Until recently, my entire identity was tied up in motherhood. Ironically (or not), the more in-demand I was as mom, the more productive I was as writer. Writing has always been a route to sanity for me. I suppose that in the midst of high pitched noise and needy people, working with words was more of a selfish endeavor than an effort to communicate with the wider world.
Things are relatively quiet now. Except for the echo of my own footfall and the only-when-coaxed bark of the dog, these three thousand square feet of decrepit home feel like reclusive gluttony. Hours of available writing time stretch out before me, yet I can't seem to produce even a paragraph or poem. Granted, my "baby"--eighteen and still celebrating his HS graduation four months after the fact--presents me with a fair amount of distraction, but his almost constant physical absence seems more of an obstacle than an aid. There seems to be a direct connection between my ability to concentrate and chaos, and this, of course, disturbs me.
