Since starting school, the motivation to write has been, shall we say, lacking. It seems I have morphed into my students- begrudging even the mention of stringing words together into sentences, or (heaven forbid!) entire paragraphs.
The days start early and it’s a nonstop series of things and people to attend to until all the girls are in bed at night. And after that my brain’s capacity for higher-level thinking has diminished significantly. I barely have the space for low-level thinking, so, instead I just watch shows on Amazon Prime or read a page or two of a book before it falls on my face and Brad tells me I should just give up and go to sleep.
In the far, far reaches of my mind I’m writing these eloquent and insightful essays on timely and challenging topics like confronting inherited racism and raising your awareness of class division. But the more localized regions of my brain handling things like grocery lists and doctor’s appointments are bossier and more insistent. “The Durrells in Corfu” and Entertainment Weekly are left to bicker over the scraps of my conscious hours.
I have all sorts of guilt about this (as all writers do) and at various times vacillate from feeling like a failure who should just hang up my keyboard and find a new hobby to an uneasy sort of indifference about making the time and expending the effort to write.
You know, like, what’s the point? I’m not getting a grade on any of it. It’s not, like, necessary in the grand scheme of things. There are no real stakes in whether I show up to write or just show up to watch Tom Hiddleston walk around with his shirt half buttoned in “The Night Manager.”
The problem, of course, is that for dumb, little old me, it is important to find the time to sit down and sort out my thinking on things through writing. It helps keep me sane. And, unlike teaching or parenting, I generally feel competent doing it.
I was invited on a little weekend getaway with some of the neighbor ladies, which I gladly accepted if for no other reason than it would mean two nights without children asking me what’s for dinner or having to listen to various made-up songs about farting.
I thought I could spend some long, empty hours in the lake-front rental writing profound things about big topics. Instead what happened was I drank too much sangria/red wine/something called “blue drink” the first night and spent long, empty hours the next day feeling slightly nauseous with a splitting headache. Once I did come around to feeling more like myself I just wanted to have good conversation and make inappropriate jokes and do a puzzle and invade people’s personal space with the tiny hand I bought at the beach this summer. It was a good use of time.
But I was sad this morning- the whole kid-free weekend gone by without any writing. What kind of writer was I anyway? Not writing during the first kid-free getaway I’ve had in forever? Not writing when the light was streaming over the trees just so? When the fog was rolling over the lake and a heron was striding across the shoreline?
In the shower it occurred to me that I could still write this weekend. Even if it wasn’t anything lengthy or revelatory. Even if I just spent a few minutes jotting down a few words about whatever was on my mind.
So I did that. I wrote a couple poems. And I’m sharing them because … I don’t know. It’s important to make time for your words, for your drawings, for your knitting, for your pottery, for your woodworking, for your garden. For the things you create. Even if it’s small. Even if it’s imperfect.
“The Woman I Am”
The woman I was
Was witty
She used to say the things
That elicited the belly laughs.
Her brain sparked
With ideas.
She sparkled
With idealism
The woman I was
Was present
And available
She lent helping hands
And listening ears
The woman I was
Was sultry
She draped herself
Across beds
In silky little
Nothing clothes
Begging to be touched.
The woman I was
Was a maker
Of stories
Of paintings
Of bread
Of things that yearned to be
The things without practical purposes.
The most necessary things.
The woman I was
Was fueled by possibility
That it would always get better
Just around the next corner
Just down the right path
Just with the right person
Just in the right job
Just out of reach.
I miss the woman I was
I long for the long empty days
And the tall stacks of books
I had as a child
And the
unlined faced
And smooth skin
I had as a teenager.
And the zeal
And the energy
And the drive.
The woman I was is a ghost.
I am only left to be
The woman I am.
Who feels unseen
Most days
And also
Unsuitable
For being seen
Who prefers being unseen
Who wonders
if she’ll ever been seen again.
The woman I am
Is tired most days
And handles rote tasks only.
Only the essentials
For survival.
The woman I am
Wants to skip
Right to the part
When I am
The woman I will become.
The wisened old lady
Who stopped worrying
About the hairs on her chin
And the fur on the floor
And the thing she said
In front of all those people
And what she has to show
For all her time here.
The woman I am wonders
When it will be OK to be
The woman I am.
Whoever she is.
The woman I am
Stares at the trees
And wishes to exist
In the way a leaf
Is only ever a leaf
Celebrated as it unfolds in spring
Celebrated as it shades in summer
Celebrated as it turns sunset colors in fall
And mourned
As it lets go of its branch
Floating on the whisper
Of all that was and is
And will be.
“Crows”
I would love to be a crow
Flying across the lake
And landing on the empty branch
With the good view.
Announcing
“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”
And the other crows
Calling across the water
“We’re here, we’re here, we’re here.”
And so you’re always heard.
Even when you’re alone on the branch.
You’re never really alone
With the rest of your sisters and brothers
Just over there
Just across the water
Always reassuring one another
“I’m here!”
“We’re here!”
“I’m here!”
“We’re here!”
And ready to fly across the lake
At the first sign of distress
Or if there’s something good to eat.