For various reasons, you push your pen aside, bury your manuscript under the mail. One kid or both get sick. You get sick. That rejection letter hits your inbox. You find another gray hair. Those tiny vials of serum you bought aren’t doing a thing to reduce your wrinkles. Your favorite socks have the F-word printed on them and while you’re charged wearing them, you feel guilty every time you drop them in the laundry. What if the kids find out? Can you pair up your socks in hiding? You’re never really alone. Not even when folding clothes. Except now when you have ten minutes between work and the end of school. So you garbage up on a bowl of cereal. Sneak a forbidden snack. Clear away the evidence. Just in time, too. The door opens and there they are: the kids. You ask them about their day, their homework. How was lunch? Science? Tell me about recess. Tell me everything. Tell me anything. Tell me your stories. Send me back to the page.
8 Replies to “Send Me Back”
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I’m speechless. You took the words right outta my mouth, Girlfriend. Mother, writer, human. I love it.
I love that you added “human” to the mix. I think we forget that sometimes!
Wonderful vignette. I could read your writing all day. Get well, put on those socks, and get back to the page as soon as you can. I’m waiting to hold your finished book in my hands!
Socks are clean and folded and ready for action! And thank you for your encouraging words. I am getting there, little by little. So glad to have you in my corner!
So eloquently stated, you perfectly capture the writer’s dilemma.
Thank you, Susan.
You said so much, so powerfully, so lyrically in so few words. There are universal truths in this piece for any artist, any life, really.
Thank you, Cathryn.