Restoring the Wood

It's nearly ten pm on a chilly Sunday evening in February. My apartment has been clutter cleaned, waxed, dusted, glass-cleaned, and the toilet has enough chlorox squabbed through it to pass any military inspection. The dishes are done and my older daughter is asleep on our futon and my younger one I hear is playing poker and doing homework in Boston. There's a pint of frozen vanilla yogurt in the freezer and Leila tells me I am looking skinny. The brownies, and smores, and rocky road ice cream sucked down on this break - and still, yes, I feel skinnier. Something is going on. I recommend lifting and moving heavy objects and clutter cleaning an awnry closet to burn up the fat!

Last night I reached into my holey heart and found, viola, my angst, my utter, I am here and alone, and the place looks great, but still sits here the root of my most major clean up: my laying down the pen to paper and talking about this utter, utter bone crushing feeling of what? What drives me to eat, go out for walks, quickie trips to Eckerd's for diet Coke (or worse yet - circus peanuts), the need to do all of the above in the first paragraph!? I realized last night, as Kenny Loggins sings, "This is it. You are going no further."

And so I picked up my pen and once again the novel proceeded. Like a mule left by the post, my novel plodded along again, simply waiting for the mulehand to begin. My story sputtered along until I realized I was really cutting through the clutter of my life. It was not as harsh or hard as I thought: it simply needed to be told and on a Saturday night with all my housework done ( don't even want to hear about the two rooms still needing varnish), I started the next leg of my novel. I am learning not to sweat how much comes out but more to let the rhythm come out and when it is done, it tells me, and I humbly stop. But most of all, I am learning my mood is better afterwards. Like an addict needs to inject or take in his or her substance of choice, I need to let it out: Let the words out and onto the paper.

It's like butter and I am grateful. For all this around me and about me I am grateful.