Day 67

Today’s writing prompt* is Blind Spot. And it is exactly perfect for me. Blind spot. It addresses exactly what is most difficult for me when putting words on a page. Seeing through. Pushing beyond. Admitting to the limitations. Recognizing the opportunities.

Blind. Spot.

We are all living blindly now. Even as we are beginning a re-opening of the state — Phase 1 — there are so many guidelines and restrictions and the distinct possibility that we will have to retreat again into our homes at the first sign of another outbreak … we are living in the unknown. As if what is in front of us can only be seen by looking at the periphery, or at what has come before.

Blind. Spot.

What is my purpose of writing here? How do I explain that I feel compelled? Propelled. Uncomfortable and comforted. Seen and invisible. Blindly pawing at the keyboard, hoping that as I string together words they make sense to a few people reading them after I’ve let them go. Or, trying to let go of that hope, too, and just writing for me, just me.

Once upon a time I thought I wanted to write fiction. And I did. For years. Emotionally fraught short stories. Snippets as thick with metaphor as one of my mom’s many-layered oil paintings. I wanted to write more personally. But I wasn’t brave enough to explore my own self this way. And I didn’t think I had lived through enough conflict to have a story that others would be interested in. What did I have to share with someone that was original or unique? My life just wasn’t that dramatic. Or, the places where the drama lived involved other people — people I loved — and how would I tell my story without including parts of theirs.

I’m so far from succeeding at this. I’m farther than I’d like at even trying. And, or also, I haven’t returned to fiction. Whenever I put new words down — on a screen, in a notebook, on a sticky note or the back of an envelope — they touch a thought, a memory, an observation I want to explore about myself and what propelled me to jot it down.

And that’s the crux of my blind spot. Writing through my own exploration of feeling and emotion and confusion and sadness and joy and awe and devastation feels so ultimately selfish.

As we are here, on day 67, even as I wish for quiet from the other room, for a place — a space — of my own, I must admit that I do have more time to put a name to that selfishness. I can grab a moment to do the prompt. To check the box on my to do list that says “mini memoir” and, on days like today, when I’m being productive and typing quickly, also the one that says “blog.”

Tonight, blindly, I’m taking the risk. I’m just free-writing, exploring, without any revision and no edits and only the objective of putting words down and acknowledging what is happening within me while we live in this unknown for an unknown period of time. My children happy at this very moment. The leftovers put away. Water by my bedside. The slightly spicy scent of my son’s body wash as he walks past my room after his shower.

Life, as we know it, is different and, in the everyday details, much the same. I would have to be blind to describe it otherwise.

Stay safe, everyone.

*I am currently enrolled in a writing group with Jena Schwartz, who is a brilliant writing coach, poet, promptress and overall lovely, smart, inspiring and, above all, kind person. If you are looking for a writing community, I highly recommend you take a look at hers.