On Tuesday, June 7, 2022, I arrived at the first milestone on the journey of blog writing.
With what can I compare the entire experience of writing? Words miserably fail me, so I resort to the magic of metaphors and similes.
It’s like embarking on a long journey – a hike, a road trip. You plan, but the journey is filled with failed plans, surprises, new discoveries, roadblocks, injuries, healings.
It’s like the start and development of a landslide. It begins with daily experiences saturating the ground of my being. This saturation triggers a slow downward movement of ideas, thoughts, and insights, until they come crashing at the foot of a “blog hill.”
It’s like the dry season. The mind becomes arid. No green flourishing thoughts…at least so I think. Without warning, in the parched or concrete mind appears a tiny idea emerging from the cracks of my arid or concrete mind.
It’s like a relay. I start the first leg with the baton of ideas and thoughts. I hand it over to my awesome and incredible editor. It’s then given to my talented and creative graphic artist, and the final leg is to the person posting. When it’s posted, the stadium crowd accesses the blog website and cheers by clicking on “Subscribe” or by reading.
It’s like a stampeding crowd. Ideas, insights, thoughts come madly rushing at me, and I become overwhelmed and feel trampled. What’s left is to manage and organize the stampeding crowd of ideas.
It’s like an artist. I prepare the canvas of my laptop. I skillfully sketch the words or sentences on the laptop. Sometimes I abandon the original sketch for hours, days or weeks. I return to it, add the colours of poetic language, fine-tune the style of writing, and add more colourful insights from other authors. I abandon it again, and later return to make the final touches.
It’s like mindful meditation – sitting still, quieting oneself, managing the inner restlessness of racing thoughts, reviewing the day or week, identifying and naming what or who impacted me, and recording my personal responses, then painting a picture on the canvas of my mind.
Finally, it’s like being in the middle of a raging mob of activities and people, and becoming aware that something has gently touched the hem of the garment of my mind and heart.
Beloved Reflections 