Time to Get Unstuck

following Mars out of retrograde

Start writing…

That’s the prompt waiting for you when you click to add a new post here on Substack. Lying in wait, you might call it, if you were feeling a little dramatic. Trying to look all cute and unassuming with its ellipsis…

BTW, did you know that us Gen Xers apparently use them a noticeable amount, according to some youngsters? For another post…maybe…

So they sit there, and they aren’t moving, but it feels like they are. You know, like an impatient finger tapping away. Typing literally anything in that space will stop it. Just type. *aaaaahhhhh* Sounds easy, maybe? Sometimes it is easy. Today feels like one of those days. Or it feels like the day that I get unstuck. I’ve felt it coming, but I don’t have a plan. And that’s the plan…

Start writing… yeah yeah, so anyway…(okay, I’ll stop.)

If you’re perplexed by anything I’ve said so far, I’m going to guess that you don’t struggle with any of this business—the writing down of ideas…(now I can’t stop) or task initiation, in general. I don’t actually know if that’s what it’s officially called or not, but pulling the trigger, making it happen, doing the deed. Is that only for use with the euphemistic deed or any deed to be done? Starting the process of any task can be a real challenge for me and many of my ADHD kind.

Start writing…

I agree with the sentiment of the prompt. In fact, I adopted a similar *just write* mantra as an English teacher. I think I aimed to make it sound like something simple and not to be overthought. That’s how I wanted it to feel for my students. It worked for some because everything will work with some, but it didn’t reach the ones my heart aimed for. I didn’t really understand the vulnerability I was asking of them. I wasn’t really seeing them or how complicated their headspace may have been on any given Tuesday morning at 8:30.

Oh, but I thought I did. Okay, to be fair (to myself), I did see my students, or at least I really tried to see them and to understand them and to meet them where they were. I wouldn’t be in contact with 30-year-olds I once taught if I hadn’t gotten it right at least some of the time. But I didn’t necessarily build the writers I (in my egoic ways) had hoped to build in my classroom. I do believe I built some confidence in a fair number of students, and certainly some of them will write, or build, or create something with that confidence.

But I couldn’t know what I didn’t know.

And what I didn’t know is that it’s too much to expect that young people will be able to let their guard down in a space shared with so many of their peers enough to allow a free flow of thoughts and feelings onto a page. And letting them have extra time or to finish it as homework ain’t gonna help that.

I used to be able to write like that in middle and high school: just open up like a faucet and spill out over the page. Sort of. I didn’t write about feeling like the odd one out in my peer group, and I sure didn’t write about hating my mom’s 21-year-old boyfriend trying to act like “the man of the house.” Nah…I wrote about the blue, brown, or green eyes of my crush-of-the-week. Or I wrote about the cruel injustices in the world that tugged at my teenage bleeding heart. We were the generation of We are the World and Hands Across America, after all.

I get it. I mean, now I get it. But it took the experiences of teaching during the COVID pandemic and my dad’s death (not due to COVID) to teach me so much of what I didn’t know that I didn’t know. Having typed that, I see it as the real reason I left teaching; I knew too much about myself and how it didn’t fit. And I started to know too much about my students who struggled in one way or another, socially or academically. I started to know that, too often, their school issues were at-home issues, and they ran deeper than I could handle not being able to fix.

That and the school system, in general…yep…probably another post…

I’ve no idea how many times or for how long I’ve sat staring at it: Start writing…

I do know that I have somewhere between approximately 7 and 37 notes on my phone, each with an potential idea to write about. Some of them might end up on the page, fully developed into something more. Others might serve as a connection to something that hasn’t occured to me quite yet. Or they might die right there. Maybe I can print them all for an art project?!? Time will tell.

But I can’t help feeling that Rick Rubin may have been extremely correct when he advised (in The Creative Act ) carrying an idea all the way through in that first sitting because you rarely get back the fire of the first spark. Don’t edit. And don’t stop until the idea has been fully expressed. I feel how right he is each time I try to restart one of the fires I didn’t take the time to tend for whatever reason.

Still, I’m hopeful that some of the half-ideas turn out at least to be kindling. ;)

So today I showed up, unstuck myself, and put some honest words on the page. And I’m about to hit post/send. Feels good. Took me hours btw. Maybe I said something that will click with another. Hopefully no one’s triggered by the…

And what tf does Mars have to do with this???? I will tell you…Mars represents a sense of taking action via our personal drive and will, and it’s been in retrograde, a period of review and reworking, since Dec. 6. And nowwwww (Feb 23) Mars stations direct, moving forward with new understanding gained during the retrograde. As above, so below.

Time to get unstuck. Feel me? Share a love of …? Dig astrology?

Please let me know— chat in the comments, anyone???