Tea Kettle Cleaning


I’m at a writing retreat with two of my writing friends, Joy and Chris. Soon after settled in our retreat space, the lovely Anderson Center in Red Wing, Minnesota, Chris and Joy got right to work on their projects. If we had a retreat leader (we don’t, this is a self-led retreat), the leader would say that Chris and Joy are ideal retreat goers - hardworking, industrious, focused. If said teacher handed out grades Chris and Joy would get an A.
Anderson Center picture compliments of The Anderson Center, www.andersoncenter.org

I, on the other hand, would only get a B. But the B wouldn’t be for my writing. It would be for Tea Kettle Cleaning.

Because this is what happened to me when I settled into my room to write last night. I looked over three essays I started a while back and concluded that they are not worth editing or even looking at ever again. But then I realized that I haven’t written anything other than blog entries and content for a website project in about six months, so it made sense that writing seemed impossible, that I would think my stories were not worth working on.

So I went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Because I write best when I have a cup of tea. Hopeful that the cup of tea and new setting would inspire me, I brought my notebook and pen down to the kitchen. Maybe, I thought, since my essays were too bad to edit, I could at least start writing something new. 

But then I noticed that the tea kettle was terribly tarnished and dirty. So I took out the baking soda and a started cleaning the outside of the kettle. Sadly, even after considerable effort, it didn’t clean up to a nice shine - that’s why I only get a B in tea kettle cleaning - it is, however, much shinier than it was before. 

It’s possible that cleaning the tea kettle was simply my way of avoiding the hard work of writing. I would say that was true if I would have continued cleaning the house (I will admit I had to stop myself from dusting the radiator and arranging the spice cupboard). But it’s more likely that the act of cleaning the tea kettle was what I needed to get my physical self settled enough so I could engage my brain and write.

Because write I did. I wrote longhand until well past eleven in the evening. I got up and wrote more this morning. I even edited a bit of one of my too-bad-to-bother-with essays. They’ve totally taken on a new form and I’m a bit overwhelmed at where they are taking me. And now I’m kind of worried and am asking myself questions like, “Will you ever be able to finish anything, Myrna?” and “Why can’t you focus?” and, well, other not very helpful things.

Hmmm, maybe it’s time for me to clean the tea kettle a bit more and make it all shiny, try to get an A in Tea Kettle Cleaning this time.

Or maybe I just need to write through the worry and see what happens.

Here I go...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Change in Plans

Image
My kids, Rose and Ryan, started a theater day camp today called Young People's Theater Workshop (YPTW). YPTW is a program put on through the Northfield Arts Guild  during which the kids, grouped by age, write a play, rehearse it, and then perform it at the end of the three week session. Rose loves the camp and this is her fourth year. In her first year I saw a huge change in her confidence from the beginning of the session to the end. She has grown each year since and I expect she will benefit from the camp again this year. Ryan has never been in YPTW and has been somewhat reluctant to go. But, to save on gas (it's a 30 mile round trip to town), make our schedule easier and give me time to work, Owen and I decided that Ryan should give YPTW a try. Given how good the program has been for Rose, we're hoping Ryan will benefit from the program as well. I dropped the kids off this morning and right off the bat Ryan found two friends from his class at Greenvale. He found
Read more

Making tracks

Image
I just looked out my office window and saw my snowshoe tracks in the snow. For some reason they surprised me. Seeing them I had concrete evidence that I actually have been getting out on my snowshoes every day. That I've actually been going somewhere. And, for some reason, I find this comforting. I've been fighting my 30 Days of Snowshoeing commitment and am kind of mad at myself for creating the challenge for myself. I haven't wanted to get out every day and snowshoe. It's cold outside. I don't like putting on my snowpants, my hat, scarf, gloves, jacket. Perhaps because I'm doing the challenge alone, unlike the 30 Days of Biking challenges where hundreds of other people biked every day and helped motivate each other, I don't really feel like it matters that I'm doing this. And I've lost momentum and motivation and simply want to sit inside and read a book. Or sleep. Or watch Monk and Cake Boss on Netflix. But I keep snowshoeing. Every day. Ev
Read more

A Little Bike Schooling on the B Ride

I'll be honest with you, my two main motivations for riding my bike any distance are coffee and conversation. A good workout is also a motivator but going really fast is not. I'm more of a slow and steady - okay, really slow and not that steady - sort of bicyclist. But for months now I've wanted to join in on a group ride. From what I've heard people ride their bikes, chat away the miles and stop somewhere for a cup of coffee mid-way or at the end of the ride. Sounds like my kind of ride. Right? Maybe not. Most of the group rides I've heard about promise average speeds of 18 to 20 miles per hour or more and go 40 or more miles. Some sound brutal and talk about hill climbs and sprints. Granted, these are the "A" rides, rides geared towards competitive riders, riders who want to push their limits. "B" rides are supposed to be slower, "C" rides even more so but I've seen some C rides that sound too fast for me, some B rides with leng
Read more