THE NET SHALL APPEAR

I think I'm going to change my schedule a bit. For the past few months, I have written in this post first thing. I wake up, let the dog out, put the kettle on for a fresh pot of coffee made on the French press, and sit in front of the computer and write whatever pops into my head. And I have loved it. But I am missing writing in my journal, which I do longhand. I don't write a lot with pen or pencil. Part of that is just a byproduct of living in the age of laptops, phones, and computers. We type, either with our thumbs our the old fashioned typist way, to communicate. Letters, sadly, have mostly gone the way of the Dodo. On top of that, I'm left handed, and writing in this right handed language is not fun. I get ink on my hand, cramps in my fingers and wrists. Also, I type much faster than I write long hand, and I need that for the glorious times when I am in the flow state, writing quickly, words and phrases popping out. And I love it. I love typing. But there is something to be said for mixing things up, doing things differently, Thus, my journal. Home to my morning pages, to experiments writing with my right hand, or backwards, or in code. And doodling. That is such a freeing thing. I don't know if young people still do that. Doodle. Just make weird drawings of whatever. I love it. Frees the mind. Frees the soul. Frees whatever my brain is oppressing. So, I think moving forward, or at least for the next week, I'm going to try writing in my journal for half an hour first, then moving to the blog. Maybe it will be terrible, and there will be a week's worth of crappy, lifeless blog entries. I can live with that. At least it will be breaking what has become a habit. And habit, as Samuel Beckett wrote, is the great deadener.

Not that all habits are bad. Rituals. Repetition. Repetition. It certainly helps when getting in shape to have a pattern. A system. And having this blog helps me. Gives me a reason to get out of bed and in front of the computer writing. I don't want to lose that. I just want to explore. Expand. Continue to grow. I do want to write everyday. Just not the same thing. I want to doodle. Maybe take a stab at some bad poetry. Maybe take a stab at some good poetry. It just feels like the right thing to do, the same way that this blog felt like the right thing to do.

There have been many times in my life where I did what felt right. And I don't regret any of them. There have been many times in my life where I didn't do what felt right, usually out of fear of rocking the boat, losing something I had at that point, or some other fear. And I regret them. I suppose, in a larger sense, those moments of not taking risk were instructive to me, lessons on what not to do. So in that sense, I don't regret them. But I do wish I had taken my friend Len's offer of seeing the World Series. And the offer from the late great Tom Mankiewicz to come out to LA to meet a bunch of people in the film industry, which I deferred to a later date, and then he died. On they go, the list of what-could-have-beens. And that's part of the deal, I suppose. Part of being a human being. Having things we wish we had done differently. No use crying over spilt milk, wasted time, water under the bridge and all that. No. What would be sad, though, would be to not let that teach me.

When I met my wife, one of the first things she said to me was "leap and the net shall appear". And I believe that. Leaping is what it's all about. So I'm leaping, moving forward, living in the now and damning the torpedoes, or blessing them if that seems right.

So. Let's see what happens. Until then, Leap, my fellow rabbits.

Here's a song. It's All That, from the new Album by Sparks.