The Real Housewife of Kentucky: Doing Nothing

Sometimes, without much warning, there comes a pause in the action. At first, when it came I was suspicious. It was heavy and empty and silent. I took myself for a walk. Then, when I came home I tried to create things. But I couldn't. Instead, I cleaned my closet. 

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A few days later, I had cleaned more things. And scrubbed the floors. And the bathroom. And organized. I kept saying, "Clutter-Free 2012!" I put things in baskets and recycled boxes. 

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Also, I started to cook more and more new things. One of my many (spoiled) Christmas presents was a pressure cooker. So, I made Coq Au Vin and all sorts of new inspired dishes. I baked. There were things in the crockpot, things in the kitchen aid, things in the slow cooker.

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I started jogging a little. I liked the way it made my brain feel. I like the way it makes my brain feel. I started jogging/hiking where Daniel Boone and his family used to live. When the sun is out, it looks likes this. This was today.

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I started a new project, it's currently called, "The Woods." I like it. It moves a long and has a nice rhythm to it. And magic things happen. It's mostly about the woods.

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I wrote a new poem. It's about lightning and love. 

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I wrote my friend to say, "I haven't been working on the novel. It's in forced purgatory. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for more comments and then I will dig in and make some significant changes. In the meantime, I cook, and workout, and clean." She called me, "The Real Housewife of Kentucky."

* 

I twittered that I had done nothing all day. Though in truth I had hiked, and cleaned, and read many many poems, and made a good dinner. And a stranger twittered back this:

 It takes a lot of time being a genius, you have to sit around so much, doing nothing. 

                                       --Gertrude Stein 

I'm not a genius. But I'm a genius at doing nothing.

*
After, I finished reading Poetry magazine, I made a sign out of the subscription card, we call them "blow-ins" in the biz, and put it on my desk. Next to a jar of beach glass with a bird on top.

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I took some time to write to my friends. Good long letters when they were needed. To one, I wrote something like this, "I still get the blues a lot. But I have a lot more tools to deal with it now. I've read a lot of books about self-improvement. You can sum them all up in one word: BREATHE (or CHILL)." (That's true.)

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We made a beer with our friends. I want to name it something awesome. 

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It's been cold recently. And gray. But not too bad. And not too gray. (I just learned how to spell GRAY. I say, "With an 'A' for AMERICA.) 

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One of those books I was talking about earlier says that we have to be careful about roles. How sometimes you get caught up in being something you're supposed to be: mother, leader, artist. And I was in the bathtub (that was very clean) and I realized that I was working on trying to BE a writer and an artist, when, really sometimes, I just need some time to breathe. You probably do, too.

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The dog is snoring. I should go clean something. And make a healthy turkey meatloaf. And watch a movie. And do nothing.