At first, I try to ignore the teasing desire. I pretend there are other callings for me. I decide to do the mending, it’s therapeutic, gives me a sense of ‘do-goodness’. Perhaps I’ll bake. That’s what I’ll do, I’ll make some yummy cookies for the kids to snack on when they get home.
It nags me, cajoles me, as I fight the urge. It always waits for the moment when the house is quiet. Then it attacks, pulling me, nagging me, leading me to do its bidding. I don’t want to give in. I know the futility that will follow. The guilt afterward affects me for days. It’s been easier to say no since the children have come into my life. I can use their needs as an excuse.
Today it is more relentless than ever, and I know I will give in. My mind imagines the scene as I make my way to the bedroom, coffee mug in hand. It will begin slowly, a warm-up, but the pace will quicken, and I will slide swiftly into the intricacies of the momentum. When it is over, my emotions will be spent. For a few moments I will live a life beyond the wife and mother scenario. I will be someone else, some other place in time. For a few moments, I will be a writer.
I place my ‘I Love Mom’ coffee mug on the cluttered, makeshift desk, ignoring the unmade bed. “That’s what I should do,” I tell myself, “make the bed. I look around the bedroom in need of a good cleaning. As usual, I fall into my habit of considering well-worn excuses. There are so many other things to do. Why begin a writing project now? The baby will be awake soon. Then there’s lunch, and before I know it, the kids will be home from school. It’s foolish to start something I can’t finish.
Decision made, I grasp the mug, but before I can slip out of the chair, it is there, my nemesis, my Muse, my tormentor. I can visualize him and sense his communication. Today, instead of the tumult of prose that is his usual verbal habit, he directs his comments to me, rather than through me.
“I WAS ABOUT TO GIVE UP ON YOU, MY DEAR! YOU’RE PROCRASTINATION IS GETTING WORSE!”
I sigh and mentally respond, “Damon, when are you going to realize that I don’t want to be a writer? Why did you pick me to taunt?”
“I DIDN’T CHOOSE YOU, MY DEAR, I WAS ASSIGNED TO YOU. BELIEVE ME, IF I HAD DONE THE CHOOSING, IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN YOU.”
“Can’t you ask to be assigned to someone else?” I sipped my coffee, toyed with the pencil, tapping it first on the point, then the eraser.
“DON’T THINK I HAVEN’T TRIED.”
“Well, why do you still bother me? You know I have too much to do with six kids, a husband, and the obligations of an Army Officer’s wife.”
“YOU REALLY BUG ME WITH YOUR EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES!”
“I bug you?” I threw down the pencil, startling my tiny nemesis, standing in the center of the desk, hands on hip, flashing one of his disgusted smirks. I giggle as he struggled for balance.
“How can you say I bug you? I never ask you to come and drive me to distraction with your storylines, dialogue, description, and plot scenarios. Never once have I asked you to bombard me with a desire to write. I don’t consider myself a writer. I don’t enjoy writing, and I don’t like you!”
“I DON'T LIKE YOU EITHER, BUT I’M STUCK WITH YOU. LIFE’S LIKE THAT.”
“You don’t have life, Damon. You are a figment of my imagination.”
“THEN WHY CAN’T YOU GET RID OF ME?”
“Believe me,” I stammered, “I try.”
“I KNOW, AND I DON'T GO AWAY, DO I?”
He was right. I tried to avoid writing, but he always compels me to put words on paper. I’m enticed to do it and can’t rest until it’s done. I usually put the writing away, try to forget it, and take a break for a while,
“THAT’S ONE OF THE REASONS YOU FRUSTRATE ME. YOU HEED MY GUIDANCE AND THEN FIND AN EXCUSE TO RUN AWAY AND IGNORE ME.”
“I don’t have the time, the energy, or the desire.”
“SCUM-GLUCK! MARY, I AM SO SICK OF YOUR LAME-BRAINED EXCUSES, I COULD THROW UP!”
That’s it. This is getting out of hand. I decide to leave.
“DON’T YOU DARE WALK OUT ON ME!” he screamed.
“I’m not going to argue with you Damon. I don’t have time. I don’t have the desire. I have a family to take care of. That is my first priority. Now, go away and leave me alone.”
I hear the baby stirring in his crib. He’s awake. The school bus will be stopping outside shortly, and the house will be filled with boots, coats, mittens, and multiple voices relating the events of the day.
I quickly jump up from the desk, spilling some of the coffee on the sheet of paper where Damon is standing. He sighs, knowing he has lost again. I watch him fade.
“Where will you go?” I ask.
“AWAY FOR A WHILE. I CAN’T LEAVE YOU FOR GOOD. YOU ARE MY ASSIGNMENT. I'LL GO AWAY FOR A LITTLE WHILE, BUT I’LL BE BACK WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT.”
≈
It is 49 years later. Damon still admonishes me for procrastinating. He is well aware that it isn’t that I don’t have time to write. I have plenty of time, now that I’m in what I call, ‘the youth of old age’. He continues to target me with prose encrusted arrows. Sometimes they hit their mark, sometimes they don’t.
Some people write because they want to. I write because I have to. Characters bombard me with their need to be heard. A storyline falls into place like a missile centering on its target. I have a file cabinet filled with articles, novels, stories, poems, and plays.
I can't compare myself to Stephen King as a writer except that like him, I feel I am "just a conduit through which characters reveal themselves, and do not know the ending to stories until they arrive. From his Memoir 'On Writing'.
I plan to someday take my favorites, publish them in print books and hope besides my family, they will be a lasting legacy
The Internet is filled with things I have written, hundreds lost on closed writing websites like Gather, Squidoo, and Bubblews.
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I can't compare myself to Stephen King as a writer except that like him, I feel I am "just a conduit through which characters reveal themselves, and do not know the ending to stories until they arrive. From his Memoir 'On Writing'.
I plan to someday take my favorites, publish them in print books and hope besides my family, they will be a lasting legacy
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