The Need to Write – warning: no theme here, simply a string of thoughts that are asking to be written down …

I have been grappling with the urge to write and the fight against it for some time. Half-formed, tiny pieces and fragments of stories form in my mind in clusters. I consider them briefly, then leave them to disintegrate, convincing myself that to write, you need to be a writer. To write, you need to be established in your writer’s position. To write, you need a good story. To write – I am none of these and so have no right to consider such nonsence. Out of my league, out of my reach, out of my rights of passage … I should not and cannot write.
Yet the urge returns, and today I have given into the words coming to me and I write. The heat is unbearable today. I have found a shaded spot in my kitchen and sit with a small handheld fan I have fixed in an upright position. There’s a thickness to this hot air . Afternoons are hard to get through. I fhave found myself jumping from one thing to the next, never quite accomplishing completeness or satisfaction in any of them for the past few days. I am left feeling dissatisfied with how I have used my time.
Writing here right now feels pleasant. I will go with that.
I have agreed to accompany a group of adult students – all of them retirees – to Scotland in the Autumn. A rather crazy offer, which is leaving me stressed and bothered that I will not manage to get the journey planned sufficiently. And then this morning I met with these lovely people, and seeing how stressed so many of them were about the simple procedure of getting a visa online, and hearing how grateful they all are to me for my efforts in organizing; how happy they are with everything I suggest, I began to put things into perspective. I am able to do this. I am able to organise this trip and to give these people an enjoyable 5 day holiday and they will be so happy. They are such loving, kind people and I am glad to be doing this with them. That’s how I feel. That’s what I want to remember.
My sister wrote to me this morning – she is concerned about selling my parents’ house, the place we grew up. The place where so many of my childhood memories are stored. Dad’s garden, landscaped and shaped by him. His creative project. The upstairs space at the top of the stairs we always called “the loftspace” – where I had my fantasy “fairyland” and spent hours playing with my miniature world of fairies and pixies. Later, the space became my Mum’s sewing space, her table placed neatly under the roof window to capture the best light. At some point, it was Marla’s bedroom whenever we travelled over to England. Clean and compact. A sweet space. Did I ever tell Marla she was sleeping in my once fairyland imaginary world? Flynn took over the space in later years, while Marla slept in the spare room. So many swaps and changes. So many flippings around of the same space to make the most of it when we came back to England with our babies, then our toddlers, then our children, and then our teenagers.
My Mum is slowly losing her mind more and more. Sis told me how her phone was found in the bin yesterday. She knows we are beginning to prepare for the selling of Falcondale Road and it is thrusting her into confusion.
I will stop here for now. Somehow it feels good to write. I am writing my own stream of thoughts yet helping each of them come to a constructive extension as I write. That’s a good thing.