In The Women of Brewster Place, one of the characters discusses the constants in her life as “beige bras and oatmeal.” My late mother loved oatmeal; she talked about it like it was a delicacy. I can’t digest it well, but I promise that after an oatmeal conversation with Mother, I would invariably try it again, only to have it refuse to go down my throat.
The constants for me have been storytelling, dreams of becoming, and disappointments… I have dreamed of adventures so vast they seem otherworldly. Now those dreams play out like parallel world delusions. Calloused by loss and trauma, I spend more time healing than moving into a dream. I’ve lost time, as if it were a bunch of quarters sitting in an unused purse. I have suffered so many disappointments, I am unable to see the silver linings anymore.
I am fighting myself. I’ve got a horror story in me that I don’t want to write, but it’s blocking anything else I want to write.
What to do?
Robin, my heart started to ache as I read your words… I remember two young women years ago meeting and bonding at a play conference… So full of hope; minds filled with so many plays we could not write them fast enough. We were inspired and we kept on dreaming… and writing… I don’t know why your dreams were dashed because every play I read of yours was a play I wished I had the courage to write… So, I hope my words don’t sound hollow – but just write… please just write… write the horror… sing it out loud, scream it like a prayer in the middle of the night, whisper it like a song you’ve long forgotten…