Words.

Words sometimes fall like leaves falling from a tree. Slowly and steadily, a gentle breeze nudges them loose from a branch. I collect them and save them.

Sometimes they back up and begin to fall over one another like children piling up at the bottom of an escalator. I have this visual of a story my mother told when she worked as a teacher’s aide. One year she accompanied a second-grade class to go to see Santa Claus. He was upstairs in a department store. The store manager suggested they take the elevator in small groups rather than the escalator. It would be safer. The teacher declined. As they were descending the escalator after seeing Santa, the teacher was at the front of the single-file line, leading the way. My mother was at the end of the line, a witness to it all. When the teacher stepped off the escalator on the bottom floor, she stopped to look around while deciding which way to go. However the escalator did not stop. Children began bumping into each other, pressing each other and then tumbling over one another.

That’s the format my words sometimes take when I’m writing in the zone. They come flooding out, tumbling over one another and piling up. I can barely keep up. I’m as surprised as the reader to uncover the message that appears by the time I’ve finished.

At other times, words are elusive. They tease me with an uninvited game of hide and seek. If I persist, I can usually round up a quite a few, then call “Olly, olly oxen free,” for the rest to come running to home base – my keyboard.  That’s what writing is like sometimes.

That’s a peek behind the curtain into my writing. This year I’ve committed to post each week on this blog. I feel nervous about that. I have no idea how it will turn out, but I hope it will be enjoyable and insightful for you and for me!  We’ll see.