Loosening Up
Open.
It’s the word I picked. Or it picked me, popping into my mind when Andie Thrams suggested we select a word for the watercolor weekend retreat: a focus, thought, intention, idea, feeling.
Open. The instruction is to write freely about the word. Write anything and everything comes to mind about all that Open might be for me. Letting words flow from my 2H pencil onto a brand new watercolor journal . . .
I write and write with my small architectural style, neatly carved out capital letters that precisely fit the narrow columnar template on my page. Five minutes. Feels like thirty. My hand is stiff, tense with the grip on my pencil. The instruction changes: become looser, make larger letters, allow the words to move outside the boundaries. My fingers loosen their grasp and though I wish I had picked a different writing instrument, I abandon my controlled forms and instead produce a larger, billowy script. That feels better. Freer. My whole arm is involved now.
The instruction changes again: consider writing so fast that the letters are no longer recognizable. Scribbling across the page, imagining the words forming as quickly as my mind thinks them, and my hand swishes and slides across the page.
Finished. I look over my work, reading, noticing. My scribbled illegible handwriting has a familiarity to it, a pattern and form that mirrors the actual words. A theme emerges. A message, found more than three times, nestled within.
I notice my letter “O’s” on the page are open and flowing, creating holes of white, resting spots for my eyes. Open. My heart, to resistance, control. Open my mind, eyes, mouth. Go with the Flow. Connect with all that is offered…friends, ideas, places, tastes, fragrances, flowers, experiences, information. Try it on, for a moment. Or more. Connect with all that is.
Open. Flow. Connect.
The weekend intention expanded. It feels good. Very, very good.
Another loosening exercise. Tension, familiar muscle memory, is seen again, even in the simple lines of ponderosa pine needles.
2 Responses to “Loosening Up”
Nice, Linda. I just found your posts as they have been going to my phones Social posts which I never check! Mercury is now direct and I feel like those ponderosa pine needles!
Yay! So glad you found me…💫
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