Something is better than nothing

April 15, 2009

Here’s the thing.

I could tell you that the fact that I don’t write a column anymore is because I’ve been so busy with other things that I have no time for plunking out my chronicles on a keyboard.

But if I took that stance, my nose would grow like Pinocchio’s.

Truth be told, I have loads of time to write and more ideas and dreams and aspirations to write about than anyone can imagine.

Yet, I admit that on a daily basis I readily find countless other things to fill my time so that there is none left in which to write.

I’m a chronic procrastinator who blatantly denies and fights a clear-cut opportunity.

Why is that?

The last time I put one of these columns out was nearly three months ago. How can I expect anyone to rely on that kind of hiccupped continuity?

In the January 18^th column I was professing my belief and confidence in the Universal plan.

And here’s the kicker. I could be a poster child for it these days. I can’t tell you how thick as thieves the Universal plan is around here, waving its green flag and leaving the days wide open for me the writer, even as I continue to put up roadblocks at nearly every turn.

Why is that?

Heaven knows there remains enough comedy and drama in my neck of the woods to fill the word count even though the main catalyst for my creativity, my husband, is working in Kandahar, Afghanistan for the next seven months.

Yet maybe that is the very reason why my writing in stooped in a vat of literary molasses. Yet again, this faltering began long before Pete took up his next big career adventure.

No matter how I look at, I am my own worst enemy, second-guessing my ability and believing the dream-stealing ego that resides in me, while everyone else around me knows better.

For some reason I am convinced by the misconception that everything I write about has to be funny and roundabout romantic. There goes the pathologically positive me again, cutting my own throat to save myself.

Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, and Tom Russell wouldn’t be the songwriters and musicians they are if they thought like that. Any good author in the entire world wouldn’t be one if they thought and wrote like that all the time. 

Quite honestly, of late I am sad. Among other reasons, I feel a tad misplaced, unsure of this recessed future on the horizon, and where I fit in. I thought I knew.

In the song “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,” Elton John sings about whether there are people out there like you. I know there are and I’m with them. Here I sit two shots shy of 50, and my chance at retirement is a trash can dream too.

And then, the other me snaps back in place. I am grateful for many things. I have love in my life though it be long distance love these days.

And albeit old and in desperate need of a facelift yesterday, I have the home of my dreams. And I have my people.

I go back and re-read what I’ve typed here so far and roll my eyes. Ridiculous, poppycock.

And yet, something is better than nothing and this is the chapter of thought that, so far, has been on my mind.

Perhaps all this mind muddle is a product of the infinite winter slump that’s had us under a grip of relentless cold and snow, now thankfully, replaced daily by the glimmer of green grass and temperatures above zero.

Though the smell is never friendly, the job of cleaning up a winter’s worth of dog poop is looking pretty good to me. It means there’s hope for summer after all.

And then there’s the new military school for dogs now being attended daily by Dot and Cash, who unbeknownst to me had done enough barking while I was away from the yard to make their debut on the “Most Wanted” list of area neighbors.

My apologies to all parties.

On my “Most Wanted” list are the magpies currently building their summer homes in the cedar and evergreen trees surrounding my yard. I am reminded at this very moment--by the piece of an old alternator belt the dogs had been playing with that just flew by the front window in the beak of a magpie for the family nest—my slingshot lesson is at sunset.

It is my hope that the days to come will bring me back to this place where I plunk out my chronicles on a keyboard. My life is different than it was even three months ago, and not without some very serious challenges and changes to come, but it’s never boring.

If nothing else, I can write about the strange dreams I have at night, like in the one that played out in my mind a couple of sleeps ago.

 

Copious amounts of honey ham and smoked turkey breast lunchmeat were being passed around from out of my fridge to people sitting outside of my house.

NDP leader Jack Layton, clean-shaven with a bit of 24-hour shadow, was sitting on a lawn tractor in my yard talking to me and eating his campaign office memos and then listening to what the election campaign office had to say through the food. 

 

Fortunately, I usually have more interesting and stirring dreams and most of them include my husband in a bath towel, but those details are best left to the imagination.