Why I Will Probably Never Have Anything Published

On a perfect day, I pet my cat Parker as I run the water for my bath. He is a gentle, shy cat. This, his primary contact with the human race is very important to him before he crawls into his hidey hole for the day. Then, when I am all scrubbed and clean, I trudge down to my favorite chair with my morning cup of coffee and picking up a recent letter from the table by my chair, I begin an answer to one of those I love far away. "I enjoyed your last letter, so," my mother writes. "do it again." How can I not? My other cat Tiddles joins me in the chair to be petted as I write. Brave cats need loving too. She jumps down when she hears the scrunch of my husband's feet on the gravel coming back from his morning run. He and I talk while he does his exercises. "Less painful that way." he says. The makings of another perfect day.

Later, on my way to the Post office to mail my letter, I stop for a minute to visit with Anna next door. She relates to me her most recent exciting adventure and imparts a little of the wisdom which only a five year old can share with you. "You're perfect, Anna "I tell her, "just perfect."

While it is still morning, before the sun is too high, I must bike to the farm market for some fresh fruit. I choose enough for pie and bicycle back, risking a few minutes to stop and visit with the geese at the river bank on my way back. If I've been wise, I've brought my old bread to feed them, these tame geese which have become so dependent over the years on the handouts of humanity. I then pedal on home taking a detour down the road which goes past the train tracks into the city. I eat some of my fruit as I ride and listen for a far away train on the rails. Company is nice on a bike ride.
Later in the afternoon, when the heat from the pies still fills the kitchen, I walk down the hill to the park. There on the swings, I swing out, high above the traffic going by on the highway below. I swing and wave to the people walking by or waiting for the bus. I swing and my mind becomes blank, except for the wind in my face. I am going to do this until I'm ninety I assure myself as I lean far back for one final climb. I'm never going to stop swinging.

Refreshed, I will climb back up the hill to be greeted by the smell of fresh baked pies. I glance at my watch for the first time this day, there's still time for a few chapters of the book I'm reading before I tidy up for the evening company and start to fix the meal.

There's nothing like good conversation shared over good food. We eat and laugh ourselves silly. "This is good." they say, as they reach for a second helping. This is perfect, I think, as the wives all help me with the dishes. Crowding into my little kitchen we chat about our husbands, their little quirks and all those things which endear them to us as we dry and put away the dishes.

When they leave, my husband and I climb the stairs to sit out on the balcony, listening for the echoes of their footsteps as they walk down the hill to their car. The footsteps are finally be lost to the overriding song of the crickets and the night which overtakes us. We call it a day, and I realize that once again, in this perfect day there was no time for writing.

"Why don't you....? When are you going to....? My friends always ask about my writing. "Someday," I reply. What do I tell my critics who think I am too unmotivated to ever finish anything. "Someday." But then I realize that my writing at best is less than perfect. How can I subtract any of it from my perfect days.

I would like to write, I would like for people to read my writing, but if I have to choose between writing one more page or swinging high out over the street below, I'll swing. I may not always have these perfect days, so while I have them, I'll swing.

Overload

That’s where I am today. I don’t often pay much attention to any but the local news, but it is hard to escape the news about Terri Schiavo. I feel so sad for her parents and family and that is multiplied by the death of the grandson of two of our friends. Sixteen years old, and last Friday he made a u-turn in front of a truck carrying a load of steel. He was finally declared brain dead and taken off of life support Tuesday. So I’m thinking about brain dead and vegetative state. I know vegetative state from sitting in front of the TV for too long and often felt like I was brain dead after some insane days at work. Both states are pretty miserable, but I still didn’t want to starve.

I’m also thinking of my mentally retarded brother and how the sheltered workshop where he works has begun calling all of the kids (that’s what I call them even though many of them are in their forties and fifties) that work there consumers. They even refer to them as consumers on the ‘incident report’ sheet. Interestingly, one of the boxes that can be checked for resolution to an incident is ‘death of consumer’. I guess that’s what will happen in Terri Schaivo’s case. The incident will be resolved by ‘death of consumer’. It appears that public opinion thinks she is consuming too much: media attention, medical attention, a small space in a small bed. What remains to be seen is what will happen to all of us in this consumer oriented society.

Starting over

I started this blog months ago, and then ignored it. Writing used to be one of my passions, but after fifteen harrowing years in management at a Fortune 500 company, I fear that I am close to being brain dead. Hopefully, it’s just sensory overload. Receiving fifty to a hundred e-mails per day that have to be responded to immediately doesn’t leave much room for creativity. But, praise be, I’ve left that job behind, so I’m sitting here waiting for the creative juices to begin flowing again, like a sugar maple after my winter of discontent.

I read this and it sounds so stupid, but one has to begin somewhere. For several years I told my husband that he should start blogging. He resisted until one day I showed him a couple of sites and told him he could do a better job. He rose to the challenge, perhaps on shaky legs at first, but now he’s been blogging consistently for the better part of a year.

I think I’ll give it a try.