This is an exercise.
Literally, I am doing the warming-up my fingers by typing stream of consciousness into the blog composition window. There's no obligation to read any further, and there's no topic. What it is, is tricking my brain into production mode.
The human psyche is a strange and capricious thing. I can't force my brain to do anything, well... yes, actually I can. I've seen people freeze. Literally lock up and be incapable of forcing their brain to do something. When we moved into the house in Ohio, we hadn't yet met one of our neighbors. Sitting on the front porch, relaxing after moving a load of stuff, I happened to note that a neighbor was up on a ladder, doing something on his roof. A few minutes later I saw him attempting to get down from the roof. He got awkwardly on the ladder, facing outward... and then a few minutes later was still there. I got up and headed in his direction, my confused husband trailing after me.
The elderly man had gotten himself into a bad spot, and his brain had simply said 'no.' He could neither go up, nor down. Suffice it to say that we did get him safely to the ground, and then met his mother, and were friends for the remainder of the time we lived there.
My brain is up on that ladder and I'm stepping outside myself to be the 'look, you can do this.' with this writing exercise. Because lo! there are words now on the screen. I dunno how much sense they make, but you know, that's not the point of this. I'm not trying for coherency, much less profundity, and if a squirrel thought dashes across my essay and leaves excited chaos in it's wake, that's ok right now.
One thing about moving, it destroys routine. I know I've addressed that on the blog in the past. We've moved far too much in the last five years, and every single time it throws me off. So... here I go again, with a timer and an alarm and a plan for the new routine, so I can start setting up structure to hang my life's fabric up on. Like pitching a tent, wobbly poles and all. The new structure is different from the old and there will have to be changes. You set a tent, realize you're right in the path of the water runoff in case of storm, move it, realize you're right on a rattlesnake den, move... That's life. You stop changing when you die, and that's not even right. There are more changes with death's arrival. But that's a different blog post right there. I was thinking about the companionship of Death, in the Terry Pratchett, sense, the other day, and how it's oddly comforting. Death is a certainty that comes for all of us. Best to make the most of the time we have walking, before we lay this mortal flesh to rest and pass on to the other side.
Which is why I'm writing. I'm alive, and in spite of disappointments and setbacks, there will still be time to do many of the things I would like to do. I simply have to change, and keep trying. Keep putting fingers to keyboards. Keep unpacking boxes. Keep working. Once I have a bare-bones routine, flesh it out with hopes and dreams and goals and remember that persistence carries the day. If you want to have done something for years, you have to start today, and do it again tomorrow.