Obligations

Sometimes it’s hard to be mom and a writer. Or a teacher/friend/co-worker/truck driver and a writer. No matter who you are, life often gets in the way of writing. Many days I have student work that keeps me from my desk or I need to take my daughter to see her specialist in Indianapolis or the puppy needs vaccinations or or or.

The trick is to see these interruptions as part of the writing process.

Writing is something that is accomplished in communion with the larger world—through Zoom meetings with your team and when we pick up the phone to call our mothers or stop to ask our neighbor about her newly-engaged son.

Life gives us something to write about even when we’re away from the page, tending to other obligations.

The other day I discovered these sticky notes on my desk. I don’t know when my daughter penned them or what prompted her to do so, but her gesture warmed me.

I couldn’t be a writer without my obligations.