I'm having a difficult time getting started this morning.
Actually, I have to amend that because it’s afternoon already. Damnit.
I got out of bed with excellent intentions – but because I
couldn’t fall asleep last night, my alarm woke me out of the kind of dream that
seemed so real it was as if I was in the middle of another life. These types of
dreams are disorienting and I while I remember getting out of bed, and waking
Emma up for school, I think I then stumbled back into bed and slept again
because the next think I knew Smith was waking me up and handing me a cup of
coffee (bless him). Every one else was out of bed by then, dogs fed, Maddy almost out
the door for the bus, Emma was dressed and wearing shoes (a miracle), and I was
still groggily drinking my coffee. Everyone left. I sat down to my laptop.
Right here, in my crowded and messy office. But I couldn’t get anything going.
I wrote one sentence. Here it is:
The other day I was my
friend Nathan and I were having a working lunch – which means we brought work
we were supposed to have rea
It’s not even a finished sentence. It’s not even
grammatical. It sounds like a two-year-old wrote it. I don’t remember where I
was going with it either.
I got up and went downstairs to the kitchen because the dogs
were barking at the joggers and women walking along the sidewalk with baby
carriages. This happens a lot. Dogs tend to take things personally. I checked
for mail even though it was, at this point, only 9am. The mail carrier rarely
shows before 3. I made more coffee and went outside to sit on my small deck. I
brought a notebook and Lydia Davis’s novel The
End of The Story, which I’m obsessed with right now. I’m also obsessed with
her short stories, which are truly short and almost perfect. I read a few pages
of The End of the Story but my eyelids begin to tremble so I closed them
and instantly I was dreaming because I believed myself to be baking bread with
oatmeal raisins and apricots. I woke when I felt my jaw release and my mouth fall
open. My notebook was on the table next to me so I made a list of all I wanted
to do today. Here it is:
 |
| This is just a partial list. It goes on for a few pages and includes categories such as Teaching, Personal Hygiene and Do Immediately! |
As you can see, up near the top of the page, no longer in
the lines, is a note to make bread with raisins oatmeal and apricots – so that
nap was not exactly a waste of time. So far, however, I have completed nothing
on that list. Nor have I written or read much. After writing my list, I got up
and lay down on the couch next to my dog and fell asleep. This time I didn’t
even have useful dreams. I slept about twenty minutes with the dog curled
beside me like a coda. A truck hitting the manhole sized pothole in front of my
house shook me awake. At this point, I was even more groggy.
Part of the problem is that list. How many of us are taught
as children that one must do the unpleasant things first before allowing
oneself to do things that are fun? As you can see from that list above, there
are fun and unpleasant things (fun=bake bread, buying geraniums. Unfun= doing
the dishes, making doctor’s appointments, cleaning out the fridge.) But today I
woke up with a groggy two-year-old’s frame of mind. (I don’t WANT to do the
dishes!(stamps small foot) Well, ya can’t bake the bread if you don’t do the
dishes. (fists on hips)) There are things I SHOULD do before I can undertake
those things I WANT to do. Unfortunately for me, writing is both fun and
unpleasant; it is both something I SHOULD DO and something I WANT TO DO (Stamps
small foot again), and so on days like today I find myself in this weird limbo,
caught between the stubborn child and the admonishing adult, almost completely
paralyzed ,unable to do much more than write lists and fall asleep.
I have days like this more often than I want to truly
acknowledge.
Back I went upstairs thinking getting dressed and dabbing
some makeup on my face might succeed in tricking my brain to getting down to
business. Feeling more awake, I opened my laptop. Feeling peckish, I went
downstairs and made popcorn, which always makes the dogs happy. I don’t know
why the air popper’s funnel doesn’t funnel all the popcorn into the bowl –
there’s always popcorn flying around my messy kitchen. But this is what dogs
are for, so at least my floor is clean. Came upstairs and re-woke the laptop.
Opened a fresh page in Word. Decided to write on a yellow tablet instead.
Couldn’t find a pen with a satisfying enough scratch to it. Returned to the
laptop and the blank Word page. Wiped the popcorn oil and salt off my laptop
keyboard.
Wrote: I'm having a
difficult time getting started this morning. Actually, I have to amend that
because it’s afternoon already. Damn-it.
Damn-it.
(stamps small foot)
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