Panic. Disappointment. There has got to be something out there to write about, but I just couldn't come up with anything. For many weeks I have always had something to say. And there were the 2 ½ years of writing for the newspaper before that and there were many weeks when I managed to write about something.
Admittedly, some has been good and others, well, not so good. But I always had something to say. But for many weeks now I had really disappointed myself. Nothing!
Some of the time I get my ideas and 'inspiration' from the news, whether it be world, state of local. But it has been a terrible week in the news. I am so tired with this election stuff.
No question about it. The news has been terrible and maybe really affected the way I saw the world last week. I'll admit it. Perhaps I need to turn off the television or turn down the radio for a few days, weeks, even months. Even the Red Sox are having a terrible year. 2020. Uck!!!
But then, while riding in the car, there was a very heart warming story on MPR about a small town coming together to help a family struggling with the serious illness of their young son and the financial toll it was taking on the family.
I don't always get my ideas from the news reporting. I could have written about the scene in the parking lot at the local food store, where a teenage boy, and I assume his mother, were engaged in a loud, verbal and quickly moving toward a physical confrontation, loud enough that it attracted a great deal of attention from those walking to and from the store to their cars. Someone must have called the police, for at that moment a police car came around the corner. Just as the officer got out of his car, the mother got into her vehicle and drove away, leaving the boy standing in the parking lot. (My suspicion is that the police may already know the family.)
One of my favorite spots for inspiration came from the local auction. Each Sunday from March until December several hundred people from near and far gather to talk, spend money, brag about their latest finds and to share in the joy of one of Robin's egg, cheese and ham breakfast sandwiches. But now....with the virus.
I don't remember where it came from or who gave it to me, but on the corner of my desk sits a wooden block, the size a child might use to build a fort or castle. But this block has pictures and author's names and partial titles of many of the classic, squeezed onto the 6 sides of the two inch block. Yes...it's a writer's block! And despite how firmly I held it in my hand, there was no inspiration or Steinbeck or the others.
I really feel as though I have let myself down. and my readers too. I had set some goals, but.....something has changed.
I have two choices. I could sit around all day and fret, frustrating myself even more or...I could get outside in the fresh air, under a bright late summer blue sky, and work in the garden, pulling a few remaining weeds. I opted for choice number two. And besides, the Red Sox games just don't have the excitement and enthusiasm without fans in the stadium.
