#1260 - phrases and memories
This morning I can't find something to write about.
Not even a word, image to start.
Nothing.
My mind is totally blank.
I begin looking everywhere for help. Like a castaway at sea, desperately searching for any floating scrap to cling to. The only items I can find are too small to sustain my hungry mind.
I turn my eyes away from the white page before me. I know how easily it can slip into my mind and fill it with emptiness.
Then an idea. Maybe reading a poem will help me.
So, I open the Poetry Foundation website to read the day's poem.
It's a poem by Arthur Rimbaud titled Phrases.
How ironic?
I'm lost for words, and now I'm reading a collection of apparently disconnected phrases.
Wait a minute. There's a small note from the editor at the end of the page.
The note says that poets like Rimbaud and Baudelaire, both part of the French Surrealism movement, used a writing technique called "automatic writing".
This sounds promising.
A quick search online reveals that "automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing."
It sounds like something I should do with a pen. Not really useful for blogging using a laptop.
However, on the Wikipedia page about "automatic writing", there is a link about "free writing".
Free writing is a technique whereby a person writes continuously for a set time with little concern for form or meaning. It often produces raw and unusable material but can help writers overcome writing blocks. This sound familiar and interesting. I may give it a try.
Yet, I still need somewhere to start. So, I search again. This time looking for prompts for free writing. As you would expect, there are so many that one can easily get lost. I open a random page and quickly scan the available prompts.
My eyes get caught by one prompt that says, "write about the first time you held someone's hand."
And I clearly remember.
I was five years old.
It was this time of the year.
For the first time in her life, my sister was taking the school bus with me.
She held my hand all the way to the school.
My writing time is up.
My heart is full.
What an adventure.