Free Writing

I've been listening to Harry Potter lately and have recently been reminded of the Pensieve. It is a basin in which one can store one's thoughts and memories when the mind has become too full to hold them. At first, Harry has no idea what that feels like. More and more lately, I have felt like that. My brain is just full and swirling. There are so many ideas and random thoughts swirling through my brain that I feel like I'm going to explode. I just need to get them out onto paper. And so I pull out paper and have no idea what to write. Is it a to do list? Is it a feeling? A spiritual prompting? Is it a thought that has no words? Is it just gibberish? So more often than not, the page stays blank.

When BJ and I were first dating, he would often ask me out of the blue, "What are you thinking?" Often I'd be able to tell him. Other times, though, I'd have to translate my thoughts into words, and it wasn't always easy. I vividly remember telling him once, "I'm not sure. But it's red." Or another time I recall telling him that it was a map, kind of like the kind you'd see on the inside front cover of a fantasy book. And that there were pine trees being drawn. And there was a hole in the middle.

For the majority of my life I've had thoughts that just don't make sense in words. Colors, shapes, pictures. I've often considered asking other people if they think like that, too, but I've never really known how to explain what I'm asking. So I just don't. After dating BJ, though, and having opportunity to try to translate thought into words, I found it was kind of fun. It was a wonderful outlet. Sure, BJ still probably didn't know what I was actually thinking, but he was closer to me in a way that no one had ever before considered.

Tonight I had a lot on my mind. It started with Taralyn and sorrow and death and love and gratitude. I blogged about that, though, and still my mind whirled. I fed Kessa and thought about how nice it would be to just free write. Just write. No thought to format, or even making sense to anyone but me. I thought about blogging, but would anyone else care? But would I ever read it again if it was just on a file on my computer? Probably not. And then I thought of a Pensieve and how nice it would be to just pull thoughts out of my head. What if there really were a medium in which thoughts could make sense? What would it look like to someone else to put their head in my Pensieve and see my thoughts? Would they see the same random shapes that I do? Dumbledore says a Pensieve holds thoughts and memories, but we only experience the memories in the books. What would thought look like?

The two thoughts merged and a free writing blog was born. Tianna's Pensieve. Here are my thoughts. Maybe even sometimes my memories. I give no guarantees that they'll ever make sense. But I want to write. I don't care if anyone ever reads it. I want an outlet. I want to become good at writing, and I'll never do that if I never write.

I think it might be working. My brain isn't swirling so fast now. More a gentle swirl. This is much more comfortable. It's blue, in case your curious. But that at least makes sense. At least, it does to me.