Start

I dug out Elsa and the Tie-down Man. Harder than it sounds. I was flooded with the memory of placing two books I’d been working on in the box, feeling as if I might never get back to them, but I forget about the note. Written to me by that other me, the sick one, the one uncertain she would ever get back to writing at all, let alone novels.

Everything overwhelmed me then and I was a bit afraid I would feel that again. I didn’t like that feeling. That vulnerable, out to sea feeling. And everything made me feel that way. It was strange. The only thing that soothed me, the only thing that I felt eager to do was cook. And even that I had to simplify. The most pleasure for me was chopping vegetables. I even dreamed of it. That steady chop, chop, chop. The solid feel of the knife against the cutting board. The pile of vegetables getting bigger.

One of the things that were most upsetting was the way my brain worked. My thoughts were foreign, stilted and dead. There was no flights of fantasy, no stories clamoring to get out, no dreams to plunge into each night. There were no dreams. None. When I tried to write, thoughts poured in, but I couldn’t capture them and the few I did, were disjointed and just little pockets of thought that went nowhere. I was so scared. Who was I if I couldn’t write? What was I?

It haunted me and caused me the most sorrow. More than my diagnosis, more than the fear of never getting better or of dying. More than the thought of being on dialysis for the rest of my life.

Finally, embarrassed, but depressed and a bit panicked I asked my doctor about it. He answered with entirely too much calm, “Oh, that’s normal. Side effects of the medicine and the illness can do that, too.”

In everything I read, in all the side effects I was told about no one covered this. Nor could the doctor tell me how long it would last or if I would write again. When I tucked away my novels I wondered if it was forever.

As I read my note, I remembered how I felt and took a minute as I lifted out the research, the edit notes, the pictures. I waited for that overwhelmed feeling to come. And truthful there was a twinge, seeing all the work I’d put into the writing, know the time I’d spent and maybe, wasted, but I gathered it and took it to my desk to put in order.

I told myself, I didn’t have to tackle it all at once. I was under no deadline. I would simply put it in order, reread Elsa and the Tie-down Man and go forward. One step, then the next. Maybe, it wasn’t even any good. Maybe, it couldn’t be saved.

After putting the manuscript and notes in order, I looked through it for the contest entries with their critiques. Missing. I knew they were somewhere. I remembered putting them somewhere safe. I remember that thought. Put it somewhere safe. But so many things ended up lost, missing or gone. There was just a little panic before I got my step stool and dived into the only other place it could be. On top of the supply cabinet in a box marked ‘magazines.’ For good reason, too. There were magazines in it…and my contest entries with critiques. Relief washed over me, made me laugh and cry. Like a mother who’d found her lost child. So important. Too important.

Well, I just heard about my son’s neighbor whose house got broke into. Hard drive, back-up hard drive and UBS drive all stolen, along with I-pods and electronics. What was what I thought of? Not my identity, not my huge music files, not my family pictures, I’m ashamed to say. But my writing. Fire, flood, what do I first think of?

But I found my manuscripts. I have a place to start.

A place to start. As Carl Sandberg said, “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”