It’s said that people change over time. And in some ways, they do. But in others? Not so much.
I still like to dress for comfort rather than fashion. This probably stems from my childhood aversion to wearing dresses and patent-leather shoes. Girls’ dresses were usually scratchy, embellished as they were with lace and/or ruffles and frills; and patent-leather shoes, while shiny, were slippery and not very practical.
After all, you can’t climb a tree in a hand-smocked pinafore and Mary Janes.
I still like a good old peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich now and then. There’s something divine in the combination of sticky peanut butter and sweet, sugary jam liberally squished between two slices of bread. Oh, my peanut butter might be a little more upscale these days, and the sugary jam is now the less-sweet variety; but still, one bite takes me back to those days of tree-climbing and bike riding, of catching fireflies in an empty mayonnaise jar and lying in the grass to watch the clouds sail, ever-so-slowly, past.
Why don’t we lie in the grass and watch the clouds go by anymore? Why don’t we put on roller skates, or jump rope, or make homemade valentines out of construction paper to give to our friends?
Time plays a large part, of course. There’s never enough of it when you get older. Time seems to shrink, like plastic in a microwave, down to almost nothing. Our days are filled with meetings, and obligations, and appointments… with the dentist, the doctor, our child’s teacher.
The experts say it’s important to find time for the things we love. Although easier said than done, it’s good advice. Even if I only manage to carve out ten minutes at lunchtime to read a chapter of the latest Kate Atkinson novel or look at photos of a friend’s trip to Disneyworld, I feel more relaxed and refreshed for having done it, more ready to tackle the rest of my day.
It’s like that with writing. I might grouse about it, or moan that I don’t have a clue where to go with the plot; I might abandon my efforts in the middle of a scene and go and have a beer instead.
But when I’m not writing, I miss it. I long to be sitting back in front of my laptop.
Crazy, I know. But that’s the way I imagine most writers feel. Sometimes I wish I could switch the ‘writer’ part of my brain off, so I could sit on a bus or take a walk or have dinner in a restaurant without observing the people around me, without thinking about how this one, or that one, might fit into a story. But when I get home and finally return to my laptop, I’m soon right back in the writing zone. And honestly, there’s nothing better.
Nora Roberts, the prolific novelist, had a well-known “blood or fire” rule. When her boys were younger and she was in the midst of writing, she told them, “…unless it’s blood or fire, don’t bother me.”
Sounds like very good advice to me.
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