Nodding and Smiling

I very much don’t want to write anything this morning.

Almost any other option seems considerably more attractive. I could cut the grass; except it’s been raining overnight so not really. I could watch an episode of Poker Face, although the last one I watched didn’t scale any heights. I could empty the dishwasher (it has to be done sooner or later). I could do… dozens of things, really, all surprisingly gleaming and attractive in comparison to sitting here and tapping out words on a screen.

Yet here I am.

It’s what I have to do. Call me a writer, don’t call me a writer. I do both to myself with regularity. I may be, I may not be, but there’s no denying I have the heart of a writer. And if I don’t write for the simple reason that I don’t want to, then it will come back to make me uncomfortable, much in the same way that failing to shower or to brush one’s teeth can.

Usually the Saturday/Sunday blog commitment comes very easily. At this stage I have a sort of ‘writing callus’ that means I can dash off a thousand words on something-or-other without breathing hard. But usually, I have a fair idea what I’m going to be writing about so I sit and dash it off then tidy it up then tidy it up some more and then hit ‘send.’ It’s these weeks, when I haven’t quite landed on something specific that I’d like to write about, that’s when the niggly little voice says, “Hey, Ken, here’s an idea, don’t write anything at all. Put the bins out.”

It’s actually not too bad when I don’t have a specific idea for my 1,000 words. I can usually manage and work around that. It’s when there’s a few little ideas crashing around all at once and none of them are stepping forward for active duty. That’s when things can get a little fraught. A wiser blogger than me would note these little crashing ideas down and use them as tinder for the next few blog posts over the coming weeks. But that’s not how I roll here. If I start to plan it, it becomes something different. It’s really got to be a fast spilling of a fairly random idea or else it just seems to become some kind of technical exercise rather than a creative one. Does that even make sense? Who cares? Typing it out was better than wheeling the green bin out to the street.

Among the ideas vying to be written about today was a little bit about the cat and how she always seems to effortlessly choose the option that is most troublesome to me. A brief example: I was at home the other day and so the cat was welcome to occupy her basket in the hall and have a nice leisurely duvet day. The cat’s response, ‘Me? In that thing? Today? No sirree!” The day after, I had to get to the office in a rush and the cat is there on the door step, overnight valise packed. “I’m ready for a full day in my lovely basket now, so get out of my way!” Cats, eh?

I was also contemplating writing a bit about Bluesky, which I now use in place of Twitter, which I don’t use anymore. It’s quite good but there is a lack of engagement, for me at least, on there. No matter what I say, the same couple of kindly souls will give some indication that they’ve seen it. As for the rest of the online community, the impression is that either a) the post is not being seen or b) it is so mortifyingly awful that the sooner we move on and forget it, the better for everyone. I find, the only way to continue to survive on there is to visualise your silent cohort seeing what you’ve typed and quietly nodding and smiling to themselves. Subtly appreciating what you’ve said and the engaging way in which you’ve said it. Just a bit too busy with other things to ‘like’ or ‘share’ or respond to it. But still a nod and a smile.

That’s why I called this piece ‘Nodding and Smiling.’ That title, and the vague idea, was all I had when my fingers landed on the keyboard, ten or twelve minutes ago. I knew it wasn’t enough for a full post but I figured it would turn up somewhere in here. That’s how it works for me. I find a thought and I build something up around it. Like those little fresh water worm creatures that build a shell of sand granules and tiny pebbles around themselves. 

Gosh, I haven’t thought of them in decades. Are they even still a thing? We used to find them under rocks in the Back River, when we were kids, and peel off their thin layer of ‘sand skin’ and put them on our fishing hooks as tasty bait. EDIT I looked them up. They're called Caddis Flies and, yes, they're still a thing. That's a photo of one on top of the post.

That’s how the writing gets progressed. Some tiny, fleshy, squirming idea gets bits of debris added to it, to build on and protect. And maybe someday someone will find the idea under a rock in a shallow stream and they will peel the shell off and hook it and we’ll go together and catch a big fish with it.

There! (Dusts off hands). Done!

I can go and mow the lawn and wheel the bin out now though, somehow, I don’t want to do any of that anymore. For me at least, writing can’t be about wanting to do it or needing to do it or wishing I had done it or berating the fact that I didn’t do it.

I just have to do it. 

That’s all.