The Writer’s Block Breaks

You could argue that I never had a writing block.

Certainly not for one-and-a-half-years. After all, I’ve written some blogs and poems.

The poems, which have appeared here were written during some particular low points, especially during April.

From the time I could draw, I was a writer. I wanted to become an author; let my words leak on the page, have my hands cover in ink, or type with fast fingers. Words appear on the page with the art of a wordsmith–as a sportswriter I worked with during my days a staff writer called himself.

As a kid, I went to Governor’s School of the Arts summer writing program. In college, I was accepted into a novel course for which I had to submit samples before taking it in UK. I worked as a news staff writer, published academic content, and had short stories, memoirs and poems published. This was a writing blog before I turned it into Corrie’s Season.

In three years, I’d better be a decent enough writer to complete my dissertation for my educational doctorate at the University of South Carolina, which I proudly begin on Tuesday.

After Corrie and a few education poems were published in 2021 and 2022, a wall went up inside of me during a time when John battled colon cancer. A fear developed in me wondering who I could feel safe around in regards to myself as a neurodivergent person and the fact that grief walks with me. The poetry, which at one time flew from my mind to my fingertips after Corrie’s sudden death, stopped.

I could not pour my entire identity into education. If I did, it would lead me to places I rather my mind not go. Gardening offered the freedom of pursuit during the time my writer’s block arrived.

Don’t mistake me. I am still 100 percent dedicated to gardening, but it is a part of my bereaved parent survival packet. Not the defining point.

Always a Writer

After Corrie graduated to heaven, I wrote a phrase in a poem, “So I write.” I don’t associate with this phrase here because it represents writing purely from depression.

But the educated writer and editor in me knows how to create and organize. I know how to recognize a line’s artistic value vs. if it’s just “bleeding on a page.”

Writing, for me, is almost as essential as bread and breath. The last time I touched my YA memoir, Rise of the Rinsed–started in January 2020 and a semi-finalist in two writing competitions in 2021-2022–was in August 2023. I didn’t add much.

The last time I wrote in my 2020 memoir, When Tornadoes Come–which has Corrie as a front and central powerhouse star–occurred in 2022. And the last time I wrote poetry consistent with a collection was late 2022.

I’m coming out of a setback from April of this year, and recovering from a deeper depression I believed was made worse by two months on fertility medication. But I felt joy last night and this morning as words poured onto pages. I wrote in my memoir, novel, and a poem.

Poetry Excerpt "The Changing of the Colors" 

We’ll see the changing of the colors, dear,
no matter when it is:
the swan emerging from the river
before summer’s end 
when one more calla lily 
portrays its plumes.
Its shade: a night dress, 
not a close enough kin of purple,
nor quite the shade of midnight 
revealing how 
a calla lily will
emerge from the earth 
with its colors showing
one more dance for 
those who observe the earth,
and search the heavens, too, 
for, dear, we know we’re never gods,
and we’re who the angels envy 
for the short time we’re bound 
in the soil and in the sun 
when the amethyst of the 
calla lilies put on one more show.

The above verse is only part of the poem, “The Changing of the Colors,” which I’m writing for my husband in honor of the fact it doesn’t matter how much times has passed, storms we’ve faced, and distances we’ve crossed back to one another; the poem promises we’ll see the changing of the seasons again.

It also reveals–I hope–a much more hopeful tone than any poems I have written in the past two years.

When Tornadoes Come, the Memoir

I wrote the prologue and first chapter of When Tornadoes Come, a memoir of my family and teaching at the time when we came through so many back-to-back challenges and heartbreaks. Chapter 1: Getting Out of the House was accepted into a Memoir Author’s Workshop in August 2021. I worked the prologue and chapter 1 over and over thanks to the editor and writers who were a part of it.

I’d started Chapter 2: Gravel Roads, but couldn’t finish it. I didn’t know how to fit all my anxieties about teaching; feeling like I was a fraud and other neurotypical adults could see right through me. Because some people had seemed adverse to being around me as a child, I tried to find the right words. I drove to school every morning while trying to calm an elementary son with ADHD and autism, and a little girl who loved to get her big brother in trouble.

I erased it.

Rewrote it.

I erased it all.

Rewrote it.

Didn’t like it.

Journaled some. Then I just stopped. Maybe I wasn’t meant to tell such a hard story. It wasn’t all about the heartbreak of losing a child, but it will tell a story about how we made it through. We didn’t just surrender. I believe there are others who need that story, too.

Last night, the walls came down, and words poured into chapter 2:

   I attempt a deep breath in and focus on the sunrise; the way a landscape artist’s dream bursts across the sky in flames of orange softened by a pink and blue blend.  Breathe, I tell myself, as I drive Corrie and Hayes past the church where a congregation gathers every Sunday, but we’ve never seen children on the swings behind the fence they’d built. 

I always found it sad and haunting how a locked gate guards a play set where only the wind pushes the swings.  I’ve little time to remain lost in thought as I dip into the valley below the mountain and between fields and farms.  

Chapter 2: Gravel Roads from “When Tornadoes Come” memoir manuscript written and copyrighted by R.A. Bridges 2021 to 2024.

This is the first time I’ve publicly shared any part of this memoir, which is so precious to me. I never want to sound as if I’m bragging or have a “big head,” but I know both my memoir and YA novel are good pieces of writing I should finish.

What Broke My Wall?

I can’t say what it is exactly, but I’d felt frustrated in another part of my life. As a neurodivergent, you’ll often feel alone. Even if you have friends, you still question if a given place or person is truly safe. Keeping in mind, I am still battling with severe paranoia.

All of the sudden, I heard: I was always here. I will always be here. It’s time to write again.

Boom, I started writing away in my journal, memoir, and re-read my YA novel to see where I need to pick up without messing up the characters or plot.

When I shared a video of the calla lilies on TikTok this morning, I wrote:

These beauties give off the elegance of late summer just before sunset; a final act before they bow.”

I’d shared with a friend on TikTok that my writer’s block broke, and he said, “It shows.”

All photos and writing are written and copyrighted by R.A. Bridges, 2021 to 2024.