Line's Busy

How busy am I?

Busy enough.

Busy enough to have taken the day off yesterday.

Busy enough to be working today, on my “day off.”

Busy enough to be working “part-time” 60 hours a week.

okay, bohoo for me, you get the idea.

I’m lucky, I suppose. 

I have a three-day gig: writing. 

As always. 

I’m always writing.  One thing or another. Usually on deadline. I have been writing for a paycheck one way or another all of my worklife. 

Writing. The bane and joy of my life.  

Writing copy and ad campaigns. 

Writing proposals, press releases, speeches, tv spots and video scripts, jingles!

Writing: for medical science exhibits at a children’s museum.

Writing: a monthly e-newsletter for a large nonprofit org - currently driving a new social media vehicle in which I am editor, writer, web content developer and manager. 

How busy (lazy) am I?

Busy. Lazy. Writing. 

Writing always takes its own time. Navigates and negotiates its own hours.

Writing: wrestling a sentence down to the page, struggling with an idea or the slightest notion of a thought that crosses my mind can send me into a state of deep consternation or distraction, yielding a well turned phrase.  Or a hopeless knot of words to untangle. Writing sends me to the refrigerator, to the shower, to yoga practice or to bed with a headache.  Unless, you’re Stephen King, one never knows just how busy one can be writing.  

How busy (lazy) writing am I today?  This minute?  Not too.  

Blogging. Instead of writing.

Procrastinating on the “real” writing assignment I’ve given myself today, I’m blogging.

Blogging is like writing on muscle relaxers.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Blog in. Blog out. Roosting and pecking at a line here and there. No worries about the eleven readers who will actually reach this point in the page.  Everyone scans.  No one actually reads, nor cares. Too damn busy!  

Sensory overload. Even as I write.  Write here. Incoming email chimes in.  Distractions on the desktop abound. The page recedes. My train of thought halts to a stop. Browsing now. Googling next books to read that I'll buy and not touch.   YouTubing nonsense topics: Susan Boyle's Overnight Success.  Holley Mangold, 323-Pound Weightlifter, Dreams of Olympic Gold. How busy am I? Watching outdoors temperatures rising, grass browning, 101 degrees  at three in the afternoon in Michigan. Only the air conditioning is busy working, but just barely. What’s in the news of the hour?  Job growth remains tepid.  What’s playing at the movies?  Savages.  Oliver Stone.  The afternoon drifts in the heat of the day to the weekend ahead.  What’s for dinner?  

Busy writing.  I go on.  Oh, how I go on!

I’m at a stage in my worklife  (do I actually call it a career?) when I might consider un-busying myself with things like gardening and grandchild care and vacations.

Gardening?  It’s work.  And for some reason I’ve made my beds and now have to dig and weed and prune in them. Writing is such relief from the hot sun. 

Grandparenting?  Lovely work if you can get it.  My children are one state over in two directions - respectively a 3 and 4 hour drive as the crow flies.   And how busy can you be caring for and entertaining a 16-month old?   Spend a day with an infant and it’s good for your heart and soul, not to mention your legs and back.  Spend a weekend grandparenting - and you peel back a whole generation of memories, instincts, visceral worries, keeping your mind alert, awake . . .  very busy,indeed.

Vacationing?  Leave it to us - my husband and I - to plan a vacation requiring stamina and a degree of training to ride some 35 to 60 miles a day on a road bike on a hilly countryside.  Sounds fun?  Idyllic?  My husband thinks so.  Busy on that bike,  I’ll be writing, eyes on the road, mind somewhere in the clouds. . . tracking the miles to release. Relief.  

Writing. Busy thinking. Of the next words.  Going nowhere. Very fast.  

Photos:  VHenoch

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