But she was completely silent.\u00a0 \u00a0Nothing.<\/p>\n
While I believe in committing some time and an entire pot of coffee to a craft, I don’t believe in trying to force creativity.\u00a0 Any other time that I’ve had nothing to write, I just went about my business until there was something there.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, I don’t think I can write without hikes in the woods and afternoons cleaning the chicken coop and street festivals and garden chores and mandatory school meetings and all the detritus of life that catches her attention.\u00a0 Plots and commentaries pretty much build themselves around the activities of my daily life.<\/p>\n
But this time, no matter what was going on, she had nothing to say.\u00a0 It’s not that I was depressed or bored or overwhelmed by crisis or staring blankly off into space in front of the computer.\u00a0 My Writer was just on hiatus.\u00a0 Which wasn’t really that traumatic.\u00a0 Mostly because I have a million voices in my head.\u00a0 I am basically Legion.\u00a0 In a good way.\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 Eh.<\/p>\n
There’s the Gardener who is noticing the perennials that need to be divided and the butterfly bush that reseeded itself at the top of the driveway and should be transplanted.\u00a0 The Farmer who berates me for not starting a fall garden, sends me out to brush the clumps out of the Great Pyrs’ fur, and is desperately trying to find out where the Welsummer is hiding her eggs.\u00a0 The Housecleaner avoiding the moldy windows in the upstairs bedroom.\u00a0 The Landscaper avoiding the leaves piling up in the yard and hoping the gutter guards that I traded a goat for last year actually do the job.\u00a0 (After all, the goat did his job and there are goat kids to show for it.)\u00a0 The Scheduler managing sports games and concerts and orthodontist appointments and and college financial aid deadlines and family trips and, holy crap, are the holidays coming?\u00a0 The Parent tracking grades and filling out field trip forms and making healthy<\/span> lunches and dropping off and picking up and dropping off and picking up and dropping off and picking up and dropping off and picking up and dropping off and picking up and you get the idea.\u00a0 The Employee showing up bright and early and getting the job done and still managing to drive administration batsh*t crazy while she’s there.\u00a0 The Friend at book club and on the morning hike and on a 2 hour phone call and meeting for brunch.\u00a0 The Health Nut at the gym forcing herself to spend 15 more minutes in the magical belief that those 15 minutes will erase that cinnamon bun for breakfast.<\/p>\n All of those people gabbing away in my head.\u00a0 Every.\u00a0 Day.<\/p>\n I was recently visiting a friend in the mountains and I went on a hike while she was at a work meeting.\u00a0 She called me while I was in the woods to let me know she’d have some downtime for lunch if I wanted to meet up. I told her I was only 1\/2 way through my 7 mile hike and it was too late to turn back now.\u00a0 She said that was great and she just wanted to make sure I wasn’t lonely.\u00a0 Lonely.<\/em> We laughed and laughed and laughed at that.\u00a0 Never mind I spent the first 3 miles calling my husband to schedule after school pick up and drop offs, texting the plumber about fixing a toilet at the rental, talking to my parents about covering the kids for the rest of the weekend activities, and checking with the counselor at the community college about spring semester classes.\u00a0 Lonely?\u00a0 There are way too many things to do and too many people jostling for attention in my head for me to be lonely.\u00a0 I’m pretty sure that when I am at meditation retreats or mindfulness sessions the other participants can hear the people in my head humming quietly to themselves or drumming their fingers impatiently or rocking themselves frantically in a corner while I’m “returning back to the breath.”<\/p>\n It was at the urging of the Gardener that I headed to the garden to save the seed heads from the zinnias and cleome for next year.\u00a0 While I wandered the rows I noticed the garden had entered what I consider its “FarmPunk” stage.\u00a0 At the end of fall the landscape of the garden always reminds me of the odd combination of form and function in steampunk art and design.\u00a0 The metal and iron supports are visible beneath a dead and decaying world while new life still bursts forth, building atop all that has been lost.\u00a0 It’s anachronistic and futuristic all at the same time.\u00a0 What was and what is still becoming.\u00a0 Life is racing ahead as if unaware or uncaring of the inevitable end brought by the approaching frost.<\/p>\n And it was while I was there, admiring the bird nest revealed among the roses and the chainlink,….<\/p>\n ….when she arrived.\u00a0 \u00a0No excuses.\u00a0 No explanations.\u00a0 Just suddenly there, noticing the abandoned green beans among the flourishing marigolds.<\/p>\n Perhaps awakened by the gourds hanging off their desiccated vines, awaiting transformation into something new and useful.<\/p>\n Considering the baby cukes, newly grown from the cucumbers left abandoned at the end of spring, clambering over the remnants of the cherry tomatoes.<\/p>\n Not that all the tomatoes had given up yet….<\/p>\n Maybe she was intrigued by the prickly coneflower heads surrounded by rosehips.\u00a0 A postcard of fall.<\/p>\n Or the prickly pear spreading into the gaura, nothing left of its airy blossoms but a pink tinge.<\/p>\n She took in the morning glory hoisting itself up any exposed inch of trellis or rebar.<\/p>\n Although it was the nasturtium that seemed to thrive the most in this forgotten world.\u00a0 The nasturtium covering the evidence of summer’s bounty with its own peppery vigor.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/nest21.jpg\" "\\"nest\\"")
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