Writer's Doubt

 My mug of coffee sits on my desk like a steaming island in a sea of papers and my mind swims with all sorts of ideas. The chaos offers further contrast to the stark white void that is my computer screen - an empty page is such a daunting task. It has been a while since I was last here - four months to be exact  since I gave myself the time to write. Other requirements ate up my time and swallowed up my creative energy. I lost touch with my writing and wasn’t sure I could do it anymore. I look at all the ideas I have written onto scrap papers that cover my desk, or scrawled on the chalk board over my head. They were all written down in the vain hope of capturing that moment of inspiration. But the moment has passed and now I sit with my fingers poised over the keyboard - not knowing where to start.  

Ideas and ambition are not enough to combat the nerves. What if the words just don’t flow into my mind like they used to, what if I just can’t get the idea and turn it into anything, what if I have lost my ability to do that? What if the gods of writing want to punish me for my months of absenteeism? 

I nervously sip my coffee, chew my surviving nails and reposition myself in my swiveling chair about 3 dozen times. I tell myself to write, to just start typing a thought, any thought. Nothing. The screen remains the glaring white and the blinking cursor mocks me. I am faced with internal doubt and have two options; procrastinate further or grit my teeth, tell myself I am a capable, creative woman and just do it. I choose to pay my Bell bill. 

Another day passes - I have spent a lot of time at my desk with the intent of writing but instead found myself doing anything and everything I could - labeled folders, tested all the highlighters in my drawer to weed out the dry ones, wrote my name in my new books, rolled coins from the money jar, wrote a grocery list, refilled my stapler....you get the idea. The blank page scared me and I indulged the fear by avoiding and procrastinating. My fear of failure was keeping me from trying. Maybe writer’s block should really be called ‘writer’s doubt’. 

Finally, I began to type, and as soon as those first few words formed a sentence it felt like reuniting with an old friend; comfortable, relaxing, rejuvenating and just right. Sometimes the best things in life are like that - a little scary at first but once you overcome the fear it is all made oh so worthwhile.  

I wrote and wrote and wrote, you couldn’t stop me now. I read what I had written, deleting bits here and adding pieces there and next thing you know I am saving a document that is no longer blank, but really quite full. Full of my ideas and thoughts. It was beautiful. I named it and saved it one of my newly organized desktop folders (one of my many procrastination tasks) most likely never to be read, or seen again. But the act of creating was really the point of it after all. And it was wonderful!  

A Book is Born.

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by my grandparents; the language they spoke when alone in the kitchen or on the phone to their friends enthralled me.  When I was younger I thought they were speaking Chinese- my young mind associated anything exotic and foreign with China. In actuality they were speaking Slovene a language spoken by a mere 2.5 million people worldwide and that number is shrinking rapidly. It is a language that belongs to a strong and proud people who live in somewhat obscurity surrounded by the European big guns; Italy, Austria, Hungary and Germany. 
*Take a look at the map to the right to see what I mean!

Going to my grandparents was always an adventure. They live in Toronto on the Lakeshore in an old split house they bought for $15,000 in 1956 and is now worth the better half of a million dollars. Our visits were jam-packed with fun and food; rollerblading along the Toronto Lakeshore, feeding the ducks at High Park, skating on the frozen Grenadier Pond. We were always fed far beyond capacity, our stomachs bursting from the schnitzel, smashed potatoes (smashed-not mashed), salad made from the lettuce my grandparents grow in their backyard vegetable garden and of course the most delicious apple strudel you will ever taste outside of Eastern Europe.  

The table setting was always elegant and formal -the conversation was loose and comfortable. We all had our favourite stories about my dad and uncles and all the hell they raised as 3 boys growing up in a poor, immigrant family in 1950’s and 60’s Toronto. In among the tales of boys getting into fights, playing pond hockey, breaking bones and running away there were the stories of my Grandparents' past. Their stories were filled with humour and lightheartedness that left us grandkids laughing at the thought of our grandpa eating the peel of the first banana he ever ate at age 23. As young children we never understood that the world of their past was so ugly and evil.

Theirs was a world of refugee camps, mass killings, murderous Communists, starvation and the constant cloud of death above them- the realities of all Europeans during World War II. And yet still, their stories would have everyone laughing, never knowing they were happening in such a dark blotch of world history. How were they able to find humour, friendship and love in such desperate, inhumane circumstances? Why were they not dark and angry over the cruel injustices that consumed the best years of their lives and abruptly ended the lives of far too many of their friends, family and countrymen? 

These questions and a seemingly endless supply of others entered my thoughts in my pre-teens and just never left. Instead the questions nestled comfortably in my mind, knowing they were going to be there for the long haul, knowing that a part of me would always have a need to know more, to answer those questions. Knowing that eventually the small voice of curiosity would get louder and louder until I could no longer ignore it and I would eventually have to face it head on. 

So that is my book-the book that I have been writing in my head since I was 14 years old, the book that sits patiently in my thoughts waiting its turn to be addressed. The book that I am making my first real, wholehearted attempt to get onto paper and this is the story of the book that is to be. 

My Grandma with her 3 sons a.k.a the Village People