Let's start again

LET’S START AGAIN.

There is little more daunting than the blank page; the longer you have been away from writing the scarier it may seem. It taunts you; it dares you to make your mark.

It scorns your artistic pretensions and reminds you that you can’t type for toffees or that you scribble like a pre school child let loose with crayons. You may already know this, so the reminder is unwelcome.

You approach the writing desk; which also does it’s best to unnerve you. It dares you to sit. You feel uncomfortable, and why not? You’ve been away for along time; did you expect a fond embrace and to just slip casually back into the old ways.

No. There has been a breach of faith here and, maybe, you have also been promiscuous; trying to write in other places with other desks. Maybe you only returned because it didn’t work out. You have nowhere else to go. Did you really think there would be no price to pay?

The pen, your special pen, lies on desk. This pen; once your best friend, partner in crime and confidant now views you as a stranger. Its form feels fine to the hand but it does not move as it used to. It no longer glides across the paper like the old days.

You are the male dancer who has forgotten how to lead his partner. She stands and patiently waits for your subtle instructions and, as each second passes, it becomes embarrassingly apparent that you have no idea. You are lost.

Get up, make some coffee, open the post, walk the dog. Anything but face that infernal trinity of desk, pen and paper.

After a while, breathe deep and return, humbly, to your writing room. Sit down calmly, open the notebook and gently smooth the pages; readying them to receive from head, to ink, to page as goes the process.

Welcome your pen to your hand; appraise its mass and admire its form.

Raise the pen above the paper. This time, as a supplicant you come, ‘Let’s start again’.