hello everyone!

Is there a better way to start the day

than with coffee, pen and paper?

I am slowly decompressing and want to share just a few things

before i take a walk outside

and then get down & dirty with paint.

I love writing.

Always have.

When i was younger, i had pen pals

around the world

and looked for any reason

to write to anyone

anywhere.

I wrote to my grandmother and my family

when we moved to Western Canada,

and when we moved back East,

I wrote to my friends in the West.

I wrote to priests and nuns

and inmates

and missionaries,

doing their life's work in third world countries.

Then in my late teens,

i began to write poetry.

When life began teaching me some hard lessons,

I began to write serious poetry.

I am in awe whenever I think of the beginnings of writing...

how we got from clay tablets & stylus wooden pegs,

to where we are today.

How our reasons for writing have changed.

Even here, in the image above - etched in stone,
someone wanted to leave their mark.
They were here.
Many of us do the same today,
in different ways but most likely
for the same reasons.
We do the same with art.
We make art, not only because it feels good,
but because we have something to say.
Something to share.
Something to learn.
Something to teach.
Something to heal.

I sat to write yesterday
and felt blank.
No focus on any one thing.
A mishmash of ideas and thoughts
and memories and stories
but nothing that slowed down long enough
for me to write a cohesive sentence.
Then I remembered a writing class I had taken
and this one question we were asked:

What do you NOT want to write about?

...and the floodgates opened.

If you want to write,
and you don't know what to write about
or how to find your voice,
try this.

It worked for me.
xx