Echoes in a Hollow Space

I am caught between ideas right now—not too few, but too many. Good ideas, but almost none of them fleshed out enough to start writing, or to continue writing. Or too stubborn to let me move forward right now. I'm also doing a lot of research reading—but I'm pulled in different directions there, as well. Dueling ideas. And even some old, failed novels sending me new solutions to their old problems. So the creative wheels are spinning. Round and round they go, where they stop nobody knows.

I worked on one novel for most of the winter, but it slammed into a wall in March just short of 41k and would go no further no matter what I tried. I think somewhere along the line I took a wrong turn. Usually when novels get mulishly stubborn it’s a sign I’ve headed off into the weeds instead of following the correct path—that through line that takes me to the ending I composed at the beginning of the project. Usually, if I reread I can find where things start to feel hinky, backtrack and move forward in a different direction from that point. But I tried that, thought I’d identified the problem, except that the thing I thought was wrong, the character, insists on remaining. And maybe he wasn’t what was wrong. Maybe the wrong turn happened elsewhere. I haven’t the heart to do yet another reread/figure out session at the moment so I’m letting it lie fallow and attempting to work on something else.

Yes, I hear all the outliner writers telling me I’m in charge, not my characters. Make an outline and make them do what I want. I’ve tried that as well. They threatened to burn my house down. I learned long ago they are in charge and I’m just letting them use my fingers and brain. And I really need my house.

I’m not really complaining (The Unbearable Whininess of Being). I know many artists have been flailing for the last year or so and I’ve been lucky that I’ve kept writing, through the summer and fall and winter. Sometimes sporadically, but inching forward. And I am still writing, just flitting from thing to thing and not getting anything to jell. There are so many terrible things in the world right now and I am so lucky. Perhaps all the terrible things in the world are part of why my focus is strained. So odd that it would dissipate just as there are signs of hope, of seeing people again. As of Thursday my “probation” period will be over. It will have been two weeks since I had my second COVID shot (Moderna).

I do like seeing people, making plans. It’s just that isolation becomes such a habit for people like me. And given the problems with my legs and chronic illness, it sometimes gets reinforced physically. Limited mobility means limiting my plans to what is easily achievable.

People ask me how I’ve been able to stand being inside my house alone for 14 months, but the answer is that I’m never really alone. I’ve got all those characters and the extraordinary worlds they inhabit to keep me company. But when the magic circus packs up and leaves town without allowing me to follow? The walls do start creeping in.

I am extremely lucky. I see that, I feel that. My dear friend and neighbor has invited me to her house on May 15 for high tea, along with two other of my lovely neighbors, taken outside in her zen garden. We’ve all been fully vaccinated. I was the last and they’ve been waiting for my probation to pass.

But frankly, it will be a long while (if ever) before I leave my house unmasked or squeeze into crowded venues. There are the physical limitations, but there are also too many arrogant idiots in the world who think the rules don’t apply to them and why should they get vaccinated? Let somebody else take the risk.

I can only hope my circus animals come back to play, to settle down to their usual tricks and caprices so I can notate their stories. I really don’t want to wallow alone in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

My friend with CJD called me this morning. About ten minutes before she did I’d been praying that she’d find peace soon. It’s almost as if her radar picked that prayer up. I sometimes think that kind of thing can move through the aethyr and be sensed up by someone who’s ailing.

Apparently, they’re going to move her to California tomorrow, if what she says can be trusted. (I’m not sure it can be, but who knows?) She was talking about a lot of stuff I didn’t understand and mourning because she can’t take her cat to the “nice place” they’ve found for her near her brother. She’s worried about her cat, although a friend in Oregon, “one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet” has agreed to take care of him. “But he’s my baby boy!” she cried. “And I’ll miss him!” She told me how she’d been sobbing because she thought she’d already lost him, but then realized he was sleeping in the bedroom. She loved him so much that when she drew up her will some years back she left money to make sure he was taken care of. I imagine all that will be swept away, everything she owns, because those “nice places” cost a lot of money and Medicaid doesn’t kick in until you’re completely impoverished. (But I’m not bitter.)

“Everyone is giving me such shit because I’m dying. I guess,” she said. She talked wistfully about how, when she’s in California, maybe I and her other California friends can come visit. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the “nice place” would probably not allow many visitors due to COVID restrictions. The place they’re moving her to is just shy of 200 miles from here. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my bad legs make it impossible for me to drive that far anymore. In theory, I could suborn some of her other friends to make the trip with me—and I would do that, hard as it would be to see her, were it not for COVID. I have to protect myself, too.

I so much did not want to answer that call. But I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t. Listening and praying are literally the only things I can do for her right now.

I try to distract myself with piffle and routine. Sometimes that even works, but not when confronted with the stark reality of what's going on. So this blog may be a little schizoid for a while. I’ll try not to belabor it with posts like these—but sometimes I just need to talk/write. I’ll label them CJD so you can skip over them and I think I’ll close them to comments. Not because I don’t appreciate your expressions of fellow-feeling and sympathy—I sincerely do—but because this is more about me just needing to get things out. I don’t want to exhaust everyone.