On sitting down

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live! Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move my thoughts begin to flow, as if I had been given vent to the stream at the lower end and consequently new fountains flowed into it at the upper. A thousand rills which have their rise in the sources of thought burst forth and fertilize my brain…Only while we are in action is the circulation perfect.” (Henry David Thoreau)

I’ve been standing up for a while now. It’d be nice to sit down. It’s a funny thing, writing. It’s not an entirely necessary part of my day, like eating or sleeping or doing my job. But as I live each day—and run for miles and ride the subway and settle into conversation with God—I do an awful lot of thinking and come to an abundance of conclusions, some silly or stale, but some meaty and potentially worth sharing.

That’s the danger of being the internal processor that I am. I think deeply about most things much of the time and seldom share unless a great listener of a friend invites me to. So my mind becomes like overcooked pasta or a waterlogged ship or an overgrown garden. Well, it’s about time I drain the pasta. Air my ship out to sail again into the sea. Prune back the weeks and tidy up the rows and cut some flowers for a lovely bouquet.

I’ve got a lot in store. And I’d love it if you would sit down with me.