Welcoming Home the Prodigal Heart

 What keeps my writer's heart going?

Here is what I almost wrote:

Nothing keeps my writer's heart going. My writer's heart flatlined last March, the day the CDC announced that I was officially elderly and at risk.  Before last March, I thought of myself as a ten-year-old heart in a body of indeterminate age. Overnight, I became an old person who could die. My ten-year-old writer's heart curled up in a closet somewhere. Except for blog posts, I've written almost nothing since this time last year. 

Me, Carmela and April at a long ago conference

All the things that normally keep my "kid's heart" going...are gone. Young Writer's Camp. Didn't happen last summer, haven't heard about this year. Writer's group and conferences?  Gone or gone virtual. (I have difficulty hearing on Zoom.) Eavesdropping on random people. There are no random people because I don't leave the house unless it's a dire emergency. Talking to friends, over a glass of wine, meandering from subject to subject. (I mentioned my problems with Zoom, right?)

The world was so hateful and judgmental and scary...writing was the last thing I wanted to do. Not writing was the scariest thing of all, because writing is how I make sense of life. Now, the more I journaled, the less sense anything made.  Words not only failed me...I couldn't find words. I was using a thesaurus just to have a conversation with my husband. I couldn't remember why I ever thought I could write.

Maybe I couldn't write any more. 

Then something happened.

Yesterday morning, I started out on dire emergency errands...picking up prescriptions from various pharmacies. I left the house in cords and a flannel shirt. By the time I got home, the temperature was in the 70's and I was hot. So I changed into shorts and a t-shirt, and took my dog for a walk.

I wear shorts around the house in winter, because my husband insists on keeping the thermostat set to "The Tropics in July."  I walk my dog several times a day. Neither of these things are unusual. However, for the first time in months and months...I walked the dog while wearing shorts. A warm breeze tickled my knees. Boing! In an instant, I was ten years old again, wearing shorts after a winter of wool tights and storm boots. Free of slogging through slush and toe-freezing winds, I was barelegged and skipping along in my new Keds. (OK, yesterday I was wearing Vans.)

Mom and I brave another Chicago winter

My cousins and I (I'm the one shorts.)

My child's heart had returned. My inner ten-year-old is who writes my stories. Life was fascinating when I was ten, full of possibility and  hope, both sadly lacking this past year. Kids are all about hope. That's why I write for them and not their parents.

My family has been spared sickness this year, and for that I am truly thankful. But COVID and all the accompanying chaos did a number on my heart and soul. I thought my ten-year-old heart had packed her bags and hit the road, never to be seen again. 

My writer's heart has come out from wherever she was hiding, ready to hope again. And write. However, she needs time to recover. She might blow bubbles on the back porch.  Or dance around the den to her old Monkees albums.  She will most definitely re-read her favorite childhood books. And of course, dog walks in shorts and Keds. 

Some day, in-person writing conferences and long talks over wine will return. I've had vaccine shot number one, with number two scheduled for St. Patrick's Day. Until it's safe for me to re-enter the world, there is time to re-read the two best books ever written--Charlotte's Web and Harriet the Spy.  E.B. White and Louise Fitzhugh certainly knew how to keep their child hearts beating.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman