A Piece of a Soul, or the Acceptance of Pauses

There’s something beautiful about a completely blank piece of paper, just as there is in an untrampled field of freshly fallen snow, or a present that has yet to be unwrapped, still tied up with a bow. Its pureness seems to call out for admiration, and yet at the same time, its emptiness demands that one give it one’s attention. The page compels the writer to deface it with something of their own, just as the snow seems to urge children to play in it, and the present urges one to unwrap it. The act of writing destroys whatever barren beauty the blank sheet held, but replaces it with a soul created by emotion. Every word is a small flame of passion in the brightly lit darkness, kindled only by its author and perceived only by its reader.

So then, what starts the process? Where, and how, and why, and what. The start of writing. Of giving a thing a soul. Obviously a story cannot come from nothing. Even science has admitted that nothing can be created or destroyed, that matter is only to be used and reused and dies and is born and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. The page is the kindling, the pen is the match, and yet the writer has to be the one to light the fire. So it follows that any good piece of writing must begin with the writer, and with his or her thoughts and ideas, prejudices and vices. And so it must be with every writer, and so it is with myself. The blank page beckons, teases almost, and asks me to put on it whatever I want and feel, to begin something. To give it life. It’s a relaxing process, or so I’ve always thought. Spilling out whatever I can find within myself, unimportant as it might be, not because I want others to find it, or because I think others will want it, but because I enjoy filling in the vague ideas in my mind, or at least finding somewhere less claustrophobic to put them. By putting my mind onto pieces of blank paper, I can see it more clearly, without the disorientating lens of my own self doubts and fears. The process of writing, then, starts with my own knowledge and emotions. It is the half-formed dreams, the unclear fantasies and hazy memories, pieces of the creations of my own mind made real, set down before me in black and white, to imbue themselves into the minds of others. It begins with a piece of my own soul being painstakingly wrestled onto paper, in order for it to become the formed whole of the paper itself. And it begins like this:

Blank papers are arranged in front of me, a pen in my hand. Steam drifts lazily upwards from a mug of coffee beside me, and I take a sip. In the background, music continues to play, the soft murmur of a piano. I listen to the music as I sit, the usual gentle harmonies and occasional dramatic crescendos that so often accompany the scratching of my pen. Outside, rain pelts soflty against my window, and a few dim rays of winter sunlight pass into the room, forming long splashes of color on the carpeted floor. Time passes, maybe minutes and maybe hours, and still I don’t move. I can’t concentrate. I have no desire to write. Whether I write well or poorly depends on the day and the hour, but I can almost always write. And so I place the pen down on the paper, and I sip the coffee, and I sit and wait. And more time passes.

And then I laugh. Not loudly, more of a quiet chuckle really, but still a laugh. I can’t put my pen to the paper, I can’t create any discourse, and I cannot even think of what I should be writing, and today it doesn’t matter. Because for the first time, I don’t have to write to see clearly.

Writing, for me, is a form of escapism. It allows me to distance myself from my own thoughts. But there is a limit to the curative effects of writing. Despite whatever endorsements therapists may give it, writing is not some sort of mythical panacea. I can use it to define myself, to put my thoughts into their respective proverbial boxes, and to dot the i’s and t’s of my fantasies made real. And yet, I cannot read my writing as something new. I cannot learn about myself by defining the parts of myself that I already know. I cannot talk to words on a page. I cannot love paper and ink, not in any way that the paper and ink can reciprocate. Anything I can write will be a piece of myself, able to instill emotion, but having none of its own.

But a person is something with a mind of their own. A person is something you can share yourself with, and have something shared with you in turn. A person you can talk to, learn about, learn from, cry with, laugh with, and still have something new to do with after all of it. The act of writing allows for the rebirth of your own ideas into something tangible, but the act of loving allows you to take something from yourself and create something new, with the help of another. And a person, in short, is something you can love that can love you in return.

A new love, then, creates an extremely special kind of excitement. Said another way, a new love is a weird sort of something brilliant, and amazing, and completely blindingly stunning. This is the kind of emotion that a thousand poets, philosophers, and Valentine's Day card creators have struggled with describing throughout the centuries. It’s an indescribable feeling of pure joy mixed with pure hope. Thoughts of a future shared in the arms of another. A constant reminder that forbids you from not smiling. A snow day, christmas morning, start of summer sort of happiness. The knowledge that there is a person who understands you better than any other, and who allows you to know them in that way in return. A person who you will implicitly forgive, even while still arguing with them. It will be hard, sometimes incredibly painful even, and entirely worth it. There’s something telling about the phrase “falling in love”. Because you can be hungry, happy, sleepy, or horny, but you can only ever be “in” love. That’s because love is more than just an emotion. It’s a state of mind, a way of feeling, and a way of living. It’s sharing yourself with another person, a mixing of souls if you will, that makes you never want to be seperated from them.

Writing is a time for self-reflection, and for sharing what you think with whoever may care. It gives life to your thoughts and color to your daydreams. But love, a life beyond writing and one’s self, is something beautiful that is entirely beyond anything you could make on your own.

So if I can’t write sometimes, I’m perfectly okay with that. I can always write again another day. But, at least for now, I’m going to enjoy the beauty of a new beginning.