Why I Can't Write

(what came out in a freewriting session last week)

Bodhi’s 2019 Halloween costume. He was a dapper Charlie Chaplin.

Let me eat half a bagel and guzzle a Coke from a glass bottle as I avoid writing about why I can’t write these days.

Looming over me are three immediate, bad things I can’t control: our country’s move toward fascism, my husband’s job ending on August 31, and my dog Bodhi’s cancer diagnosis.

The latter became a thing on July 6. Immediately my writer brain kicked in, and in my head I experienced much of the ensuing vet visits, tests, and heartbreaking fear through that writer brain, ever composing a narrative about what was happening. I imagined Facebook posts and Substack mini-essays. But I didn’t write anything. By the time Bodhi had surgery on July 29, the writer brain had shut down. Frozen into silence. I can feel it in my chest. I function as I need to, doing slightly more than the minimal, and getting by by bingeing TV. So far I’ve made it through a re-watch of Scandal and am working on How to Get Away with Murder. I amuse myself by imagining scenes from other Shonda Rhimes shows, like Grey’s Anatomy and Bridgerton, if they also were based on the premise that it’s ok to murder people who get in your way. I would have done away with Meredith Grey years ago. She’s so annoying.

Sometimes I’ll watch the news: Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes. But it’s hard to be that deeply sunk into reality right now.

The third thing, my husband’s job – we have a weird marriage, me in Oregon, him in Florida. It’s been this way for 12 of our 16 years. It’s a second marriage, done in our 50s, and it didn’t take long to understand that the traditional rules didn’t apply. So when both daughters moved to Oregon, I packed my car for at least a six-month visit. But I made sure to include the things I wouldn’t want to leave behind if I never came back.

My husband and I talk on the phone every night before he goes to bed and twice a day on weekends. He comes for a 9-day visit 3 or 4 times a year. I don’t go there because being stuck in an airplane freaks me out.

I was always pretty independent financially – not well off but able to cover my bills. He took care of rent and utilities for the 5 years we lived together. And a few years ago he began subsidizing me out here so I could drop my 3^rd job. Then two years ago he said I should retire, made possible by him sending me what I need to live on. Except I didn’t want to retire; I got some training as an editor then became certified as a writing coach so I could start my little freelance business. But it is little and nowhere near enough to live on.

Now his job, his whole department, is being phased out. He won’t be able to afford supporting me out here, and I don’t believe he should have that burden.

So as I try to sort out treatment for Bodhi, so far impossible because they can’t nail down the type of cancer, I’m faced with the probability of having to move back to Florida.

Me and Florida don’t get along. I met some nice people there, but the overall power structure and cultural vibe are horrendous. I imagine living there again, and I expect to join the Unitarian Church and Food Not Bombs’ weekly meal distribution and maybe the old poetry open-mic community, if it still exists. I could find some sustenance.

But I also think there’s a good chance I’d end up in jail. Pensacola is a place with people standing on street corners, waving Bibles and yelling at cars stopped for the traffic light. I’d be holding a “Fuck Fascism” sign or the equivalent, and, knowing me, I’d be so mad and appalled at being in the heart of MAGA and Christian nationalism that I’d end up in some kind of nonviolent civil disobedience action. I fear I won’t be able to stop myself. So if I don’t get punched out by a neo-Nazi, I could end up in the county workhouse.

So how is this related to not being able to write? Two things:

1) Running away. It’s hard to write when as soon as I’m done with necessary tasks, I escape into TV.

2) Guilt. This is the main one. Every Tuesday night I’m inspired by my Silent Writing group and all they create. I’m inspired by the Substack essays I read from this group and from strangers. These things light a tiny writing fire in me. But I stomp it out because life is not normal now, and I don’t have the right to behave as though it is. I don’t feel I have the right to indulge in something I want, when Bodhi is probably dying and my life will be upended by the end of the year. But mostly because Bodhi is dying.

How can I think about picking up my novel again – something I set aside after the last election when it became clear my energy was needed to push back against authoritarianism, not perfect a dumb story? How can I go back to writing little essays or poems when I need to concentrate all of myself into holding vigil for Bodhi? I provide nursing care and love, and I sit frozen in terror of losing him. Looking at him, you wouldn’t think anything is wrong. Unless you notice the ugly tumor growing at the base of his left rear paw. He behaves normally, a variety of creative, idiosyncratic moves to get me to feed him, like running up behind me and hitting me in the butt with his front paws. Standing on all four legs, his head barely comes up to my knees. So that butt-smacking is a gymnastic feat.

Bodhi’s adoption photo

I’m not sure why I’m writing this, except I joined A Writing Room’s Silent Writing session and let this fly. I probably shouldn’t share: who wants the intimate details of my problems? Especially when so many more people are truly suffering from genocide, terror of ICE, real poverty, etc.? I do have a roof over my head and food and the ability, as an old white woman, to be invisible in this wretched 2025 environment if I keep my mouth shut.

But who wants to do that?