Drab Days

How to proceed when nothing suits.

Through no fault of my own, I am under slept, hurting in various places, and the weather which is never chilly in late May where I live, is suddenly very much so as well as grey and drizzly. I have been staring at my screen trying to rid myself of a low-grade panic. Nothing suits. No topic seems interesting. I am not interesting. But my writing break is now over and I must produce…something. If I don’t, months will pass without writing and I won’t actually miss it much at all. This will then build a bad habit of not writing.

I am not one of those writers who lives for the joy of pounding away in isolation. Words don’t even thrill me that much. Only what they can do when strung together. The stringing together, at the moment and as sleep-deprived and achy as I am all over, is somewhat of a chore instead of a joy.

So today, I will tell you what I do when the days are drab and nothing suits.

First, I take myself in hand.

This means I get up off my bed, put some clothes on, do something with my hair and get on with breakfast. Contrary to popular wisdom, this is called “self-care.” I could stay in bed all day, but then I wouldn’t sleep tonight which is what I didn’t do all last night, and I’d rather not have a repeat of that. Getting up and getting on with it is the necessary thing, so I do it.

“Taking one’s self in hand” may look different for everyone. On days like today where exhaustion is in the forefront and energy is at a premium, it usually means doing the bare minimum of getting on with things. I likely won’t have the energy for my daily workout, but I can at least get dressed and not allow my circumstances complete control over me.

Second, I tidy something.

Cleaning everything that needs it will be out of my scope today. But I can pick one mess and dispose of it. Today’s mess was a load of laundry I forgot to take out of the washer the day before. It smelled none too fresh. So, I sprinkled some baking soda and borax into the washer along with another squirt of detergent and put it on a quick cycle. Then I put that now fresh-smelling load in the dryer and emptied the over-flowing trash in the kitchen. My foggy brain is somewhat disquieted by all the other messes I haven’t got to, but I tell myself to rejoice in small victories and stop wallowing in the miseries which are magnified by lack of sleep.

Third, I make myself do something I’d rather let slide.

Today that happens to be this piece I’m writing. (I tell you, I’ve never met a writer who so often disliked writing, but that seems to be me fairly often.) Other days, it’s the small piles of clutter that accumulate on the kitchen counters that really aren’t that hard to dispose of, but for some reason, my brain just doesn’t want to deal with them even though I know it will literally only take five minutes to complete and would be the easiest thing I could do that day. Who can know the mystery of the human brain in regard to these matters? So I don’t try too hard to figure it out. I just override it with action.

Fourth, I try not to project into the future.

I try not to ask myself ridiculous questions like, “What if I don’t sleep tonight?” Or, “What if I can’t get my energy back for a really long time?” Or, “What if I never get any good writing ideas again?” Some of these questions aren’t as farfetched as you might think. There have been periods of years where I didn’t sleep on the regular and I felt quite awful and hurt all of the time. But the fact is, I’m much better off physically than I was even a decade ago, and it won’t do to give way to the anxious habits I learned back then. The more likely scenario is that I will sleep like a baby tonight, I will have more energy tomorrow, and once I’m finished writing this, I will have a grand idea to write about that my tired brain did not think of today but will find captivating tomorrow.

Fifth, I do something I want to do.

Tonight, I will probably collapse on the couch in front of a movie while I pick up the hand-sewn hexagon quilt I’ve been working on for the last five years. It doesn’t take a lot of brain power, but it’s creating something that will be quite useful when finished. And it’s pretty and relaxing.

Last and most important of all, I remind myself of the truth.

I remind myself that just a few days ago, I was filled with a zest for life, was bustling around the house and the garden, not feeling tired at all. The sun was shining and it was warm out. The truth is that the sun will come out again and I’ll stop being cold and tired.

I remind myself that above all the clouds, the sun is still shining. Every time I get in an airplane on a dreary day, I smile as we get above the clouds and see the blue, blue sky. Of course the sun is still shining. It never stops.

Days like today are the real mirage, not the truth.

Soon, I’ll hear the soft, far-off music of paradise lost but not gone forever. Because above all the gloom is the God who still loves me and smiles on me like the sun above these lowering clouds.

That’s all for now. Until next time, folks…

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During this extended writing break, I’ve had a good bit of time to think, and I’ve decided to modify my schedule on Substack. Rather than writing weekly, I’m going to write one long piece a month and record and release one song a month. The reasons for that are many, but one of them is that we modern folk get so many dang emails every day, we’re all suffering from email fatigue. So I’m going to publish less often in the hopes that you will look forward to hearing from me instead of get tired of hearing from me. That’s my theory, anyway. You can let me know whether that theory is accurate or not.

Now, the songs I release here once a month won’t all be quite as involved as Good Friday was.

I hope to do more high-quality recordings like that as time and funds allow, especially where my dad’s music is concerned. But more often, they will be simple songs recorded here at home with my husband mixing and mastering with a finished quality like “The Strife is Oe’r” which I shared with you all on Easter Sunday morning.

With each song, I’ll write a bit of a meditation to accompany its theme. I love music and I love singing, and nine times out of ten, music has inspired a story or novel I’ve written. So I think my singing and writing pair beautifully, and it’s something I’ve wanted to bring together here for a long time. So here we go!

I have another thing-a-ma-jig in the works which I cannot yet announce, but I hope to announce soon. Sit and stew on that for a while. (Wink.)

Happy June! I hope it’s “busting out all over!” for you and I’ll be back in a couple weeks with a beautiful hymn I’ve been thinking about for a while now.

If you enjoyed this piece, be sure to like, share and comment.

And if you want more downloadable/streaming original music from me, buy me a coffee! (And thanks to all of you who have done just that the last couple of months. You’re all a bunch of dears.)