It is 1970. The three bedroom duplex vibrates as a 747 jet departs Syracuse airport, a half mile away. An early morning snowfall raised the clumping drifts above the window ledge. The usually noisy house is quiet for a change. Five of the children are in school and the baby is napping. It is my time. I can do as I please. Work or not work. Dream or not dream. I can read, watch TV, or just enjoy my moments of solitude.
At first I try to ignore the teasing desire. I pretend there are other callings for me. I decide to do the mending, it's therapeutic, gives me a sense of do-goodness. Perhaps I'll bake. That's what I'll do, I'll make some yummy cookies for the kids to snack on when they get home.
It nags me, cajoles me, as I fight the urge. It always waits for the moment when the house is quiet. Then it attacks, pulling me, nagging me, leading me to do its bidding. I don't want to give in. I know the futility that will follow. The guilt afterwards affects me for days. It's been easier to say no since the children have come into my life. I can use their needs as an excuse.
Today it is more relentless than ever and I know I will give in. My mind imagines the scene, as I make my way to the bedroom, coffee cup in hand. It will begin slowly, a warm-up, but the pace will quicken, and I will slide swiftly into the intricacies of the momentum. When it is over, my emotions will be spent. For a few moments, I will have lived a life beyond the wife and mother scenario. I will be someone else, some other place in time. For a few moments, I will be a writer.
I place my 'I Love Mom', coffee mug on the cluttered, makeshift desk, ignoring the unmade bed. "That's what I should do," I tell myself, make the bed. I look around the bedroom in need of a good cleaning. As usual, I fall into my habit of considering well worn excuses. There are so many other things to do. Why begin a writing project now? The baby will be awake soon. Then there's lunch, and before I know it, the kids will be home from school. Its foolish to start something I can't finish.
Decision made, I grasp the mug, but before I can slip out of the chair, he is there, my nemesis, my muse, my tormentor. I can visualize him and sense his communication. Today, instead of the tumult of prose that is his usual telepathic habit, he directs his comments to me, rather than through me.
"I WAS ABOUT TO GIVE UP ON YOU, MY DEAR! YOURE PROCRASTINATION IS GETTING WORSE!"
I sighed and mentally responded. "Damon, when are you going to realize that I dont want to be a writer? Why did you pick me to taunt?"
"I DIDNT CHOOSE YOU, MY DEAR, I WAS ASSIGNED TO YOU. BELIEVE ME, IF ID DONE THE CHOOSING, IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN YOU."
"Can't you ask to be assigned to someone else?" I sipped my coffee, toyed with the pencil, tapping it first on the point, then the eraser.
"DONT THINK I HAVENT TRIED."
"Well, why do you still bother me? You know I have too much to do with six kids, a husband, and the obligations of an Army Officers wife."
"YOU REALLY BUG ME WITH YOUR EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES!"
"I bug you?" I threw down the pencil, startling my tiny nemesis standing in the center of the desk, hands on hip, flashing one of his disgusted smirks. I giggled as he struggled for balance.
"How can you say I bug you? I never ask you to come and drive me to distraction with your story lines, dialogue, description, and plot scenarios. Never once have I asked you to bombard me with a desire to write. I don't consider myself a writer. I don't enjoy writing, and I don't like you!
"I DON'T LIKE YOU EITHER, BUT I'M STUCK WITH YOU. LIFE'S LIKE THAT."
You don't have life, Damon. You are a figment of my imagination."
"THEN WHY CAN'T YOU GET RID OF ME?"
"Believe me," I stammered, "I try."
"I KNOW, AND I DON'T GO AWAY DO I?"
He was right. I tried to avoid writing, but he always compels me to put words on paper. Im enticed to do it and can't rest until it's done. I usually put the writing away, try to forget it, and take a break for awhile,
"THAT'S ONE OF THE REASONS YOU FRUSTRATE ME. YOU HEED MY GUIDANCE AND THEN FIND AN EXCUSE TO RUN AWAY AND IGNORE ME."
"I don't have the time, the energy, or the desire.
"SCUM-GLUCK! I AM SO SICK OF YOUR LAME-BRAINED EXCUSES, I COULD THROW UP!"
That's it. This is getting out of hand. I decide to leave.
"DON'T YOU DARE WALK OUT ON ME!" he screamed.
I'm not going to argue with you Damon. I don't have time. I don't have the desire. I have a family to take care of. That is my first priority. Now, go away and leave me alone."
I hear the baby stirring in his crib. He's awake. The school bus will be stopping outside shortly, and the house will be filled with boots, coats, mittens, and multiple voices relating the events of the day.
I quickly jump up from the desk, spilling some of the coffee on the sheet of paper where Damon is standing. He sighs knowing he has lost again. I watch him fade.
"Where will you go?" I ask.
AWAY FOR AWHILE. I CAN'T LEAVE YOU FOR GOOD. YOU ARE MY ASSIGNMENT. I'LL GO AWAY FOR A LITTLE WHILE, BUT I'LL BE BACK, WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT.
It is 35 years later. Damon still admonishes me for procrastinating. He is well aware that it isn't that I don't have time to write. I have plenty of time, now that I'm in what I call, 'the youth of old age'. He continues to target me with prose encrusted arrows. Sometimes they hit their mark, sometimes they don't.
Here, in The Essence of Me, are some of the times he succeeded.
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