The Zone

There is a moment of mental magic, which I truly love and odds are, so do you. In fact, if I could tell you how to do this trick at a whim, when ever you choose, you would hang on my every word. I can't. It is like telling someone how to fall asleep.

The page, or rather the virtual page, is blank. A mountain of white. Climbing this mountain is slow at first. The thoughts won't become words and the words won't fit together. There is not enough of them. The excitement of that page becomes daunting. It induces sweat on my forehead. I have to force those first few sentences, but then something shakes loose. The next words take shape and the sentences begin to write themselves. Soon, I am just trying to keep up with with narrator who is speaking in my head.

When I get to the end, I do not know how long it is since I have breathed. I do not know the time or even exactly where I am. I am waking up. Before my eyes I see that seven paragraphs have been written, all better than that first one I struggled with, all produced with ease. It is euphoric.

Steve sits at the piano. He is fiddling with the keys, he makes the hammers in the wooden instrument strike the strings. The sound comes back to his ears. His version of my blank page is before him. He plays the first notes of the first song in a way that sound awkward to him, but he knows this is the price of admission. Soon, the songs roll out of him, one after another like flood waters bursting a dam. We call song titles and he plays them, plays them like he has known them for years.

Shelly sits on the couch, not just because it makes her butt happy, but because it is the best place to crochet from. The yarn is drawn from the light purple basket beside her drawn to her pencil-like hook and her pausing hands. She is reading the cryptic pattern from the cardboard book beside her. She makes six stitches and reads, five more stitches, than reads again. The first few rows are slow, spent solving and internalizing the pattern. By the time I ask if she is ready to go to bed, the book is laying on the floor, the yarn is a study stream becoming a blanket or afghan. She is just working to keep up with what she knows comes next.

This place is very different, but very much the same for a variety of tasks. Writing, coding, painting or project planning. It seems you have to have a certain comfort with the task, it is usually creative and needs to have a little challenge. You need to have few interruptions, control over your environment helps. Relaxing helps too. If you are bored, you need to add some challenge. If you are worried, you need to prove you can do the task. Balance between challenge and skill. None of these things are a guarantee, but they are the warm milk for the sleep you long for.