Go Dog Go
The interesting thing about being sick, for me, is that it makes me realize just how much I don't stop, in the ordinary course of my days. I don't sit still. Boywich said to me once, sometime in the past year, "You're like your dad, not a little. You go-go-go!"
And at the time, I think, "No, no no. Look at all these pics of roses I've taken over the years. I stop, I think, I contemplate, I..."
No, he's totally right.
I don't really stop much, unless forced to do so. Heck, I've been wanting for months to take a pic of the way the city gets very golden, lit up like someone's tinfoiled it, at the bottom edge of day, and I haven't done it yet, because I just don't want to stop, pull over, and take out my camera.
I was reading this lovely post, and thinking how right she is, that a huge part of the reason to go on vacation is because it's so conducive to letting one's mind wander, to seeing buildings and people and trees and window displays and gardens like art. 
I managed, suddenly, on my second day off (translation: confined to the indoors because of illness), to write my graduate school essay. Yes, I'd been brewing ideas about it in my head, mostly when I'm falling asleep, for weeks.
I'd made an abortive attempt a while ago and decided I wasn't ready yet, that things had to crystallize. Yesterday afternoon, in the midst of knitting and watching TV, I found myself making notes for it in grey Crayola marker, and wishing I'd thought of writing with that colour before; it's so evocative, it seems just right.
"Notes for essay"
Blueprints
Tacking
Telling myself stories
Sometimes ideas spring to life fully formed, and other times they get built like Legos. You get a brick at a time, not really knowing how they'll all connect, but trusting that your inner self knows, and that when you finally sit down with all your pieces, you'll be able to just hum and build, hum and build, the way you sat and built imaginary cities as a child.
It always works, my friends.
Mostly writing stories and making art involves acquiring some faith. Faith in the process, faith in instinct, faith that one's self knows where to go. If I could just get the art of living my life exactly as I write, I think I'd do very well indeed.
Tea and a walk now. Can't sit still forever, after all.
