You know when you can’t sleep – you toss and turn, count sheep, think positive thoughts, try meditating, go get a glass of warm milk. Nothing works.
At 1 a.m. you look out the window to see if anyone else has their lights on, 2 a.m. you check your email and FB messenger, 3 a.m. you put in a load of laundry, and by 4 a.m. you’re convinced you will go mad.
Well, that’s what’s happening to me and writing.
I can’t friggin’ write.
Oh, it’s not because I can’t write – any more than I can’t sleep. I’m capable. Everyone can sleep at some point and almost everyone can write. I can’t.
I used to be able to write. I loved writing. I was always scribbling something down in a notebook. Sometimes I took on big projects. Like when I was seven or eight and wrote my version of Anne of Green Gables. When I was 12, I rewrote the end to Gone with the Wind and when I was in my first year of high school I started a writing group and we wrote dirty stories about sex and stuff.
For goodness sake, I make a living writing. But that’s different. Usually, some politician or government scientist or lawyer or policy wonk (sorry Kay) has already made it up. I just have to make sure the message is clear and consistent, make it readable and regular-folk friendly.
No, it’s not the writing that’s the problem; it’s not even the lack of ideas. I wonder is it starting with a blank page, or is it because I’m getting old? I don’t know.
Just as I do when I can’t sleep, I try everything – well not drinking warm milk or counting sheep but other things, like checking websites for writing prompts or promising myself a reward if I write for 15 minutes without stopping, or crying out to my writer friends for ideas.
I listen to the sounds of the house. I look out the window, not to see if anyone has their lights on but to see what the rest of the world is doing. Like the young world, those with their lives in front of them. I get this feeling behind my eyes as if I’m going to cry when I think of things I haven’t done or haven’t done right and now I’m too old, it’s too late. I get all nervous and twitchy. My stomach does weird things. It feels as if someone is trying to choke me. My mind goes into overdrive. I think about dying, about writing wills, about having a stroke and no one finding me, about getting dementia. Well, one of my friends had a stroke and died. Another has dementia.
I think about God.
Just like in the middle of the night, I try to untangle things. I question, what’s it all about? Why is it so especially bloody hard for some people? I start thinking about my grandson, about the little kids next door, about some stranger kid I saw at the park the other day – I wonder what their lives will bring? How will they deal with this troubled world we are leaving them? Surely there’s a story in there somewhere.
I think back to earlier days; days when I was a kid, a teenager, a young adult, a newlywed, a young mother, a divorcee. At 15, I was excommunicated from the fundamentalist Christian cult I grew up in. I was on my own, losing contact with most family members. A few years later I was a flight attendant and met many famous people including the Beatles. I’ve travelled the world, lived in a camper van, and hitched a ride from Panama to South America on a boat found later to be smuggling drugs. Bloody hell, I must be able to write about one of those times.
I think about all the things I keep secret even from myself. If I close my eyes, I can feel the pain, the joy – I tell myself to deep dive further and to take my name out, give my feelings to a fictional character and write, for goodness sakes, just write something.
I think about the good things of today. I look out the window and let myself feel the joy that comes from nature – it’s almost spring. The snowdrops are peeping up above ground to see if it’s time yet, the trees are just starting to show a tinge of green, and there’s a sound of kids playing in the lane. Charlie the cat lies on the deck enjoying the new warmth that’s in the air. It all brings a little sense of peace to my soul. Surely I must be able to write something about that.
But no, just like not being able to fall asleep, I can’t write.
I can vacuum, taking extra care to go into the corners just like my mother taught me. I can clean cupboards until they look like they belong in a display home, I can bake banana chocolate chip muffins, and prepare my taxes ahead of schedule (even my accountant was impressed) but I can no longer friggin’ write.
Today, I will accept that with grace. Tomorrow, I will try again. And meanwhile, at least my house is clean.
