if you hold a pinecone

i am starting to think i have perma-writer's block. and that's a crazy weird thing for a self-proclaimed 'writer' to say. i haven't written consistently in over a year and when i open my moleskin or this blog page, i just stare into the blankness.
i let my mind wander to other things. i allow myself to dream, but cannot seem to express any of it outside of my own head and heart. my fingertips have become lazy, my mind scattered.


i have allowed myself to become fully engulfed in absolute, true, pure joy.
and God damn. is it beautiful.  

i have no excuse for the entire 16 months i haven't written anything except to-do that promptly do not 'get done' and end up crumpled on my bedroom floor. but hey, at least i write them? with good intention.

but lately... ahhh, lately... my joy has become overwhelming. so much so that it has squandered any ability i have had to get anything done.
don't get me wrong, i am still productive. ridiculously so, actually. (so this is where you are thinking, 'well, wait, that doesn't make any sense..')
but here's what's going on. I am getting things done, i am taking great care of myself and my responsibilities, i am tying up loose ends from years of neglect, i am learning each day and i am JOYFUL.

and i can do nothing but soak it up. i find myself sitting on the porch in the sun after my routine morning meditation or after a run and just thinking. sitting. thinking. dreaming. pondering. scheming. smiling.
literally smiling. many times on runs in the past few weeks i have caught myself laughing or smiling at a thought i have completely surrounded my brain with. my heart feels like it is literally coming out of my chest. my joy is overflowing. and it's crazy awesome.
my soul is growing each and every day and sometimes i feel like the best way to support that process is to sit on the porch in the sun and be thankful whilst seemingly 'doing nothing.'

i am really hoping that any ability i once possessed to express thought through written word will make it's way back in to my brain. ideas and positive thoughts are just swimming in there. waiting to be expressed.
but what if words simply cannot express an overwhelming amount of joy for life in general?
life is ridiculously beautiful, i don't know how words could ever do it justice.

when i think of 'things' or descriptions i always think of the part in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums where he is holding the pine cone in his hand in front of the small child. he speaks of labels. the pinecone is only a pinecone because we've named it a pinecone. but what makes it a pinecone? what is a pinecone anyway?

what is life any way? why label it.