Shower Magic

Back when I was a member of the out-of-the-house working world, my most technical problems often offered up their solutions while I was soaping up in the shower. Don’t try to picture it and don’t ask me why. Over the years though, it’s happened enough that I learned a long time ago that if a dilemma churned at me, to let it go. When I did, then either in a pre-dawn on-the-edge-of-waking moment, but more often under the stream of a scalding shower, the answer would eventually shoot out like the stinging spray from the shower head.

Today my scrub-down produced again--though not with an answer to a crucial worry, just the suggestion of an intriguing topic to write about. After my Eureka moment, I toweled off and stepped out of the steam-filled bathroom, desperate to run to the computer, but there was a Caesar Salad to make and an apple to pack for lunch, breakfast to serve, a litter box to empty, and a daughter to drive to school.

For the last two months, once drop-off is complete, I’ve gone directly, well, aside from a trip to the coffee pot, to the drop-leaf table in front of the window to write three Morning Pages. Today though, I took a detour. Since the goal of Morning Pages is to open the participant up to other opportunities, feeling the magnet pull of the words I wanted to get down, I ignored the red Artist’s Way notebook that has been my companion since January, and turned to the shiny, blue three-subject spiral notebook I purchased last week instead. Lifting up my trusty Paper Mate, I began to write. And I wrote. I wrote and wrote and wrote until the timer went off and it was time to climb into the Jeep and drive across town to serve lunch at the Senior Center.

Let me tell you, the kitchen floor needs to be washed, I’m serving sad leftovers for dinner, and there is a stack of laundry to be folded in my room. I'm trying extra hard not to think about the networking calls I didn't make, and the resume-writing brochure (my own) I need to finish. I can't care what I did or did not accomplish for the rest of the day because this morning I wrote.

And, I know just how to pick up where I left off when I sit at that table tomorrow.

Nuff said.