The work of writing is largely in my head, emanating from a slow cooker stuck on low. The challenge isn’t finding the right word; it’s finding the right thought. My well needs filling, and writing every day requires the well to be filled with something other than Facebook and food blogs.
But filling the well doesn’t feel compatible with daily life. There is no place for it on my To Do list. I can read or write. I can homeschool or write. I can cook and do laundry or write. But inevitably, something suffers. For instance, I haven’t done a single load of laundry this week. More important things to do. But when my five-year-old says as I tuck her in, “Mommy? I think you need to do laundry,” it’s probably time.
Perhaps I could write something beautiful and enduring about laundry? Or inspired by Madame Bovary, which I’m currently reading? Or by Gilead, which I’m also reading? Or Tom Sawyer, which we’re reading as a family? Or Prince Caspian? Yup, reading that too. Now that I think about it, maybe the well is fuller than I realize.
Beauty is plentiful in the everyday, as my friend Jenna reminds me, and since the everyday is the one perspective I have in abundance, I draw on it first. Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson found the beauty; perhaps I will too.