Beginning

It wasn't a hobbit that saved Middle Earth. It was a fellowship

A few weeks ago I joined a writing group, something I’d put off doing for a long time. It’s called Soul Circle and it’s been started up by the wonderful

Beth Kempton

, whose book The Way of The Fearless Writer had a big impact on my creativity when I read it about a year ago.

We kicked off last week with an invitation to explore the theme “Beginning”. Anyway, I opened up and this came out:

Image by Domas on Pixabay

I open my laptop. I load Microsoft Word. I see a blank page and, at the opposite corner of the screen, a blue box with the single word CREATE in it.

I’ve been putting this off for days. It means business. I’m not sure I do mean business yet.

It might be better to wait a day or two. I could call a friend, read a book about writing, hang the laundry on the line, work on a shopping list, make another drink.

I don’t like the thought of sacred thresholds. That makes it way too serious. If it’s serious, I might mess it up. Someone might be cross with me.

As a child, I learned to hide my inner life until it became more vivid than anything around me, and far too precious to share. I learned to zone out, to fade into the background and bother other people as little as possible.

Children should be seen and not heard. Better, not seen. Best, not there at all.

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I love beginnings.

It’s just beginning I have a problem with.

Let me unpack that a bit.

A clean blank page

Both teams coming out onto the pitch with all to play for.

The first kiss, or the first date, before you start to drive each other up the wall.

The closed book with its fresh-from-the-bookshop smell

The Blue Ray disc you’d need a knife to get into, so let’s do it another evening

The precise second when a raindrop, full of momentum exquisitely balanced against the force of gravity, swells to fall

The smell of a living room cleaned of pine needles on January 1^st

I love beginnings. Emptiness. Serenity. Space.

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I fear beginning. Commitment. The choice of a path, with all the responsibilities that might involve. When you say, “Oh, I don’t mind, whatever you want,” you can avoid the consequences. Grumble when someone else screws up.

You do mind, of course. You mind so much you can’t bear the thought of anything going wrong, any unexpected snag polluting your intention. One day, you’ll explode, but for now, who needs a threshold when an armchair by the fire beckons?

I keep my longings secret. If I do begin, I will slip from my bed at the crack of dawn, before Sam, Merry and Pippin notice I’ve gone.

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But it wasn’t a single hobbit that saved Middle Earth. It was a fellowship.

It wasn’t a single person that made The Lord of The Rings. It was the fruit of a lifetime of thinking, living, learning, batting ideas around over pints of beer and arguments, and fetching references from the book shelf.

I’ll think about that more tomorrow.

But today, I’m busy not beginning.

Tomorrow, I’ll begin.