Start again, everyday

A blank sheet is intimidating. Every morning for the past thirty years I write, longhand, to start off the day. This is a practice that many people do. A form of meditation. It is one of my preferred moments in the day. I am alone with my thoughts and the sound of the pen crossing the page. On the page, everything is allowed, there are no thoughts or ideas that are censored. It is secret writing. Never to be shown.

It is a time when everything feels open and possible. It is a time when everything can feel just the opposite: crushing, heavy, stuck. Whatever the feeling is I know that tomorrow I will be sitting at the same place, looking at an empty page.

There are lots of benefits to writing longhand apparently. Some days I am concentrated and with the writing, other days I am interrupted by my children or worse still by myself, getting lost scrolling on my phone or looking at some other disaster on the newsfeed. I keep writing until I get to the end of the three or four pages. Other days I only have a little time to write. Sometimes I write on the train.

Start again, everyday.

A blank sheet like a fresh made bed that you are about to get into after a long, tiring day. A place to rest and dream.

Start wherever you are.