Process

Photo by Jawed Kayim from Wikimedia

She enters the room every day. Most days, she sits down and writes. Some days, when there is more activity in the house, she perches on the edge of the chair, pushes around a thing or two, and then gets up and leaves, returning after dark, after all else is quiet.

While the computer is booting up, or rebooting, she puts all the things away. Pencils and pens in their cups. Lip balm, baseball hat, rolled up socks in the bedroom. Papers in the in-box, or the receipt box, or the recycle bag. Handbags hung in the closet. Notebooks and calendars spiraled closed, stacked on the bright red bench meant for visitors, children to sit, stay a spell.

Nobody ever really stays a spell because this is her space. She turns when you enter, “What do you want?” written on her face but a softer tone in her voice.

When everything is in its place, she pops her headphones in, turns up the speaker, and dives in. One moment she’s in another world, eyes glazed over, fingers flying over the keys, tap-tapping a rhythm that her children hear as they fall asleep – the clacking forms a tuneless song and drifts on the air down the hallway. Another moment, she’s lost, resting her head in her hands, twirling her hair into clouds and tangles, listening to the music, wanting the words to be brilliant, knowing they’re not, hating them.

And then it’s back again and she’s on fire, and the words are flowing out of her, and she’s not a suburban mother of two who just got back from a sweaty last-minute trip to the grocery store because she forgot to buy the rolls for dinner. She’s a spirit on the air flying high above the world, watching what everyone in it is doing, and writing it all down.