Metathoughts

Do you ever have thoughts just whiz around in your head without ever finding rest?

Not that this is a bad thing, of course, it just makes for frustrating writing material. For instance, I've been chewing on thoughts of justice and mercy, pain and joy, gratitude and creation, and, well, a lot about my own defects of character, actually. But they have remained just those: thoughts. My problem comes once I consider writing some of my thoughts down.

I think I like looking above me, or inside me, and seeing a glittery, polychromatic swirling of ideas and images that are free and constantly in motion. Sometimes they sashay their way closer to me, and sometimes they wiggle themselves into the crowd. We reach into the beautiful mixture and grab greedily for one of these dazzling beings. Perhaps that is where the phrase "grasping for ideas" comes from. Sometimes we are successful and manage to hook something, and sometimes we keep coming back with more elaborate nets and traps. Maybe that's what happens when I write. Maybe I finally score one of those thoughts, but then I try to trap it in words, too. And maybe words are boxes far too small. And maybe I just can't stomach the tragedy and those sad, lifeless eyes looking back at me on the page. So I let the little guy go.

But what's the point of that? I can't just let thoughts fly forever -- I need to draw conclusions! make arguments! be persuasive! form an opinion! be concrete! grow some balls, already!

But not today.

No, today I will let them fly a little longer. I have tucked my net away for a time when I am desperate. For a time when the thought-tease is too much for me and I am forced -- no, COMPELLED -- to hunt again.