It's There...

It's there...in the back of my mind. When I'm sitting at a meeting at work, (and let me tell you...there have been a lot of meetings lately.). When I'm making dinner. When I'm ordering Chinese Food because I'm too tired to make dinner. When I'm falling asleep, the first few moments in the morning when I'm having my coffee and enjoying a moment of solitude...it's there. It's telling me...

"It's time to sit down and get back to work. We have stories to tell and you're not letting us out. There are words waiting to play. Come on now...we've been waiting and enough is enough!"

It's time to write. It's not just something I want to do. I need to do it. I can usually wait until the last day of school, when I come home that first day of summer vacation in the late morning and immediately go out to my back deck and pour a huge glass of ice water and open my laptop - and then I'm free. I write and write until it's dark. Then I come inside and write some more, sometimes until it's light outside again. I take the necessary breaks to drive children to camp/friends/ice cream stands/movies and then later pick up those children from camp/friends, ice cream stands/movies. I try to make healthier meals than I do during the school year when I'm so exhausted that I sometimes wonder how much longer I can physically handle my job. I'm a Mom. I see dear friends I don't get the chance to catch up with during the year. I pay more attention to my pets, catch up with my Dad, make snacks for children's sleepovers...but mostly...I write. I sleep in short intervals from about 3 am to 7 am. I have dark circles under my eyes. I don't dry my hair and it turns into a wavy wild mess. But I'm happy!

The problem is that this year, the stories are banging at the door - demanding to get out - and I still have about six weeks left until I can really let them loose. I'll go to bed now since it's past 11 pm and I have to get up at 5 am - but before I fall asleep I'll probably do some plotting in my mind. That appeases them for a bit. I'll watch everyone I see and wonder why they do what they do. I'll observe and file away my thoughts for a few more weeks. When I was a child I loved Harriet the Spy. I WAS Harriet the Spy (minus the affluent neighborhood). Louise Fitzhugh knew exactly how to describe a girl with a driving need to write down everything she saw and thought. When her notebooks were taken away, she was lost. I'm like that with my laptop...like Harriet without her notebook.

Six more weeks. It can't come soon enough.