Writer’s Block

“I have done noth­ing all sum­mer but wait for myself to be myself again.” 

~ From Georgia O’Keefe’s let­ter to Russel Vernon Hunter

Born in Leo sea­son, I deeply feel the enchant­i­ng mag­ic between Memorial and Labor days. These past few months, I wig­gled my toes in sand, dipped my feet into lakes, dunked myself ful­ly in chlo­ri­nat­ed pools, admir­ing var­i­ous angles of sun glint on so many water sur­faces. I took lots of ear­ly morn­ing strolls and late after­noon naps, read two or three books a week, learned to read tarot. 

I joined a pick­le­ball team where our laugh­ter total­ly makes up for our lack of notice­able skill. I laid in the grass to watch the fire­flies, guz­zled sun tea, ate toma­toes still hot from the vine, throat-screamed at con­certs, hugged my best friends, wore bright col­ors, made count­less char­cu­terie boards to nib­ble on out­side instead of fix­ing a real din­ner. I said yes to any activ­i­ty that would leave me feel­ing young and free and joyful.

Usually by September, as the days grow notice­ably short­er, I grow increas­ing­ly more con­tem­pla­tive and qui­eter. And with this with­draw­al, my words return. This is the rhythm of who I am. Summer is for let­ting all the good­ness in. Fall and win­ter are for let­ting that good­ness flow back out through my words. 

So, my flab­bers are gast­ed to find myself in the throes of the most relent­less writer’s block I have ever encoun­tered. My cre­ative well isn’t just dry, but bar­ren, a des­o­late land­scape of com­plete noth­ing­ness. Writer’s block hits every­one at some point or anoth­er. Writers are often encour­aged to write through the block (like an ath­lete play­ing through the pain). I wrote a few things over the last few weeks that prob­a­bly won’t get pub­lished because 1) it’s com­plete dri­v­el and 2) any­one who reads it will imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nize it as such.

It’s not pro­cras­ti­na­tion as much as a com­plete lack of inspi­ra­tion. I have a doc­u­ment enti­tled Parking Lot where I “park” ideas for future pieces, a 70-page stream-of-con­scious­ness list of quotes, ran­dom facts, and idle mus­ings. I read through the entire thing and couldn’t find a sin­gle thing that fired me up enough to expound on. Yikes.

Writing is both a soli­tary and com­mu­nal endeav­or. It’s a lad­der that lifts me out of the pain or hope­less­ness of being alive. But it’s also a bridge that helps me con­nect to those around me. When I’m not writ­ing, I’m lone­ly. I am ter­ri­fied that I’ll nev­er write again. I am ter­ri­fied that I have noth­ing left to say, that I’m sim­ply regur­gi­tat­ing oth­er people’s words and thoughts where mine should be. 

But, as my friend Lauren likes to say, that is not a today prob­lem. The words will come, or they will not. I can­not force any­thing. So, I wait to be res­cued from myself.