by Alicia, Guest Blogger

May texted me last week to ask if I would guest blog. My reaction was somewhere between excitement and fear. This is May’s blog after all. I needed something fitting for her blog. Something smart and poetic and thought provoking. That’s a tall order from someone so short…

So last Wednesday, after she asked, I got off work and headed for Inwood to see an outside production of Merchant of Venice. (It was amazing. And it was free. I really love New York). While I was on the train, my imagination was totally taken over by a vision of a woman sitting in a dark room. Alone and deeply distraught.

I got out my Moleskine notebook, the one that May’s been encouraging me to buy, and began jotting down the scene. It wasn’t great writing, but I had to get the idea down. I could make it pretty later. Satisfied I’d captured it I sat back, basking the great post I’d have for May’s blog.

I thought about the scene for several days. I let it stew, if you will. And then on Monday I decided it was time to give it birth. Let it live and breathe through my writing. I opened a word document and looked at that flashing cursor and found that words didn’t want to come play. Maybe they were napping. Or hiding. It’s hard to say exactly.

I struggled, maybe even broke a little sweat. And then it started coming. Words filled the page. Backspace. Look up a word. Move this here. Delete. Make it flow. Let it sing.

And there it was. This little piece that was neither a poem nor a prose. I looked it up and down with a critical eye. I might have given it a voice, but it wasn’t really mine. Too many questions lingered for me to really take ownership.

What happened to her? What is her story? Why is she bursting with these disturbing emotions? Why is she sitting alone in the dark with that tiara in her hands?

She won’t tell me. She won’t even acknowledge my existence. I’m left in the dark, just a different kind of darkness than the one she’s living in. Sunshine is beginning to come through her window, but it won’t enlighten me. The story has come to a staggering stop. Is this writer’s block? So not cool.

So I’m left with no great, poetic post for May’s blog, only the frustration of an imperfect creative process.