I love the author E.B. White.

Yesterday, I didn’t feel like writing. I thought, “What do I have to say? Nothing much. Nothing worth sharing."

But I have learned that when those thoughts chase each other around and around I'm being tempted. Tempted to believe that this is the week I don’t want to write anything. To hold up my end of the unspoken understanding between writers and readers: If I write, you'll read.

And why? Because I felt a little sad, lacked inspiration?  

All the more reason, I thought, to get out of myself and write. Still, I didn’t want to, so I did the next best thing, -- I read.

By now I know the books that inspire me; the authors who are not heavy handed in sharing their advice, but give it quietly, gently, with humor and clarity.

E.B. White is such an author, so I picked up a book of his essays and opened to a random page. (You’re able to do that with essays . . . you’re never too far from the beginning or the end). As I read, I found I was laughing, then crying just a little, then laughing again.

I put the book down and was ready to write. To share something with all of you, just as White had done with me.

Author Stephen King maintains that if you walk down the main street in a small town and really look around, you’ll come up with 100 things to write about. That’s never the real problem. The problem is what do you want to write about. What grabs you.

Today what grabs me is my chair. It's an old chair, a dining room chair I imagine. It has been in my family as long as I can remember.   It was probably my Grandmother’s from the look of it. Now it is my desk chair.

My desk is in our bedroom, and this week I decided I hated having my office in my bedroom. It just wouldn’t do. As I looked around, though, there really was no other place for me to work. So, I straightened up my workspace, and figured I’d survive. I wouldn’t be as productive, mind you, but I’d survive.

Later that day, I really looked at the picture on the book of essays by E.B. White. (see above) He is sitting at a simple wood table with only his typewriter on it, and he seems to be sitting on a wooden bench. A bench, not even a chair. Certainly not one of the enormous gamer-type chairs I saw yesterday at Office Depot when we went to the big city to buy fence posts. No sir. Not like that at all. He’s just sitting there, on his bench; intent, typing. Putting words on paper that, many years later, will make me laugh and cry, and nudge me to try to write again.

My husband and I watched a British mystery a few weeks ago that had the main character (a golf caddy) say,“You have to play them as they lie.” Meaning your golf shots. And your life.

If I only have an old, but sturdy, chair to sit on, so be it. After all, it slips easily under my desk at night so that I don’t bang my feet on it as I pass by in the dark. It makes me sit up straight. It is the right height for typing. And it is a part of my past, which is a part of my present and future.

Somehow, while sitting on this funny old chair I have written three pages. My limit for these essays, so I will say good-bye for now.

And I will wish you all the joy of creating something new and beautiful and true in your own life. Whether it is a new patch of zinnias in your garden like my friend Rene, or a new way to keep your farm animals safe and fed like my friends Jeanne and Steve.

Creativity comes in all shapes and sizes, as do we. So does kindness and caring. So do chairs.


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