Writing is Everything
December 11, 2017 § 70 Comments
By Ann V. Klotz
These days, not a lot of writing is happening in my life. Even at the writing retreat I had looked forward to all year, I produced very little; my school needed me—about twelve times—and my family needed me: my adult-ing daughters, my teenage son, my husband. Finally, I surrendered, realizing I would not be doing as much writing as I had hoped. We can’t choose when we are needed. I consoled myself with the idea that perhaps there would something to learn to write about later. Six weeks post-retreat, the need to write is making itself manifest a million times a day. Earlier this week, I heard myself saying to my husband, “Yes, right now,” but in my head, I had said, “Yes, write now.” Writing is everything.
Even when I am not really writing, the rhythms of my life remind me of writing or of not writing.
Awake in the middle of the night, sentences form, but I am too tired to write them down. In the morning, they are gone, geese honking in formation, headed South. Who gives the signal to land, drop back, switch formation, I wonder, hearing their honking. A few nights ago, the first freeze descended on our garden. Beneath the bathroom window, I note the herbs staggering, browned unexpectedly in their pots, branches stretched, desperate supplicants—all the writings I’ve started and abandoned.
Those abandoned projects reproach me. In the family room closet, I discover a bag of knitting, soft black wool shot through with colors–a shawl started long ago on huge needles. Some pieces call me years later, not yet finished, but patient, knowing a burst of inspiration will bring me back.
Stopped at a light, I watch a neighbor raking leaves, piling them at the curb. It’s a Sisyphean task, really. Rake, rake, scatter. I remember my Dad burning leaves in a tall metal basket, the smoke delicious at the other end of the garden where I clutch my bamboo rake, its teeth scratching across asphalt as I pretend to be Cinderella dancing with the Prince instead of doing housework for the Stepmother. I think about all the words I wish I had time to pile, one on top of the other. A gust blows a swirl of leaves into the street: all the pieces that get away.
I walk on the treadmill thinking about habit, how good it is when my writing habit and my exercise habit are integrated in my daily life, how frustrating it is when one or both lapse, how fragile my well-intentioned routines. “I am not a tumbleweed,” I counsel myself. “I have agency. Nothing is stopping me from walking, from writing. Just get on with it,” I scold myself. It sounds so easy.
I empty the dishwasher, drive our son to school, tidy piles of books and papers throughout my house, talk to my adult daughters. I am moving through my life but fretting, too, about my stalled memoir. Am I stuck because I don’t have time to dig in or am I avoiding the hard stuff?
Recently, I came into the kitchen at 5:30 a.m., started the coffee and got ready to feed the dogs. There, in front of the cabinet where we store kibble, lay a decapitated chipmunk, paws high in the air. Shrieking, I fled. On the other side of the swinging door, I felt embarrassed, trapped, helpless. I wanted to be brave, to cope calmly with this unexpected gift from our cat. Is the rodent a symbol of the tough stuff I’ve maneuvered around? Is it a call to action? There was no avoiding this corpse. I should not be afraid of small dead things, but I am. Reluctant, I climbed the stairs and rouse my sleeping husband, who is annoyed. When he understood the thing was not entirely the thing, he came downstairs. I needed to do the dishes, feed the dogs, make the coffee, I bleated. He knew what I needed was his care. I felt guilty and grateful when the small body wrapped in a blue plastic grocery bag was deposited into the kitchen trash. I spilt the basket of old coffee grounds over it, ashes to ashes, grounds to grounds.
Last Saturday I found myself with several unscheduled hours. My son was occupied, my husband napping. Could it be true? Time to write? Inclination? All those weeks flood onto the page, a dam unstopped. I’m back.
___
Ann V. Klotz is a writer in the early hours of the morning and the Headmistress of Laurel School during the rest of the day and night. Her house is overrun with rescue dogs and tiny cats. She is trying a “do it yourself MFA” in Creative Nonfiction by taking one online course after the next, ordering too many books to read about craft and too many memoirs to read in one lifetime, studying recently with Kate Hopper and Joelle Fraser, and taking a zen position about the loss of her shift key.
Wonderful images to make us relate to the frustration and its release. Thank you.
thank you!
I’ve had a busy full life, with dabbling in writing off and on when time allows. Now in my seventies, around two years ago, I fully embraced writing with gratitude that I’m still given the time. You expressed all this beautifully! We’re always aware of time running out and striving to make time for the things/people we love.
http://www.meinthemiddlewrites.com
You give me hope, Mary Lou–so important to be conscious of our priorities within the busy-ness that claims us! thank you.
Such great tiny scenes and images here, Ann. Seems you have been writing after all. Thank you for this lovely piece of work.
thanks, Ryder–such fun to be re-connected!
Reblogged this on Write, Already! and commented:
This day too shall come for me…
Why, thank you!
[…] via Writing is Everything […]
You are not!
I have a busy life and am constantly distracted. Thanks for putting my feelings into words!
Thank you for reading and for commenting!
Oh Ann, how I love your words! With this essay, especially, you managed to eloquently capture so much of what I’ve been feeling this fall. My heart cries, me too! me too! And those darn geese that fly away by morning? I’m well acquainted with those creatures.
xox, Heidi–sending oodles of love–and time–your way–wouldn’t that be fun? if we could send each other time.
Thank you. There is all the rest of it that prods and tears at me, but right there, all the time, that need to write, that reward of creation, that satisfaction of completion, that hope that it will all return.
Exactly. thank you for reading and commenting!
Why are we both awake? It’s 3:26 local time here.
[…] via Writing is Everything […]
Nice talk
Keep on keeping on, Ann! I needed your example and encouragement this morning. Thanks.
funny, lady, since you, so often, are MY inspiration to keep writing! love that Dinty and Allison brought us together!
