a blog.

Truth be told, it was kind of frustrating sometimes.  Many nights I would go to bed, turn out the light, close my eyes, feel the cool breeze of the fan sweep across my face, and drift into the darkness I couldn’t see.

Sleep was often not swift to come.  Instead, swirling inside my head like fallen leaves on a green October blanket of grass were words.  Sentences.  Paragraphs.  All this in place of dreams.  Ideas jumping onto a screen instead of sheep jumping over a fence or the moon or wherever those sheep are supposed to jump.

More often then not, I would have to get out of bed at 2 in the morning and type those thoughts into a blog.  Freeing the words from my mind was the only way I could convince it to shutdown and go to sleep.  This went on daily for around 6 months.

I don’t know what happened.  I have some theories.  Most of them rubbish I suppose, but they are theories nonetheless.  Having grown up in a small town where homes relied on cisterns for water, I am all too familiar with the act of turning on a dry faucet.  Where there is no water, there is no flow.  Perhaps my well of words has simply dried up.

Once a cistern has been run dry, it is in such a state it will remain until it is filled again.  This provided the basis for a theory of greater concern.  Since my blogs are often about change or growth or lessons learned, I’ve pondered whether or not I’ve reached a dry spell, as it were, in my life.  Perhaps there are no words to write, because there has been a lack in my life.  We should always be changing, growing, learning, or so I tell myself.

It is in winter that the land lies dormant.  It rests.  It heals from the punishment inflicted upon it by massive green combines and tractors with 8 tires the size of a Volkswagen.  From it’s dusty brown bed it’s birthed wheat and oats and corn.  It’s provided nourishment for us for another year.  Before it can do it again, it rests.  Snow provides it’s fluffy white pillow, the cool crisp air it’s blanket.  It rests.

After this season comes spring.  A time of freshness.  Renewed fields come to life, ready to be worked and planted.  Ready to be kissed by the rain and hugged by the warmth of the sun.  Ready to produce again.

Of all the theories I’ve tossed around in my head, I like this theory the best.  Though I’ve never considered myself a writer, and thus have ruled out the theory of writers block, perhaps I’m just in period of winter.  Of rest.  My hope is that a new season is just around the corner.