Here’s what I’ve noticed after a year of relative lock-down: Few people seem happy about it. Sure, I know people who prefer texts to calls, online classes to sweaty studios, food delivery to crowded stores. Most people, though, are going stir crazy. They are feeling crowded, limited, and maybe even homicidal after living cheek by jowl with spouses, parents and restless children.
Quarantine life should be tailor-made for me. I live alone and have for more of my life than I care to admit. It may not be the life I wanted, but it’s one I own. I’ve gotten good at living it. I understand the difference between lonely and alone and can adjust to either. Believe me, I appreciate the absence of pressure, the luxury of solitude, the privilege of quiet time to think and room to breathe.
Besides, I have my dog. And my muse. Although she’s been absent lately.
I’m an author, which is to say, my identity and sense of purpose are wrapped up in my ability and my need to get my thoughts into a readable form and out into the world. The present circumstances would seem an ideal time to create content.
Yet I’m stuck. Unwilling, uninspired, digging for feeling, reaching for words.
This is more than writers’ block. It feels more existential. What’s it all about? Who cares? Why should I voluntarily put myself in front of this cold gray machine and try to enter random thoughts into it?
My muse has left the building.
Maybe I’ve misjudged the effect of so much isolating, avoiding, hiding away, stepping warily into public, limiting in-person contact, eschewing any physical contact. Maybe it’s drained me in ways I wasn’t expecting. Zoom, it seems, isn’t always ideal for observing, much less interacting.
Instead of experiencing the flow that comes from being productive, I’m obsessed with how slowly time is moving. I used to write several hours a day. Now I’m lucky if I can work half that long. I look at the clock and marvel that it’s only eleven o’clock in the morning. I wonder when I can take lunch, or whether a nap is in order, notwithstanding I was in bed for nine hours (albeit restlessly) the night before. I count the hours until I can crawl back under the warm covers.
I thought I’d accepted that quarantine would last this long (has it really been a year?). Perhaps I failed to understand how that would feel. Was I more social in my previous life than I realized? Did I depend on neighborhood gatherings, coffee with friends, a random evening out? Do I need human contact more than I want to admit?
Well, yes, as it turns out. People in all their imperfections, are the featured players in my writing. Technology has been invaluable in bringing me news of the world, as it is. It doesn’t let me read faces or hear tone.
There are tricks to summoning an absent muse. I’m trying them all as I struggle with my third mystery in a series about an intrepid female investigator (is there any other kind?) I still don’t know how the story will unfold. Instead, I try to get a sense of where I’m going by writing scenes of dialogue. You know, the kind people have when they’re face to face across a table or even at a crime scene. When they’re talking in real life.
Sometimes I can almost feel my muse. She’s hovering, more an observer than an interactive part of my process. It’s okay. I understand her hesitation. No one feels like working right now. But we muddle through.
For now, I keep my seat in the chair and my eyes on the screen for as long as I can. I don’t want my my muse to lose faith in me. After all, spring is around the corner. Vaccines are available to the lucky and the persistent. Herd immunity is the new mantra. I’ve got babies to kiss, friends to hug, and words to write. Onward.
in a time that the land forgot, a princess picked a pea from her mattress. Rolling it idly between her finger and thumb, she sighed and said aloud, “I wish I weren’t so bored.”
25 March 1718