Writers' Paralysis

You don't have to tell me...I know....

I haven't been here in quite awhile. And the world it seems, survived. It did not spin off its axis and hurl itself into the sun. No-one wrote me great angst filled emails begging for just one more piece of my writing. No one cried...possibly no one noticed...

I noticed.  I've been here sometimes, staring at the great vast wall of white with the single blinking cursor. Many's the time, pardon the pun, that I've cursed the cursor...wishing it would let me issue forth, something...anything.

So let's say I've been on sick leave, struck down with what I term writers' paralysis. Too much life to live I guess. Not enough pensive thoughts that needed to be committed to the page.

I've been living.  Working. Working hard. On myself, my job, my sense of fun, my need for belonging.

I'd been so busy over the last months and years trying to belong, to put my great square peg self into a round hole that I'd forgotten what fun felt like. What it really felt like to live, to play, to be silly.

Last weekend, I found myself twice in a sense of homecoming.  Family was here, when family comes to Florida, you usually A. Go to Disney or B. Go to the Beach.  We opted for the latter. It's ironic, I live within an hours' drive of possibly the most famous coastline in the world and I never go there. As we got closer, I could see it, aqua water with rolls of foamy soap-like waves. I felt 4 years old again, scrambling out of the car, impatiently waiting for the others to catch up to me. I simply could not wait to get to the sea and when I was finally there, the most odd sense that it had been waiting for me, just waiting for me to come back. Home, back where I belonged, the place that I most loved. Why had I stayed away so long?

The world has always seemed to me to be divided between two types of people, ocean-people and mountain-people. As majestic as mountains are, I must admit I am ocean person. It's there that I feel most myself.

As Ann Morrow Lindbergh wrote, in her famous "Gift from the Sea" (which I can never be without) "I walk far down the beach, soothed by the rhythm of the waves, the sun on my bare back and legs, the wind and mist from the spray on my hair. Into the waves and out like a sandpiper. And then home, drenched, drugged, reeling, full to the brim with my day alone, full like moon before the night has taken a single nibble of it, full as a cup poured up to the lip. There is a quality to fullness that the Psalmist expressed: "My cup runneth over."

My cup runneth over, I stood in the surf, the sand retreating from the pools under my feet, and just took it all in and I thought, "I'm happy. If nothing else comes of life but this moment, I'm happy and it can never be taken from me."

My next moment of homecoming took place in a gallery that I work within walking distance of. It's small and eclectic compared with the galleries one might see in NY or larger cities like London or Paris. But I've always loved it. Down to the smell and the heavy wooden doors that are on either side of it. I am passionate worshiper of beauty and design. Although frequently befuddled by it myself,(to wit, I spent the better part of one evening this week trying to buy throw pillows on Wayfair.com and becoming completely overwhelmed with the variety and colors offered, I slammed down the lid of Gavin (my laptop) and burst into tears), I always find myself completely enthralled with the product of another man's genius. I drank in beauty in paintings, vases, pottery, jewelry and other media. I asked questions of the museum guides, I reveled in color, in textures, in light. I found myself wanting to somehow capture it, to savor the moment, so that when I needed it, I could take out like a talisman against disappointment in man and humanity. Sometimes when life becomes overwhelming and too teeming with the problems of humanity, you need to be able to remember that there is still color, and beauty and romance left in the world. I found all of those things in that same neighborhood gallery that I visited so many times before.

So I guess I could say that for me, the antidote to Writers' Paralysis was to find inspiration and imagination again. And I guess, all apologies to Jonathan and Drew Scott, HGTV offerings are not always enough. I had to step outside of my own insular world and into the wider world and explore the things that are outside of the ordinary, even if my fear of heights did prevent me from climbing up the whole Lighthouse at Ponce Inlet and knocking an item off my bucket list!

All the writing prompts in the world cannot make you feel...
Writing is so much more than just the words...just setting them down will never do...you have to do the heavy lifting, the living...the feeling, the scents, the sounds...

Going through this time of paralysis makes me that much more grateful for the times when they words do come...