Getting ready to write

I get ready for writing, the way I would get ready for a date. A very special date coming to visit me at my house. My eyes scan the lounge, where I write, making sure it is inviting and comfortable. It has to be the kind of place my special guest will want to spend time. Does it reflect what I want my guest to see in me? It needs decorating and a new carpet, but my guest can see past that to the carefully curated selection of photos and paintings on the walls, the books and candles on the shelves, the windows looking out at winter trees and skies.

Next I make sure I’m ready too. I want to look and feel my best. I have a bath or shower and take the time to ‘feel’ myself clean. Take the time to enjoy the simple pleasure of washing and gently rubbing my skin until my hands run smooth over it. It’s easy to see getting washed and dressed as just a chore to be completed everyday and forget what a pleasure it can be. A chance to become who I want to be today.

While I wash I think about my lover on his/her way. This particular lover doesn’t have a gender. This lover is an amalgam of my own self and those of all my loves past, present and future. What wonderful insights will my muse have for me today. What form will he/she take? What kind of impression will I make? How long will he/she stay?

If my guest does decide to stay a while, I want to make sure our conversation isn’t interrupted. Normally I get everything needed: coffee, laptop, notebook (the purple one of course) and pen, phone on silent, music playing and await their arrival. But I didn’t get the chance today.

Today it was Sasha who came. Sasha is like a cross between Wonder Woman and Xena, the Warrior Princess and Mary Poppins. She always comes and kicks my ass when there’s action to be taken, stuff to get done. She didn’t even wait for me to get to the lounge, but cornered me in the bathroom to tell me I had to clean the house. That was at 10.30am and it’s only now at 3pm that I’ve finally managed to sit down to write!

So Sasha, I’ve done your bidding, what do you have for me today? Instead of answering, Sasha just gives me a knowing wink and disappears. I look out of the window behind me and see my daughter returning from school. Great, well that’s just brilliant timing. I’ll never get anything done now!. Oh good, she’s going out with her friends. I can get back to writing. I watch my daughter walk down the road with her friends. It’s difficult sometimes to comprehend that neither she nor my son would exist were it not for me and their father. Two new worlds born out of two other worlds that collided and fell in love.

Samsara is calling me from the clouds. She’s been coming to me more and more in recent weeks. Just start with one true sentence, she whispers. I can sense her warm and smiling face playing hide and seek behind the clouds. The setting sun breaks through for a moment blushing her cheeks.

So I wait for my one true sentence. It comes and demands to be written. It belongs at the beginning of a story I thought I’d already finished. This sentence changes everything.

I’m ready to write…

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