My girlfriend and I live on a small piece of property in Central California, a few miles from the sea. Though only minutes from the freeway, our neighborhood is semi-rural, with many neighbors owning several acres of land. Our little bit of sod is about 1/3 of an acre, essentially surrounded by open fields. Over the winter and into the spring, the field grasses grow high, drying to reedy, golden weeds, sometimes five feet tall.
And then, on an appointed day, a couple of the locals get on their riding mowers, and do an all-day mow, criss-crossing the territory in loud, patterned swaths of removal. That happened this weekend, and how we see is different: it’s like wearing welding glasses and having them fall off. Look, a cat, fixed but quivering, paws flexed in front of the gopher hole! A covey of quail, their topknots bobbing, busy harvesting seeds. And how did we not know that under the waving weeds, a clump of calla lilies stand shining?
Writer’s Slump
Writers are observers, but even observers fall into unseeing slumps. The buzzing of the hours, lunch followed by dinner, thoughts hovering on subjects well worn by prior thinking. You don’t actually see your work, your girlfriend, your very self. There’s a surface, and then there’s what’s underneath. What’s underneath is often new, bright and fresh—but that freshness is actually there all along. If you only tilt your head rather than hold it straight, not hold it expecting today’s fields to be the same as yesterday’s.
I’ve been feeling trapped in my mind of late, touchy, pessimistic, my thinking circular and petty. I’ve felt jealous of other people’s success, doubting my own path, my mind small and cramped. But the walkway to my Airstream office is lined with bright poppies, supple stems swaying in the wind. Gabbling goldfinches merrily dunk themselves in the deckside water garden. The flowers are impossibly bright.
Spring. Time again to see like a writer, see underneath the surface, to mow down the weeds of the small mind. Breathe.
PS When you’re all wrapped up in your small, sour self like I’ve been, it’s good to read something like Leo Babauta’s latest, 38 Lessons I Learned in 38 Years.
We’re of like mind lately; tried so hard to write the posts that were in my heart and just clunked out what was in my head.
We need a road trip in a convertible, you and I. It should involve unhealthy diners, whiskey in the evenings, and complete disconnection from anything or anyone we know for just a bit.
Tom, you’ve been feeling small and sour, but this word-offering is expansive and sweet.
So, thank you.
And I must admit that I’m jealous of all that glorious poppery and calalillyness that surrounds you two in your semi-rural paradise! We’re still killing our potted plants in suburbia down here.
Joel, I happen to own a convertible! (Just because it’s literally 30 years old is no reason to doubt it’s chariot-like conveyance. Besides, we could just park it at Golden Gate Park and sleep nearby.)
I have been feeling so pressured (and it’s self-built pressure, an artificial anxiety) to attend every webinar, get every marketing/writing tip, gallop to some ersatz zone of airhead achievement, that I haven’t looked at the actual good things in life. Like that whiskey in the diapers you were talking about. Er, I mean diners…
Annie, thanks for the encouragement. I love spring sensations, when you go through an area where flowers are blooming and their scent sneaks up on you: before you actually think “Ahh, that’s a nice smell,” you’ve already been bathed in a scent dunk of goodness.
“poppery and calalillyness”—me like.
Thank you Tom. This is the most inspiring thing I’ve read in a very long time. ‘to mow down the weeds of the small mind.’ Magnificent vision.
Rick, thanks. I’m glad you got something out of it. My vision can best be characterized as “through a glass, dorkily” at the moment. Not feeling very visionary, but I’ll try to write my way out of it.
Always good to hear from you.
Well put, brother! I’ve been feeling this way for a spell, too. Sickness (and winter) will do that to ya! Even winter in California!! But spring is bringing me out of it.
Here’s to what’s under that surface!
Schultz! Did you sneak in here to steal my spring flowers? Ha, you crept out and you left more than you took.
Yes, let’s both look for the surprises, because indeed they are there, and delight along with them.
Tom,
I read the passage below when I was very young, long before one could Google images, and was compelled to run to the library to find a photograph of California poppies. Now, whenever I see them (thanks!), these words come back and give me a feeling of intense joy. Such is the power of well-crafted words… So I trust you have shaken off the slump by now and are back in the fray.
“These too are a burning color–not orange, not gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be like the color of the poppies.” – John Steinbeck
Poppy (of course, I can’t go any further before commenting on your apt name), to be able to write like Steinbeck would be golden cream! One of the big keys is to recognize and feel grateful for the good things that one has, and I do have some good things. I just forget sometimes.
Thanks for the serving of Steinbeck, and for your warm comment.