By Sharon May
6 a.m. I am sitting at the
computer, staring at the first four of 64 ounces of water I will drink today.
This is the first opportunity I’ve had to write in a while. The sudden illness,
then death of my favorite cousin, followed by completing over two weeks of
grading five classes in two days, surgery, and a short hospital stay have
pulled me away from it. What better way to get back to the discipline of
writing than to have a blog with a deadline?
I am very frustrated as a writer as
I have lots to write about. During the past five weeks, a kernel of a story, a
moment of tension, a striking line of dialogue, an interesting face to shape
into a character, all came my way hour after hour. But I neither had the time
nor the energy to take notes. Exchanges with others would have stifled by
notetaking. Once alone, I lacked the physical energy to write. But I had lots
of sleepless nights, so I cataloged ideas, words, and phrases in my brain, and this
week I will start retrieving as much as I can.
7 a.m. I sip a protein shake,
chocolate of course, the first of three on the menu. I am afraid the sound of
Old Regular Baptist Jimmy Hall’s cadence of his funeral sermon will fade away.
The faces of twenty-five or more cousins I have not seen in over 20 years will
merge into a generic “Lawson face,” while younger cousins I just met will be
mere impressions, not memories. The pieces of family history never heard or
stories long forgot will hide further in recesses of my brain.
I do know I won’t forget the three
times during the funeral when Willow, Billy’s fiancé’s three-year-old daughter,
reached out toward his casket, and said, “Let me wake Billy up.”
8 a.m. Four more ounces of water.
I know that those ideas and words stored in my mind will come to not resemble real
life as they have merged and morphed. Characters will say things their
inspirations would never say. Events will be merged into even better stories
than I could have recorded at the time of hearing them. I guess that is one of
the beautiful stages of writing – incubation, that time you think, ruminate,
and toy with ideas and words but not write because you have to deal with what
life requires. I repeatedly tell my students they miss the opportunity for
incubation when they try to write an essay in one draft or wait to the last
minute to start.
9 a.m. four ounces of diluted
apple juice. This morning I moved from being frustrated to reconciled to albeit
a long, emotional, and exhausting incubation period. That change of view is due
to writing, and now I won’t doubt “the reality” of what I write. Instead, I
will honor its truth.
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