What is it about the blank page? It is like the first snow of childhood, the first cut of the birthday cake my grandmother made me; it is the unknown, the unsullied, the promise of something wonderful. Once upon a time when I was a child, I used to be given a new exercise book in every subject at the start of the new school year. I was so careful to be neat, to make the first incursions upon that virgin territory perfect as I could contrive them. I wrote slowly, my tongue lodged between my teeth, an unconscious indicator of extreme concentration. I sometimes wonder if we change at all. Here I am grown up and long past the days of new exercise books and a simulacrum of a blank page, courtesy of Word for Mac
still fills me with strange reverence, a curious excitement as, my tongue still squeezed between my teeth, I try to make marks that will have some inherent quality, something that will somehow compensate for the defacing of this perfect, rectangular white space. Some people I know are fearful of those first marks, of beginnings, of somehow committing to an act of desecration, of putting something onto nothing and maybe spoiling everything. Some people run headlong into the snow, joyful and abandoned jumping feet first into the emptiness. I am not fearful; well, not exactly,for all my reverence and concentration I know it will all go horribly wrong, just as I knew as a child that my neatness would barely make it to the second page. The first mistake was almost a relief – I was a messy kid so I never had to wait long. It is much the same now. I usually mess up by the second line. The words are never good enough, but it’s OK. I love that moment before I put pen to page, type words on the screen, put my imperfect muddy footprints through the snow and I welcome the moment not long after when I know I’ve blown it again, I’ve blotted my copybook, made my usual mess and so can relax. There. I’ve done it again - destroyed all the hidden potential of a blank page just for a blog.
