As I believe I have mentioned (probably numerous times), I have been mucking out my writing cabin. To give credit where credit is due, the idea of hiring someone to help me came from my Writing Lab friend, Lori, who is going through this process in her entire house, and then from a new book, Minding the Muse, written by the inestimable Priscilla Long.

I have known Priscilla for twenty-five years. This is a woman who knows how to get writing done. In Minding the Muse, she reminded me, yet again, that it is good for creators to have an up-to-date inventory of their work. And, as I have countless times before, I thought, “I can’t.” I had great excuses. I lined them all up and danced them across my journal pages. But there sat “I can’t,” exactly the words that I am always telling other writers that they must not say.

“I can’t” is not a small, harmless phrase. Repeated use of it will damage your creative life, and your life. You can, however, decide to transform it from something you hide behind like a mother’s skirts, to a red flag. When the “I can’t” flag goes up, from now on, that’s your signal to go to work.

Of course I can inventory my work. Of course I can sort through my boxes (and boxes) full of papers (and poems I’ve forgotten I ever drafted). Of course I can be organized. I have arms. My brain is still working. If I have a bad habit of letting things get away from me, it is just a habit. I can change a habit. 

I have mucked out before, but never as fully as I needed to. I tried to content myself with a stack of boxes and bins tucked in the corner. Since leaving my college office, since my mom’s illness escalated, things have gotten much, much worse. The so-lovely writing cabin had become a place of unrestful distractions.

So, not knowing where or how to start (feeling — I have to admit — paralyzed), I asked Lori for a referral to her professional organizer, and I emailed her and set up an appointment. In about 7 hours of work, I have made an excellent start. Formerly unlabeled boxes full of mixed papers and notebooks are now sorted into labeled bins (or recycled — lots was recycled). A few books went away, but it was gentle. A whole box of pictures and knick knacks went into storage (for when I have a guest room again some day). I got everything off the floor except a couple boxes of homework to accomplish on my own. It may still look messy to the neatniks among you, but it’s a big change for me to know where everything is. What felt impossible now feels possible.

 

I don’t know how I let ELEVEN days get away from me, without blogging. Oh, wait, I DO know:

1. First week of teaching a class at my old college.
2. Daughter number 1 moving back to Bellingham.
3. Daughter number 2 working temporarily down at Pike Place Market and bumming rides from me (and her dad) while she figures out the buses and timing, etc.
4. Daughter number 3 taking Driver’s Ed.
5. Meetings FOUR evenings this week (including my very last curriculum night!).
6. A professional organizer taking my writing cabin in hand (3 hours Wednesday morning, plus homework).
7. A church committee (I know, “What was I thinking?”)
8. The September Sendout of poems.
9. My dh (dear husband or designated hitter) deciding to paint the entryway and hallway of our house.
10. Mom’s seizure yesterday morning and appointment today with an ARNP.

I could list a few more, but I’ll stop there. And, anyway, the class is going swimmingly (and it’s easy-peasy, only two mornings a week); my daughters’ schedules are calming down (no evening meetings at all this coming week, and daughter #2 has mastered the art of the bus pass); plus, I have wisely put my September Sendout on the back burner for a few days.

A friend called me yesterday afternoon — we had made plans, because she had an errand to do regarding her mother’s recent death, and I wanted to be supportive. “I’m not as busy as you are,” she said. “And I’ve got this. You don’t need to come.” Had I not been juggling my mom’s needs, too, I would have gone anyway. But it felt a bit like divine intervention. We had a good talk on the phone, and then I turned my car toward the ferry, and I’m here now (in Allyn). A restful evening. Reading, watching some TV. A very small glass of wine. A much needed good-night’s-sleep.

What I’m thinking this morning, however, is that I do not have more to do than anyone else. ALL of us have too many irons in the fire. It’s become our way of life. A former student — now a friend — recently told me that she is writing some character sketches, pretty excited about the work, but she keeps asking herself, “Do I have time for this?” One could argue that my friend, the one who called yesterday afternoon has more time than the rest of us, and fewer excuses: she’s single, her children are young adults who are (theoretically) on their own. But I know that she has just as long a list of “stuff to do” as I have. Connections to be made, housework to keep up (and no dh to step in where needed), errands, meals to shop for, oh — and a job (that!), a commute five days a week, a car to keep maintained…well, we all know. My former student, the one with the character sketches? She cannot wait to write until her children leave home .

None of us have any time.

Perhaps I’ve told this story before, but when my older daughters were about two years old, I told one of my sisters-in-law that I thought I would put off my dissertation until the girls started school. “It will be easier then.” She had three grown children, and was a Ph.D. and a teacher herself. She looked at me, eyes wide, and said, “It will not get easier. It will be different, but it will not be easier. Write your dissertation now.”

That advice proved to be a huge gift. I wrote my dissertation that year and defended it when the girls were three. We moved into a bigger house; I got a full-time, tenure track teaching job; we added a third daughter to the mix. At some point in there, I realized that if I wanted to continue writing, I was going to have to keep following that advice. Do it now. Write today. You can negotiate with it. You can limit yourself to a two-hour block, or one hour, or fifteen minutes. If life crashes around you, you can pull out a notebook and write a short description of it, five minutes.

This is your life.

I’ll be back (soon) to let you know how the organizing is going — and helping.