The Mysterious Case of Blanche Page

The other day I was looking at a score, came upon a blank page, and wondered “Who’s this Page, Blanche chick?” I am, after all, the person who thought there was a French business dynasty named Cie who had a family member as a junior partner in nearly every enterprise. I am also she who signed up for what she thought was the Music Librarians’ Association Listserv and then wondered for weeks why we never seemed to hear from anyone who wasn’t from Mississippi.

To those of us who are accustomed to writer’s block Blanche Page is something between an enemy and a bewitchingly beautiful creature who is always just out of our reach, like the White Stag in the Narnia books. Nothing I write on that blank page will ever be as good as the things I imagine myself writing. An empty notebook is full of thrilling tales and perfect verse; a full one has erasures and coffee spills and stanzas with only three and a half lines filled in because you can’t think of an appropriate rhyme for “longueur”.

The platform I have been on is either dying or on its way back to becoming a pleasant online backwater where friends share cat pictures and funny things their children said. We are two weeks into an end-of-the-world party, and though the liner has not yet begun to sink the band is running out of things to play. We had a good if tumultuous voyage up until now, but I am filling my pockets with snacks and making sure my lifejacket is inflated, just in case. And whom should I see over the railings but Blanche Page, waving enticingly to me from a lonely and leaky boat.

So here we are, though the blank page be an electronic one. Though Blanche remains enchanting and I remain stolid, awkward, and ill-equipped (now I am thinking of one of those Kipling stories about men who get a crush on the wrong woman who has made it clear she isn’t interested in them) we are embarking together.