Every word is suspect, each sentence creeping across the page. Will it ever be good enough? Why bother? Isn’t there something better I could be doing with my time? The shadow cast by my doubts covers every word.
Then I hear him, the cardinal outside my window. He’s singing away, as he does most mornings when I first sit down to write. I close my eyes for a minute and imagine that this gorgeous flame red bird is the reincarnation of some unknown poet who spent hours toying with words urging me to cast away my shadow of doubt, lift my hands above this keyboard and allow my words to spill out of my head in the same manner as the cardinal’s song fills the morning air. He sings because he can. Does he care if anyone listens? Does he return to his nest and tell his mate, “Today I hit all the right notes"? No. He simply sings.
There are mornings I feel as though this cardinal is my only cheerleader. When he’s finished with his song and has flown off, the silence he leaves behind deepens, as does the shadow of doubt.
All those voices in my head seem louder in this silence: all those who’ve wondered how I could quit my “real” job to sit here and write, others who believe it’s a total waste of time, those who give me a smirk of a smile when they ask me what I do and I’ve replied that I’m a writer. Unpaid bills giggle at me and the pile of rejection letters flutter hello. I can even hear my mother reminding me that I have responsibilities to tend to, can’t spend all my time “pretending I’m Margaret Mitchell”. And then there’s the loudest voice of all, my very own internal critic, wondering if it’s worth it all.
And then the cardinal returns to that tree branch that sits directly in front of the window outside my office. He sings away again. Because he can.
A phrase pops into my head. I start scribbling a poem. Because I can.
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