Category: Writing

I think I was making real progress when it comes to writing, over the past month. And then this week hit, and I just ground to a halt. I am aware that the anniversary of my mother’s passing on Monday has been weighing on my mind, and I know that’s normal, and it should happen. I guess what I hoped I would do would be to channel those feelings into something creative.

Part of this process, the grieving process, is learning to forgive, and accept yourself. Grieving is individual and creates feeling of anger and guilt. I am trying to just let myself feel what this is like. Not force it into something that seems to be the reaction I should have. Somedays, I honestly feel like I should be having a deeper reaction to her passing, and other, I feel smothered in a blanket of sadness and loss.

I guess I thought I was ready to start using these emotions in my creative process, but I think I’m not there yet. I did say to myself that I wanted a year to go by before I put anything on paper, or attempted to share this publicly. Maybe this is what the start of this process feels like?

A long time ago, back when I was a sophomore in high school, I had been writing stories for about a year, and I decided that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. The day I decided this was October 14^th, 1992, and I have always used that date as the first day of my writing season. The point that I could look back and see what I accomplished.

For about 9 years, I was solidly creating written work that I could collect year by, and look back and see how I was improving, or what was still being work on. Then in 2001, I took a play writing class, and that pretty much set my on the theatre path, and the writing started to dwindle, to the point that I had many years where I didn’t write anything. I was still journaling, nut the date would come and go, and I really didn’t give it more than a glancing thought, like, “Oh, that thing I used to do.”

Last year on this day, my mother passed away. Leading up to today, I was filled with some anxiety and an all around feeling of just being unsettled. I wasn’t sure how I should feel about today. When her birthday came and went, I felt depressed. With the Holidays, it was a general feeling of sadness. But getting to today, the day she died, was filled with dread. I kept seeing it on the calendar, knowing that I would have a full day of being reminded of her passing, and thinking about what the day like today used to mean to me.

This was a day where I would reflect on what I had creatively accomplished in a year. The thoughts I had tried, or the ideas that just never worked out. It was a day for what I had created, and now, it’s a day to think about what I have lost.

These feelings are mixed together, and its melancholy. I’m not depressed, just sad. Other than that, I’m not sure how to feel.

This hasn’t been as creative of a day as would have liked. I got caught up with work, and the news seems to be dominating my few other thoughts.

But it is cool out on Norther California, and after have a week of 100 degrees what seems like last week, and it was, Fall seems to be coming around.

Halloween will soon be discussed at home as to what we will all dress up as, and then we will start to think about Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Having lived in the northeast for so long, October has felt like the start of the end of the year.

When I was living in Texas, October was still hot. Maybe not 100 or even 90 degrees, but 85 can feel hot out, especially when you very much want to put on a sweater.

These are the thought bopping around my head today, and that is what I want to share.

Why do you do this blog, I ask myself when I look at it, and I say back to myself that creativity comes in many different forms. Also, you don’t have to have a point to create, just create. And how long have you been talking to yourself? Which I have to admit that I have always done

See, even when I am writing, I will jump up from my desk, and continue the thought that I am trying to express in words, by saying it out loud as I walk down the hall. The wife has learned to live with this.