The Pitcher

I think I need to write in order to clear my mind. Maybe this is true for many writers, but if I keep thinking about something for months on end and it's getting all crowded in my brain and jumbled about with no escape, maybe that is a sign that the thought should be poured out, through my ear, my head cocked- a pitcher emptying- onto the written page. I wonder if this is the source of many of my, well, mental problems, including bad memory. I've spent eight years- since my children were born- just adding thoughts and experiences with nary an opportunity to pour the pitcher. And so I have lots of swirling ideas, sloshing around, waves of them rising, rising. Really, though, I could open my mouth and converse with a friend and this would seem to be an equally viable uncluttering technique. Both options, writing and having tight friends, require at least some small amount of child-free time, and that, my dear friends, is something I am just coming into, bit by bit.

And so this Rice Road blog will be a tall mug for me to pour into for a time. Maybe my memory-or other psychoses- will improve as I spend some time putting my thoughts into some kind of order, one meaningful sentence after another, single file. I think I can remember a time in my distant past when I could have an inkling about something, ponder it, and have it become more and more clear to me. Gone are those days. I must have been writing then. I look forward to the clearing of my mind, if it really happens. The damage is quite possibly permanent, the pitcher having become so full that gallon after gallon of liquid ideas have overflowed and gone down the drain, irretrievably so. But thank God, He's the ultimate Filler-Upper. He's the constant and only True Source of worthy thoughts, my overflowing supply of goodness, justice, beauty, order, righteousness, or any other thing worth writing down. So Lord, clear my mind, unjumble my brain. Help me pour onto the page whatever you give, for your glory.

*Note: What's funny is that I was intending to write about an entirely different subject here, and the first paragraph was just an intro that spilled out about how I'd been thinking about that topic for a long time. Then I realized there was more to say on my writing quest.