A few weeks ago, I wrote 1000 words for the purposes of
entering an Editor’s Brief on the website Ideas Tap. The brief was on the theme
‘Frozen’, and it resulted in a disarmingly honest (and perhaps
overly-metaphorical!) piece of work. The closing date was the end of February,
and I’m assuming nothing has come of the entry (the process was a touch clumsy,
and I couldn’t be 100% confident that I’d done it correctly), so I thought it was time to share it here.
The invitation dropped onto the doormat, landing with a soft
thud.
Well, okay, it arrived in my inbox. Silently, without
fanfare or fuss, and lacking any of the romance you might associate with
invitations delivered by the postman’s caring hand. Perhaps someone could
create an e-mail service where the inbox is a doormat and an animated dog
virtually fetches your new mail…
Or maybe not.
The invitation arrived just before Christmas and I accepted
it graciously, without hesitation. The celebration was a month-and-a-half away
and there was every reason to celebrate.
Six months on a library-run writing course left me with a
mile-wide grin, thrilled at the experience of nurturing a project I hadn’t
realised could exist within me. Thrilled at creating a living piece of work,
enjoyed by others on the course. Thrilled at the regular sessions with other
writers, learning from their experiences and teaching them something new.
So thrilled that I launched, breathless and unprepared, into
creating a website to extend the project. My confidence said it could be
successful, and that I should also agree to read some of my work at the
impending celebration.
I accepted the invite eagerly, and came to wish I hadn’t.
January is a difficult month for a lot of people. Normally
I’m not one of them, but January 2012 was different. It was the month that I
lost the ability to cope with responsibilities at home. A new job became
all-consuming. Satisfying, but all-consuming and therefore detrimental to the
creative me.
The real me.
In feeling that I had to choose between career fulfilment
and creative fulfilment, the project I took such joy in building the previous
summer stalled. I wanted the project to blossom into something greater and it
stalled and I couldn’t get it going again and I didn’t know how to deal with
that and it left me exhausted.
Across 40 days-and-nights, I lost all sensation of being a
writer. Lost any sensation that I
could be a writer ever again.
* * *
I sat on the shore of a frozen lake, lacking the will or the
energy to walk round to the other side. Confidence and inspiration waited
there, but I only understood the path straight across. Mercifully, I also
understood how brittle the ice was, and how I was apt to drown if I didn’t
negotiate a sensible path. Occasionally I put a testing foot on the surface,
but always withdrew at the last moment.
I didn’t want to drown.
My heart begged for what was on the other side. I’d tasted
those riches but I clung to what I had on my side of the lake. I didn’t know
how to get across and back again, didn’t understand how to follow the
shoreline. It left me cold, shivering, creatively impotent. I was aware of it
happening – painfully aware – but I didn’t want to drown.
February arrived. My foot fell through into the watery
blackness and I wrote the most cowardly e-mail I’ve ever written. “I started a
new job last month, and I might not be able to make the celebration event” was
the half-truthful gist. Mysterious work commitments that I knew nobody would
question, and that masked (convincingly?) a debilitating lack of the confidence
I once discovered.
The freezing water was up to my thigh a few days later. “As
I thought, I’m not going to be able to make Thursday night. I’m really sorry
for any inconvenience.” I physically typed the words, but mentally wondered how
I would breathe if I fell through the ice any further. I didn’t want to
drown.
I missed the event. Missed the celebration I was so eager to
attend just weeks before. I felt better for it, content in the numbness as I
sat on the ice with my legs dangling in the water. I sat, and the ice sat with
me. I sat through the fresh spring and the joyful summer and the lake remained
inexplicably frozen.
* * *
The crisp autumn finally brought some warmth to the year. It
spread through the water, gradually melting the frozen surface: the warmth of
the people on my side of the lake, the warmth of home and work finally in
harmony. I understood what it meant to be outside. What it meant to be alive,
and to have a body that deserved better than I was giving it. The colder the
changing seasons became again, the warmer I felt.
Drowning was no longer an option: I wanted to swim.
And swim I did. My mind awoke to the benefits of a healthy
body and, bit-by-bit, I started to swim freely between the two sides of the
lake. Not always in a straight line, sometimes following the shoreline, but
always enjoying the warmth of the water. Enjoying feeling good about myself and
my place in the world.
* * *
The invitation dropped onto the doormat, landing with a soft
thud.
It was a metaphorical invitation, so it possessed all the
tactile qualities I wanted to imagine. The invitation was to me, from me,
asking if I would like to start writing again. Asking if I wanted to wake the
project I’d left frozen in time for twelve months. And it wondered if I might
have learnt something that I could share with other people.
I accepted, rationally and without haste. The project was
well preserved and I had a better idea of how I could help it blossom. I wrote
on my own, I wrote in the company of friends (a first). I wrote for hours on
end, I wrote in 45 minute bursts snatched from the clutches of the day. I’d
avoided drowning – just – and I didn’t want to risk it again. As long as I
remembered how to swim…
After a mild Christmas, the UK froze into 2013 but the blood
was flowing and I no longer felt the cold. I didn’t want to drown. I wanted,
finally, to just write.
