Day 14 of 27 — Half Done

July 4, 2021

My tiredness feels immense today. It has felt so all day. Stomach cramps, probably due to the antibiotics, kept me up during the night and then, after the two hours of karate on zoom this morning I felt flattened. 

 

Luckily I didn’t have much to do, to think through, or even feel all day. I lay on the sofa and finished reading a book I had started a few days ago. It is the story of a woman who wants to write about the paintings in a museum she cleans in. She marries a rich man and is exposed to theatre, ballet, holidaying, and new experiences. She keeps going back to the museum and writes about the paintings. We don’t really know what else she is writing about but it feels as if she is writing to become herself. That feeling resonated. 

 

Today I said to my spouse that it feels like this little, little virus is zooming in closer and closer. It’s been a threat all year to all of us, and though all around me it has also felt distant. Then all in the space of ten days first my sister and others in her home get infected, then I am swabbed and though I know I don’t have covid I feel anxious till I get the negative PCR, and finally someone I am in mask-less contact with has a close contact with someone who tests positive. Wondering what the next escalation in this will be. 

 

I did feel the inner saboteur at work today. Mostly saying something like, ok so you want to disrupt my plans eh, what if I just don’t make any? Or, before you mess me up, I’ll do it myself. Or, you really have nothing worthwhile to say. Don’t drag this out. Just stop writing.

 

Whereas I believe some of this. Whereas I feel like I am plateauing in some way, repeating myself, and not really saying anything important, I do also feel the need to finish the experiment. I am at the half way mark and from previous experiences with projects I do know this can be the most discouraging of times. 

 

Whatever it catalyses, this experiment is a gift. For a while I’ve been aching for a writers retreat. A blocked out period of time when I let all my other concerns and activities dissolve and focus on aspects of writing and being a writer. This daily writing of  about 500 blog-words has been the closest to that. It’s a focused space and time, out from the anxious days, dedicated to whatever writing brings. I am noticing the things—issues and people—that crash my writing time, and also those that are allies to it. I beginning to know how to create boundaries and carve out more such mini-retreats.