The wind pushes the wheat grass the way I push my thoughts. I bend the thoughts away from me but like the wheat grass my thoughts wait for the next back and forth push of the breeze.
The middle of the night thoughts are more like a tornado, swirling around at first, taking on the cone shape bouncing up and down until it touches the ground, finally finding momentum for a full force tornado. And I’m left to pick up the destruction and rubble. I try to make sense of all of the bits and pieces left behind. My eyes are closed and I control my breathing, trying to find that sweet place between awake and sleep. It doesn’t come no matter how I arrange myself in the bed, or use different kinds of ambient sleep music or meditation.
The only way to stop the swirling words, images and ideas is to push the covers off me, pull myself out of bed, stumble to my desk in the next room, switch on the all to bright lamp, and sit down and write. It takes awhile before I realize I don’t even have my glasses on and can’t see anything I’ve written clearly, but at least the swirling has subsided – bits and pieces have been put together and finally make sense.
And then my eyes feel the heaviness of sleep – only it’s time to wake up and throw myself together for the day. But I smile … because I have stopped the swirling and have replaced it with thoughts too important to let sleep disturb it.
That’s how my writing goes sometimes. How about you?
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