It’s been nearly a year since the bottom fell out of our karmic balance. In the midst of the chaos and crises that battered us like waves preceding a storm surge, writing was hardly at the forefront of my mind. Sitting down and escaping to a fantasy world of my own creation would have taken more mental energy than I could have salvaged. As it was over the past year, focusing on health, happiness and simply surviving the turbulence depleted everything I had to give. It’s taken some time to move beyond bare subsistence mode, beyond recovery, and to stop mentally flinching in anticipation of the next hit.
Today feels like an important day in both its significance and its complete and glorious normality.
Today, my husband started a new job – a real job that will actually pay him what they’re contracted to pay him, a job that won’t hold a sword to his neck each day with the impending threat of lost funding or unemployment.
Today, I started a new pattern of homeschooling with my son. Almost 4 years old, he’ll be ready for kindergarden in another year and a half. But with constant “playschool-itis” exacerbating some recently diagnosed health issues, I’m happy to keep him home with me for this precious and unrepeatable time in his life where we simply get to play together. Today’s docket included getting dirty, getting grass stains on our butts, playing in the mud, planting some flowers, and climbing the Caboose. It’s been a good day.
Today, I opened up StoryMill and started writing again. I may not have written very much, and what came out and onto the screen certainly won’t be classified as anything but junk. But it was progress. Dusting out the cobwebs and opening up the shutters. Okay – it felt more like prying them open with a crowbar, but I know the words will come if I just keep at it.
I started writing fiction nearly three years ago as an exercise to sharpen my wits and dust off my right brain functionality. I’ve missed having story lines and characters to meditate on while sitting at the playground. I’ve missed jotting down little tidbits of conversations and observations as I’ve been out and about. And I know I should have come back to it sooner.
Giving myself the freedom to daydream, even in dribs and drabs, is that last step forward I needed to shake the vestiges of the past year away. Today I’m digging my toes in the grass, and listening to my little guy giggle at the worms, and knowing that it’s all going to work out just fine.
