by Wandering Muse

Created on: April 06, 2010   Last Updated: October 24, 2010

Happens every time I open a new notebook:

I am galled by the vast emptiness of

The First Blank Page.

It has become a ritual:

                           I have filled all my notebooks

                                                              and am scribbling on

                                                             scraps of paper and faded receipts,

                                I think,

                                I have too many ideas bouncing around in

                                                          my head so

                                    I should buy new pages to write them into

                                                    safely.

I choose a new notebook-

and that's important too, it must be

beautiful

sturdy enough to

hold my manic copious words

thick

so I have time to rip out bad ideas or fill

blank pages with my scrawlings.

When I think I have

found it, the perfect book, (at least for this round)

I proudly

open it to the first crisp page

and...

sit.

and stare, pen poised.

and stare and sit...

at this defeating...

pristine...

First Blank Page.

It is an unexplored landscape I don't have the

proper equipment for,

a sacred space I will ruin

with the first

thoughtless pen stroke,

a challenge, a frustration,

a mountain I must...

climb.

I stall.

I whine-

butwhydoIhavetomarkthisfirstpagewhycanInot

use the back page first, for instance,

or plunge into the middle and write

from both directions, or..

Eventually,

Hesitatingly,

Falteringly,

Wildly,

I stab at the page a word, any word, whateverittakestogetstarted

and the Very First Word that defines

the First Blank Page in this New Specially-Chosen Notebook

is:

Love.

And now my story can begin.

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