It’s a start

First Post

Not a very original title, but there you have it.

After months of reading interesting, informative, funny and, occasionally, cringe-worthy articles on Medium, I’ve decided to join and dip my own quill into the endless pool of digital ink. Sending my words into the vastness of cyberspace to join countless others. Like birds.

Even as I write these lines, converting my thoughts into symbols, visible, recognisable to others, a voice in my head keeps on asking me why. Knowing, as it always does, that I don’t really have an answer. Certainly not the one based on careful consideration of pros and cons, cost-benefit analysis and goal setting. Nope. None of that. Sorry.

Just love of a story. Well told.

Having no joy with why, it demands to know what I am intending to write about, what audience I plan to target, what unique knowledge or insights can I contribute to the world bursting with it already. That, I thought, I can answer.

I wish to write about living as a human at this time, the only one my fellow travellers and I have, about the healing power of words, the intersection of spiritual, language and the arts, poetry as a prayer, lessons death has taught me, about the endless silence of solitary grief, about bargaining with my soul.

Ha! That’s too fluffy, too generic, too vague, the voice tells me.

Maybe, I responded, but I’m still going to try. Perhaps someone might read it, even write back, engage in that conversation we call life. It is in the shelter of each other that humans live; someone once told me.

I could hear it snort. As I knew it would. We (the voice and I) have been having these kinds of conversations for years. It usually wins.

There is however one serious advantage I have over it. I can type. And push the ‘publish’ button. So there.