A new year, starting again
It’s the fourth day of the first month of the new year already… time to start the juices flowing. I’ve decided to do the 100 words project again, but this time I’m going to cheat a little and do the first four days all at once so I can start right from the beginning of the year, rather than waiting until February as I did last year. Pretty soon I’ll be getting back to poor Sylvie and Beyond Hope. I promise. In the meantime, let’s get these words started!
100words.net has closed down; they’re changing to 100words.com which will be opening ‘any day now’… so I won’t be putting my words out there just yet. Soon. But here they are.
Jan 1
A new year… a new life? Beginning with the first day of the first month seems propitious, though the website be down. Still, I exist, and will continue to do so. I’m turning fifty this year (I won’t say when). The full moon’s rays shimmer on the water outside the window and I breathe in expectation of Great Changes to Come; or just something interesting and new would be nice. Will I use this space for serious writing or just to jumpstart the flow of words which has dried up since summertime? Maybe both. It doesn’t matter; it feels good.
Jan 2
Did I mention the moon is full?–glorious, glaringly bright out in the cool coastal night. I wait for nothing or something to happen. I’m not picky or proud; I’ll take any new thing so long as it is offered in the spirit of evolution or fun. I’m ready, baby, watch me warm up to life after this long season of dormancy. Lifetimes, it’s been. I feel I’ve never really lived, though that’s hardly a unique sensation. I make no claim to exclusivity, simply subjective experience of self in the centre of all things. Who else could occupy my shoes?
Jan 3
The dog asks to be let out for the third time in an hour; he, a large red Golden Retriever, is restless. The moon is full and he is confined in a small fenced yard within a world of smells, sights and places to roam. I feel like that; the leash chokes me as I tug mindlessly at my constraints, but the Big Boss, whoever the heck that is, holds all the cards. My world must grow or I will implode, so the subconscious story goes, and my challenge must be to breathe and stay present with my body anyway.
Jan 4
Remembering to breathe deeply enough occupies my focus these days, my most important job according to some still small voice within. Even that is a challenge. I don’t seem to have many resources to draw on, though in other moments I feel like a leashed superwoman whose story if allowed to unfold would fascinate the very stars above. That is pretentious, but I’m a pretender. I pretend to believe in existence, I pretend to be and I struggle to believe my own pretense. I believe in belief, but I cannot believe… not yet. Breathing, the voice insists, is the key.