Creative Blocks

I found a dead mouse in the bottom of my pasta pot this morning. Correction. I detected a foul odor coming from a certain kitchen cabinet that I recognized as decay and asked my husband to do the investigative and, thus, disinfecting work. Mice are par for the course in the country, in a house 200 years old. There are so many holes in the siding I’m shocked our living room lights don’t shine outward like stars. It was not the unfortunate mouse that was my undoing. It was the pot.

For over a decade, my workhorse pasta pot has boiled lobsters, al dente-ed a million pasta dinners and served as a deep and mysterious Barbie diving pool. It’s been the mainstay of summer cookouts, cozy winter meals, the centerpiece for chubby toddler hands and pool toys. But this fall, it has stayed tucked away in the bottom cabinet closest to the sink- next to the wood cleaner, an extra piece of plumbing from a dishwasher installation, and maybe a few, scattered sponges.

I have not been cooking.

Or singing.

Or writing.

I’ve experienced writer’s block before. I’ve felt stifled and uninspired in the kitchen. I’ve lost interest in maintaining the smooth transition in my passaggio from lower to upper registers. But this? This feels like a bottleneck on the Major Deegan when you’re already 17 minutes late for the Yanks.

I’m ready to open all the car doors and run my way back to 495 if only to GET OUT OF HERE.

I know instinctively there are reasons for this. Our family has been hit by illness after illness this fall- my emetophobia is in full effect. I have fallen asleep with a puke bucket in one hand, and sanitizer in the other more than anyone would hope they would. I’ve had more than one anxiety attack behind closed doors on the bathroom floor.

In my day job, I’m a content marketing specialist-and this has been our busiest season. While I believe in and love the mission of the company I work for, there are few external (and sometimes internal) words sent forth into the world that I don’t need to look at/adjust/revise/scan for errors. This has made the prospect of writing after my work day is complete feel a little like the work day never ends. For the first time, I’m struggling with what to say- and why it might matter enough to someone else to read it.

I find myself treading water in these weeks before a new presidency. I fully recognize my privilege as a middle-class white woman- and I’m concerned with how to move forward in hope, and in truth- in a way that feels true and safe to me, and for others.

Is it fear? Burnout? Social media?

Is it the constant treadmill of working parenthood?

Is it the entire bag of Sweet and Spicy Jalapeno Cape Cod chips I ate for dinner?

My thirties were not the era I had hoped they would be. Instead of bolstering a career, finding my footing, enjoying my marriage and children, knowing myself- my life fell apart brick by brick. It has taken me years just to feel “normal”, whatever that means. Perhaps it’s that added pressure I allowed to wiggle into my 40s. It feels like crunch time. It feels like I should have figured this shit out already. It feels like NOW is the time, but YESTERDAY would have been better.

Whatever it is- I felt that dead mouse like an albatross around my neck. My creativity is dead in the pasta pot.

Does it need a long sleep? A cat nap? A Victorian-era “hysterical” woman sending out to the European sea? (Why is this still not a thing?)

In order to produce something of value, do you need to stop producing anything at all for a while?

Who would I be if I stopped producing anything at all?