Regular readers of my blog know I struggle with anxiety disorder. Anxiety can be exacerbated by many things, such as lack of sleep and a collision of multiple outside stressors. Basically, anything that knocks aside my regular routine can trigger a rise in anxiety—even if I really want to do whatever it is that rocks the boat.
Over the past few weeks, my anxiety has been through the roof. I assumed at first that the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference was the culprit, since that is a major bump in my routine. Three days away from home, mixing and mingling, add in lack of sleep, and that’s enough to trigger me.
The PWC came and went, but the anxiety remained—a tension that ran from my throat to my stomach. Maybe my daughter’s preschool graduation was stressing me? That, too, came and went with no change. On top of the tension, I felt weepy, too—rather odd for me. What was going on?
Friday, June 19th, my anxiety peaked. The strangled feeling at the base of my throat made it hard to swallow, and made talking difficult. I didn’t want to eat. Anxiety-fatigue sucked the life from me, but I fought against it, recognizing my long-time enemy. I got my daughter ready for her first sleep-over, while often on the verge of tears.
That night, my husband and I went to see Huey Lewis and the News at the Borgata in Atlantic City. I knew the concert couldn’t possibly be the source of my anxiety. I had hardly even thought about it, I’d been so busy the past few weeks. Besides, the normal things I stress about—the driving and the venue—didn’t exist this time. My husband drove, and I had been to Atlantic City (although not the Borgata) enough times to feel at ease. I had even seen Huey Lewis twice before.
Huey Lewis put on a great show, as I expected. I rocked out, and every song brought a tsunami of memories from my younger days. Then he played Jacob’s Ladder. I teared up. My nose got sniffly. A sob rose in my throat.
And I understood.
Jacob’s Ladder was never one of my favorite Huey songs, but it took on new meaning when my friend Donna Hanson Woolman got cancer. The song is about a man trying to better his life, climbing “step by step, rung by rung” and all he wants from tomorrow “is to get it better than today.” Whenever I heard that song while Donna was fighting for her life, that was my wish—for the chemo to work a little every day, to climb back to health—to get it better than today.
One of the memories that had come flooding back as I listened to Huey Lewis play at the Borgata was the last time I had seen him play. Back in 2001, the group had toured to support their new album Plan B. Donna and I had seen them at the Keswick Theater, and that concert stands as one of the best I have ever seen. Huey played for more than 3 hours. He had to get permission from the unions to play past curfew. He rocked the house and Donna and I rocked with him, thrilled when he played songs he rarely played in his regular length sets.
That was the last concert I went to with Donna.
My mind had forgotten…
But my heart remembered.
*****
When has grief caught you unawares?
The Writing Ghost–CoronaLife Day 908
I always wrote, but it wasn’t until I met Donna H. in freshman year of high school that I really dove in deep.
Donna was also a writer, and nothing can crank up the phone bills like two 14-year-old writers in the age before email. We were the reason both of our parents invested in call waiting.
Our writing process evolved organically. It was a constant churn of ideas, writing, editing, more ideas, more writing, more editing, until finally we had completed something we were happy with.
In this manner, we churned out 11 novels in 18 years. Some of them were even good.
They were all fan fiction, but we learned a great deal by writing them. And all the while, our intertwined writing process became as necessary, and as unconcious, as breathing.
Then Donna died.
Her death was hard in so many ways, but one of the hardest was learning to write without her. It was like I had lost one lung. Breathing was neither easy nor unconscious anymore.
But life goes on, and a writer must write. I pushed on, pushed through. And I have published three books and two short stories without her.
This week, though, the ghost of our writing process ran me over. I had an idea that really excited me, so much so that I typed it all out first thing in the morning, after it stewing in my mind during a largely sleepless night.
I wanted to share it with Donna. And I couldn’t.
I have writing buddies, people I am comfortable sharing my works-in-progress with. People whose opinions and critiques and friendships I value. But I have never found another “idea” person. Someone I can rush to in all my enthusiasm and have them listen, join in my enthusiasm, and then tell me if there was anything to the idea, or if I had jumped the shark. Because as excited as Donna would be, she would never hesitate to tell me if I’d gone off the rails in some way.
And then she’d help me figure out how to keep the core of the idea, the piece that had gotten me so excited in the first place, and make it work.
I no longer have THAT PERSON, and I felt the loss keenly. I don’t think it’s something you can make happen. It happens organically, somehow you just click.
I thought I had figured out how to write alone.
Looks like I’m still learning.