Instead of Writing

imagine the possibilities

Jul 17, 2024

A brief note before a brief post: I’ve been quiet on Substack this past month because I’ve been putting all my creative energy toward my novel/writing program. I’d like to post more regularly here, but can’t make any promises yet. In the meantime, I appreciate those of you who continue to read and subscribe and bear with me as I juggle everything. Thank you!

Instead of writing, I could read—the newsletters piled up in my inbox; the craft books and novels on my TBR shelf. I could luxuriate in someone else’s words; swallow someone else’s time well spent.

Instead of writing, I could shop. I could browse, gluttonous, so many sales—there are so many sales!—for linen sweaters and Korean skincare and sheer cafe curtains to flutter in the light above my desk. I could spend every cent. I could buy everything.

Instead of writing, I could watch TV—romantic comedies made for teens; documentaries about cheerleaders; the empty reality shows I miss with embarrassment. I wouldn’t be embarrassed. I would let loose entire afternoons of thinking to the stupid screen; let the sweet hours drip from idle fingers, my relaxed, slack jaw.

Instead of writing, I could move my body. I could walk for miles and dance and twist into upside-down knots in a dark, humid room. I could focus on my breath, my balance, my precision, each burning muscle its own mountain.

Instead of writing, I could be outside, rising temps rippling down my back. I could drown the beetles in soapy water and compost the weeds. I could harvest the zucchini, scratching my arms against their rough umbrella leaves, leaving the invisible splinters to find their own way home. I could carry the swollen squash—this summer a pale green—into the house and pile them like firewood and slice them paper-thin. I could make lemony carpaccio with arugula and pine nuts and parm; chop and grill and mix with mint and vinegar and star-shaped flowers; bake into sweet, spiced bread. I could turn up the oven, adding more heat, more heat. I could eat. I could roast in the sun.

Instead of writing, I could call my friends, serving each a delicious, uncontrolled portion of time—navigating disparate zones and schedules and phases of wild life. I could tell them I miss them; that my workshop is going well; that my husband’s still home and our son is taller, sleeping better, learning how to tell a joke; that I sometimes worry I’m standing too still or on the wrong path and running, downhill, picking up speed. I could listen.

Instead of writing, I could sleep. I could cover every window and worry, tamp every last-minute spark. I could take my pills. I could close my eyes, I mean. I could pretend.

Instead of writing, I could tend to the broken, cluttered things: disorganized closets and overstuffed drawers, shoes that no longer fit, a dryer that keeps ripping holes in my clothes with the side of the lint trap that sticks up because there’s too much lint piled up beneath. I could try to clean it out with a butter knife, then accidentally drop the knife into the narrow abyss and need my husband to come fix the whole fucking mess and scream. I could scream.

I could follow the news, chasing as it rips with fanged fury through my tattered expectations, the craggy canyon that exists between old futures and this angry bonfire world. It will burn, erratically leaping, invasive roots spreading like sudden blood. I could follow, like and subscribe. I could take pictures with my phone.

I could regress to a breezy youth on a far-flung state, disconnected and isolated and never too hot but wanting to leave just the same. I could browse real estate listings in Costa Rica and Canada, reaching for water. I could research immigration; how to get my representatives’ attention; how to run for office; how to howl into the windy void without it all echoing back. I could cry with uselessness, with rage, with the fact that my son won’t have the same things to take for granted. What will he take for granted? What will we give him to hold? What will we do with these plans and children and plans for our children? Where will we carry them, where will we go? Will my home island still be there, or will it—by the time he’s my age and lit with his own wide-awake rage—have violently drowned?

I could meditate. I could go to therapy. I could swim. I could get on a plane. I could make the bed. I could make a pie. I could grate coconuts until my hands hurt. I could ask my doctor why my hands hurt. I could put on music or blinders or sunscreen. I could take it all off. I could keep scrolling. I could keep going. I could rest.

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