Word Search

Alone in the vast quiet of a deep silence my breaths steady, streaming into relaxing patterns. Here in this place of calm quiet is where I should be able to put pen to paper and expell the creativity which turns into words. But my creativity is not coaxed into cooperation by peaceful places; I find an empty page before my empty ideas when in an empty room.

From what I have been told, quiet corners of cafes and lonely beaches provide most writers with the place in which they write. When I visit Starbucks I smile secretly at those on computers, for I assume them to be a writer such as myself. Writers have declared in interviews that the best writing occurs when one is confined in a place where noises cannot separate the magic dance of pen seducing paper. Writing is a solitary activity for most; is it because perhaps this magic art does not perform for witnesses?

What have I done wrong, then? Upon putting myself in a place of perfect peace, I feel only pressure; pressure to produce a piece of writing. This pressure can be increased when I am in a picturesque place which would inspire more in most people. On a recent visit to a sandswept, golden beach where only the wind coming off white waves interrupted the secret place in my brain where thoughts reside, I found no words. I looked to the water, waiting for a perfectly finished poem to glide in on the waves: nothing. Peace was the warmth I felt on my back and the tickle I felt in the squiggles of sand between my toes, but peace was empty; it brought me no words.

Words do not come to me in moments like this, scrolling gently before my eyes. Rather, words fling themselves towards me, smacking in my brain when I am caught in wild moments: tied in talk with another I sometimes catch a word with the side of my consciouness with a twack, as if it has been thrown from a great distance. Often when caught in wild pursuit of the end of a novel when I am reading, I will steal a word from the page and hold it; dazzled by the writing which it has inspired. My hands are not free to write, as they are tied up with the arts of living, so I write in my head. While my world spins excitedly or spirals downward, words write themselves within my mind. Caught up with whatever activity is occupying my world, I sometimes try to stop the voice which speaks words from within. But the voice is one of strength and it will not stop narrating until I take leave from whatever wild moment I am livinga and commit to paper what will later be regarded as a piece of writing.
So I live out in the open and do not confine myself. I find no words in silence or being solo. I can always search for the right words, but only when living life in full color, high resolution moments will the words find me.