"Soon it'll be time to write? Yes?"
My friend Robin from Pensieve left that comment on my last post. More than two months after I wrote my last post.
Yes. It's time to write.
My story ideas grow and grow and then grow moldy. Thick vines encroach on these seedlings of thoughts and I lose them in the tangle, only to find them later, compressed and scarred.
Fire has surrounded me for months now. I've frequently written about it and, in a very "The Secret" way, felt it creep into conversations, attracting it.
Despite the fact that I am not into astrology, I caught myself telling a friend that "Maybe it's the Sagittarius in me. Fire sign." In a fight with another friend, she decried, "You can't just slash and burn everything! No more scorched earth!"
Ah. But scorched earth is where I thrive.
Driving to Louisiana recently, I pointed out a controlled burn along the interstate to my boys.
Attempting to explain the purpose of a controlled burn, I described how undergrowth, left unchecked, can strangle the larger trees, preventing nutrients from reaching their roots. Left unchecked, the undergrowth proliferate, sapping everything good and necessary for the established trees to survive, leaching it away one little weed at a time.
Man's success in controlling forest fires means that what once may have been a natural maintenance of Mother Nature is now prevented. Lightning strike? We have an app a team for that.
We've had to learn the hard way that our desire to help can be counterproductive. We've learned the hard way that sometimes a little scorched earth is necessary to allow the most important growth to occur.
Yes, I have a strong tendency to slash and burn. Yes, I am fond of scorched earth as a solution to becoming overwhelmed. Sometimes weeding takes too long and burns too much energy.
I love a good flamethrower.
Stand back, Robin. It's time to write.
When I'm done, will you plant flowers behind me in the charred earth? I hear it is fertile ground.
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Writer. Mother.
