I’ve always admired people who can work well in the midst of chaos like those who serve with grace in emergency rooms and in restaurant kitchens. Writers, on the other hand, need quiet. Really good writers, or at least those who produce, are disciplined and ritualistic. Most write at the same time of day for a fixed period of time, typically in the same place. Writing takes priority above all else and anything short of a true emergency will not move them.
I was that sort of writer once, and maybe I will be again, but over the last four and a half months I’ve been unable to sit down and string a few sentences together. At one point I worried the writing fell out of me but that’s not what happened, rather my environment changed and I could not adapt. Upended by a sizeable home renovation in which every possession in half of our home was boxed up and shoved into the places we were still trying to live, I lost my writing mojo for a bit. January through April we heated up take-out in the temporary basement bathroom kitchen and bought an air purifier for the bedroom. We lived in controlled and self-inflicted mayhem. It was a challenge to be coherent on the phone or to find my shoes, let alone write thoughtful stories on the laptop. It turns out that focus and creativity need stability in order to thrive.
It was difficult for me to quiet my mind when my home was out of place but our displacement was chosen and temporary. At the same time, real tragedies were unfolding elsewhere. The people of Ukraine, mamas and daddies and children, and shopkeepers who look so much like us, innocents, were forced to run for their lives and continue to experience profound and unimaginable losses. They will never know a quiet heart. All their safe feelings have been stolen from them. Peace is fragile and it is now broken.
We don’t have to look far to find suffering worse than our own. Such perspective has been the intricate root system of my soul and the way for me to move past what should have finished me. Empathy for another rescues me over and over from falling too far into self and I am grateful for its mercy because I am always the receiver of the gift. I don’t know why it works this way for me but it does. The opposite of greed is a longingness to serve others and the most powerful response to destruction is creation.
It’s okay I’m not writing as much these days. I will when I will. In the meantime, it feels more important to pray deeply and fervently for the displaced and frightened and to do what I can to help. Sometimes living out a story is more important than imagining one. And as the quiet returns, I will sit down and write.
Copyright (2022) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved