Cold Stop

In the radio biz, a cold stop means a track that ends abruptly rather than fading out. It’s synonymous with “cold turkey” for quitting a habit right now. It can also mean a sudden stop in motion, or stopping in one’s tracks.

Nothing positive ever keeps me awake. Even when anticipating something good, anxiety over what could (but probably won’t) go wrong will rear mightier and scarier during darkest night than is possible in the light of day. I don’t remember what I used in nights before I took the picture at the top of this post; it was snapped during 2016’s winter off Dallas Road and I’ve wrestled with nocturnal demons for years. But I recently found myself wide awake and freaking out around three in the morning; desperate to silence the internal screaming, I somehow managed to conjure the red lollipop in a blizzard and issue the mental command: STOP!

Imagery is power. My best defence against nausea is to picture brittle blue skies, silver-frosted streams, and glistening sun on ice-coated branches. Imagining the blistering cold of ice on my tongue and snow on my face is a sure fire means to quell the roiling threat of flu or food poisoning. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the picture of a snowy stop sign, accompanied by a firm declaration, startled my hysterical mind into silence. And in that instant, I was able to redirect my thoughts to something more pleasant.

Well, the only fiction that interests my night time mind is dreaming up the worst possible outcome in a real-life predicament – a scenario of which there are countless versions, might I add. It’s not at all compelled to consider writing the next scene or developing a new story idea. Ironically, there is no creative value in lying awake between midnight and six a.m.

So when I next find myself tormented by the insomniac game of “Worst Case Scenario”, I’m calling in the cold stop and going back to sleep.

Squirrely

As soon as I woke up on Saturday morning, my mind started screaming. “What about this?” “What about that?” “How are you going to ... ?” “When are you going to ... ?” It was like being in bed with a hysterical toddler. Finally, I gave up and got up to discover Ter was already up for pretty much the same reason. Our individual issues might have differed, but the mental histrionics were identical.

I am grateful to her for many things, but our ongoing conversation—now in its thirty-somethingth year—is always in the top five. Quite simply, we talk. We share and sympathize and advise and caution and help each other to feel better because monsters are more easily faced with a wingman than by yourself, and sometimes just naming the beast to someone you trust will neutralize it.

Imagination is not always a good thing. Oh, those sparks of inspiration can pave the way to joy, happiness and creative climax. They can also drive me to the depths of despair. I don’t just tell stories, you see. I tell myself stories. I might be mildly anxious about something, but given too long a rein, my imagination can make it into a category five catastrophe.

It’s all about perspective.

A couple of weeks ago, Ter disappeared into the Ocean Room. She retreats to that room when seeking solace from the daily grind, the (real) toddler downstairs, the loud-mouthed roommate, and/or her own incredibly powerful intellect. After a while, I joined her for tea. We chatted a little, then she told me about the aforementioned perils of imagination running down a dark road. Turned out she’d been fretting a bit more than usual about something—okay, many things, but that’s how she rolls—and it had occurred to her that, since we each create our own reality, if she continued to indulge a particular line of thought, disaster was almost inevitable. Once checked, however, she was able to turn her imagination back toward the light. By the time I came into the room, she felt stronger and more positive about resolving what was bothering her.

Then she told me what the Universe had presented as an example to put it in perspective.

After mulling the imagination thing for a bit, she’d got up from her chair and glanced out the front window. It was late afternoon and the sun had moved behind the house, and the shadow she glimpsed crawling up the neighbours’ van was a honking huge critter that looked about to swallow the vehicle whole. What the hell is that? she thought, bug-eyed on adrenaline. Then she saw what cast the shadow:

It was a little squirrel, running up a tree.

Think about it.

Sinatra Style

Ter and I once lived above a guy who loved Frank. On Sunday afternoons, he would crank up the stereo and we would hear Ol’ Blue Eyes crooning “Strangers in the Night” beneath our feet:

“Do bee do bee do, de doobee da da …”

Drove us crazy at the time. Now it’s hilarious.

At work, I often stream the “Sinatra Style” channel at jazzradio.com. Aside from lovin’ the groove, these classic tunes provide fodder for my imagination and thus for Diva excerpts while I’m coding invoices or cleaning up my files. Frank isn’t the only vocalist on this channel, but he pops up quite frequently. Who knew that his catalogue was so extensive? I rarely hear the same track twice!

Last week, for the first time in my reckoning, “Strangers in the Night” was played. Uh oh, I thought, get out of the office before he forgets the lyrics. I speedily hit “print” on a dozen documents and made my escape while the words still made sense.

Victory!

Except that some fluky recall function had me spending the rest of the day looping “do bee do bee do, de doobee da da” until I thought I would lose my mind. Drove me crazy.

Someday, it’ll be hilarious.

Within My Means

I quit writing last weekend. Mentally, I quit a week before then, but only last Sunday did I admit to myself that I had no interest in booting the computer. The new story I’d been so fired up about felt stale and stupid, Cristal’s angel story was too hard to sort out, and something’s gone wrong with the novel again. And blog posts? I had a head full of nothing. No inspiration, no inkling, no nuttin. I can’t even call it a block. It was a vacuum; a black hole where my passion used to be. It was—and is—the worst feeling a writer can ever have.

From desperation, I managed to eke out a card tag for Nicole and even that, I fear, ended up a bit whiny(er) compared to my usual “literary snapshot”. At least the card itself was amusing—it featured a quote from dear Oscar Wilde declaring that anyone who lives within their means is suffering from a serious lack of imagination. While writing the tag, it occurred to me that, though Oscar likely meant it literally, the quote applied to my present mental condition.

I have lately been living within my mental means and by so doing, I have suffered from a serious lack of imagination.

My job, and Ter’s, for that matter, sucks up a humungous amount of energy from January 1 to March 31. From the time I return to work from Christmas holidays to sometime around Easter, I lose my personality, my sense of humour, and my ability to create. I am so distracted, so consumed, by day to day reality that everything associated with writing—imagination, passion, joy and desire—deserts me. This past quarter has been particularly rough, and though I generally write to escape, this time around I couldn’t raise the will to think about it, let alone do it. When my mind is in control, it strangles my imagination. Life is colourless, tasteless, flat, and pointless. I go through the motions, trusting that something will change, that this too shall pass, and that I will regain my passion for wordplay.

I can’t name the moment when inspiration stirred once more. It might have been during the first episode of The White Queen—watching a woman step into a world that doesn’t want her suggested a fix for my dilemma with the novel. Then a few things happened to inspire blog posts. The pressure let up at work. The energy calmed down at home. I’m emerging from the fog of fiscal year end, fiscal year start, and too much sugar over Easter. Part of me wants to jump up and down and scream about it, but most of me is so relieved that I just want to lie in the sun and let the images form behind my eyes. I feel like my systems are coming back on line, my fluid levels are rising, and shape and colour are seeping back into a barren landscape.

I am ready once more to live beyond my means.