New Beginnings for the Future

From my kitchen window on Central Ave.

New beginnings for the Future.  Sounds like the name of a treatment centre and the thinking that has to go along with recovery. However, right now it’s a writing group assignment. I’m in my kitchen, in my pyjamas, starting on my second cup of coffee. I have written my Morning pages, my writing assignments from Artist’s Way, proofed my MMDS story (That would be Mobile Medical Detox Services), read an article from my writing magazine; all in between bites of an apple and a slice of ‘plastic’ cheese. (That’s what my nephew called it when he was three. Who knows what it’s really made of? It is the colour, sort of, of cheese.)

So how does this fit with a new beginning? What is futuristic about it? Is it even a story? Well it is my story so I guess that will have to do. This new beginning is only another step in a journey I started quite sometime ago with scribbles and Dear Diary carrying me through a day at a time. It may even have started with the notes that I left on my mom’s pillow asking for some special favour! (If I left a note then I didn’t have to deal with the look that I may or may not get.)

Then there were the pen pals that I had through Explorer’s and UNICEF. Well, probably UNICEF. One of my friends in my home town on the prairies had an aunt that lived in India. In her white sari with gold trimmed edges, she would come to visit our Explorer group and tell us all about the children of the far away east. From that came the pen pals and filled an unknown desire to write.

There were times when there was no writing. Long periods of time because there had been no importance attached to it. Nothing other than the play of a child, or the work of a student – when the work actually got done. My favourites? Literature and grammar (Grammar was what it was called back then.) Once we got to high school Grammar morphed into English, giving it a loftier sound and an opportunity to write essays. Still the desire was hidden from my consciousness – and I was a teenager that was barely conscious anyway! Then there was nursing school, marriage, kids……..all that adult stuff had effectively buried any childhood excitement that accompanied the names of silliness and unnecessary play. In these long dry spells, the words would build in my head, bouncing around and becoming mere irritants in my day. How did I know they were dry spells!?

Then I was alone. Oh, there is no need to feel sorry for me. I set it up, waved the baton, and tried to have all the orchestras play to my tunes. They didn’t play well with me so I gathered my toys and, running away, decided I would try this on my own. That’s when the writing really came into play. And play it has been. There are little pieces of work that have crept in, like what I am doing now. Balancing my lap top on my knee, checking the number of words I have written, editing as I go ~ I love the keyboard! Especially the backspace or delete keys. So the new beginnings, from the many places and times of memory, are accompanied by future’s plan. The fear gremlin, or whatever name he is disguised in at the moment, insists coming along for the ride, trying to prevent any thought I may have about being creative.

I do believe that creativity is in each of us. Creation of different things, with different colours and textures born of experience. Creation only happens in each moment. Moments when I watch creation as the little black shapes that push the cursor forward on the screen. When the cursor pushes back to reshape the word or thought there is re-creation and revision right in front of me. My words come from a colour palette of memory, the place that I create my future from my past.

So if you come to my house unannounced some day in the morning anytime between dawn and noon you are most welcome. You will probably find me in my kitchen, writing tools all around me, children’s chatter at recess from the school on the other side backyard, and my ticking kitchen clock keeping time.  

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate

of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

~ C.S.Lewis