There are times when I write, that the words just flow, gush actually. It is when I feel like I come closest to bypassing the keyboard altogether and simply connect a USB port to my mind. When I am done, I am drained. I set my draft aside, to come back and revise it later, to make sure that everything that poured out still makes sense. I felt that way when I wrote a recent blog post for work, Ice Cream for the Homeless. Other times I spend a bit of time researching, organizing, and finally putting together the blog post, as I did for my comment about obesity. Then, there are the times when I write from an empty space. This is often the most difficult. I have to force myself to write, but it is an important part of the process, sort of like working out when you don’t feel like it, but you know you should.

Today is more of an empty space day than normal. At work, different people are coming and going from vacation. Online, the social networks seem a bit slower as I imagine many people are out enjoying the fine day. I scan through various social media sites, but find nothing to engage me. Perhaps the most interesting is that someone has added me to Michele Bachmann’s mailing list. So, I’m getting urgent messages today about the Iowa Straw Poll. While I abhor just about everything that Bachmann stands for, I can understand the feelings of excitement and urgency her supporters must feel as they work for their candidate. It is, perhaps, not all that different than Democrats supporting one candidate or another in the 2004 and 2008 primaries.

On the home front, it feels a little bit like an empty nest. This morning, my eldest daughter, Mairead stopped by to pick up my youngest daughter, Fiona. The two of them are driving up to Boston to visit my middle daughter, Miranda, who has recently gotten an apartment, a couple jobs and is starting graduate school in a few weeks. Fiona will be back Sunday evening and won’t be leaving the nest for good for several more years, yet there is a little bit of the empty nest feeling going on.

So, I’ve put together three paragraphs and am working on my fourth. I’ll return to visiting a few websites, resting, and looking for the next thing to drive my writing.