By Susana Fletcher
If I suddenly had it all together, a cataclysmic event might occur.
As it stands, you can usually find me shoving the kids in the car, keys and purse flying, spilling coffee out of the to-go cup, frantically arranging bed-head hair, peeling out of the driveway at the very last possible second to get to [insert location] on time. If my phone didn’t tell me where I was supposed to be, and when, I would never keep it together. I’m feeling good to get six hours of sleep and a pot of coffee in the morning. Sometimes I feel like I. Never. Stop. Going.
To be perfectly honest, I do well in the mess. I prefer it.
I don’t understand my contemporaries who say that they’re bored at home. Whaaa? Whenever I have two or three days in a row where I’m relaxing with a good book on the couch, I start to feel restless. Don’t get me wrong, I luh-hove a good book on the couch. But then I start to think, Hmmm…what crazy ambitious project can I take up so I won’t get any sleep for the next two weeks? And then I start to turn the cranks.
Well, I’m there now. Running/cranking/shoving/spilling/peeling. I’ve been there for a solid two months. Like Emeril Lagasse dropping ingredients into his frying pan, I’m knocking out Cub Scouts – Bam! and vegetarian meal planning – Bam! and a 40-hour work week – Bam-Bam! And I can’t stop saying the word coffee. Coffee. I already feel better after saying it, like the word itself holds some cabalistic magic.
But I can’t hang out here forever. It doesn’t take long in the mess to start to dream about the book/couch. This style of red-light-green-light life excites me. It wears me out. It worries my mother. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. For me, it’s how I create. It takes the time in the quiet to find the ideas that are fueled in the crazy. And it takes the crazy to move the needle forward, to do cool stuff, so that when you’re on the couch with the good book, you’ve earned the satisfied sigh that escapes your lips.
