Dry Dock: When Real Life Takes Writers Ashore
By Sarojni Mehta-Lissak
To set things straight, I
am not a writer who suffers from writer’s block. Yes, the occasional lull
passes through me and I feel stymied, but writer’s block is not my issue--
real life is. Since becoming a
writer, I have seen patterns emerge that interfere with my writing life; those
life events that fall into our paths regardless of our professions,
circumstances we must tend to which take us away from writing.
Yet, I have come to see these periods not as fallow, empty or
unproductive, but as quiet times, absorbing times, periods when we come out of
the water-- as a ship in dry dock-- while we take care of life’s
responsibilities.
All of us experience low
points in life and make the necessary adjustments to cope with these challenges.
Writers are no different. When
crises hit, we too, must take time away from our work to find solutions or tend
to issues that hopefully are short-lived, but can be chronic and ongoing.
We’re lucky if it’s simply a plumbing problem, but often it is taking care
of an aging parent or tending to a sick child.
What’s important to realize is that these times away from our writing
are not really "lost" times, they are simply periods that are dormant,
because they must be, as we turn our attentions off the page and to the problems
at hand. Though we are not actively
writing, we are collecting images, documenting events, and absorbing our life
circumstances to use in the future writing.
Being in dry dock allows us
to take in life, deal with the concrete nuts and bolts of it, and then get back
into the water-- the writing life-- with a renewed depth and a broader range of
material from which to draw upon. I have come to resist these quiet times less,
as I realize that almost on a daily basis something happens which takes me away
from my writing, whether it’s a family concern, a load of laundry or even a
phone call from a friend.
As all writers know, our
need to produce constantly and regularly is almost obsessive-- perhaps even
uncontrollable-- yet we must allow ourselves to be freed from this strong need
in order to attend to the practical aspects of daily living.
We must believe in ourselves and in our capabilities.
We must know that we can indeed, retrieve our words and thoughts at a
future time to write about them when life is not pulling at us so vehemently.
If we wrestle with this dilemma, then we are wrestling with ourselves,
for life will continue to happen, regardless of our being writers.
I recently had an illness
and found myself in bed for three days-- nowhere near my computer.
I actually didn’t miss being in my office because my focus was on
getting better; writing was simply at the bottom of my list.
Yes, I was conjuring stories and articles in my feverish delirium, but I
didn’t have a compulsion to get up and write.
I tried to have trust in myself that these inspirations would reappear at
a later time if I were meant to write about them.
I think this is why writers are at times so tormented; perhaps we feel
that if we don’t write, right now, it will all evaporate and be lost forever.
Though pens and notebooks are great companions, we must trust in our ability to
retrieve our words.
We are the captains of our
own ships and we can choose to remain at the helm when in water, or when in dry
dock. Life will continue to
infiltrate our writing time and we can continue to resist it, unless we look at
these breaks as times of gathering. Even
though our fingers are not at the keyboard, if we are open to the experiences
falling into our paths then we can use what we have learned for better writing
in the days ahead. This is when we can incorporate the range of emotions and
circumstances we have collected...until we sail once again to the open seas, as
writers filled with bounty.
-
Sarojni Mehta-Lissak is a poet, fiction and freelance
writer. Her work has appeared in
Wild Violet, The Birthkit Newsletter, Midwifery Today, FamilyTravelFun.com and
Moondance.org.
For
more essays, click
here.
