My mouth is dry, I've got no spit

It's 15h09 on Easter Monday: It is just short of 2 months since I last posted a word here, which is probably my longest silence in the almost 7 years that it has taken me to write the 955 posts before this one.

As I replied to a friend who messaged me that "it was time to blog again": "It feels as though I have nothing to say at all in terms of my blog; I've run out of words."

My mouth is dry, I've got no spit.

I never really set out with a plan for my blog; I also never expected to enjoy writing it as much as I have, nor to keep at it for as long as I have. Please note that this blog was always - in the humblest sense - about me, for me. I kept it as a self-censored (I'm still striving to find the balls to hold nothing back) online diary of notes and photos that while not being a complete and wholly honest 'story' or record, at least serves to trigger memories of at least my version of my life-'truth', as subjective as that obviously is.

In the feature and review writing class that I teach to my journalism students, I admitted just this last week that the greatest challenge for me is that my heart-focus (read True North) has changed - after some massive changes in my life, mostly triggered by a major 'breakdown' in 2012 - from journalism to writing. I'm still in transition however, I'm still in the no-man's land of the chasm that lies in-between the two.

I know not what I am here to write, again in the humblest sense, nor entirely if my writer's voice is in fact my voice. Nor to what the purpose my writing should serve. Except that in this bleak and seemingly barren place of transition - where my spit-words have been evaporated into the mealy mouthness of this insecure and barren place (and where I'm rightfully extremely insecure and uncertain) - I am beginning to get an inkling of where the compass is pointing to. No more about that though: I've learned the long, hard way not to dissipate energy and creativity by speaking out before time.

It's taken me an entire day of severe procrastination to get to the point at 15h09 when there was nothing left to do but to sit down and type this words, while reminding myself that I am writing, as I have done for my entire blog history, for no-one but myself:

I refuse to write for a perceived audience (how the hell could I ever pretend that I could please anyone but myself, never mind that that that self-imposed and ego-based pressure would do nothing but sink and destroy me).

I also strive to call out my ego whenever I spot it in my writing world, then to make sure it scurries off into the shadows.

I strive to blog honestly and humbly, for myself and only myself.

I have no expectations from anyone who chances upon my blog space, I refuse to link any advertising to the blog, I sadly even find it difficult to respond to comments from kind people who take the time to communicate with me via this platform because I feel so exposed and such a fraud, also because I'm as shy as all hell. And extremely anti-social. To these people I apologise. And promise to make more effort.

Because the focus of my writing is changed and will continue to do so going forward: It's no good pretending that I'm even close to being the same person that I was when I put my first words and photos 'down' into the ether of cyberspace.

Lastly, for now the pic is of the colours and textures before my eyes right now as I type these words. I'm in my Woodstock apartment, at a table made of a wooden crate off the street below, and 4 cardboard boxes.

I dedicate these words to Tertia: To her health, to her healing, to her creativity, to her morning pages and recovery, to her identifying her True North...and to her having the courage to go to where her journey calls her.