So beautifully written, Ann! I’m feeling the same way, struggling with the ways life “gets in the way” of what I want to do, but remembering that even when I’m not actually writing, I’m still working on it.
You are a marvel, lady. Holiday love and thanks for commenting.
I could have written this and not changed much. Solitary writing retreat time?
Thanks for reminding me there are many of us who feel this overwhelming need to write but have other lives that could easily fill our waking moments. And you are spot on–we are always gathering ideas and writing in our heads. I have purchased a small recorder (size of a flash drive) that I carry and tell my ideas or phrases to throughout the day and the numerous times I wake up in the night with ideas.
love that recording idea–just learned that I can talk into my phone–decoding what the phone thinks i have said is proving to be fairly entertaining! Good luck!
Ann, I’m so glad the dam is unstopped. All that life you’ve been living makes you the write you are. xo
xoxo, Kate. Thank you for those kind words.
Love this Ann. So beautiful, and so connected to nature.
Lisa–thank you. hugs, Ann
This is so relatable. But in the end it makes us who we are. Glad you are writing again.
thank you.
Really poignant and honest, with echoes in all our lives- all the readers and writers who lurk on WordPress, when perhaps they should be planning the work meeting/cooking dinner/tidying the house… keep it up, no matter what! G
I do a lot of lurking, that is for sure! glad to be in good company with you. thank you.
Nice flow of writing 🙂
thank you.
A wonderful piece, Ann, that must resonate with so many of us out here in the land of mum/wife/employee/cook/cleaner/cat-feeder/writer, where as you can see writer often comes last. Thanks for reminding us that we can also start that list with writer and not just stick it on at the end of everything else that we do in our lives.
writer does too often come last, Juliet–trying to move it forward on the list. Thank you!
I love everything about this!
That is such a lovely comment. Thank you.
That life finds a way to stall writing holds true even when living alone and very much single. I’m so glad your dam has broken, and welcome back!
thank you!
So so real and entertaining and quietly profound. I am glad glad glad to have read this today. And the above goes for your bio too. 🙂
Why, thank you! I am so appreciative–this comment chain feels like the real holiday presents I crave.
Constant balance of writing and living our lives to write more. More common than we think…and a daily challenge everyday in the life of a writer, yet, still needed the reminder. Thx Ann,
Thank you!
Hi – am new to this and noticed your writing. Yes I agree or shall I say I understand, I empathize with you? I feel similar things happening and I keep shelving writing. Hope the dam goes puff…..loved your writing.
Thank you for commenting (and for noticing)–love the idea of the dam going puff–will hold that image close.
Reblogged this on Boen Post.
why, thank you so much!
I love this so much!
And I thought I was alone!! I feel so normal having read your blog and read through the familiar comments on here. But really if I may say so and with all due respect if this is a taste of your writing then dont wait too long 🙂 The feelings are truly a reflection of what life is like for many writers and the frustrations we internally cope with seem to outweigh the external ones. Speaking personally of course I am sick of hearing friends and family say to me so when will you actually start writing instead of dreaming about writing …the years keep ticking by and I will be 56 next year and still waiting for my confidence levels to go up and I jump off the edge and go for it. Your all an inspiration
ahh–here we are together–I am turning 57 next week!! okay, women of a certain age–let’s heed the call–forget your confidence levels and the rest of the world–write because you can not because others deem it “good.” Leap and the net will appear…notice, I am saying this as much to myself as to you! Thank you for your wise comment and of reminding me of urgency.
This is awesome. I often experience that same frustrating feeling, of conjuring the perfect sentence or idea out of nowhere, but not writing it down, just to lose it as if it were never there. I’ll be driving in the car or in the middle of taking a shower and think, “Oh my gosh, this is great”, repeating it to myself over and over as to not forget, just for it to slip away the moment someone cuts me off or knocks on the door. I sympathize with the frustration.
my life is littered with tiny notebooks–of course–then i cannot find them!
haha right?!
This is very good. I am also a creative Writer that put my writing in the form of blogs if not straight out creative writing on my laptop. I love this piece you put up for the fact I too go through some of the same situations that occupy my time to where it’s hard to have a second to yourself to write and I have a strong passion for this. Thank you. I enjoyed reading your post..
many thanks for reading and for commenting!
Its funny to see how life happens while you’re making plans. But it is teaching us to realize, what is important for us…
thank you!
Every woman has a problem making time for herself it seems. But when it all comes down to it you have to put your foot down, shut the door, sit down and spread your heart onto the screen. I’m glad you finally found time to write.
thank you!
Beautifully said – an ache that probably all of us writing people feel. I’m widowed now, but I still remember when my husband would come into my agreed-upon writing area – basement, attic, wherever it was – sometimes at 6 in the morning, when no one else was supposed to need anything – asking me to look at a letter he had to write for work, or ask how long I’d been up, or beg me to come back to bed. I believe I actually hated him at those moments. I’m sorry to say I still feel that sometimes. GG
you are so human, Gail–it is hard to protect our time, isn’t it? May the New Year be a happy one for you.
I understand your love an need for you writing I feel the same way I breathe through words.
what a beautiful image–to breathe through words. Thank you.
It is only now I am consciously choosing to work part-time, that I’ve been able to form a significant writing habit. I salute your fortitude in keeping faith with your need to write, despite a legion of other demands. Long may it last!
and how grand that you have a significant writing habit–you inspire me!
[…] it is a factor in my life. Let’s face it, I’m more of a reader than I’m a writer. Then I read Ann V Klotz post titled Writing is Everything. Do I feel that way? No, I don’t, but part of me wishes I did. […]
Thank you–
RELATABLE! Well told, through great writing!! Thanks.