Continuing with the theme of my favorite things . . . today I reflect on freshly sharpened pencils.  They are in my top 5 list because in high school I wrote an essay about freshly sharpened short pencils, extolling their great many benefits – including that you can easily hide them. My English teacher praised the essay, and it reinforced my notion of being a writer. 

Such praise and encouragement aside, I really did get motivated by a pencil with a sharp point. I used to see one and I instantly wanted to find paper and begin writing. Writing anything. Thoughts. Stories. Observations. Scribbles. I just liked the way the dark point of a No. 2 pencil felt on paper. Funny thing . . . I now haven’t used a pencil in years. Business writing is done on a laptop, and personal writing with a gel pen in a journal. I lost contact with freshly-sharpened No. 2 pencils. They disappeared from my life.

I wonder, did inspiration disappear with those lead pencils? Did I lose some level of motivation?  What stories have not surfaced because they need No. 2 lead to pull them out? And further, can I rekindle that flame, that love affair with freshly-sharpened No. 2 pencils? Maybe I’ll pick up a few at the store this week, sharpen them, flirt with them, and see what happens.

Before I leave, I’ve just got to meddle a bit. Do you have any flings you may want to rekindle?  An old hobby, an old desire that you never pursued, or a new idea that came to you in the night? This could be a good time to do something with it. Just sayin’ . . .