For the last two decades I’ve done my best to exorcise my “evil
golf
twin", and with enough success that for the last few years I have felt focused on writing and living life fully. However, this spring she, my evil golf twin, reemerged with a vengeance and new target,
my writing brain.
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| Like telling my ball where to go. |
For instance, I sat down to write about an hour ago. After the
first paragraph I paused to consider the verb ‘reemerged’ or the new ‘upcycled.’
As I pondered this perplexing problem I noticed that the bird feeder outside my
writing window looked empty. Oh my! I can’t write without my birds for light
entertainment, so I took the dog with me to the garage where I gathered two
cups of birdseed and filled the feeders for the finches, doves, robins,
cardinals, and ubb’s (unidentified brown birds).
After Lucy secured the
yard we walked back in through the garage and into the laundry room. Since the buzzer
was nearly ready to go off I decided to hang and fold laundry. Normally, that’s
to be expected in my life, however, today I not only hung and folded all of the
laundry, I also took the time to put everything away today, NOT tomorrow. This
twin demands Immediate Satisfaction at the cost of my creative side.
Yesterday, I told my sister that finally I was free to write all
day Monday, but that didn’t happen. Having been
healthy and able to play golf, briskly walk a couple of miles, and work in the
yard nearly pain free since April, I know that I must remain physically fit
with trips to the gym and workouts at home. Sadly, my brain and muscles work on
the same clock—we work best in the morning without distractions. It takes
energy to push myself to the gym and the same with writing. Long term goals
require a focus and do not handle distractions.
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| Art Gecko view |
This morning I stood between two worlds, my ‘Art Gecko Writing
Room’ and the front door that leads to the gym. Without guilt I drove to the
gym, and came home refreshed and ready to relax a moment then write.
I also came home hungry. The plan was flawless. I would eat leftover pizza for lunch and then write all afternoon, but my
Immediate Twin rocked me when I discovered that I had a 2:00 dental cleaning.
Growling at myself I turned in frustration to see what I could do in an
hour. Ha!
My sister, Jonya, has been cleaning and sorting her home for
several days. (She’s a teacher going back to work all too soon and she goes
into this frantic cleaning sorting mode every late July.) Now some authors and
worldly writers would rarely find themselves in this position. They write, even if they have only one hour.
My task brain looked around and found a chore for immediate
satisfaction, and decided that I could take some summer golf clothes to
GOODWILL. I drug bag of clothes to the hallway and let Jack know that the
assault on the clothes closet had begun. Suddenly, he stood up from his TV chair
and said,” I’ve been putting this off long enough!” Forth minutes later we stuffed the back of my car with five trash bags filled with clothes. Really!
I made it to the dentist and onto Goodwill, then came home
prepared to write. Of course, I only
wrote 10 minutes before being distracted. Now my Immediate Twin is grinning
over my shoulder at all of the things I did today, and saying,“aren’t I proud?”
This all comes with one more problem. I am no longer forty years
old and writing at nights to finish my first book with Dr. Mildred Laughlin. In
a flash back I recalled teaching all day, being with family all evening, and
writing alone in the kitchen until midnight. Then I turned around and did it
again, day after day, until our first book was finished in less than a year. Not so, now. Anybody who says that “Seventy
is the New Forty” is not seventy. 7 Reasons Why Seventy is the new Forty
The truth is that no one
mentions how tired a seventy year old is at night. I can no longer work productively
after dinner, sometimes not even after 4:00. Tomorrow I will play golf, relax with a book or close my eyes for
a while, then go to Tai Chi. I tell my twin that those physical activities must
come first.
My plan for Wednesday and Thursday is to be Wonder Woman, cross my arms and create a shield to keep my Immediate
Twin away, so I may finish the blog I began in May on empowerment, or not.
Just the same: This Life is Pretty Darn Good and Funny.
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| My twin and I agree that this place is good for the soul. |
