Lessons in Gratitude Day 706

Have you ever “popped the clutch” to start a car? (I know, I know, I’m dating myself.) You hardly ever see anyone doing that kind of thing anymore, and it’s been years (decades) since I’ve had to do it, but back in the day it was one of those tricks you played on your car or other gadgets that malfunctioned, broke down, etc. You got someone to push you downhill and then when you got some speed going, you “popped the clutch.” Of course you had to have a stick shift, and who gets those these days unless you drive a sports car. Anyway, sometimes getting ready to write my blog requires me to pop my proverbial clutch. My battery is dead and I can’t seem to get myself moving. I need a push to get some momentum going then a slight hill to get going even faster, then boom! I take my foot off the clutch and the car–or in this case the blog–takes off. It really helps to have the hill or you have to push longer, harder and faster. It also helps to have someone else pushing while you steer or vice versa: popping the clutch isn’t an easy thing to do by oneself.

Sometimes writing can be an arduous task, like trying to start your car by popping the clutch. Daily writing can be particularly strenuous, and after 705 days writing this blog it sometimes feels like I’m pushing the car up a long, gradual incline rather than coasting down it. But somehow on most days I manage to gain enough momentum to get through the blog with a complete, coherent theme. Somedays, not so much.

Tonight I am grateful for the written word. Each day I sit here with my laptop burning my legs and I try to squeeze from my often-tired brain some bit of wisdom related to gratitude, thankfulness, etc. Most days I surprise myself and manage to find something to write about that people find helpful. Some days I am dry as a sun-bleached bone and decide to try and spin the RNG wheel and ask the fates to give me something I can write about. And on still other days, even the RNG fails me and none of the posts that pop up speak to me. Such was the case tonight. I spun the wheel at least four times and came up empty. It was the universe’s way of telling me to relaxe, take a few deep breaths and write something.

So I am indeed grateful for writing. Sometimes when I write my blog, I go to visit about 20 other websites before, during, and after I write. I find ways to distract myself. It’s like circling the field a few times before landing. Tonight in my procrastinatory web surfing I ran across a Mary Oliver poem I really like. I am grateful to have been introduced to Mary Oliver from a few different people, but only in the last year or so have I come to appreciate her poems more fully. There is something in her words that speaks to me at so many levels and I find myself wishing yet again that I were a poet. My poems always rhymed, much to my distress, until I realized that my “poems” were actually song lyrics and that for the most part song lyrics are supposed to rhyme. That made me feel much better. So as a songwriter, a blogger, and an all-different-kinds-of-writing writer, I am grateful for and so deeply love the written word and use it regularly to express myself. So I will keep writing, even when I am forced to “pop the clutch” to get it going. Here for your reading pleasure is “Wild Geese,” by Mary Oliver.