"The Rest Is Still Unwritten"

I had an idea of what I was going to write for this week, but then I was listening to Spotify's Happy Mix while doing some cross stitching this morning.  The mix is very well-named, and includes Bill Withers' "Lovely Day," a few Meghan Trainor ditties (💖💖💖), Sara Bareilles' "Brave," and "Born this Way" by Lady Gaga.  As always, though, when "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield came on, I had to stop everything and listen.  My list of uplifting songs is ever growing, but this one will always be in the top five.  As someone who has always had a creative bent, this song really speaks to me:  "Staring at the blank page before you/Open up the dirty window/Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find . . ."  Like Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" (yep, that's what that song is about!) for the 21st century.  I don't know about you, but a blank book thrills me down to my toes--all that untouched paper, all the possibilities.  The problem is, when I open it, I'm faced with a crisis:  what can I say that won't sully this perfection?  The possibilities are overwhelming, and I often just let the book sit, collecting dust, on the shelf.  I must have hundreds of them by now, all that potential going to waste with the countless paychecks used to buy them.

Natasha Bedingfield knows the score:  the words are there, they are just unwritten, in the dark recesses of my brain, waiting to come to the light and the page.  I need to release my inhibitions, like she goes on to say in the song, shifting from the image of sunlight to rain:  "Feel the rain on your skin/No one else can feel it for you/Only you can let it in/No one else can speak the words on your lips/Drench yourself in words unspoken/Live your life with arms wide open/Today is where your book begins/The rest is still unwritten."  I need to put down my umbrella, and let the words drench me so that I have no choice but to use that blank page to dry them off my skin.  "We've been conditioned/To not make mistakes . . ." And there's the really big problem--how can I risk making a mistake and ruining all this perfection?  

But a blank book is not perfect.  It's blank.  It's empty.  It's null and void.  Without words, a blank book is worthless.  It is our words or pictures that give it value, no matter how much we paid for it.  A blank screen on a blog site is nothing--it has potential, but that's it.  Potential is nothing if it's not used.  So today, I write.  But this isn't the end of my story--"the rest is still unwritten."  There is still potential.  That, to me, is the beauty of creativity.  It is never finished, a cycle of blank and filled pages.  Even what we consider to be a masterpiece is just another stop on the road to the next opportunity to fill the page.  The anticipation, while thrilling, can never top the satisfaction of completion.  

I want to encourage you today, right now, to take out that blank book and use it.  Write or draw something on one page.  Paint one stroke on the canvas that's been sitting in the corner.  Stitch something on that fabric you've been hoarding.  Nail two pieces of wood together.  Make a two-minute podcast about cheese.  Glue two pieces of paper together.  Let your God-given creativity flow, going from potential to done.  Don't worry about perfection, just concern yourself with the attempt.  And apply Vincent Van Gogh's idea to whatever it is you're doing:  "If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."