Tag Archives: The Women of Brewster Place

Beige Bras and Oatmeal…

by Robin Byrd

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?