It is the fifth time in so many days. I pull my white, scoop-back chair up to the chocolate Parsons table where I do my writing. I flip open my laptop, flex my fingers and place them on the keyboard; I’m ready to impart something profound to the blank page, but when the cursor blinks, I freeze and then the something that happens is: nothing.
I am stuck.
A creative-type Brer Rabbit, my words are suddenly entrapped in a thick tar of psychological block and self doubt. No matter how desperately I will it, the stories won’t write. And the thorny thicket of free and easy creativity—that laughing place which holds my escape—it’s as elusive and mystifying as the literary dots I can’t connect.
Frustrated for the 50,000th time, I force myself to sit and punch keys for three hours. My perseverance is rewarded with a page full of blank and a headache the size of Texas. Resigned to artistic failure, I flutter my hands to my temples in a white flag of surrender. A sob chokes my throat. I bite my lip. Pull my hair. The head theater starts, and in the coming days of confounding self-flagellation, I do all but rent my clothes.
—–
I plop my items on the conveyor: bulk spices, organic apples, hemp milk, free-range eggs. Though I am physically present at the Whole Foods on Woodway and Voss, my mind is somewhere else entirely. I am sitting on a white, scoop-back chair. I am telling myself I suck. I am saying things like I will never be able to write anything worthwhile again. I’m like, you’d better get used to this Hänni; this block you have is permanent now, like an ugly scar, like a contract you can’t break. And I imagine the disappointment, in myself and for others, when my triumphant return to blogging proves to be a fluke … proves that all the frenetic posting pre–writers block was just a flare up before the inevitable fizzle. I blanche.
“Ma’am, are you OK?” the cashier—all dreadlocks and tattoos—inquires.
Suddenly I’m awakened from my angsty, self-involved stupor. I tell him I’m fine. But the way I say it, with my voice rising at the end of the sentence, it sounds like a question and not a statement of fact. Dude lifts his eyebrows, unconvinced.
“Your total is $42.67,” he intones. “Oh, and by the way, whatever it is, it will all work out.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I say, lying through my teeth.
—–
I don’t want to jinx it, but I think my writer’s block is on the wane. And just how did I banish that importunate beast? By brandishing my shiny sword of gratitude.
For all the nights it’s kept me awake—the molasses of my creative malcontent stewing even as I lay my head to sleep—writer’s block has thrown into sharp relief all the things that ARE working in my life.
I am healthy. I am happy. I am loved.
And also, I am gainfully employed as a writer. Even when I can’t string two sentences together for this blog, in my professional life the words are steadfast. Sure it’s unsexy drafting technical content for enterprise software solutions, but my fulltime job guarantees a tidy, bi-weekly paycheck … writer’s block or no.
In this season of thanksgiving, I am appreciative. For writer’s block, its lessons learned, and its quick departure thereafter, I am eternally grateful. Thanks.
(photo credit: nateOne@flickr)
