My Twofold Plea

It's amazing how much one can accomplish when avoiding doing something else.

I have a notebook with a running to-do list that sits on my desk. Whenever I think of something else I want to do sometime, I write it down on this list. I go back later and transfer things to my calendar that are time sensitive and oh, isn't this all very fascinating.

My current list is about three pages long. I got up this morning and got the Hooligan off to Lego camp and came home to write. The jBird has been craving some quiet solitude and it seemed a perfect opportunity for me to get down to business. The coffee was just so, the sun was twinkling in through the skylights, the temperature was neither too warm nor too cold, the dishes were done, all was well in the world. A perfect morning for writing.

So, I checked off an entire page of my to-do list. An entire page. I selected fabric and sewed curtains for the Hooligan's room, I got a garbage can and towel bar for the upstairs bathroom, I completed the next stage of the desk we're building for the jBird's room, I changed and washed sheets, I scrubbed both bathrooms, washed the shower curtains and re-hung them, got us ready for camping tomorrow, I organized two utensil drawers, cleaned out my cake decorating supplies and organized them, I even organized the junk drawer. All of this with time to spare to take the monkeys out for lunch and ice cream and do a little shopping. I am a human dynamo, I am. Because I am so full of crap.

I committed to write an essay for an essay contest. The deadline is September 30, so I have time, but I decided to borrow Deb's deadline of August 25 so I would have time for editing and polishing and agonizing and all that. Also as moral support, you see. I am completely immoral support. It is a maximum 1500 word essay. Guess how many words I have written toward that maximum? None. Not a single word. Nothing at all. Now ask me how many words I've written in emails complaining about it? How many words have I spoken to my husband whining that I can't think of anything? I've exceeded the maximum. And now this dreadful excuse for a blog post. Because I am so full of crap.

I'm not wild about the topic for the essay. A very supportive writer friend of mine told me to "come at it sideways and give it a shank in the side. Whisper poetry in its ear as it dies." I very much would like to do exactly that. But for now, I have bound my head and my writing fingers all up in knots thinking about the topic and distancing myself from it. Usually when I write, I have an idea and think "I shall write about this," and then I let it knock around the dryer a bit, trying this way and that way to express and then usually some other way pops out of nowhere and I sit down to write. It's always different on the paper than it is in my head. I'm usually OK with that. This one, though, whenever I think about it all I hear is "LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

My plea is twofold. I am not writing this post just to whine. I am now more determined than ever to write this stupid essay and write it well. Here's my twofold plea, writer friends:

Fold 1: Please tell me if this ever happens to you and what are some things you do to alleviate it. It's more than "Oh, I can't think of anything to post on my blog today." This might require a plumber. Please advise any home remedies.

Fold 2: Hold me to this. I will not back down from it. I really want to. I really want to say "Oh, it just wasn't for me." I don't honestly believe that's the case and I don't want to cop out. So, ask me how it's coming, remind me it's almost due. Don't let me make excuses and remind me if I do.

Deal? Deal. I promise not to torture you patient, sweet people with ranting and whining and blow by blow progress reports. I just need to make my commitment public-er so that I will follow through with it. You all indulge me so much. I'm asking for a teensy bit more.

I have very much enjoyed ticking off my to-do list, but the more I tick off, the more ticked off I become because it is all the more glaringly obvious that there is this one large item that I have not even touched.

A Thousand Things

A thousand things I wanted to write today. A thousand things got pushed aside. A bossy idea is ruling my head today. It won't let the others have their say. Oh well, Bossy. Have it your way, but I'm not going to talk about you yet.

The gray and rain is back. I read things about things, you know. I read about the rain inside some people's heads. I read about how it sometimes falls down their cheeks. I read and listen to the tiny rain fingers drum on my greenhouse window. I read things that others write. They pour out their hearts and exercise their rights, they show themselves in tiny ways. I stopped reading when I got to "irregardless" and then I felt bad. But not bad enough to push past that word and soldier on. My eyes have other things to see to.

A thousand things I wanted to write today. A thousand things got kidnapped and stowed away in dank corners and forgotten folds in my brain. Their ransom notes come to me as half-finished posts and sentences that do not satisfy. I'm not sure I want to pay to get them back.

The quiet is back. It seeps around me and fills me up. So much I can't hear the dying stories strangling in my head. So much. I looked around, a halfhearted attempt at collecting the bits and pieces a monkey hurricane has left in its wake. Collecting my thoughts, collecting the socks, the blocks, the little bits of paper, collecting the nerve to do something. The large and quiet of something big, something looming just outside my vision. The quiet of my own space and everything and nothing to do.

A thousand things I wanted to write today. A thousand things skittered and hid. They clambered over the practical things of life and hid behind them, cowering. They sit and they snivel and play with misdirection, shouting a list of things I need to do. "Do not waste your ink on us," they say. "There are forms to fill out. There are checks to write. There are grownup things waiting." I called them cowards, but listened to them anyway.

In spite of it all, the fire is back. It has been smoldering, almost snuffed for years. But for some kindling here, a sudden flare there, it would have been gone. It's back, it's there, it's building and it will not be ignored. In spite of rain and hurricanes, disconnection and deafening quiet, it's there.

A thousand things I will write some day. I wrote one today and that is all I ask. I'll write another tomorrow and a thousand tomorrows after that if they're given to me. I wrote one today. One. Slowly, clumsily, in this stiff-legged baby-walk way, gripping the edges of things for support, I'm walking forward into what I want. One little malformed, flawed, defected offering far surpasses a thousand intentions unfulfilled.

When Words Fail

Words are my medium. The ability to construct sentences and string them together and convey some sort of message is kinda my thing. Sometimes I'm quite good at it. It is often soothing for me to sit and write. My preferred method is good old journal and pen, but the computer works, too. I've been recording observations about people and life ever since I could hold a pencil. I can't really remember a time in my life without my journals. My silent friends that beckon, open leafed with blank pages for me to fill; or that sit patiently where I left them, never complaining if they're neglected. My empty space to let off fumes, make lists, think in ink, to doodle, rhyme, jot, scribble, store important scraps of other paper, to bleed. These reams of playgrounds for my words, where I can make them twist, jump, spin, climb the monkey bars and slide. But sometimes, as soon as I get to these magical play lands for words, the words just sit down and pout. They don'wanna come out and play! [Insert stomp and pout here]

I get pen-tied for any number of reasons, most of them mundane. Regardless of the cause, the effect is always the same. The words are swimming for their lives in all directions, just churning the murky waters of my brain. It's like a shipwreck in there. All screams and bobbing body parts and splinters. The lifeboat's gone mysteriously missing, so the only sensible thing to do is to let them all drown and then pick over the carcasses later for treasure. 

Today's one of those days. But it also happens to be Day 4 of NaBloPoMo and I'm determined to see this thing through. I've been rendered speechless today by the nattering of a thousand things that will not wait their turn for my attention. So while I wait for them all to settle down and stand still, I'll let the Brothers Avett do my talking for me. Those sweet boys from North Carolina hang out with me in all kinds of weather, but they really came through with flying colors on this otherwise gray day. Here's the song they sang for me a lot today. 

"Decide what to be and go be it."