I am welcoming myself back to the column. As some of you might know, I took a mini sabbatical to rewrite my memoir, the one that got 17 rejections. When I finally dragged myself to the manuscript to begin the work, there should have been a graphic of the skull and crossbones. Instead of being angry at all those editors who said thanks but no thanks, I read and reread, and shamefully totally agreed with them.
It was a book that needed a book doctor. And even though I didn’t go to medical school, I thought I could be an attending physician. I took its temperature, and the thermometer broke. I looked for a heartbeat, and it had AFib. I looked for its blood pressure, and all I could find was blood. I promptly put the thing away for a rainy day. And you may have noticed, we had a drought this summer, so I not only didn’t do any rewriting, I didn’t do any writing. At all.
But since I’m in a wonderful, supportive writing group, after five Tuesdays in a row saying, “Sorry guys, I have nothing to read,” I managed to dash off some of the following, just to let them know they should never do what I had done.
Writing group is happening soon
I haven’t written word or tune
I had a column long ago
But when I quit so did the flow
It’s not as if my brain stopped short
I’m always quick with a retort
But when there’s no one
On the other end
The energy I’d normally spend
Became what Netflix had on
Trend
The work I’d do
with rhymes and reason
(Now became so out of season)
Seemed somehow like
a kind of
Treason
And Writing sat upon the block
No thoughts no words that I could grock
And me with nothing much to grind
I swung and chopped and
lost my mind.
So if you’re writing every day
Please don’t stop
it doesn’t pay
When you take that little break
Getting back’s no piece of cake
It’s more like drinking castor oil
Like watching pots of water boil
But there was a gift in all this time
Away from reason, missing rhyme
To realize what this column meant
To get to rant and let me vent
I got to write this silly poem
And lucky me
I’m welcomed home.
