The Reflective Pen
When you sit down to write, where do you turn to come up with the right words or phrases for your story or letter or poem?
For some people words flow forth as soon as they sit down to a blank sheet of paper or digital screen as if they were taking dictation from an unseen speaker.
They tell of receiving ideas and descriptive phrases from their muse, or from the Universe as divine inspiration.
I haven’t had the experience of receiving such dispatches and like many people I find writing is more like rock climbing than it is parasailing on a breezy day.
I did have a moment of insight, however, when I decided to start a blog. The very first thing I needed to decide was a domain name…something that describes what the blog is all about.
I played with variations on a theme by ‘Meister Redundance’, a composer who’s works have never been published but whose music plays in my head constantly.
What short title could possibly describe what I myself find hard to articulate…i.e. what is life all about?
An existential question that may haunt you too if you have lived much beyond puberty.
Teenagers seem to have it all figured out until they, too, find themselves paying taxes, burying a beloved pet or bumping into brick walls in their quest for happiness.
Sorting through myriad possibilities for a name for this blog left me wondering just who I think I am anyway Pnoto by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash
This I do know…
I like to ponder the ordinary.
I like to listen to the silence.
I am in awe before the ineffable.
I am drawn to Mystery
and I love to wrestle with the peculiar.
And I do this most often with a pen in my hand.
My favorite pen is a fine-tipped Levenger fountain pen filled with brown ink.
The brown reminds me that every word I write has roots in generations of thought before me as if my written word had aged right there before my eyes.
I save this pen for recording stories of my life that may someday become seeds for a memoir. At the very least it leaves a record for my descendants to use when they write their memoirs.
For everyday writing I treasure Levenger again but this time it is the fine point black felt tipped pen that offers no resistance to releasing all the words and phrases within it.
It is a mystery how entire books remain hidden within the chamber of a pen, to spill out randomly when the pen touches the surface of paper.
Sitting and gnawing on the end of the pen has never worked to bring me great inspiration.
So…back to my original question…why “The Reflective Pen”?
I would love to write about a solution to all the world’s greatest problems or at least be able to address issues of those near and dear to me.
I have no advice for the suffering nor do I have answers for the confused.
Most events in my life are filed in a folder labeled “ordinary”…not the stuff of thrillers, romance or mysteries.
Just plain ordinary observations and interactions, mundane lists, and experiences as common as eating breakfast before the sun comes up on a rainy day.
So why would you want to read my ramblings in this blog?
Because you may want to celebrate ‘ordinary’ in your life.
Because you enjoy reflecting on simple things.
Photo by Richard Price on Unsplash
Because you, too, have lived long enough to understand that
out behind all the drama and rhetoric the world has to offer
lies a field of daisies where one can wander under a blue sky
and dream.
