Writer's Block

It frustrates me that I can’t write. I feel like there’s a story inside somewhere, but when I sit down to actually write it, I freeze. Can I really only write 500 words or less in corporate business speak?

When I was a little girl, writing “books” was one of my favorite things. Anything was story-worthy. Now I feel like I have to write the great American novel every time I have a quiet evening to myself. Those quiet evenings usually end in frustrated Facebook surfing.

I still love to write. I feel like it’s what I do best. The one skill I have that’s actually marketable. But I really want to write a story. I want to be invested and involved in characters. I want to craft a plot. But how? When I think of an idea, I’m usually sick of it by the time I’m done thinking about it. Probably not a good start to a book. I feel like I need to let my mind just go. Let it be free of the constraints of seven years of marketing pointless products of all shapes and software.

I've thought a lot the past year about what I want, who I am, and how I want to spend my life. I think these are answers I'll ponder for many years to come, but one thing I'm sure of is that creative expression through writing is something I want. Now that I know I want it, I need to make time to do it.

But first, I need to free myself of my own expectations. Stop worrying about perfection and just writing. Stop worrying about finishing and actually get started.

That’s my goal for 2014. To write something that means something to me. 

Gravy Train

Making gravy makes me anxious. But my attempt this Thanksgiving proved to be successful—both as a butter-laden blanket for the type of poultry we thankfully only eat once a year and as a new definition for the wonderfully hard stage of life known as new motherhood.

The story starts one afternoon as I was sitting on the floor, naming farm animals with their accompanying sounds as my one year old pointed to their pictures in a book. Time wasn’t even crawling; sitting still would be a better description. Anyone who has ever categorized fauna with a toddler knows that minutes have a mysterious way of doubling in length. We’d been at it for a quarter hour when an odor hit me that would have been right at home in a barnyard. I picked up Max and with a cheerful voice announced, “Time for a diappy change!”

Arms flailing. Legs kicking. Diaper flying. No more needs to be said to provide a sufficient image. The first thought to cross my mind: look what my life has been reduced to.

I used to make lots of money. I used to be a top-reviewed employee of a major technology company. I used to be complimented on my clothes. I used to be told I was smart, that I excelled, that I had potential. Now I try to figure out ways to change a diaper without getting poop smears on the carpet.

Life reduced? Yes, I thought, reveling in the self-pity that seems to come so easily to my stay-at-home self.

A few days later, as I prepared to make my gravy attempt, I read the recipe for the twenty-seventh time in the November edition of Bon Appetit: simmer until reduced to about 2 ½ cups, 20-25 minutes. There it was again: reduce.

I’d been previously thinking about reduce in the most basic way: to lessen, to deplete. In cooking though, reducing is a process of enriching. Simmering down a sauce concentrates the flavor and thickens the body. By lessening, you enhance the final product.

Reducing requires heat, which can’t be comfortable for gravy and definitely isn’t for me. I think of the heat in this case as the long hours, days, and weeks where you put someone else before yourself. Where you put yourself on the back burner.

Yes, my life has been reduced by having a baby. It’s smaller in scope and income. But I’m hopeful that this reduction will ultimately enhance me. By evaporating my own unselfishness and impatience day by painfully slow day, I hope to become a more fully developed person. By boiling down life to my most closely held values, I hope to eliminate materialistic success as a primary motivator in my decisions. The next time I think about what my life has been reduced to, I hope to see the richness rather than the want.