Have you ever written something, and it just sort of poured out, like cool water from a spigot? And when it was all done you were able to read it back and think, “Yes! This is exactly right? What fun this was!”?

No? Me neither.

But – I have had brief and very lovely writing experiences that were sort of spigoty. And sometimes they ended with an “Almost there!” and didn’t feel like I was trying to wring out my brain a bit tighter every time I tapped a letter on the keyboard. And, after I was done writing I felt happy, and proud, almost as if some editor somewhere was looking down at me fondly, saying:

“That’ll DO, Dana. That’ll do.”
(For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s ok. I didn’t really plan on a Babe reference in this piece, and yes I do release I am the pig in this scenario. #goals).

I wrote something that flowed right out of me once, and it won an award. To be honest? The award was really nice, but the experience of writing that thing? Worth so much more.

There has to be, on this troublesome planet, some sort of synchronous moment in our work, our writing, that equals a big deep breath. We need those moments, and if we don’t get them, we wither. So once in a while, God says, “Thou shall go forth write and it shallent make your brain feel like cottage cheese after” or some such, and lo it was good.

The article was from months ago, folks. This is not a recent thing, or a big thing. I was just thinking of it tonight as I was washing the dishes and looking out my kitchen window and noticing all the dirt on the screen. Our kitchen window overlooks a weed ravaged bit of earth and the side of our neighbor’s house, and it’s always bugged me. As far as kitchen windows go, mine is a solid C- and as a total over-achiever and A+ kinda girl my whole life, a C- is really pretty ucky.

So, for some reason, as I was cleaning and staring, I started to think about that article. And then I thought, “I’d like to write about that – to remind us all that water spigot moments did happen, and they DO happen, and they will happen again. We all get them, even in the midst of grimy windows and endless adulting and life’s tricky ability to make us forget.

This is your daily #spigotreminder to not give up.

Also, what does your kitchen window look out on?

And yes, I did end that sentence with a preposition but it’s my blog and I can do what I want. It sounds really twatty to say “out on which you look” or some such, unless your name is Miranda and you’re gazing out the kitchen window out onto the moors and waiting for your husband, Phillip, to return from the war. Which sounds very nice, visually, for Miranda, but also tough on her mental health. In conclusion? Window views are a tradeoff.