In the beginning...

In the beginning there is nothing but a white screen with a blinking cursor. If you're lucky and feeling inspired, you sit before that nothingness with a beautiful, free, rubbing-your-hands-together-can't-wait-to-write-it-out kind of feeling. If you're me with a deadline, parameters, and a large portion of your grade teetering over your head, you tend to sit there staring into the white void of a million thoughts that have nothing NOTHING to do with the assigned subject matter. YouTube, blogs-I've-never-heard-of, Facebook photo-albums all become endlessly fascinating. Such is the nature of my sitting the past several days along the banks of the universal flow.

To begin is always the most difficult. It seems to be the case for most things; a difficult conversation, a creative endeavor, a term paper. What keeps us sitting along the banks of that swift stream? Waiting for inspiration, or that "right moment" feeling. It might be the wide range of possibilities, the desire for perfection, or the uncertainty of how exactly to start it all off. That first step into the flow can be exciting. It can also be intimidating. It is important to allow ourselves time along the banks. It is also important to gather up our courage and step in, because once we're in and we allow ourselves to be carried, miracles happen.

My stepping in moment came yesterday. Blinking cursor on a white screen, my deadline fast approaching. I decided to go for it. Imperfect first sentence. Keep going. Second sentence. Ugh. Third and fourth and three pages later, I was no longer sitting on the banks but rather in the flow of Doing.

To any of you out there who are on the cusp of a beginning.....a conversation you don't know how to start, a project you are standing at the fringes of....I bid you patience to sit for as long as you need, and then courage to step in and be carried.