A Manifesto For Distracted Writers

Or, an Homage To Working Mothers on a Wednesday

I am supposed to be writing, but I am adding Calabrian Chili Paste to my Amazon cart and wondering whether or not I should attempt this chocolate chip cookie recipe from The Modern Proper that uses instant vanilla pudding in the batter.

I am supposed to be writing but I all of a sudden wondered what time it might be in Greece right now, and if it was warm there- which made me curious about whether or not that bathing suit I loved at jcrew was still available.

I am supposed to be writing but now I am concerned that if we don’t buy a community pool membership soon, they’ll sell out. And then it hit me that for the first time in a long time, I will be working during the day, during the summer, and am unsure how to navigate the kids’ community pool life expectations.

This realization made me text my Mother to see if she’d be up to hanging with the kids by the pool for a bit this summer. She is.

I am supposed to be writing but I can hear the dog barking from one floor away and I am wondering if it is an, “I am lonely and you haven’t seen me in exactly 5 minutes,” kind of bark or an, “I will poop all over the floor in one minute if you don’t show your face,” kind of bark.

I am supposed to be writing but Maggie Smith’s memoir on Audible called, “You Could Make This Place Beautiful” is wrecking me right now and I want to listen to just one more chapter. But if I do, I will cry, and it’s hard enough to look alive in Zoom meetings.

I am supposed to be writing, but not THIS kind of writing- the kind where I tell you I roasted whole chicken breasts and rolled out fresh pasta to cut into little stars for chicken noodle soup only to have my littlest lock herself in the laundry room and refuse to eat a thing because I only permit soup to be eaten at the kitchen table, and not in the fort in the living room.

I am supposed to be writing for everyone else- because that is my job. It is what I am hired to do.

But I have to show up here sometimes and remember why I began to write as a living in the first place.

It’s because I love it.

And now that I have written, here, I can go back and write, there.

That seems to be how it works every time.