"Feelin it"

...basketball great Isaiah Thomas once spoke of "being in the zone," as a time when looking up to the hoop and realizing that it resembled the same size as a swimming pool. And no matter how awkward the jumpshot, be it while falling down, off one foot, or from an insane distance, like being drawn by magnetic force, the ball had no choice but to drop through for two.


I feel that writing is much the same. For those of us who paint by mind and shape with pen, we can on most days manage to scribble something. Whether it be prize-worthy or filler for the nearby trash can is a decision for later. Point being though...if a page demands attention, even on a Monday, we can make it happen.


But every so often, whether from a full moon glowing orange and hovering just over the treetops as if begging to be touched, or something wonderful in the drinking water, mineral spirits dropped from Heaven or what have you, we find ourselves looking to our computer screens as if it were some mythical orb, phrases never before thought of by anyone walking the planet, simply rolling across the screen like small waves of literary genius. A handful of paragraphs so gratifying, you actually find yourself hesitating, fingers held over the keyboard, bent at the joint and awaiting command, as you ask yourself, "Am I really doing this?" or "Holy crap, this is really good!"


It doesn't happen often, but when it does...


The following excerpt is from "Crazy Heart," by Thomas Cobb...

"He wakes from a dreamless sleep. Her head is cradled on his arm, her breathing regular and shallow on his chest. Love starts this way always, waking, his arm pleasantly numb from being slept on all night. And it always ends trying, in sleep, to get as far away as possible, until no bed is big enough to get the necessary distance. It always starts in sleep before it works its way into the waking and consciousness."


...I'm guessing that on the day Mr. Cobb penned that particular passage, his favorite baseball team wreaked havoc on their most hated rival. He managed to drive across town for lunch without ever once having to stop at a traffic light. And I'm quite certain, as he finished up that final sentence and eased back in his chair, reading what he'd just created, his lips curled to form a smirk, and he thought to himself, "Holy crap..."