Morning pages. Home edition.
TV’s on, so I have distraction that I don’t normally have during my writing practice.
Thoughts this morning are focused on my to-do list. I have to bake a pie for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I need to go to the grocery store to get fresh cranberries for its topping. I need a leaf-shaped cookie cutter to put a top crust design on it, because I like being a little fancy when I bake.
I don’t like to bake, so I insist on over-doing it when I do. It’s a character feature, not a character flaw.
I have books scattered about the living room. I’ve found time and calm enough to start several of them, but I cannot find the motivation to finish them. There are simply too many books, and in the modern era, it feels decadent to sit with one for multiple hours. I should be cleaning and organizing. I should be socializing. I should be writing my own book. Who is so selfish that they would take the time to read? Apparently not me.
I’ve found that books that have small bites are best for me. Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City were originally written as a newspaper column, so when they were published in book form, it was like reading a series of short stories that maxed out at 2.5 pages, iirc. I’m currently reading the latest book by CA Conrad. It’s a poetry book that gives insight into their process by spelling out the exercises they used to create each poem, inviting you to do the same activity and perhaps write your own.
I’m more of a prose guy, myself, but I’ve dabbled in poetry, and I enjoy it.
Creatively, I’m a dabbler. I like that about myself. I write. I paint. I make music. I garden. I write about music. I paint about gardening. I garden about writing. I sing about dabbling. And yet, I’ve never tried dabs.
I’m struggling with minor lower back pain just to the right of my spine. I’ve stretched on my inversion table, which was a godsend for a sciatica attack several years ago. It’s not really done much for this. I’ve tried my massage gun on it, but the relief is fleeting. I’m not sure that it is actually relief, as my attention is focused on the new sensation masking the pain.
I block out the news as stories of the Middle East conflicts try to draw me in. I care, but I’m aware of my own actual sphere of influence. I side with humanity. I abhor bombs and guns and violence. I obviously see the humanity of those on the receiving end of these destructive tools, and I struggle to see the humanity on the part of those using it. I must not other them, even as they other themselves. It’s not my way. It’s really difficult to be compassionate for perpetrators of violence.
And this is why I normally do not have the TV on during my morning pages. I tried to block it out, but wound up writing a whole paragraph – now two – on violence. I click the remote to turn off the television and move on.
I get distracted with the WordPress tools as I return my focus to the page. I haven’t used WordPress in years, so there are new gadgets that I’m not familiar with yet. I’m aware that my style is not optimized for SEO. I’ve continued using dates as my headline, and the wizard tells me that my headline score for 11/22/23 is only a 25. A good score is between 40 and 60, but I should strive for higher than 70.
I don’t care.
I’m here to express myself – not to serve a wizard.
Has it been 20 minutes? Maybe. Has it been three pages of text? Hard to tell on a website. The coffee has absorbed into my bloodstream. My belly is calling to be fed. My feet are asking for socks or house-shoes, because a thermostat at 69 in November is fundamentally different than a thermostat at 69 in August.
Time to start my day.