Break Time
Dear Starlight,
My desire is to write every day. My life is in the way. That's the dilemma.
Every hero's journey is set in motion by a desire, also known as a dilemma. A desire = dilemma. The hero's victory is not when the dilemma subsides, is solved, is had, etc., but rather when their relationship to it transforms. In the narrative arc, the hero often surrenders as they are out of choices, and this is the inflection point where rock bottom is smacked, maybe they break a little in the fall, but from there, things get sunnier.
Three weeks ago, I attempted to begin writing daily by diligently following a prescribed pathway with a fellow writer friend. We were prompted with sucker-punch questions such as: What is one thing your hero will never tell anyone? and a one-page pep talk prescribing the hero's journey as an outline. We were instructed to write daily for two hours.
Initially, I tried to be good—a good girl. I wrote my pages despite not feeling well and feeling tired. I kept asking myself, Why am I doing this? Why am I writing this way? What am I writing? And I said, "It's going to get better next week when you have more time."
I initiated this writing project's start date to coincide with what I had earlier imagined would be an open time in my life. I was wrong on that.
The second week of writing was more uncomfortable than the first. The writing prompts were geared towards fiction writers, and since I generally write non-fiction, I found myself subject to thirty minutes of timed trauma jabs with coffee and a ballpoint. I heard myself wondering, "WTF are you doing?" I also found that what I had imagined would be a languid break time was instead not a break but rather new and different work because I adopted (unwillingly) my husband's caretaking chores as he went on break at the same time as me but left the country. And, my "real work" never stopped calling me.
Last week, I laid down the law. "THE BREAK BEGINS!" "NO MORE SOCIAL MEDIA!" "VACATION MESSAGE ON EMAIL!" I will write, I will be creative, I will rest, I will float…
Life didn’t understand me when I said break begins. I wasn’t clear on my words. Life tried it’s best to break me.
Life said: "It’s break time! You will spend many unexpected hours and multiple days caring for your husband's rabbit, cleaning feces and blood. You will have good news you want to share on social media. Your son will need you to zigzag him all over the mountains. You will have time-sensitive responsibilities and relationships that need your attention in your "real work." You will get your period early and feel ill."
This week, the writing began building up as undone piles of to-do's. Halfway through, I realized I was fighting my days and was angry and tired. As I looked out the window at the verdant jewel tones encompassing my cottage, I remembered early motherhood. What was most unbearable for me was never wanting to be where I was, stuck in a butter churn of my thoughts with a baby nursing my breast with my ass glued to a bed.
I felt a shift this week when I recognized I was fighting my days and needed to re-orient to what is versus what I want. I needed to surrender to the fact that Place Corps (my “real” work. Also, let’s talk about “real” work) is still only 5 years old, and I am still its primary caretaker. It is expected that it can't take care of itself alone for a few weeks and that other caretakers have questions. I needed to surrender to the fact that my son needs someone to drive him to the doctor and to his school tests and make him meals. I need to surrender to the fact that my husband left me in charge of his garden and animals for three weeks, which means their sickness is my temporary responsibility. I felt relief as I surrendered my expectations of freedom, rest, and creative output. I momentarily felt like the hero of my story as I sat in the green wonderland of my yard not doing anything I wanted to.
But another part of me is rattling today. I am not out of choices. I need to change my relationship with my choices and reevaluate my desires, yes's, and no's.
What do I want to feel versus what I think I want to do?
What I want to feel is joy. The good news is that I have learned that I feel joy when I am playful. Playfulness is imagination applied to mundanity. A magic wand.
So, today, I played with my schedule again. I recognized that I needed to reorganize my schedule by category of feeling vs. what I wanted to do. I wrote down everything I did and determined if it fit into one of the three categories: in-breath, regenerative, and out-breath. I then considered creating a 40/40/20 breakdown, which means allocating 40% of my time to activities that energize me (in-breath), 40% to activities that restore my energy (regenerative), and 20% to activities that expend my energy (out-breath). Inspired by a lesson on quilting that I read last night in the bath, (with wine, feeling like it might actually be break time cuz I dropped my son off at Summer Academy for five weeks), I imagined my schedule as a block quilt and broke those categories into colors. Then, I laid out four weeks and ended up with a quilt of many colors. It's not as important what precisely is made, done, and visited as it is that energetically, I feel in harmony with what is.
I'm not going backward to catch up on this week's missed writing prompts. I'm going forward in a way that honors what I need now and has the flexibility to adjust to life.
And I only want to write on some days, not all days.
A GIFT: Touching Matters, my recent collection of ceramics will be available at Alder & Co only through next weekend both in shop and online. As a gift of gratitude for your artistic support please use code: STARLIGHTGIFT to receive 20% off