Creative Katrina

Photo by origamindon

We all get stuck. Usually you have an inkling about what’s buggin’ you, but distract yourself into thinking you don’t. Other times the “what” just keeps slipping out of your hands like a snake covered in baby oil. It slithers into the background out of sight, but you feel its presence, lurking in the shadows.

Thoughts about the “what” keep you on edge because you don’t know when its finally going to peek out, tongue flickering, to make the big reveal. No way to prepare. And even though there is no reason to be scared, you are because it’s the UNKNOWN. Human beings are most afraid of what they don’t know. That’s what makes it so easy to get stuck in a rut. It’s safer.

A Method to the Madness

This week I wrote a poem. The first one in over three years. It’s called “Cracked”. As a teenager, poems were like a close friend no human could match. I would take my cactus of emotions; rough, confusing and prickly and pour them out into jagged prose. Poems were the fastest way to directly capture my feelings rather than explaining around them in a narrative. They could show up raw, real and exposed.

The page magically filled with words that were unique and meant something special to me; a direct line of communication to the inner depths of myself. I didn’t realize how much I missed it; the words alive with passion, clarity and truth. Succinct yet immensely freeing. Going back to that familiar playground this week felt so, so right.

Is there something you used to do when you were younger to vent, to get to the raw depths of your emotions and let them free? Run around the house and scream? Break something? Throw a tantrum? Is it something you can still do today? Are you willing?

The snake may bite. Then again, it might not. But if you don’t open up you can’t let go, either.