Wondering About Words

On some mornings I sit down to write wondering where words come from and, if they come, why they come to me or to anyone else, really.

I wonder if words come from some secret place hidden beneath our feet—somewhere deep under the earth, perhaps?— or from somewhere high above, way beyond the clouds, way beyond the moon and the stars?

I wonder if words are simply invisible until they appear on the page, which is the reason why we can’t see them floating through space like foreign objects that come to earth carrying a message from another planet sent especially to us.

I wonder how we find the words we need to express what’s hidden in our hearts, words that describe the mix of thoughts and feelings swirling inside us.

I wonder if maybe it isn’t that we find words but that words find us, as if we’re magnets that can draw to us the words we need to help us explain how it feels today or how it felt yesterday to inhabit this body, to dive into the unknown not knowing what we’ll find, just hoping words will appear to help us understand what we need and who we are and where we belong.

I wonder every morning — or whatever time of day I sit down to write — if the page is really blank or if it’s filled with words I can’t yet see and which only come into being the moment I begin writing. 

I wonder if words are inside us, locked in some mysterious storehouse, and how we’re supposed to find the key, and then I wonder if words are all around us, waiting for us to catch them, how a writer is born with a net in his or her hand to capture them like butterflies before they get away.

I wonder about words which flow on some days like a steady stream and on other days like a trickle and I wonder how on other days there's nothing more than a dry creek bed where words once flowed.

I wonder how words became as much a part of our lives as the water we drink, the

air we breathe, and equally necessary for our survival.

I wonder why we wait and wait and wait, never knowing if anything will appear on the page in front of us, until one day a word appears… and then another.