I know that this is a meta moment: getting stuck writing an essay on the theme of being stuck when writing. The truth is, stuck is the start of all my writing. Poised at the shore before diving in. And it’s the rocky shore of the coast in Maine, where even on the warmest day the cold water will be a shock. Then, all of a sudden, you’re in the water with no choice but to swim. Right now I’m standing at the shore of this essay. I am a world-class staller. Stalling and stuck are closely related. I stall because there’s some fear in getting started. What if there’s nothing there? Worse yet, what if something’s there but it’s no good? And if it’s on paper, then the whole world will know it.
I can’t predict how I’ll stall, but I have a number of strategies. I may be a master of stalling. I’ll write a few emails. I might listen to a song. Walking is good, too. I clean. Play guitar. I might make piles on my desk, or sharpen pencils. Or I’ll look up words in the dictionary, or read a poem by someone else. I just read “The Circus Animals’ Desertion” by William Butler Yeats, where he writes about finding his own themes, his own inspiration. The last lines of the poem are: “Now that my ladder’s gone / I must lie down where all the ladders start / In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.”
We know intuitively that, like Yeats, our journey will require that we go to a place deep within, where what we are trying to create resonates with the deepest part of who we are, or who we imagine ourselves to be.
I used to belittle myself for stalling, because it’s not something I imagine other writers would do. They’re filling page after page. But now I realize that the stalling is just my conscious mind letting my unconscious get to work. All the time I’m procrastinating, somewhere deep inside something is welling up. Memories are introducing themselves to the theme. The world outside my window is finding its way inside. It’s a process. The first line of this essay popped into my conscious mind when I was biking. Then I let it rest for a week or so. The more that I can focus without focusing on these ideas, the more images and ideas arise. Eventually my fingers are on the keyboard or my hand is holding the pen.
This time, this moment of November, with the leaves gone from the trees, when a few lonely election signs are still along the roadsides, it’s not only the writer in me who feels stuck. Our country, for which I had once imagined a more hopeful future, is stuck in old arguments and hate. Every night I am fearful and wondering how we will even survive. How do I carry on? How do I take action as a citizen? The strategy could be the same as for writing. While I’m in my procrastinating phase now, something is welling up and will make its way to the surface. I can’t predict what will happen next, but soon I can get started. To not get started is to eliminate the possibility of making discoveries, of engaging the imagination, of taking the steps that can transform us.
Stuart Kestenbaum, Pond Ice.