Blink

I've been struggling to write. And to read. Begin my July projects. Master something. Create something new. Relax. It's the starting. The struggle is to start. I keep dismissing the start. I'm doing it again right now.

I have no more and no less hours each day than every other person on Earth. So what's the deal? Starting. Starting is the problem.

Above my desk is a sticky note, a reminder: after a devastating stroke, Jean-Dominique Bauby wrote his memoirs using only his left eye. Blink after blink. Wow. Considering this, how could I possibly whine for one more second?

And yet, I still can't start. I think it's doubt. Honestly. Self-doubt. Does everyone forget sometimes how to start? I was surprised when I found myself in the kitchen today to cook. There was a time when I cooked every night but I can't recall, before today, the last thing I cooked.

I made rice. I chopped onions. I toasted peanuts. I made a salad dressing. Added together, they made a meal. I guess that's something at least.

Recently my wife gave me a leather-bound journal. It's a beautiful thing to someone like me. The paper is hand-made, the binding hand-stitched. A note inside from the artist suggests using the book as "my personal book of wisdom." I like that idea. I'd like to draw in it too. And yet, I can't start. And I'm worried I will somehow ruin it.

There's that self-doubt again.

Like Bauby, I must figure out how to begin again. What other choice is there? And I will choose. I know I will. One blink at a time. I just did. I guess that's something.