Writing in the cold

Once the shivering stops the writing starts, or rather the writing stops the shivering, writing stops everything. I've given up on living many times but pouring black on white gives my mind respite, even if temporary. The madness flows somehow, like ink through my fingers to paper, stories long held back, not only my own but ancestral, waiting to be told.

I am but a thread of the women who came before me: powerful, intelligent, creative, caring, beautiful. I will honour the brave women by writing  their (her)tories and living a life worth writing about, and somehow be part of that writing...

The fear that one day I will find myself at the end of creativity ironically finds me devoid of inspiration, frozen fingers on keys, struggling for words, wondering whether I will be able to write the story one day. Excuses find me more than reasons do, and escaping them has become more difficult as the days go by.

There is no doubt carving these words, any words, bring some sense of content, peace, even joy, into my life. There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside me. A story that refuses to birth itself, a story I cannot allow myself to tell. I write because not doing so is a death sentence, yet the more I do the more I feel I cannot be. 

The shivering starts again, the writing never stops.