Just Another Day at the Office
Today I’ve been thinking about writer’s menopause. Do I have just so many stories in me like I had so many eggs? Does writing so much about other people’s lives keep me from fully living my own? I think all this writing could be an exercise to guard against Alzheimer’s and other kinds of memory loss and dementia. It’s such a one-pointed focus. Is this my new meditation? When my mind wanders, I bring it back to the line I’m working on. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it works. It’s always work. But I just keep typing. A new kind of sitting practice?
Post notes: The photo above, taken by Katie Roberts, is of me (with the camera) covering the Blue Mountain School’s Mardi Gras Ball fundraiser at Dogtown’s Winter Sun for the local paper. Joe is off teaching a teen meditation retreat this Easter weekend and I’m working, writing, doing foster care respite, planting seeds, and taking pictures of the elusive blue bird of happiness that’s been spotted visiting my bird feeder.
April 24th, 2011 1:10 pm
You always do some thought provoking analogies!
Love the picture!
April 24th, 2011 4:39 pm
Writing – for me – can be a form of meditation..and it is a mental exercise..so perhaps a way to stave off the aging brain. When it comes to writing – there will always be reproductive eggs.
April 24th, 2011 11:07 pm
Are the bluebirds elusive? Ours are somewhat lazy… they lost out to first dibs at the bluebird house when the chickadees got busy and built a nest overnight… now they are sitting… and the bluebird is definitely NOT happy.
April 25th, 2011 6:47 am
I love your questions.
April 25th, 2011 11:10 am
Love this … hmmm … “writer’s menopause” … ?!
April 26th, 2011 2:28 pm
I often worry that I’m running out of stories too, Colleen, but then something happens, and I’m writing again…
Wendy
April 26th, 2011 2:35 pm
I think the lack I consider is not in the world but in me, sort of like ‘how long can I keep this up?’ But you’re right, Wendy, the next thing to interest or excite me is always close by.
April 26th, 2011 5:10 pm
“Sitting Practice” – Yes, I will be using that in the future. Well played…
May 4th, 2011 10:27 am
writing about others is something to do when your own life gathers steam and experience.
is there only so many stories each of us have to tell? we tell it better each decade. one writer at our local fest (I think it was Joel Yanofsky) said what writers need to write is bad experiences. so immigrate to Canada, we have a new government that should be heaps of inspirational fun. ;p