Lately it seems to me I have a choice. Either I can be creative or I can be efficient. But I can’t be both.
I walk around most of the time feeling guilty because I don’t have a “job”. That is, I don’t get up every morning at 6:00, gulp down breakfast, and head out on the freeway in my car through the early morning rush hour to get to an office on the other side of town. I also don’t have any children. So I ask myself,” What kind of a woman doesn’t have a paying job or children to raise”? And I answer myself, “A busy one”!
There are a million little, niggling details in my typical day, and this is a typical day. I have to pick up a prescription at the drugstore, go to the health food store and pick up a couple of supplements (presumably so that we can avoid yet another prescription), go to the grocery store for a long list of staples even though this will make my third trip to the grocery store this week, go to the bank and cash a check, go to the veterinarian’s to pick up special food and vitamins for Henry (who has kidney problems), take my winter coat in to the tailor for repairs, go to Sears and make some returns and exchanges, and of course, water the plants, do the laundry, and give the house “a lick and a prayer” in terms of cleaning. I should also go to yoga class at 4:30 –(a once-a-week tradition I only started last week, so it seems a shame to abandon it this early in the game). We are slated to have dinner with another couple tonight. I rarely make a point of sharing my daily activities with anyone. I don’t really want to bore you with such mundane details. But I’m making an exception now to make a point.
Then, oh yes – I almost forgot. I have to write. I’m writing in the morning now so that no matter what else I have to do, at least my blog will get done. Now this is the tricky part. I am in housewife mode, and I have to somehow switch gears and be “an artiste”. I don’t know how anyone does it.
They say you should write about what you know. If I were to write songs about what I really know these days, they might have titles like: “My Vacuum’s Broke (But I don’t Care)”, “My To-Do List For Today”, “Someday When My Plumber Comes Along”, “What’s Free About the Freeway?” and one that I’ve seriously contemplated, “At Fifty-five” (a brilliant metaphor about living at a reduced speed). The baby boomers would know what I’m talking about, but would they admit to it?
Anyway – If I’m ever going to get to Sears (and this is Saturday, after all), I’d better get going. Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to get around to my screenplay today.
© 2004, Robin Munson