Tomorrow

It is Sunday morning and I am still meandering through Big Magic, a book that is counseling me not to take this creative life thing so seriously. And because most days I have the mind of a squirrel, I pick up another book I started about writing, Story Genius, by Lisa Cron which promises to deliver the magic formula of writing a “riveting” novel. Though I’ve only waded in as far as the first chapters, I’m struck with an idea to rewrite the beginning of my memoir. But the thoughts running through my head are harder to nail down than the ones I imagined writing. Something about that time my mother ran over the family dog.

Meanwhile I’m on my second coffee and need to go to the bathroom and descending the circular stairs of the loft where I read and write to the bedroom where my husband is likely still asleep presents a challenge. Can I get in and out without waking him up? Because if I can’t, the writing day is surely lost. I’ll never make it back upstairs today.

We’ll sit with the newspaper over (another!) coffee, get ready for church, and it will be noon by the time we’re home and then I’ll start to think about the family dinner later, do something with the pile of clothes that have landed in front of the hamper and get ready for the week ahead.

I know, technically it’s Mother’s Day, the mundanities of domestic life should fall away as I languish in a bubble bath sipping a cup of tea, the pages of an engrossing novel getting damp under my fingers. A nap, in this other life, might follow, with fairies (or my family) doing the dusting and vacuuming and dishwashing and ironing. This is not how life works for most of us.

I’m about to re-enter ordinary life, an assuredely very good place to be. I’ll be back here tomorrow, trying to nail down those elusive words and ideas.

MC