It’s been an interesting few months, my sisters. Full
disclosure? I’ve been blocked. No, my colon is working fine and although I do
notice that as I get older I am indeed fixated on my bowel function.
When I say blocked, I mean my writing. Make no mistake, I don’t consider
myself a “writer” by trade. Sure, when I was a kid, it was indeed my dream to
be a writer. I pictured myself
holed up in some fabulous café with a moleskin and a fountain pen scribbling
for good and glory as the words
fell on the page. In my head I was in a fabulous pantsuit and in my heart I was
living the dream.
Did it matter if I was good at it? Shit no. Writing was my
escape. As a kid I has Hillroy notebooks on my desk with antique fountain pens
bought second hand. My fingers were stained blue and black from the leaky pens
but I used them anyway. I wrote poetry and short stories, songs and love
letters. I poured my heart on pages and left it there to bleed and to heal and
to make me whole again.
Dramatic? Sure thing. I was a teenager in the 1980’s
enduring one Winnipeg winter after another. I was North End girl with Downtown
dreams and a closet full of Club Monaco sweatshirts and Levi’s 501’s. Drama and
dreams were all I had.
But dreams have their way of working out because indeed when
I shared my pantsuit/moleskin fantasy with my family, I was quickly informed by
my father that writing would make a fine hobby once I became a doctor.
“Don’t worry, Alphonse”, he informed me, “you can wear
whatever pantsuit you want once you get your medical degree.”
Yes, the writing would be my hobby all these years as I
pursued medicine as a career. Here it is decades later…. my father is long gone
(I miss him so), I am indeed a doctor who indeed writes for a hobby. As for the
pantsuits? I am really more a dress and heels kind of girl.
Make no mistake, I am at a point in my life where I really
do LOVE my job. This was not always the case. There indeed was a time when I
thought this life in medicine was thrust upon me without a choice and I was
doomed to “make it work”. I saw my
work as a job and my job as an obligation. I always liked the work and the
people but I just could not make a love connection.
And then as if by magic about 5 or so years ago, I fell in
love; truly, madly deeply. I can not recall the place or time, the rhyme or
reason…. But something clicked and me and medicine really did make it work.
And then it occurred to me. I started writing 5 years ago.
Could it be that my passion for my work sparked and grew when I reconnected
with the creative side I had left behind? I really can’t say for certain I just
know that when words flow to a white space in front of me, my happiness indeed
increases. Perhaps, excuse the drama, writing makes my world make sense.
So imagine my dismay when for the last few weeks, the words
have been stuck like nobody’s business. Yes, I had writers block and no
pantsuit in the world would mend this fence.
Writers block is an “umbrella term” first described in 1947
by psycholanalyst Edmond Bergler. It is a term used for the condition when
writers (professional or otherwise) can’t make it happen. Think of it like
Literary impotence and you are pretty much half way there.
Sure enough here are a variety of theories for why the block
happens. One such theory is that when the brain gets stressed the limbic system
(basal brain functions) take over from the cortex (the thinking system). How
can you pen the great American novel when your brain is purely in survival mode
trying to not be eaten by the world. We sacrifice creativity for survival in
these instances and as such get blocked.
Another thought is that depression, fear, or even audience
awareness paralyze the writer from thought and action.
I’m not sure what happened to me. All lives have stress and
I am a pretty happy person. Maybe I just got lazy for a few weeks and my
cerebral cortex needed a nap.
You see for the last few weeks the words that once flowed
like water have indeed been sticky and slow.
Could it be my writing hobby had run its course? Was it now
time to take up quilting? I have no idea why I bring up quilting. I don’t know
how to quilt- it just seemed like a classic hobby.
But damn it, “I am a sometimes writer”, I told myself and
like anything in life worth having I will endure.
There I sat in front of a blank screen willing the words to
come.
I prayed to the goddess and sold my soul and promised to
call my mother more often….
And within moments my fingers hit the keyboard and in a
flash I was back in that proverbial pantsuit with imaginary moleskin in hand.
Block be gone.
I’m back bitches.