Day 293
It’s nearly 1:30 am on Friday night/Saturday morning … and I’ve done it … again. I’ve waited too long to sit here and write … my assignment … my challenge … as my brain is BLANK.
I am stopped up. I am stuffed up. I am empty.
In the light of day I have all these thoughts swirling through my head and I always think I’ll remember when I sit down here … but I never do. Whatever genius or hilarity came to mind has already gone to sleep or left the building. In either case – I am left on my own with a brain that is begging for some pillow time and not doing what I’m doing – keyboarding in the dark.
So, here I am left to my own wiles … waiting for that elusive something to magically appear on my screen … something that comes forward from some wellspring of knowledge or humor or wisdom.
But, I am blank. The well is dry and all I can really think of is that I need an allergy pill!
I just finished reading an article about a writer (whose name now escapes me even though I just read the article) who moved from California to the tiny fishing village of Brooklin, Maine to “unblock” himself. He was in the middle of writing a novel that was going nowhere and he needed inspiration.
So, he rented an old farmhouse on 20 acres with an even older barn and hayloft office and proceeded to spend, what sounded like, a large quantity of time … eating lobster and watching the locals build ships.
That was his unblocking process. Focus on something else and the answers will come. Open yourself to new things and energy will flow back to you.
And, as it happens, the time he spent along the shore and eating lobster and up in the hay opened him up and he went on to write and publish two novels not too long afterwards.
I was so enamored with his writing style and what he did. Maybe if I moved myself to an old farmhouse on 20 acres and moved my computer/typewriter into the loft of an even older barn and ate a ton of lobster then I could get “unblocked”, as well. Maybe book #2 would magically appear.
There was something about his writing that stirred in me what apparently stirred in him while watching those men handcraft those ships … the knowledge that from nothing comes something.
Something that has a life of its own … something that takes you somewhere else … something that is yours but belongs to everyone …
On a whim I looked up Brookin, ME … wondering how tiny is tiny. The population is under 800 … including the lobsters that are brought in daily.
And while reading I came across an interesting tidbit about this coastal town … E.B.White, author of Charlotte’s Web, was a long time resident. It just happens to be my favorite book of all time!
Good ol’ Wilbur. Good ol’ Charlotte. Good ol’ nasty Templeton.
This book was the sole reason I first decided that sometime in my life I would own a pig and that I would write. Not necessarily in that order.
In any case … thank you un-remembered author for unblocking me. Thank you for reminding me of sweet Wilbur and the value of friendships. Thank you for transporting me to your days spent along the shore watching the workers and the boats. I was beside you when your own labor of love came to be in that hay loft in that old barn. I was there with the ebb and flow of the tide and your words.
And maybe that’s why I’m all stuffed up now … I’m allergic to hay and shellfish!