Alone, I let the cup warm my fingers, remembering when I would drink hot cocoa before school in the dark morning hours.
I take a sip, waiting for the words to come, tapping the mug with fingers that should be typing. But they’re not. Like the essays I struggled so much with during finals week, the words have fled, leaving me with nothing but half-formed ideas that won’t go anywhere. I do not need the ideas; I have so many I wonder if I’ll ever get to all of them. What I need are the words, the words to make those ideas come alive.
Frustrated, I go to introspection, trying to sort out which feelings I can hold onto to help give me the motivation I need. I’m not tired or hungry, the usual culprits for procrastination. I’ve turned off the TV, doing my best to rid myself of distractions so I can work.
The faint glimmer of an idea glows against the blankness of my mood, flickering like an ember going out. If I don’t hurry to it, it will be gone, and I’ll be trying to light up an idea from nothing, hauling words out of the darkness, words that will only sputter and spark, not blaze the way I want them to.
But the words retreat further away from me, giggling in the darkness, thrilled at their game of hide and seek. Even with a match of a new idea, it doesn’t take long before the light flickers out, a few of the words accepting their defeat and coming with me. The rest evade me.
Are they enough? Are the words that have come to me enough to make my idea with? We may only need seven colors to make the rest, but words…words are not the same. Use a word too many times and it fades into the background, boring, bland, unimaginative. Use the word that doesn’t belong there and it stands out like a smear, a streak, an unfortunate stroke on the canvas that cannot be undone.
They will have to do, the words I’ve found. And together, in the quiet, we build around the idea, burning brighter and hotter as we do. More words rush out of their nooks, holding their hands up to the warmth, yearning now to be included instead of forgotten.
After this, I return from my little adventure, sitting upright, putting the mug down, and I begin to write.
