After Silence, better.

One does not intend to disappear. But I did, for months.

There are a few reasons. And, if you are at all familiar with me (it’s been awhile, I know), you know I love lists. So…

A List of Reasons Why I Disappeared:

1. Uh. Covid.
2. Covid again.
3. Depression. Probably b/c Covid.
4. Menopause. ???
5. Yea, no, I’m not going to put “???” with “Menopause” like it’s not a thing. It was a THING y’all, and it still is. Mix it liberally w/ #1-3 and it was craptastic.
6. I left my original publisher, for other reasons that are just my own, and then promptly felt all adrift and lost and didn’t know what to do with myself.

Perhaps this list is similar to a creative list of your own. I mean… #6 might be a bit niche-y. But, have you felt stuck and small and adrift? Well THAT’S BEEN ME FOR A WHILE NOW.

But, in the incandescent words of my muse, Eminem: “Guess who’s back. Back again. Shady’s back. Tell a friend.”

Look. I’ve had a lot of time to sit and ponder. A good portion of my summer was me, literally, lying on my back and pondering the ceiling, as I was so sick that reading, writing, and even Netflix were impossible. It was like I was simply forced to just… be. And be very still. And at first I hated it, and then I hated it some more. And then? I noticed something.

I kept getting ideas.

The reason I am a writer is because I have all these ideas that keep floating up, and then I write about them. But while I was dealing with #1-6 above all my writing stopped. But the ideas? They quietly, flutteringly, floated up at me. They kept coming. And one evening, stuck in my sick room, just me and my ceiling, frustrated and sad about it all – I started to cry and as the tears slipped down my face (gravity) to pool into my ears (you know you’ve had this happen) and I had an idea: Tears are ways to stopper up sound. And sometimes silence is good. Total stops are good. Being STILL is good.

It was both an idea and medicine at the same time.

That idea and all the others that would gently float by me – they gave me hope. And I recorded some of them (I texted myself or wrote them down in on a notebook, as one does when one is a Writer) and I realized two things:

1. I still have ideas and God kept them coming even in my darkest hour. Maybe even because of my darkest hour.
2. In the incandescent words of my muse that old guy in Monty Python? I’M NOT DEAD YET.

Thanks for listening, folks. Keep listening, if you want, to hear more about creativity, our brains, and how we must value our creative selves if we want to survive this world.

I’m honored to have ye.

Oh! And actually? I did a bit of shopping while I was prone, and I bought this. It was a crucial purchase.