Brain Crumbs

I hear my mother’s words, “well, after all, what are you waiting for?”  She was responding to my announcement that I’d finally coughed up the money for a matching comforter and drapery set for our bedroom.  After about 20 years of marriage.  She was right then.

She’d be right now.

What AM I waiting for?

When I was about 8 or 10 I knew I wanted to be a writer.  I knew there were things inside that needed to be expressed.  I read books hungrily – wanting to see just how others put their thoughts into the written word.  Sometimes I envied the writers I read.  Sometimes I thought I might have done a better job.  Sometimes I was put into an almost comatose envy and awe.  But always, always, I recognized a bonding…a kindred spirit.  I knew what I would one day do.

But that day really has never come.

In high school I was known for only one thing, -  my “writing potential.”

When I met my future husband it was one of the first things he came to know about me.  My writing Need.  Part of our courtship consisted of his vow that when we were married I would have a room, and the time, and the encouragement to vent this need.

We have nearly reached our 50^th wedding anniversary.  I have yet to write thing one.

Well, that’s not entirely so.  I have written a few poems over the years…when passion took over and the voice was not to be denied.  And I have dabbled with my blog – just allowing for the overflow of words that bubble over and have no other place to go.

But I don’t know what I’m waiting for – and I don’t know if I have the time to waste any longer.  I do know that to actually give in to whatever force it is that has lain in wait for so many years would mean a selfishness I don’t feel comfortable with.  I don’t like saying “no, you must not speak to me just now” – “my muse will leave and may not come back.” 

But perhaps time is running out.  Perhaps I never will tell my story. 

And who knows, perhaps my story never needed telling. 

But the voices – the words are still here – they still float about, in various voices, in various songs…I hear them….

I just do not transcribe them.

Yet.