the quiet blank page

Crop-Circle-4

When I write this blog in the morning, sometimes, before I’ve had any of my coffee, I sit and stare at the screen for a while.

Up in the title section, there is a cursor that blinks and waits….blinking and waiting…..blinking and waiting….and I stare at it some mornings….blinking and waiting for something to write about to come migrating through my brain so I can grab it for a while and put something down that might make some sense to me.

It blinks and waits.

I could watch it all day, and it wouldn’t grow tired of blinking and waiting.

I get the feeling that the little cursor that taunts me so has more endurance than I do.

I’m like a pudgy John Henry….”before I’ll let that cursor bring me down, I’m gonna die with that keyboard in my hands, oh LAWD….”

Nah….it’s nothing dire….no big challenge to my manhood…

It’s just a cursor.

I was thinking about writing before I started using the computer to do it.

I didn’t have a piece of paper with a blinking cursor.

The blank page was quiet and patient.

The hardest part was sharpening the pencil.

Now, there is a cursor that blinks no matter what I do. I can’t type fast enough to beat this cursor to the finish line.

This cursor is never satisfied.

Dang Cursor!!!

We had our new property bush hogged yesterday.

My neighbor brought his tractor over and did it….broke the shaft on the bush hog with a little bit of mowing left to go, so he finished the job with his riding mower.

It looks great.

Funny how mowing down all the tall grass and volunteer trees can improve a place fast.

It looks great….and the cursor is still blinking….waiting.

The thing about it blinking and taunting me is that I understand that there is never a shortage of things to write about.

While I breathe, there is something to write about.

That’s an easy part of the deal.

It’s not hard to observe….it’s hard to really pay attention, but it’s not hard to just “see”.

This was the first morning I ever really gave that blinking cursor a second thought, though.

I’d never paid it any attention before this morning…never thought of it as a challenge.

I suppose that what we pay attention to is the thing that sets our world in motion….or brings it to a screaming halt.

Like those old cartoons with the sweet angel on one shoulder and the little red devil on the other….both of them whispering in our ear at the same time…it matters what we pay attention to.

There is a pond that is partially on our property that needs some work.

It’s full of vegetation….algae or something….green, gelatinous bloom that makes the water unclear.

Maybe “full” is a little strong…it has some vegetation growing in it.

I can see the fish when they swim out from underneath the green stuff….so I know that they’re in there.

I can see these fish swimming.

If my ideas would just get out from under my fears and misconceptions, I could see them better.

I know they’re in there.

Dang cursor…..blink on….I don’t care.

I need a grass carp or two.

 

About Peter Rorvig

I'm a non-practicing artist, a mailman, a husband, a father...not listed in order of importance. I believe that things can always get better....and that things are usually better than we think.

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