THE STRETCH
Cindy Maddera
She looked at the blinking cursor, interlaced her fingers and stretched them as if preparing to play an intricate piano piece. Then, placing her fingers onto the keyboard, she stared at the blank screen in front of her.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
She gently tapped her fingers on the keys without pressing hard enough to even leave behind a gibberish row of letters. What to write? What to right? Whatto right? Whattoryete? The question of what to write was now a semantic satiation. Then she mentally applauded herself for the use of ‘semantic satiation’. Sighing heavily and shaking her head, she mumbled “there is no story here.”
Still, she sat there, scrolling her fingers lightly across the keys waiting for a bit of inspiration, some sign or cue to strike. She marveled at how easy it was to distract herself from the art of actually writing. It was all too easy to open up the New York Times and play a round of spelling bee. She justified the game as a way of helping her brain. The puzzle of finding words may just help her find words for writing. Then, during breaks in her game, she could easily go check in on what other people were doing in social media. An hour could easily pass by while scrolling through some celebrity’s instagram feed, looking for real life images versus the carefully crafted social media image.
The question of what is keeping her from her goals was asked during her Self Care Meeting with her self care therapist and she easily answered “Me. I am the one standing in the way.” She knows that she is the one criticizing her abilities to write anything at all. She is the one saying “Well, you can’t write that. What will people think?!?” She is the one who has mastered the whole deer in the headlights action. When shit gets difficult, she freezes. All ability to make any sort of decision comes to a halt. Do not ask her what she wants for dinner today, tomorrow or next week. Do not expect her to make any phone calls. Oh, there’s water backing up in the basement you say? She is just going to ignore that and pretend that it will fix itself. Her low tire pressure light has been on in her car for weeks. Inaction during a time when action is needed or required is her superpower.
She looks at the blinking cursor and knows the thing she avoiding is not the actual writing but the actual writing down of a truth that exists inside her that she doesn’t really want to tell. If she tells it then people will know that this thing, this truth, is something that she believes. This thing she believes is more than stupid and ridiculous, but she can’t be talked out of believing that this stupid, ridiculous thing is true. So not only is she about to admit to believing this stupid ridiculous thing, she’s going to admit that she is so stubborn that you will not be able to persuade her otherwise.
She sighs and then allows herself to become distracted by the paper’s daily crossword puzzle.