unblocking

Today has been just about the loveliest day I've had of late.  Brilliant sunshine, a four hour long outing on foot with all of my boys, eating a piece of extraordinary vegan pizza outside at a local pizzeria, playing in the park, hiking up steep hills and generally getting more exercise than we've seen in weeks....

Yes.. life has been pretty good today.

I've been so silent of late.   The excuses, if you'd like to call them that, are long and varied.  Generally, this pregnancy has really been taking it out of me.  I'm almost seventeen weeks and I have somehow not yet shed that overwhelming fatigue one generally sees only in the first trimester and then perhaps at the very end of the pregnancy.

Then there was the flu, which came through our house like a fucking freight train for weeks and has only recently released its grasp on all of us.  This should explain the lack of exercise we've seen.  We've been cooped up like invalids in the house, driving each other crazy in some respects.  At one point, Moose and I were trading the boys back and forth every hour because we couldn't manage them for longer than an hour at a time, the fatigue and illness was so great.

And let's not forget the unyielding headaches that took over my head from the moment the flu hit until just this week, when I finally figured out what the key to ridding myself of them was. 

Lastly, there is the matter of my voice, which seemed to be largely absent for the longest of times.  It used to be that I would go through my day and little gems of wisdom, items I wanted to comment on, would pop out at me.  My voice... my writing voice would speak to me all day long.

Lately, I've found that voice strangely absent.  Maybe it was the fatigue, the preoccupation with caring for two small boys and a budding pregnancy.  Or maybe it was the largest case of writer's block I've ever experienced. 

Whatever the cause, it kept me from writing.

But this week, for the first time in months, I began hearing that voice again.  She was timid at first.  My writer's eye started observing once more and thoughts would pop up here and there.  However beginning yesterday morning, I actually began composing things in my mind... which is a sure sign that something is going to emerge.  I thought it would happen last night, for sure.

It did not...

I think it took being out in the world with all of my boys, for the impetus to present itself in a manner too strong to ignore.  So, here I sit..... a rare moment of solitude in my day... a time when I would normally collapse into bed and greedily snatch 30 minutes to an hour of sleep.   Instead, I am writing and the idea of sleep is lightyears from my consciousness.

And I feel good....

I feel happy....

And I am hoping this continues.