Rows of Words

Blogging, I told someone today, is going to give me a chance to do some recreational writing. Maybe it's just the novelty of it all, but considering putting something - not down on paper, but onto the screen and out through the wall, is giving me a new lease on the sport.

I don't think I've ever had to courage to actually call myself a writer, and by that I mean attaching it as a title. I accept comments that I write well - even that I am a good writer, but I still feel I lack credentials on some level, although I've been published a little locally and regionally, and once in a national publication. So, recreational writing - I like that thought.

Everything is possible when you write - if you look at it right, a blank page can be just the promise of more words to come. I have files upon files, filled with starting sentences and thoughts that have come springing into my mind, musings that I thought I would pursue. Finding those loosely organized words I've scratched down, or logged in or committed to on some level can sometimes catch me by surprise, as I can scarcely remember being present for that level of creativity. Maybe I am a writer.

I know I'm not nearly as charming in private conversation as on a page filled with sentences and clever turns of phrasing I've had the luxury of editing and whispering aloud a few times. With the tap of my fingers, I can experience the thrill of words perfectly chosen, without the pain of having them left my mouth before they've been tidied up. I can improve myself and my surroundings with the stroke of my pen, yet I can find lessons I may not realize are mine, until I've read back to myself the full honesty my own words have produced. When I write, I figure stuff out - I work it all out until it sounds right.

Like this: I can extend the pleasure of a joy, a happiness felt, by recording it - just as I can find, hidden in an entry, something I didn't realize I was feeling. I give myself the evidence I need to know myself a little better - whether I like what I see or not.

Someone once said that writing - and gardening - are two ways to render the world in neat little rows. Rows of vegetables, rows of flowers, rows of words.

Wouldn't you say, then, that in the pages of a gardener's journal, seeds of thought can take root and grow?

Yes, and it is sentences like that one that can make someone who thinks she has a way with words, wince.