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Resurrection




Persistence.  A great concept, but a harsh lover.  Writing is a delicate creature, easily crushed by changes in its preferred ecosystem.  I’ve been reminded of this ever since the dreadful event that I entitle the annual time displacement.

Daylight savings time had a practical origin in an agricultural lifetime.  Of course, our society has changed radically since then—so much so that there would be no harm in staying on daylight savings time all year long.  To creatures of habit that one extra hour’s sleep in the fall doesn’t compare with the hideous, persistent weeks of uncontrollable yawns in the spring.

I’m an early morning writer.  Since I’m not one of the privileged few who gets paid for my efforts, writing has always been an avocation.  Avocations are not viewed favorably by employers, so they are pursuits of personal time.  I think most clearly in the hours before dawn that I jealously guard from others.  I do not want to share my 4 a.m. with anyone but my imagination.

Then the annual time displacement.

Waking up feels like burning.  My eyes are glued shut and even the stoutest coffee I can manage won’t cut through the fog to allow the writer to find pen and paper.  After an hour all that is left to be shown is a few incoherent lines and a raging desire to go back to bed.  This is one of the cruelest fates in store for writers.  And that’s saying something.

Weeks have passed since the displacement.  I still fight for every nanogram of consciousness.  I live to write, but now I’m forced to grapple with jaws locked open and eyelids smashed together.  The violence is intense.  I want to write, but I have to work.

It is time for writers to unite against our natural enemies.  Without routine, writing time suffers.  Yet that very breaking of routine provides new experiences, and new experiences inspire writing.  If only I could stop this damned yawning long enough to get the ideas on paper.
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