Searching for Inspiration

So, I've been staring at the blank screen, in my head and in reality, since about 5:30 this morning. I read the paper (business, world, and style). I watched TV (mostly the home and garden variety). And, though the daylight is almost gone, I took my daily walk.

I'm stumped. I typed in five different titles, six first sentences. None of them sparked so much as an extra thump in my chest. What the heck do I write about when there's nothing to write about?

Oh, I know the economy is chugging away on its path to the deepest part of the mine, and the media (and many political appointees) continue to spout words like "dire," "apocalyptic," and "calamitous" with an appalling lack of emotion (and, perhaps, of definition). I know that Transition looms fat and (happy/sad) on the horizon, as does the month-plus season(s) that in some families deepens the warm connections and in others serves to accentuate group dysfunctionality and individual gluttony and greed. I know that winter is coming, fast and gray, from all directions at once. All that is old news, inevitable, charted and mapped. Where's the creativity, the enthusiasm, the change point?

It's coming; it's just not here today, not yet anyway. Today seems to be about seeing the darker side (mostly), yet still - on purpose - putting one foot in front of the other. I don't know why I'm seeing more pre-dawn blackness than brightness - the Big Lug and I both got paid on Friday, I found a pretty ring and a great watch on Saturday, and I didn't work horrible hours - but there's no flash of light today, no genius, no great revelation. I'm waiting patiently, however, because I know it will eventually come. I've learned to trust that fact.

In the meantime I have to be honest with you and myself, and stop trying to perk up a day that's cloudy, windy, and really, really cold. Sometimes we must simply accept the day or week or year for what it is (a silent, gathering-of-strength time), light a fire in the hearth (symbolic, don't you think?), stick a roast in the oven, and put the milk on the stove for a mug of the sweetest, hottest cocoa on the planet.

Hey, it's Monday - a girl's gotta take it where she can find it, right?