Carrie Link

When I first came to Sisters I was eager to leave all "to do" lists back in Portland and assume a completely blank page each morning. Well, nature abhors a vacuum and chronic doers abhor the blank page. Fast as you can say obsessive-compulsive I had planted new plants that needed daily watering. I bought a bird feeder and hummingbird feeder that required daily filling. I got a bird bath that needed hosing down and re-filling each morning. There will be no bird-do in MY bird bath, thank you very much.

And so it went. I filled the house with flowers that needed their water refreshed, their ends trimmed and then a system for yard debris to be created.

Each cupboard beckoned me to re-organize it. Trips were made to the thrift store to leave the past behind. Trips to Target were made to bring the present into the freshly cleaned cupboards. Tired towels were replaced with fresh and bright. Toys no longer age appropriate for my kids were replaced with blessed space on the floor and clutter free shelves.

The refrigerator was attacked both inside and out, on the top, too. All the faded, dated and now hated notices on the front were removed. All the junk on top was taken down and new homes were found for what was essential, the rest was thrown into the garage for the next thrift store trip. The long-expired mayonnaise, relish, ketchup and mustard were tossed but not replaced. I no longer need to buy all that stuff if it's just me here. This refrigerator needed only to meet my needs, and nobody else's. Now there are bottles of Pellegrino and 1/2 and 1/2 in my refrigerator, little else.

With the house writing-ready I was all set, no distractions. My list for the day now included things like:

1) Write scene where I knew I had two kids with special needs.
2) Write scene where I became hysterical and had to be sedated at age 11.
3) Write scene where uncle committed suicide.

Oops! What's that I see outisde? A noxioius weed? Better pop off this chair and go get it, roots and all! Wow! Are those dead flies lying in the base of that light fixture? Those must be disposed of IMMEDIATELY! How I longed for a daily To-Do list that would preclude me from doing what I was here to do! I had met, face-to-face with what I'd longed for, day after day with nothing to do but write. Goddammit, why wasn't I having fun? Why wasn't I lost in the world of my words and story? Why wasn't I cranking out 20 pages a day?

Because. Because going "there" is hard. Brutally, brutally hard. The stuff that is pulled from deep within the locks and gates of the psyche are no fun to splat across the page. The stories of how you got the way you are, are horrifically revealing and in many cases, somewhere along the slightly embarrassing to devestatingly humiliating continuum.

Maybe I should go read other people's blogs! Maybe I should stop writing and go read a book about writing! Maybe I should call a friend and talk about writing! Anything, I was willing, and desperate, to do anything but actually write.

Somehow, despite being my own worst enemy, I have the scaffolding done for my book. I have the frame. I even have some of the rooms of the "house" taking nice shape and being almost "move-in ready." Somehow, despite the lack of distractions and lack of impositions of others, my need to do this has overcome the need to not do it. Somehow. Maybe that's what I'll spend today doing, trying to figure that out. Or I could write. Damn.