Yesterday a terrible thing happened. I got up, got my daughter to school, did a couple errands, and came home to write my poem for the workshop I’m doing and work on my memoir before heading to the gym to work out with my trainer, but when I got home and opened my computer….nothing. I stared out the window for about 30 minutes. Watched a few neighborhood mommies and nannies walk by pushing strollers. Saw some joggers. Observed the almost-entirely-bare trees and the gigantic piles of leaves in the gutter waiting for the township to come scoop them up and take them away. Looked back at my computer. Nothing.

I must have started and deleted my poem (the assignment was to write a poem with an extended metaphor standing in for an abstraction) five or eight or twelve times. Then I had to go work out with my trainer, Jenny. I had so little energy, I felt like I’d just give about 3 pints of blood. I went home, and back to work. Looked out the window and there was the guy from the grocery store down the street rounding up carts. And look! A Maserati! Don’t see those every day. And does that squirrel look entirely healthy? And I’m so glad my neighbors are painting their house gray instead of brown.

Then it was time to pick up my daughter from school and the workday was effectively over. Not one line of salvageable poetry written. (The poem was due no later than today.) Not one word of memoir written. (I was now behind 2000 words.) I felt like I could slip into a coma if I made the mistake of getting horizontal.

A few hours later, my husband came home from work. We hung out. Had pizza for dinner. Got the little girl off to bed. Got the big boys doing their homework. I cleaned up the kitchen. I was draaaaaained.

Then I sat down to read my email, Facebook, etc…, and felt an almost physical “click” in my brain. I switched over to my empty Word doc and started to type. Suddenly it was like a giant hair clog in the drain that is my…uh…cognitive pipe (???) cleared and everything was flowing again. I cranked out my extended metaphor poem in 20 minutes flat. (The circus as metaphor for infatuation, if you must know.) It was good enough that I only made a few minor changes before turning it in this morning.

I have never experienced such a thing with my writing. Writer’s block is not a thing that happens to me often. Laziness, yes. If I don’t have a real deadline, I can put off writing forever. But to actually sit down to write and not be able to produce? Weird, man. And very disconcerting. And that sensation of it all opening up again! It was so much like a switch being flipped on! Boy, I wish I could do that intentionally.  Can you imagine? If I could, I’d never have an off day again.