My love affair

This is an exercise I have begun - a daily writing exercise wherein I don't try to be clever or profound, just allow the words to come through me - whatever comes, comes. This is what came today. It interested me to read it over because I do often feel that my writing life is a illicit love affair - that I steal whatever time I can to be by myself with the page. They are supportive, for sure, but not entirely comfortable with this continuous caller. So, I take my chances where I can and try not to have them offended by the blank page that I find so intoxicating. I love them all, but the blank page calls and I am off dancing again.


'The world as I see it is lives in my fingertips. No matter how close I feel to people around me, how interested I am in what is going on about me, I need to experience the world through my fingertips. The thoughts, feelings and impressions that resonate through my mind and body need to find expression by being transplanted onto a page.

I have a special relationship with the blank page. It craves to be filled just as I crave to be emptied and freed from those thoughts. Those thoughts and impressions need a home, away from me; separate to me.

It is too crowded, my head. If the thoughts aren’t transferred to the page they rummage about in my brain, never quite taking any particular shape. The page gives them some shape, not necessarily a final destination, but the page is a holding place until my brain reads the words and determines what to do with them – eliminate them, ignore them, transform them; tease and manipulate them until they form an acceptable shape; until some patterns emerge.

I remain unconvinced that this relationship I have with the page is understood. There is a certain jealousy felt; a sense of competition raids the air; a need to disrupt and influence the meeting as if it were the enemy. The very notion that the page matters most must be dispelled and only evidence such as me not spending quiet, uninterrupted time with the page is good enough.

I comply. I endeavor to stay away from the page and to be able to live this way – in the moment, surrounded by other people’s words. For a time it is enough, until the page demands my attention; insists that it be filled with my thoughts and words.

The page was my first intense, love affair. It will also be my last. However, only I can know this fact. We meet in the dark, in the early morning, in stolen moments during the day. I’m his muse and he’s my dominant. I do as he says. I am at his beck and call. I do his bidding. Honestly, I simply can’t stay away. I’m besotted. Hooked.'