word pause

I was supposed to write the great novel of all novels this summer. I was to start on July 1st and write 1500 words each day and yesterday I would have finished. But life had a way of messing me about. I was in such turmoil and pain on June 25th that I did not notice two weeks go by and then it was too late to start. {wasn’t it!}

I decided I would catch up and use a notebook to write rather than a laptop or tablet. I bought a pen and a notebook. I opened the book, pen in hand expecting the story to flow from my brain to the page in one long fluid movement. But it didn’t happen and I put the pen and notebook away, it wasn’t the right time to start. {was it!}

Every now and then through the summer, I would contemplate the missing manuscript. I was kind to myself, I did not berate. Few people knew of my intention so I did not have to publicly humiliate myself. I was good about it. Well not completely…

I was a little disconcerted that I couldn’t write because it is what I do. I put down on paper stories and poems that come from situations and people, I steal conversations from coffee shops and weave them into a tellable tale. And I had stopped. Not just the actuality of writing it down but I had stopped the rhythm in my head that floated in and out of prose and poetic form. It’s the only rhythm I possess being clunky and clumsy in real life, bodily function.

In my head, I can pirouette with a stanza and waltz with a new word, found on my travels.  It was all gone, as the song goes, I was pretty vacant. I remembered the first time I lost it and that took me on a different path this summer… One of rest and refreshment, of drinking in the word of God, of feeding on sermon after sermon. I practised the disciplines and did not much of anything else. I did not want to lose connection and live without God’s rhythm feeding my own.

I was patient {I know … So not me} and I waited on the Lord. Last night he opened up within me such a fire of rhythm I could not use words to give it justice. And now, I know my rhythm is back. I see stories bouncing around and I am spoiled as to which story I use first. I am letting the songs and poetry out first so that the stories can take more form. This marks the return of the rhythm and the stories unfold.