I started the evening at my kitchen table, staring at the empty page.

In a half an hour I was in the recliner, laptop on a lap desk, staring at the same page.

I had started writing something into it three times. The first try was the start of poem, and I hated it.

The next try was the start of a paragraph, and it was dull and flat and was going nowhere, and I erased it too.

The third try was the start of the summary of my day, and I hated it too.

Which means I am at a place where I hate my writing.

Why?

Because it is always the same. The same static scenes, the same gray palette, the same encapsulation of non-movement, non-change, non-significance. The same stick figure sketches being drawn over and over.

And then I feel angry.

Really? Is this the best I can do? It is? Why? Why can I not do more or better than these dull empty things? Because you write what you know, and that’s what you know. And then it spins down from there, and I am left running out of time, so I have to write something, and I end up here, with a rant.

But, at least the anger is there.

It means I don’t totally believe it, that all I have to offer is the dross I so often feel I make, even though that’s usually what come out. At least I hope for more.

Or maybe it’s just that I am also afraid to write more, because if I do, people might find out I’m not really me. Or, perhaps, that I’m not what they think I am.

You have to leave home, they say. Especially if you want to talk about living and life and the world. Because you have to let the words grow up from deep inside of you and in time find their way out. You cannot do that if you are a parrot, sitting in a cage, never thinking, just mimicking.

In the human heart, sometimes the best way to find roots for your life comes through wandering.

It’s when you have to find your way alone that you best find your way to yourself.

If you want to find yourself.

Still, I came home tonight after stopping at the store and made dinner and then I sat down to read and then to write, and this is all I came up with.

I don’t know. Like a dog in a dog run, my mind just runs the same paths day after day, session after session, the same four ideas. Or nothing.

Maybe it’s because I am 23 days in writing each night, and I now feel as creative as a rock.

Maybe I need to write in a cab.