A couple years ago I had the bright idea that instead of making a New Year’s resolution I would create a New Year’s task list. Among the tasks was to write for ten minutes everyday, to read 30 pages everyday, and to start each day with push-ups. Since then only the reading has survived. The push-ups died to good intentions and the writing died to clutter (my children’s) and laziness (mine).
I have been feeling the urge to write again. Not this. Not a nightly journal of sorts, but stories. I have had a few ideas and thoughts worm their way into my mind but nothing has broken through or created enough of a spark that I had to make time to write, and every time I tried to think may way through the thoughts. To find the story for myself I couldn’t. My mind felt sluggish to the point I sent a text to a friend telling him I felt a lot stupider than I used to.
Back to the task list, and one of the other tasks on that list. The push-ups. I restarted those on day one of this year and when I did those first ten push-ups my muscles felt heavy and unused to the activity. Much the way my mind does now. Writing, thinking, is like a muscle. If it doesn’t get worked it will atrophy and die. My mind feels sluggish, useless, and more dim because I haven’t used it for a long time. I am not used to thinking. To writing. To working the muscle of the mind.
That needs to change. My voice is still in there. I still have stories to share. Thoughts that need to be let out. I just have to find them. Excavate them from the gloom that has fogged my mind. This exercise is a good one. Ten minutes. Ten minutes each night before going up to bed.
My last thoughts of the day written out. Shared to the world with no expectation that anyone will read or care about them. It does feel like I should have more interesting thoughts tonight, and I’m sure they’d come if I kept writing, but time is up. Day one is done. See you tomorrow night.
David Huzzard Writes 