Five Days of Everydays, or Blog Bootcamp

It's easy to find a reason to write when things are full-on awesome or terribly bad, or when something ridiculously ridiculous or heart-breakingly sad happens. Trouble is, there hasn't been a part of this day or the last week or the last month that's been any of those things. Instead, today was just a day, last week was just a week, and there were four of 'em in a row before this one and they were all pretty much the same.

The Three Short Drunk People acted as they do: one day sloppy and falling down funny, other days the sweet, weepy poets on the barstool. Some days they passed out early, and other days, they fought sleep well into the night. They brawled and bear-hugged and high-fived and collapsed in hilarious huddles of silly fun. They drove me to distraction; I drove them to school and friends' houses.

The Kid fell into the routine of a new job with shocking normality and when I wasn't wandering the empty house smiling, I was trying to make sense of what remained of the Christmas Shock and Awe. I organized some meetings and strong-armed the school board. I read two essays from The Book for a bunch of people I'd never met and I felt like a rock star when they laughed and didn't point fingers and whisper. I sold two copies at the Indie Bookstore. I'm pretty sure my friend bought them, but still.

It snowed, we shoveled.

Some days I cooked, somedays I called a truce with the stove and the fridge.

The GFYO complained about school, battled homework, and answered a relatively complex math question that stunned nearly everyone.

Bridget caught a cold and never complained.

Rory got sick and skipped soccer.

The Kid got sick, then the GFYO, then me.

On sunny days, I opened windows and hoped for a perfect wind to blow out all the germs.

I fretted about not writing and fretted more about not reading. I wondered what I was missing, and then worried it might be too much. I simmered in my guilt until I realized how plain wasteful of time that was. Instead, I simmered in my laziness. I just rolled around in the slow boil of what life is like, well... what life is like most of the time. I just rolled around in my not too terrible and not too awesomely awesome everydays and did nothing.

I envy all the people who find the witty or the brilliant or the sweet in even the tiniest parts of their everydays and who then do the painful work of turning those things into elegant words and paragraphs nearly every day. It's such discipline to face down the empty page -- especially when inspiration hides behind laundry or a commute or when angst is on the wain or when you wonder if its all been said before. It's muscle and nerve and blind, deaf faith some people have, and I want it.

I need to learn to love nothing. I need to learn to love all of everything. I want to teach myself to make worthwhile what seems so blah or been there to me. I want to drill into the dull and find the nerve of the thing and turn it into letters and words even when I think I shouldn't and especially when I think can't. I want to aim for elegance but truth be told, I'd be happy with a paragraph, maybe two; I just want to try. Everyday.

Didya hear that? I said "everyday." Well, everyday for a week. It's like blog bootcamp.

Monday it begins: my five days of heavy lifting, cavern drilling, funny seeking.

Five Days of Everydays.

(Wanna try too? Lemme know and I'll link you here...)

Making Our Way

CarolynOnline

The Floydster