Words are the pixels that put together an understandable picture of my world. Words are the brushstrokes in a masterpiece—the fine lines, nearly meaningless alone, culminating in beauty and understanding together.
I simply love words.
I sit down at my computer and start typing—slowly at first, and then the flood comes over me. Words stream and flow, bubble up and mingle—until, at last, I step back from the strokes and see the picture. I see beauty. I see creation. I see a part of myself in black ink on the page.
Sometimes I feel like god when I write and can make all those unruly letters do and say whatever I want. Just like God in the beginning when he spoke—when He said the words “Let it be”—and it was.
So I speak, “Let it be”—and it is. Letters, pictures, stories, truth, emotion—all painted together onto the blank canvas of a page. All coming from nothing as the cursor gives birth to word after word. Words turned to sentences. Sentences to paragraphs. Paragraphs to the page. The page to a story. The story to a life all its own—a world, a place that never was before the words came together and said it is so.
I love words. I love blank pages. Blankness is merely a call to creation. Something out of nothing. Worlds out of words.
But sometimes I forget how much I love words. Sometimes I think the worth of words is entirely in the number of likes and responses those words receive. Sometimes I write something I love—something of myself that I gave up to the page. And even though I loved the words, others do not. And I start to think the words lost their meaning. I start to think the words are no good. I think of quitting. I think it’s too hard. I only think these things because I forgot.
I forgot how much I loved the words.
I loved the words as they percolated and came together in my brain. I loved the words as I gave birth to them on the page. I loved the creation from something out of nothing.
And really, that should be enough. The words and the love I have for them—not the love they receive from others.
So, today, I start again with this blank canvas—this empty vastness yearning for creation. Something out of nothing.
I write because I love writing. I love the words. I love the blankness. I love the fine strokes of creation.
Even if you don’t like them too. That’s okay. Because I can’t leave the canvas blank. I can’t leave the cursor….cursing? I can’t. I have to write. I have to create.
Maybe I just like feeling like god for a few hours in the day.
Lacy Muircastle 