Here I am, sitting in front of the big white page.

Looking anywhere but at the page. I’m closely examining the skin on my hands. I’m watching the cat breathe and the pine branch wave. Listening to the sound of the laptop fans, the airplane above and the dog snoring.

I’m envious of people who know how to write novels. I imagine they sit down in the morning or evening or whenever they set out to write, with a topic, a purpose, a reason to make some words appear on the page. I don’t know how to write a novel. I’d like to. One of my goals this year is to learn. School year. Yes, I still thinks in terms of school year instead of calendar year. Although, I have progressed to the point of recognizing others may expect me to operate in calendar year and clarify which type of year I mean. I’d love to say I’ll know by end of calendar year. I think it is far more likely I’ll be successful before summer.

In the meantime, when I sit down to write, there is no set topic. Just a big white page waiting to be filled. Short stories can be on any topic, anything at all. Especially my short stories, which tend strongly toward the flash fiction side of short. I hope, as I learn to write novels, I may progress toward developing longer shorts, possibly even novella length stories before building a full length novel.

In any event, today, I have a white page and a goal to write a fifteen hundred word story. As it happens, I have no story in need of editing or rewriting today. Partly this is due to me wanting a clean slate to commemorate the new website (yes, I’ll polish up some older stories to post, just not this week) and partly because I find beginnings easier than middles and lastly because I’m starting a new journey. I’ve sorted the contents of my storage locker into donate, trash and keep and then sorted the keep again to reduce still further. The locker is closed-up and the piles distributed to their destinations.

I feel lighter without the weight of all that stuff, hiding in storage, anchoring me to a life that no longer fits me. I wanted the chance to write new material reflective of this period of accepting I’ve moved on from the kind of life I envisioned while collecting all that stuff.

I am taking time to recognize this transition is one of many I’ve been through, that although there is some loss, there are also things I keep. Things that have become part of me regardless of how little of the physical stuff I carry forward.

After all, I’m no longer the girl who ran away as a teenager, the young adult who went back to school, the newly wed who moved to the big city, the new mother who moved to the suburbs or the separated single mother who moved to a farm or the divorcee who moved back to the city.

Yet all those people built me to who I am today. Strong enough to let go of the physical stuff with the knowledge to name it for what it was: stuff acquired through a lifetime of consumer capitalism, not part of my identity. Despite what marketers imply through commercials, I am not built of the things I’ve purchased.

I am built of stronger stuff: memories. Memories of lessons learned in school and in life experience. Memories built from living, loving, hugging, fighting, exploring, trying new things and practicing old things.

My past is my foundation; holding me up to the light: a white page lit with the full spectrum of possibility.