Usually when blogging time rolls around each week, I have an idea I’m inspired to write about. But sometimes the blank page–or in this case, the blank screen–taunts me with its glaring emptiness. And all the judgment questions start tumbling out:
Have I run out of things to say?
Has anything I’ve said in the past two weeks, two months, two years been remotely interesting?
Why am I even doing this?
These questions don’t just pertain to blog posts. They attach themselves to poems, stories, essays–anything I might be writing or revising. If I happen to be working on something larger, doubts spill out of the cracks like little cockroaches, making me want to do absolutely anything–clean all the toilets in the universe if I have to–in order not to go back to the sickening slog of that rickety “Work in Progress.”
Not a great place to be right now, as I promised to somehow write 30 poems in the month of November as a fundraiser for the Center for New Americans.
I’m telling myself poems are just words. And this blog post, too–just words.
When I’m stuck, I often start with what’s outside my window. At the moment, two gorgeous maples are shining through the last hurrah of the foliage. I could give myself a skill-building exercise and try to describe them, literally or metaphorically, but instead I think I’ll just include a couple of pictures–which are supposed to be worth a thousand words, far more than I need to write right now.
For what it’s worth, instead I’ll touch on the multitude of feelings that arise during this season: the dread of darkness encroaching earlier and earlier into the afternoons and the still coldness settling in, the poignancy of all that superimposed with the current glorious glint of the sunlight on the multicolored leaves. Every day that tinge of foreboding: will this be the last truly beautiful day we’ll have until spring?
And often, a similar question we creatives face: Will this be the last successful poem we ever write? The last painting? Last song? Last story?
Mindfulness instructs us to stay in the present–not to ruminate on the past or worry about the future. Yet, this is easier said than done. I’m not sure why it feels so important to anticipate more words in my future that need to be spilled and polished, but thinking that there might not be can feel almost as scary as imagining no more food, or no more air.
But in the spirit of mindfulness, I’m just going to enjoy these trees and trust in the universe. After all, spring does eventually return. The land rests, then rejuvenates. Recognizing writer’s block as part of a similar natural cycle can help us ride the troughs in creativity. As one visual artist friend told me, Good coffee needs to percolate. So do we.
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