The Unarmed Opponent

I am doing battle with words and today I am the unarmed opponent.

It is a slow time of year for my massage practice, and I am finding myself with long stretches of unstructured time. The perfect situation to get a little ahead on the blog posts, maybe re-write my website, dig deep into my long-term writing projects.

And yet today I faced down my morning pages and all that came out was blather. Isn’t this the point of morning pages, though? That is what I told myself, and so I closed the journal and came to the computer hoping all the detritus was out and the good stuff was rising to the surface.

I’m looking in the water and it’s still murky.

A few days ago I saw a movie with my partner — Ralph Breaks the Internet. It was silly and goofy and had some really sophisticated moments, like this scene where one of the main characters finds herself in a room full of Disney Princesses. The Princesses tell her that she needs to look into water and eventually she will spontaneously start singing about her deepest and most desired dream. It’s a funny moment that pokes fun at the structure of Disney movies. Last night, I was talking with my partner, and he joked about holding a cup of tea in front of me so I could sing about my deepest and most desired dream.

This morning I am here with a cup of tea, doing unarmed battle with words, about to dive into a project that is actually my dream, I think. And yet no song is forthcoming. I look deep into the tea cup, and all that comes to me is…