2.6
January 28, 2013

Fifty Shades of Laptop Dancing.

Source: psfk.com via Tara on Pinterest

 

She’s sleek, nimble, sassy and divine.

She titillates the cortex of intelligent prose as energy pulsates from her thin design.

Fifty shades of laptop dancing is not a digression into blatant porn…or cuddly kittens.

I have a new laptop and I swear there’s an immense blush as my chest opens, my shoulders relax and I can feel the weight of my fingers dance across the keyboard with ease and delight.

I slip in between the words and I have a propensity to tune out the world around me. The words come streaming forth. It’s an explosion of sorts. I’m savoring this current rush.

In Rebecca Onion’s blog from The Vault on Slate she noted that Emily Dickinson used,

“A jumble of words on odds and ends of paper, some of it crumpled or torn … There are pink scraps, blue and yellow scraps … all … written in pencil and all in the late handwriting … The strokes are sometimes faint and the lines often overlap so that the words overtake one another as if written in the dark.”

I can relate. It’s an affliction—bittersweet, and as necessary as water.

I must jot down my thoughts, or a quote, a title of a book, or a song…on whatever little slip of paper I find. What if that small treasured thought is caught in some parallel universe encroaching upon all the lost bobby pins, hair ties and missing socks?

I’ve passed on the torch to my daughter who has her bedroom wall covered in sticky notes, each one with a quote of her own or others. My son bought me a little blue journal to keep my thoughts from tumbling out all over the place.

Writing is as delicious as hearing the perfect lyrics to a song at just the right moment. It’s as captivating as watching a dancer’s body express a sigh of passion, strength and form. It’s as expressive as an artist using seven colors to find the exact blend to emulate the tone of flesh they seek to portray.

Words are like catnip and can be equally as intoxicating, playful, technical, cerebral, witty, joyful, explosive, raw, gut-wrenching, exposing and above all real.

Writing is my winter garden and words are the soul of a seed. As the words take hold, the stories grow roots onto the page. I release a part of me, as I share my script and let the inner thoughts grow free.

Writing is embedded in my actions.

Just the other day, I smashed my toe. And, after the throbbing dwindled, I quickly thought, “There’s a potential story!” I grabbed some yellow notepaper and started scribbling.

My day started quite lovely. I scampered outside, barefoot, to enjoy the wintery frost and to click a few pictures. I came inside to grab my glasses, only to slip on the little rug with my left foot, digging my right toe firmly into the aggregated concrete just as a figure skater would do on ice. Immediately, I was engulfed in pain. And in that irreverent moment where I fluently spoke obscenities, the blissful morning turned into fucking hell.

Even while commuting, I have moments of writing inspiration. Stop lights are vital to a quick note to self.

There’s a specific section of road that I frequently travel. It’s narrow, fast and sweet. I love this little strip of country-like road nestled into suburbia.

I swear it’s a portal into another cosmic plane.

The trees bow inward as a humble homage to the mystical quality. There’s a speed limit sign but it seems to evaporate in the slight bevels, hills and curves.

It has changed in the last 16 years—there’s now a castle built replete with tower and mote that hosts black ducks and an occasional peacock. Yaks stroll through an adjacent field while horses and ponies often gather by a half-painted, rustic fence. Another quarter of a mile and I see lamas and sheep milling about.

This five mile section has a sensual quality throughout the seasons, too.

In winter, the trees are laced with snow and ice, putting everything on hold. It becomes a tunnel of white pureness. Red winterberries can be seen quietly highlighting the edges.

In spring and summer the trees are full, lush and spread wide as the silver back coloring of the leaves flash when a storm is about to arise.

Fall brings the winds and the trees gracefully arch to the flow of an invisible hand. There’s a crescendo between each gust of the wind.

It’s beautiful, as this road either escorts me to my next destination or ushers me home, where pieces of paper and sticky notes still lie scattered around.

Some things are embedded in me; a typographical glitch that makes a semicolon, dash, right-parenthesis, turn into a wink-smile.

For now, I embrace my new laptop as a friend. She holds my thoughts and keeps them safe until they are ready to unfold with focus and poise.

 

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Ed: Apprentice Lemieux/ Lynn Hasselberger

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