Lost Words

Lost. I write that like it’s a whole sentence because sometimes it is. It’s not loss. Loss is a different subject entirely which has to do with grief. It’s lost. Lost is an experience I’ve had a lot in my life. Not me so much, I wasn’t lost, although that was questionable at times, I always knew where I was. Perhaps other people thought I was lost. God always knew where I was and so did I. I got lost in Buffalo NY one time. I was driving to Canada with my four younger children and I missed the exit and took a different one thinking I could back track. It wasn’t that simple and the streets I found myself on weren’t on the map. This was well before the days of cell phones and GPS.

I’ve had the experience a lot where something is lost, reaching for something which isn’t there any more and turning the house upside down looking for it only to realize that I was looking for something which belonged to me in a different time of my life. I spent a good part of my thirties and forties looking for things. Every once in awhile I go through everything and get rid of stuff. A lot of people do that. Then you miss it and wonder where it is, perhaps forgetting that it went to Good Will. Maybe if you are like me you search and search for it. But I always end up again with too much stuff. Moving is a time when I always parted with a lot of things. Some things I regretted getting rid of later. I have decided not to move again.

Things are important. Don’t listen to people who tell you that things aren’t important. Things connect us to each other and we use things to communicate love and care. We don’t live here on this earth without things. Losing things can be very upsetting and unsettling. Children relate to the things around them and are sensitive to things being moved or removed. Things are important. Usually the sentiment behind a thing is the important part. It is what connects us to memories and other people in our lives. I have a china cabinet full of things which conjure up memories of childhoods lived with me and the love and creativity of little ones. Yes, things are important. Losing things can be considered loss. Things can also have a lot to do with our emotional well-being.

Losing words is a different type of loss. When words are lost they may never be retrieved and can not be replaced. I’ve had the experience of discovering some words in just the order to inspire a whole world of creative thoughts and not captured them on paper or i-note and then lose them completely by the time I get to a paper and pencil. The whole thing is lost then. It was something special which can never be found again. It was the arrangement of a few words which conjured up a whole library of books from ones soul. It was that arrangement which expressed the exact balance of expression. It was the one time I felt that I could say it. I may be in the bathroom or in bed or out with the chickens or at the park, or in church at the grocery store or on a bike ride. It may be an idea, or a revelation about a character or the path a story should proceed. It is something hidden from the past boldly reaching out to the page. It is that thing which doesn’t come from intellect or research. It doesn’t come from brain storming. It comes only by it’s own will from the subconscious to the conscious and only for a brief moment. If I’m not ready, if I don’t repeat it out loud or write it quickly down, it becomes lost, forever. Gone. I can think and think and think, but it will not return. This is the plight of a writer such as myself. Being ready with pencil and paper. I’ve been noticing a common thread among the literature I’ve been reading, that the writer draws from a well. Writing opens the well and one must let it flow. The well will replenish itself as it empties but if it is not captured it will dry up. Too much thought into the actual inspired words will dry the well up. As I write I become a better writer. Sure I need to do my learning as well, but that is more for polish than anything. Everything I need as a writer is down in that well. It is coming from a lifetime of experiences, some of them too painful to tell, but opening that well and letting it flow will tap into those places which are hidden. This is what I’m learning as I begin to write. Those things too painful to remember and those good things in the past which are hidden by pain affect the quality of the words which come out as one writes and in time as one continues to write. Thinking too much can sometimes stifle the flow of words from the well. It’s kind of like all the filters on the water lines between our well and our drinking water. A lot is lost on the way. With drinking water that’s a good thing we don’t want that stuff anyway. But in writing it’s not good. Those things which are lost are the necessary things. The inspired things, they are the things which add color and life to an otherwise stale piece. Sometimes I think I’m afraid of the well and opening it up. But those moments when I don’t have a pencil and paper and a burst of words pops out keep me in awe of what is in there. I am trying to carry my i-phone with me at all times. If I don’t get a burst of words I can at least take pictures. 

Elizabeth Williams, writing exercise, 1,012 words.