Just running forward

I cannot believe the entire month of February went by without a post from me! I guess you could say I have writer's block, but I cannot say that because I don't believe in writer's block. I am wondering what I could write that would be worth writing about, I am searching for something that won't be overwritten or overdone. But it's hard to find something I feel I can successfully produce. I don't believe the well of inspiration is ever dry. I just think we sometimes just lose the bucket. I want to believe that I always have something brewing in me that needs to get out, and I do.

All I know is that I always want to be better. I have a green shutter in the corner of my living room that's been there for about four months. I took it from someone's trash because I thought something creative could be done with it. I planned to nail some knobs or something on it and hang my coats and hats, but winter has gone along with the need for coats and hats, and the shutter is still sitting there.

I want to drink tea everyday at the same-ish time, from my teapot and kettle, and I still stick the teabag and water in the microwave. I want to eat more fresh foods, salads, sandwiches, soups, and all those are in my fridge and freezer in different forms, but I still grab the prepackaged, processed snacks from Walmart when I'm hungry. I want to display photos of faces more prevalently around my apartment, but they're still in an envelope in my desk. I want to write more, but the thoughts stay impermanently in my conscious self and eventually drift to my much larger subconscious before I have the chance to remember them.

I always want to be better. And I know that's a good thing, because if I were perfect, there would be no point in continuing my existence because I would be in the wrong species. I know I'm always growing, and I can never be at a point where I will never need to improve, but when I feel like I want to be better, I always feel like I'm reaching for something even though I know I will never grasp it. That's a hopeless feeling. Hopelessness is not something I want.

More than anything, I want to stop writing about myself. It is only natural for artists to internalize everything these days, and as beautiful as that can be, and as necessary as that was when the twentieth century came about, I still think the pendulum needs to go back towards the other way (preferably stopping in the middle). The world is so much bigger than that. The Romantics and the Realists saw that from two completely perspectives, and even though it was an extreme, they still have what we modernists and contemporaries don't. I wish there was a way to meld the two.

I wish I was Mary Oliver. Never have I encountered someone who could so beautifully observe and express nature in a way that so profoundly reflects the self the way she does. She is so external in her writings and yet so internal with her content. I hope that's something that can be learned, because if it is a gift, I shall find it very hard to accept if I don't have it.

So to those of you who read (and those of you who don't), I want to know you so I can write about you. And I want to learn to make steak in my skillet. And use up my spaghetti noodles and sauce. In different meals, though.