Yet Untitled 143 - About the Blank Page
Resting, manoeuvring, bouncing off empty paper
Dearest Yet Untitler
Today I want to write about the blank page. I’m writing about it on a Saturday by when something is usually pushing out from my belly towards empty space on my screen and notebook.
Once in a while, this doesn’t happen.
I’m curious. What’s different about this week that makes my muse look back at me and shrug?
Quick thoughts:
Perhaps I’ve not ‘met myself’ this week.
You and I live in a world, dear YU-er, where it’s easy to lose ourselves. I’ve found it useful to employ various practices to find myself again and again despite this constant danger.
But who’s to say that, on any given week, all my safeties won’t fail? Could this be one of those weeks?
Where is the lost self that needs to be found? I think the answer is “anywhere but here”. Sometimes, I think writing YU is like finding a lost child and asking them where they’ve been. When the child starts talking, I start transcribing!
Did I forget to leave the porch lights on this week? Did I forget to leave the door open?
Is there no ‘burning concern’?
Of course there is.
So many burning concerns in a burning world. Tarrifs. Heat waves. One more burning than the other. But YU has always been about what’s burning for me personally.
So, what could it be with this week? No burning?
Or…
Did I spend my week outside the sphere of these concerns?
My social media timeline keeps telling me about things I should have burning concerns about in a way that wears me down. I been on social media a bit more than I’m used to because of promotions for Ziddi Girls, and I think I’m feeling the effect now. I ache for refuge and one method to find refuge is to withdraw. Escape. Even from myself.
I think I feel this happening.
But where will I go?
Thankfully, because of this weekly ritual between ourselves, dear yet Untitler, I manage to catch myself even when I have missed myself. The blank page itself became my burning concern to translate into an instalment!
Rest
My body lets me know me when I need to sleep. Ask my friends who catch my eyes shutting shop at 11:30 am when I’m out and about with them.
I thought i’d hacked this tendency last week at my brother’s 25th anniversary bash by micro dosing (kind of) coffee through the afternoon. It grew me a new set of dancing legs post 11:30pm. Here’s proof -
But I think sleep deficit caught up with me this week.
There was no escape. My body forced me to choose rest over other fun stuff like ‘meeting myself’. 😂
But, I live in a city that eschews rest
I face a blank page and what do I do? I find my way around it.
I’ve done it for three freakin’ years. Healthy or not, I feel I’ve earned a PhD in such manoeuvring! I feel that living in Mumbai has something to do with this drive.
When I go to Panipat - where I grew up - I end up falling asleep on my mother’s bed the moment my bottoms touch it. I feel I give myself permission rest in places other than Mumbai.
So, maybe it’s not that I live in a city that eschews rest, but that I eschew rest while in this city.
But, you know - that isn’t the all of it…
There is stuff to be written
…there are Burning Concerns. But having got so far into this instalment, I feel that I fear going to those places.
One show is written, another will commence.
The blank page feels comfortable.
This is me thinking of the future. Of future, unwritten work that may not be easy to write. Perhaps this blank page is the moment of rest between two phases. Perhaps something is about to change, and I will only know what if I keep going.
The blank page is so much more than what it seems.
Zoom into the white spaces and you’ll see a storm.
I’ll leave you with that, dearest Yet Untitler.
Thank you for drawing this one out of me. It was important.
Lots of love,
V
P.S. What crosses your mind when faced with a Blank Page, real or metaphorical? Tell me. I want to know!