WRITING
It’s Not Writer’s Block
It’s time to soak, to float, to be carried
The month of November seems to have come and gone within less than a day. The rainy season has ended and our summer has blossomed overnight. The dreaded holiday season descends like a heavy tarp, distracting and depressing.
Before I moved to Costa Rica, where the weather is warm and delightful most of the time, the holiday season of the Pacific Northwest arrived with gloom, drizzle, cold, and snow. The chill soaked into my bones, requiring me to cocoon, huddled under a lambskin, emerging only briefly to stoke the fire.
Here, the temperature varies between 72–85ºF (22–29ºC), where shorts and t-shirts are de rigeur, and rarely is air conditioning necessary. It rains in the afternoons in our winter and is sunny and dry in our summer. The climate here is perfect.
In other words, I can’t blame my lack of inspiration on the weather, the climate, the season, or any other obvious excuse. So why do I feel blocked and distracted, and why have I not been writing for more than a month?
Changes in attitude, changes in latitude
“Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all”― Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems
Slightly more than a year has passed since I moved into my casita in the country. I’m officially una campesina, with cows and a coffee plantation for neighbors, yet close enough to town that shops and restaurants are conveniently accessible. I’m learning Spanish, adjusting to being a gringa, and loving my adopted country.
The transition wasn’t easy, a huge undertaking, and necessary. I had sold my business, retired from a decades-long consulting practice, and abandoned my life and friends to move thousands of miles away and start over. I moved through that first year as if in a trance, writing every day, moving through my new life without feeling much of anything.
And then I woke up! I started to have fun, entertain guests, be entertained, laugh and party with friends! Suddenly life became interesting, positive, exciting, and even a little bit romantic. And that’s when I stopped writing.
Until today.
Filling the well
For several months, I’ve kept a note from my very good friend, Dunya Dianne McPherson, pinned to the bulletin board above my desk. This is a very messy place, with notes piled on top of notes, cards, and assorted random bits and pieces, the bottom layers becoming obscured over time.
Today I cleared off outdated and no-longer-useful scraps of scribbles and bits, and found this, from a note Dunya had written to me about taking a break herself:
It was time to pause. To soak, to float, to be carried. I needed to stop deadlines. I needed a period where my days could organically unfold. I needed to let my well fill.
I too needed to let my dry, empty well fill all the way to the top. The month of November brought a good friend to visit from the States, a happy Thanksgiving celebration and party with old and new friends in Ojochal, a romantic reawakening, and a mini-holiday/border-run adventure to Nicaragua. I woke up smiling every morning all month long.
It isn’t writer’s block
Suddenly, I’m awake, alive, and inspired to write about everything under the sun, and more. I was never ‘blocked.’ Just resting, refilling, coming back to life. Enjoying a brief sabbatical.
And just as suddenly, I no longer feel guilt or pressure or any other negative emotion about not having been writing for so long. It’s just like making a long cross-country drive. One doesn’t feel guilt when stopping to fill up the tank. It just takes a little time away from the steering wheel.
