Writer's Block

The Trouble With Writing...

...is when you hit a brick wall. 

For some reason, the creative juices just have not been flowing this past week.  I'll chalk it up to mid-semester exhaustion and hope my second wind shortly follows.  In my sad attempt to play around with ideas for my second long essay, I came up with another revision for my first essay, that I think may be a winner. So, I'll talk about that first.

In the shower the other morning, I had a revelation.  (They always come at the most inopportune times and I repeated it to myself over and over so I would remember by the time I got out and could write it down.)  I thought about my last essay and about how I essentially removed a toxic relationship from my life with the help of an outside source who brought it to my attention.  This reminded me of something else that was all too familiar: thyroid cancer.  Had I not previously received information from an outside source (the doctor) that my life was being negatively affected by a toxic mass?  Did I not go through tests to warrant the removal of my diseased thyroid much like I tested myself and my toxic relationship before making the ultimate decision to remove it from my life completely? Was not the removal of my thyroid and of an almost eight year relationship painful?  And have I not survived, and dare I say, thrived since then? Is it not true that a toxin, in any form, can be harmful if not deadly, both literally and figuratively?  The enormity of what I could have lost in both situations had I not made the decision to remove both from my life is immeasurable and the parallels between the two experiences are uncanny.

For the second long essay, I have a few ideas:

1- Comparing the life of a Worker Ant to the life of my grandmother (after the affects of Hurricane Sandy and my observations of/involvement in her survival after being forced from her home of 66 years.)  I was once told that if a worker ant is separated from its home, its chances of survival were slim to none.  I did some research and found that the jobs of worker ants are to collect food for survival, keep the anthill clean (inside and out) and to protect their home (this sounds very much like the job of a human to me).  I also learned that ants (specifically fire ants) will hold onto each other, essentially morphing into "living rafts" to survive floods.  This reminded me of the aftermaths of natural disasters, especially hurricanes, when individuals of the community work together to ensure the survival of all in that community.  The importance of teamwork is clearly not restricted to one species.  We still worry about my grandmother and the affect that Hurricane Sandy had on her life.  She still is not moved back into her house and she cries almost every day because of it.  All she wants is to go home, like a lost worker ant.  My biggest fear is that she won't survive the emotional toll this has taken on her.  When a Queen ant dies, the worker ants choose the replacement.  This is a reality that I would rather not face (though eventually we will all have to face it).  What would our colony of "worker ants" do without our Queen?

2- I might want to write about the vivid image journal I wrote  and read aloud in class last week about my childhood friend who passed away.  Although, I'm not entirely sure how I would make this a good creative nonfiction piece.  I thought I could write about our interactions as children and intermittently insert flashes of the wake and funeral in between, but I also don't want it to mirror too much of the piece Angie was writing about her friend that passed away. (I'm not sure if that's a legitimate worry or not.)  

3- Yet another aspect of my relationship with my grandmother, I've been wanting to write about my conflicting opinion of her and how my love for her is sometimes overshadowed by my hatred of her prejudices.  As a small child, she was a registered member of the Hitler Jugend.  This, of course, wasn't her choice because she was a child, but nevertheless, the brainwashing damage was done and has stuck.  While she enjoys watching Jerry Springer and eating Challa bread, she cannot remove her preconceived notions of the Jewish people from her mind.  She is generous beyond comprehension, loving, kind and overall just an amazingly strong woman.  However, despite all of her strengths, I am frequently embarrassed when she displays her prejudicial weaknesses publicly.  How do we balance the feelings of love and disgust for our closest family members?  How do I tell anyone that my favorite person in the entire world has told me that she should have named my eldest uncle "Adolph"?  How do I disconnect myself from a grandmother whose mother (my great-grandmother) gladly took over her Jewish employer's business when he/she and his/her family was taken away to God-knows-where by the Nazis? While I do not at all associate myself with these ideas and actions, I also find it difficult not to identify myself with them because regardless of the subject matter, they are part of my family history and thus, in some way or another, a part of me, unfortunately.  Again, how do I balance that love/hate relationship?  How does anyone in a similar situation?