Well Filling

She tells me to imagine a well, or a fishpond, Julia Cameron in her book, ‘The Artist’s Way’. There are big fish, little fish, fat fish, skinny fish – an abundance of fish, all ready for the catching. If we don’t keep the pond stocked eventually it will become empty of fish. Overfishing we fish in vain.

She is not talking about a real well or a real pond or real fish. It’s an image. Creative ideas sometimes come out of nowhere, but if we waited for ‘nowhere’ to cough up the goods there would be long days of not writing. She calls writers to ‘consciously replenish our creative resources’. We need to be observant and wade into life with a kind of fishing net and catch the minnows and the sticklebacks. We need to be out there.

‘In filling the well think magic. Think delight. Think fun…Do what intrigues you. Explore what interests you. Think mystery, not mastery.’

It’s not all about sitting down and crafting a poem. The well or the fishpond gets filled when we are doing all sorts of activities.

I mowed the lawns this morning. I had a one-way conversation with a snail wrapped around the cord of the mower. I flicked it onto the grass warning it sternly to move. I gave it twenty minutes – the time it takes to mow the front, where it wasn’t, and to make a cup of coffee for my husband in the office upstairs. The snail listened. By the time I got to mowing the back lawn it had gone. Snail encounters – well fillers

The front lawn is all clover, bobbing fluffy heads in the breeze. I gave the clover instructions to duck as the mower came close if they wanted to live another day. Some did duck down. Or maybe it was the haphazard way I mowed the lawn. But for the most part they just bobbed heads and kept up their own nonsense chatter that only they could hear. They were mowed down. Clover heads bobbing – well fillers.

The dentist receptionist phoned to cancel an appointment. This whole teeth adventure that should have lasted a couple of months is stretching will into my summer holiday. I maybe entering my next year of uni toothless. My dentist is not well and because my mouth is his, no one else can pull out teeth on his behalf. I did think about borrowing a pair of pliers and finding a youtube clip. Dentists – well fillers.

I’m keeping a beady eye on my veggie pots. One bean shoot has already had its head bitten off. An empty stalk stands forlorn, shamed by the two other bean shoots sprouting leaves not quite in all directions. I am hoping that the headless shoot that still has roots will recover. The spinach is doing well. I’ll wait awhile before rehousing some of them to other pots. The spring onions? We have a scattering of fine blades but nothing to write about. The veggie pots’ subscription is about growing veggies, playing with soil and achieving something that is visible rather than mental. Veggie pots – well fillers.

Knitting. I knew when I started the second sock that I would run out of wool. I kind of hoped I wouldn’t and I reached the toe before I did. There is counting to do, decreasing to do and playing around with balls of soft clay to act as needle caps until the ones I ordered arrive. If I do something other than needle caps with the clay, that’s fine by me. Soft clay and sock knitting – well fillers.

An aside to the audience – incidentally it might be worth commenting that a friend of mine has outworn his hat – too much sleeping in it, wearing it all the time and washing it out of shape. I have a ball of Norewgian wool bought in Norway. Enough for a hat. But just in case a second ball was needed I went on to the website printed on the wool label. Ah, yes. There it is. Troll yarn. Brun. And £109 per ball. I checked whether that was what it cost in Kroners. No. English pounds £109. I am sure I did my conversion maths correctly in the shop. It did not cost me £109. So, I’m almost a little bit afraid to use the wool for anything. If I had a bank vault I would put it in there along with the gun and ammunition, the fake passports and the wads of cash in various currencies I don’t have. Ball of expensive wool – well filler.

The second week of Wimbledon and there are no Brits left and my interest has waned. I have watched more of the ladies matches than usual seeing as there are no squealers anymore. I am coveting the tanned legs and the effortless ponytails and buns of the players. What I do like are the black shorts some of them are wearing. There was a comment about always having to wear white and how for ladies at certain times of the month it just wasn’t convenient. So black. I bought anti-chaffing underwear from M and S. Not black. Flesh coloured. Not worn yet either. Anti-chaffing underwear – well fillers.

, you don’t need to be a writer to have a well or a fishpond. I think we all need something like a well and the well-fillers. We all need something that distracts us, captures our imagination or lifts us out of the everyday dullness that life can become. But whether it’s for writing or not, filling the well is a deliberate, conscious activity. It doesn’t just happen. It is necessary to feed the soul in us.

For me it’s not always about filling a metaphorical well so I can always have something to write about. I want to live life into the corners of every room. I inhabit the centre ground and that is not always the place where adventures happen, or interesting conversations occur.

Pick up you net, wade into life and catch a few minnows or a big fish or two.