Writing Can Be a Much-Needed Escape

by Maile Silva

I’m away from The Lauffice again today. The shade under the Japanese maple was calling and I had to answer. So, here we are, Winnie and me—her playing with her faded yellow frisbee and me typing.

This week was a hard one. Not because of word counts or to-do lists. Not because my kids were giving me back-chat or leaving their dishes in the sink. I want those to be the reasons for this week’s “hard.” But they’re not. This week’s “hard” hit deeper, somewhere between my ribcage and my back bone. To be more precise, it struck square into my heart.

Because that’s life sometimes, isn’t it? Full of questions that you’d rather not hear the answers to, good-byes you want to avoid, heart ache that doubles you over in the grocery aisle between the salad dressing and the salsas.

When the hard hit this week, my first thought was, “Well, there goes my rewrite. No way can I write with all this happening.” But the story won’t leave me alone. Not like a nagging fly, but like a devoted friend who refuses to leave you to yourself because they know you need distraction. So, I keep finding myself dipping back into my story for a few minutes here or an hour there. And it’s giving me the escape I need, because let’s be honest, sometimes we don’t want to look at what’s in front of us in life, right? It can be ugly or hopeless or overwhelming, and we want to get away from it. Far, far away.

Turns out, writing is about the healthiest escape I can find. I have a bottle of vodka on my kitchen counter that might do the trick, but I’ve never been a fan. Chocolate on the other hand could be tempting, but I don’t have the time or money to shop for a new wardrobe once the bingeing starts broadening my waistline. Sleep would do the trick, but hibernating in a house with six kids on summer vacation is a non-starter.

I wonder, though, if perhaps that’s the other gift we’ve been given in this practice of writing. Yes, it offers the invitations to play and to bring beauty into a sometimes dark and scary world. But might we also have at our fingertips the fastest ticket outta here? There might be arguments against such thinking, but today, I’m counting it as a sweet and gracious gift. Because for 30 minutes, the “hard” is fading away while I drift off to a small, imaginary city in Pennsylvania with a boy named Johnny and his best friend Marigold and the adventure they’re embarking on.

And right now, that brings a smile to my face, and it feels good to be smiling.