Writing Blues

I still feel in a writing funk, maybe from my most recent rejection. Although a long Sunday stretches before me, I feel like a puppet with two many chores and interests competing, yanking my to-do strings: reading the Sunday paper, cleaning the cat litter box, reading in "An American Tragedy," straightening up so I can invite Ms. M. over for coffee, helping T. brainstorm ideas for his Theology paper, practicing on "Red" (my violin), and of course writing and revising. Maybe my blues stem from being a Gemini--I want to be a Renaissance person skilled at a zillion things but without the necessary genius or discipline. The green monster of jealousy appears with gleaming red eyes and sharp outstretched claws whenever I read of another writer's successes--especially if they're younger than me--especially if they're related to me. I start bashing myself--"You don't work hard enough, D." or "Who ever said you were talented?"--a total waste of time that scatters any creative force that might actually be brewing inside me!

I suspect that Emerson knew this feeling: "It is the highest power of divine moments that they abolish our contritions also. I accuse myself of sloth and unprofitableness day by day; but when these waves of God flow into me I no longer reckon lost time. I no longer poorly compute my possible achievements by what remains to me of the month or the year; for these moments confer a sort of omnipresence and omnipotence which asks nothing of duration, but sees that the energy of the mind is commensurate with the work to be done, without time."

Work is the only escape ladder out of this funk and into the divine moment Emerson speaks of. So, onward! I'll finish revising Chapter 15 of "Rachel and the Cousins: 7th Grade." Here, Rachel goes apartment hunting with her dad and her dad's fiance--and Rachel decidedly does not want to move from their cozy basement apartment. I'll also work on a gift--shh!--for my son's 18th birthday. I'm collecting and organizing memories and key dates--the date and time when he first tore up something (a cable TV guide), the day he said his first sentence: "This is a sock." Of course I'll have to make some corny reference to the serendipity of this early remark, for now T. is a die-hard Sox fan!

And of course all that distracts me from my writing can paradoxically make it richer--being a mom, being a friend, reading literature and newspapers, playing an instrument. Even cleaning the cat litter box. Life is more important than literature. And as my good friend M. always said, balance is everything.