When nothing comes to mind.
What do you write about when nothing comes to mind?
There’s this exercise that always gets something funny out of my head when writer’s block is alive and well.
It’s a last resort when a blank page’s scream can’t be muffled by clicks on the keyboard. It doesn’t always get dazzling results, but it gets something, and something shitty on a page is better than dead whitespace.
It’s called the “write and don’t stop exercise.” You set a timer for 10 minutes (or 5 or 15 or 30) and you just write without stopping until the timer’s up.
While you’re writing, you don’t second guess.
You most certainly don’t go back and edit.
You don’t think too hard about any of it.
You allow your thoughts to flow and let the page be a nonjudgmental bucket gathering each drop.
So here goes, because this week’s prompt from a kind friend has me drawing a blank, and this exercise is my way of pinging words out of my cloudy noggin—like giving the television set a good whap to reestablish reception.
Their prompt: Write what comes to mind when you think of “past warmth.”
“Past warmth”—what comes to mind? Funny enough, nothing. Nothing COMES to mind. Everything I’m thinking about I approached; I invented a path to arrive at. Nothing in particular lands in my brain on its own. Nothing is coming to me—I’m going to it.
These conjured-up paths in response to “past warmth” lead me to memories of old campfires, old friends, and old flames. They lead me to consciously resurface the memory of how my mom would slip socks on me before bed when I was little and rub the bottom of my feet so fast she’d create toasty friction. It both tickled and made me feel so warm, and I loved it so much. Whenever I picture one day becoming a mother, this is the kind of mother I envision myself wanting to be.
But nothing is definitive in response to that phrase, “past warmth.”
I have zero emotional response to it, and I am almost scared to ask why. Why are fond memories so slow to load? Why do I have to work so hard to find them?
I’m at a loss. I’m getting nowhere. I’m making shit up at this point.
Now, those phrases—those phrases right there ring true—obnoxiously loud and true. Those phrases bring a flood of things to mind instantaneously.
Loss, nowhere, making it up.
These are the things I feel are the dancing themes of my life at the moment.
Not sure what I’m doing, but at least I’m moving. Still kind of at a loss, but taking steps nonetheless. Feel like I’m on the track to fake it until I make it and am wondering if that imposter feeling will ever subside.
Okay, backtrack—“past warmth.” Let’s break it into thought pieces.
“Past” >> needs healing
Needing healing >> work
Work >> Exhaustion
“Warmth” >> comfort
Comfort >> peace, a hug that lingers, a warm cup of something, a gentle caress on the back, cooing a baby, singing to soothe, music that moves you, a joke that interrupts your tears and makes you laugh and wipe your eyes
That profound experience alone of going from crying to laughing convinces me how much we need other people. I try to deny it, I’ve tried to subconsciously live in a way where people are options instead of needs, but it’s a gnarly pill I need to swallow: I need people—especially now.
My 10-minute timer just went off. We got somewhere. I don’t know where, but we’re somewhere else than when we started.
Uno-reverse: What comes to mind when you hear “past warmth?”