Wow. Remote learning. I mean. Wow.
On one hand it’s great. Remote learning means that I get to have all my kids home with me and we all get to be together 24/7 for months and what’s not to love? On the other hand, my brain feels a little bit fried by the time school is over each day. I admit, it’s not fun to wake up, have my brain ready to write, and then have to tell my mind to put everything on hold until 3 in the afternoon. ‘Cause, I gotta tell you — my brain does not spout off ideas at 3 in the afternoon.
But that’s what I signed up for when I became a mom. It’s hard, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So what’s a scribbling momma supposed to do? She does what Toni Morrison advised: “Write at the edges of the day.” Every mom (who also writes) has to find her own way. We each make personal choices about what we give up and what we trade in order to create our stories. I don’t believe any scribbling momma has the same method of making it work… or for how she deals with the heartache when it doesn’t work. But what we all have in common is that the story inside of us refuses to be silent and so we have no choice but to try to get it out. Even when our brains are so fried that we miss three school zoom meetings in one day. And we all know the dizzy sensation that happens when our kids are talking to us and we (the lovely scribbling mommas) have to desperately try to pull out of our imaginary worlds so that we can understand the words our children are saying.
We try. We write around the edges. And as the words add up, one after the other, we create a paragraph and maybe even a scene. After awhile, we have a chapter. And then a glorious day comes when we can write for more than an hour at a time and it feels like we have wings.
There is something to be said about cramming my time into small spaces. When I have all the time in the world, I tend to slow down and take my time because there is no pressure hurrying me along. There’s a saying that if you want something done, give it to the busiest person in the room because they’ll figure out how to make it happen. That is why I’m embracing the zaniness of my life right now — it’s forcing me to create in small spaces. The result? Progress. Word after word, page after page. Yay! It still happens. It seems impossible, but I’m still writing
It’s not a straight path, but it is a path. It’s my path.
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