Writer's Block

I’m finding myself more and more jealous of my friend Pepper. She has created a life that I am craving. She has a beautiful big old house in a neighborhood that is dear to my heart. She fixed up this house in a way that shows her dreams and desires and has filled formerly empty spaces with massive, stunning oil paintings.

Mostly though what I am jealous of is that she spends a good portion of her days writing. Writing. The word makes me sigh at this point, I long for it so deeply. I receive snippets of her day's work in my email box. By reading them I get to experience from a distance her beautiful appreciation of all kinds of people, her simultaneously uncanny and hilarious ability to write the truth, and the unfolding of her lifestory.

I am so jealous.

I have found myself struggling with writer’s block lately. The times I have to write I look around blankly and realize that I’ve got nothing. I shake my head hard. Still nothing. The times when I do feel the inspiration it’s not the time to write: first thing in the morning when I’m already late for work, or in the middle of the night when I’m struggling with insomnia. The words spin around and around in my brain but I can only choose one: keep trying to sleep or start typing. I’ve been choosing sleep lately. It’s easier and my uninspiration trumps the need for words to get out of my head.

I’ve got some big huge transitions coming up very soon in my life and I think I’ve figured out one way to help deal with them. I’m going to start coming in to work later in the morning, and take that time when I first wake up and my brain resembles alphabet soup – or maybe more like a neon marquee-- to sit down and type for awhile.

I remember my writing teachers telling me to that the best way to overcome writer’s block is to just start writing down words. So that’s what I’m doing right now as we wait for the lasagna to cook. I’m drinking sparkling wine that tastes a little like sweet tears. Like laughing tears.

And I’m thinking for the hundredth time this week how much I want a life like Pepper’s, to roll out of bed and retreat to a beautiful black, dark red and silver room and dig out those words from my head. Once you get a level or two down the digging becomes more like pouring.