Blocked

by Patti

It started out innocently enough. I got busy at work; S got busy with school and ballet; I had family visiting. You know: life? And as life got in the way, and I found less and less time to do the things outside of those necessary to survival - things like eating and drinking and peeing - I started moving away from the thing that, while unnecessary to survival by most accounts, is totally necessary to my own survival: Writing.

And then, when I found that little gaps of time opened up to me, I found myself filling them with other things totally unnecessary to survival, things like the entire Paranormal Activity series and spray painting the heels of my shoes. (Don't judge.) When I found the time to sit down and write, I felt tumbleweeds roll lazily through my brain, the words that normally flow so easily from my hands trapped within the intricate weaves of twig and dust. I had nothing. No words. No ideas. Nothing to say. Nothing to express. No picture to paint. So I would carefully close my laptop and tell myself the words would come tomorrow.

But they didn't.

"What's wrong with me?" I lamented to Cathy.
"Be patient. You'll write when you're ready." She encouraged.

Weeks later, feeling lonely on the whitespace of this blog, Cathy started giving me ideas to write about. "Come on, girl, it's no fun without you!"
"I know, I know... I'll have something on Monday."

But the words never came.

Yes, I am writing words this very moment, but it feels more like one of those "freestyle" writing experiments we did in my college creative writing class. Don't think, just write. Yet the words I know exist to tell the stories I need to tell are somewhere in outer space, perhaps dotting the black galaxy, perhaps twisted into the Milky Way, perhaps making up the handle of the Big Dipper.

Rather than try to summon them on demand, I have decided to simply give them the opportunity to disentangle from the nebula and willingly make their way back to me.

I can feel it. They're coming.