I Have So Many Words

There’s this lyric from the musical "A New Brain"that keeps circling through my head. “I have so many songs.” Gordon sings this in his dream state as he’s being wheeled into the emergency room for a brain abnormality. He’s an unfulfilled songwriter who sings about all the songs he has left to write.

I feel that way about words. I have so many words to write. In the pages of my journal, in this blog, in my scripts. So many things to say, describe, express. The words dance through my brain, across my tongue, and into my pen.

I don’t think of myself as a storyteller. At least, not yet. I never have stories for The Moth StorySLAMs. I’m not that girl with stories of all the cool and amazing experiences from my youth. I have no story about jumping out of a tree at Old Mill Pond or sleepwalking in Walla Walla, Washington. I have one good one about being left alone in the Nevada desert and communing with nature, but even that story is a bit internal. Nothing compared to Ed Gavagan’s story of being stabbed and left for dead.

But I do have words. Words that shape the fabric of my existence. Words about my soul’s inner journey, words in response to the world’s shenanigans, words about the people who have drifted in and out of my sphere of knowing. These words are infinite and ever flowing. On my best days, they stream out articulately and succinctly. My worst, they dump out as babbling, driven by passion or wine consumption.

They’re always there for me, my words. Dependable and abundant. I thank them for the gift of their existence. Because of them, I’ll always have something to say.