One day I woke up and knew I just couldn’t keep stringing words together week after week after week.
How does it feel to stop doing something that has kept your creative juices flowing for over thirty years?
Can I still consider myself a writer if I’m not writing?
Who would I be?
What would I become? Irrelevant? Invisible? A non-person?
Rachel Mary Stafford, www.handsfreemama.com, talks about how we seek external validation for superficial reasons and from questionable sources. Is that all I’ve been doing all these years with my writing? If I have, it’s too scary to contemplate.
So instead of probing for gleanings into my complicated relationship with stringing words, phrases and sentences together in an attempt to make sense of my world, I escape instead. I binge watch. I read voraciously. I forage into my kitchen cabinets for long forgotten goodies. One night I do something I haven’t done in years: I open a box of Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe French Vanilla Cake Mix, add the necessary eggs and milk, swirl it all together in a giant ceramic mixing bowl, and begin to numbly shovel the unbaked batter into my mouth.
Stomach grotesquely extended, I throw myself into bed – disgusted, wildly bloated and vowing to get a grip on my downward descent into a hell of my very own making. Eating to fill an emotional void.
As the mindless bingeing tapers off, I find myself doing something else: actively distancing myself from obligations, established routines and habitual behaviors. Not only do I stop writing, but I pull away from Instagram posting, checking my e mails, monitoring my book sales and seeking out new creative adventures. I don’t return phone calls. (I’m pretty bad at that even during the best of times.) I stop texting. I sleep late. I curl inside myself.
I confide to only one friend about my miserable state of lethargy, who boldly pronounces, “Iris, this is what mourning looks like. Ride the wave.”
Overly preoccupied with the death of my mother, I am compelled to learn about her as a person – not just the woman who at times loitered too close and demanded so much more attention than I could possibly provide.
While closing up her apartment, clues emerge. I see what dates she diligently marked each year on every new calendar:
The date her older brother Joseph was born: April 23.The date her older brother Joseph died: April 28. A mere five-day span in the spring of 1924. The brother she never knew. The sibling she never had.
The date our family dog “Schlep” died: December 11, 1976. The pet we never replaced.
I found during this past summer that mourning is more than sobbing into a tissue at odd times of the afternoon. Mourning is sitting on my mom’s fourth floor balcony – on an old crocheted afghan whose origin I no longer can recall. Watching the half-crescent moon – listening to Bob Dylan on Pandora. Yearning for the “good old days” when I was book-ended by vibrant parents who buoyed me up and young children who both needed and craved my hovering presence.
As Elizabeth Gilbert posted on Instagram: How do you survive a tsunami of grief? By being willing to experience it without resistance.
I beckon the darkness to come closer – without restraint and reservation.
My sister arrives to help me pack up my mom’s possessions and then flies home. I finish emptying my mom’s two-bedroom apartment. I say goodbye to her neighbors that I have come to cherish. I turn in the keys at the rental office. I drive past the gazebo draped in flowers and head toward the airport. I am will traveling to New York City to see my sons and their families.
Though I don’t know it at the time, soon I will begin once more to feel happy, blessed and content.
Though I don’t know it at the time, in the fall, I will return to my prior routine:
Counting my daily steps with a goal of 10,000 per day
Going back to my morning stretching routine
Staying hydrated
Taking my vitamins
Eating more sprouts
Though I don’t know it at the time, the thought of pulling words from my formerly fatigue-laced brain will no longer exhaust me.
The thought of creating catchy phrases to express my ever-present observations will seem surmountable. The idea of writing something relatable and enjoyable will appear entirely possible.
So today, as we slide into the holiday season, I sit down in front of my Mac Book Air, place my fingers on the keys, and once again begin to compose my weekly newsletter.
I’m back.
Iris