Distractions.. Or how I find myself vacuuming at 8:30am

The last few days, especially, I’ve found myself once again doing just about anything other than sitting down and writing. Even writing my dreams down, although this is partly their vague nature the last few mornings, has felt a bit forced.

Talking with others I’ve discovered there are perhaps some planetary reasons why, and that I’m not alone in this sudden backpedaling sensation of creativity.

Which is good..

However last night as I looked around our small house I realized that I haven’t just been neglecting the writing, but the opportunities for word creation as well. You see, I often sort through my thoughts and sift through the avalanche of words in my brain while cleaning.

I think this is why I often put off cleaning. And I find myself catching up on reading, eating, tv shows, movies, cooking, taking the cats in to the yard, walking.. well, ok, not so much the walking.

But since I’m buried in books, I can’t pick up any more at the library (actually I have reached my check out limit apparently, who knew you could do this?!), I’ve eaten, movies in the morning are not my forte, the cats don’t want to go out just yet (it’s too cold), and I’ve caught up on Grimm, Dracula and most of Haven… (and going for a walk is less likely than writing because while I walk I think of writing..)

So, this morning I decided that if I was going to allow any distractions to get in the way of my actual writing, it would be cleaning.

Which is how I discovered my cats not feeling too spiffy and the vacuum needs a new belt.

Now I don’t think I have ever, EVER, intended, much less achieved, pulling the vacuum out before say… Noon. Not to mention actually plugging it in, turning it on. Not even when I went on a cleaning binge in 2004 after the docs put me on Prednisone and I was so energetic for a day I couldn’t sit still (this energy didn’t last and I think that drug is … destructive, to put it mildly), my home has never, never… been so clean.

I was feeling quite happy to be prepared to actually vacuum, for starters. So imagine my surprise, and frustration, when I realized my vacuum is doing all of nothing. Well, ok, so it was sort of sucking up dust. But upon opening it up I found the belt had snapped and that was it for my morning vacuum plans.

So off I went to sweep and clean the dishes, or at least some of them. I desperately miss having a dishwasher! It feels somehow much more satisfying to say you’ve “done the dishes” when you can just load them up, add in some soap and turn the machine on, and then? Walk away!!

But I digress.

The reality is that my delay in writing isn’t because I have nothing to say (as you can see I can find something to say on just about anything!!), or that I don’t know how to say it – I’ve nearly stopped worrying about the how, I believe the delay is the undercurrent of depression and fear.

Writing means I have to face it, eventually. Because no matter how I ramble on about vacuums, or tv shows, or my cats upset stomach, I will find myself done with that, and I will have uncovered what all of that is hiding.

Writing uncovers the river of emotion I’m floating on recently. For better or worse, in joy and sorrow. Writing means that eventually I come to find myself – and all these distractions aren’t about keeping me from writing, but about keeping me from knowing who I am and understanding all that I am capable of, and all of the stories I have to tell.

&*$k.

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Pieces Undone

Have you ever tried to piece yourself back together? Perhaps after a divorce, your own, your parents, a job loss, a parent (friend, lover, child) dying, a betrayal, or just a really terrible, seemingly damned, long day?

After some dark moment you realized that you were shattered, and that at some point you’d have to put the pieces back together. Maybe not today, or even tomorrow, hell, maybe not ever, because where you are right now… who cares about the pieces?! It’s broken… and that’s all you see, all you know.

But then you find yourself slowly coming back to the mess, the shattered bits on the floor, that you’ve tip-toed past day after day, night after night. And you realize, it’s time – maybe not to grab it all and figure it ALL out, but it’s time to find two pieces that fit together, and see how that feels. Perhaps after that you’ll have energy to find another piece, that matches the broken edges of the other two, that slides together back in a way that almost has you fooled into thinking these pieces, were never really broken.

You only have to slide your fingertips over the edges, like your tongue sliding over the cracks in your teeth, the dryness of your lips. And there you feel it, the little crack, the tiny crevices no one else will ever notice.

Do you ever look at the pieces and say, No, that one I’m not using. That one doesn’t fit. It’s too shattered, it was ground in to dust, and there’s nothing I want it for. I will remake the whole without it. For every day I look at what I’ve pieced together, I will know.. that piece, I left behind, I let it go. I’m stronger, better, happier, or just.. OK, as I am now.

And I will do as the Japanese do, I will fill the space in with gold, I will not hide the broken pieces, I will call them out. As one site observes of Kintsugi “the japanese art of repairing with gold to create a perfectly imperfect piece of beauty”.

Yes, that, right there.. A perfectly imperfect piece of beauty.

It has become more valuable, because it was broken, because it was brought back together, because the hidden is now seen. And there is an art in this, a strength.

What once was broken, can always be mended.

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• Things My Therapist Has Taught Me (sipsofjenandtonic.com)