When the words won’t come.
I walked into the past.
I’ve started to spend more time in the Netherlands, since my partner got a job there. In a rather helpful serendipitous turn, my current WIP (which I sometimes refer to as Project H&H) is set in a fictional country in mainland Europe. So I can visit my partner and do research at the same time. The universe is funny sometimes. Did I manifest his move by crafting this setting in 2022? Is there a mischievous higher power weaving threads like this in my life all the time? Who’s to say.
Anyone who knows me knows I am like a trembling chihuahua, missing its teeth so its tongue lolls out of its mouth, and maybe missing its fur too so it looks a little wretched. Any time I see videos of chihuahuas with little boots and puffer jackets on, I feel an immediate kinship. Yes, I think, that is how I feel when I must step foot outside.
For I am small, and autistic, and agoraphobic, and all of these things make the outside world pretty terrifying sometimes. Sometimes foreign countries are easier to walk around in because I don’t understand the language, and I feel relieved of my duty to ‘mask’ because I am not a local and so of course I’m going to get things wrong. People are much more forgiving if you are a tourist who is trying their best to be polite and failing miserably. (I realise, of course, this is also thanks to privileges I hold as a white person).
Anyway. On one such visit to the Netherlands, I was spending a lot of time in my partner’s apartment. I had some edits to review for A Fix of Light, and I was working on Project H&H, AND trying to write some decent posts for Substack, because I knew once Christmas proper hit, I would be in Full Hibernation mode.
But the words wouldn’t come. I’d stare at my laptop, then at my Hobonichi where I had made a list of everything I wanted to do, then at my notebook, then at the TV. What was wrong? What was putting me off? Did I need music? What kind? Did I need tea? Should I light a candle? I missed my dogs. Maybe I should hand write this scene. Or do voice to text?
Nothing made it easier. Nothing triggered the flow. And, look, the flow doesn’t always come. When that happens, I usually resort to writing out the beats of scenes, so that when I find the rhythm, I can make the most of it.
I knew, though, that I hadn’t been outside in a while. I hadn’t walked and observed and felt the cold bite my cheeks. I hadn’t locked eyes with a dog as it passed, both of us wistful, wishing we could pause to greet one another (I think they can sense the chihuahua in me). I hadn’t admired the twinkling golden lights against the grey sky. And though the apartment was cosy and safe and overlooked a canal, it just wasn’t the same as getting out into the world.
It makes sense, I suppose. How am I supposed to write about anything if I experience nothing? How will my brain move if my body has not?
I searched for MUSEUMS NEAR ME, because that is something you can do in the Netherlands, I guess, and then I bundled up against the cold and began my 15 minute odyssey to the Rijksmuseum Van Oudheden, or RMO for short.
Entry was €14, which got me a locker to keep my backpack/coat, an audio tour (with an English option available), and access to three floors stuffed with Greek, Roman, Dutch, and Egyptian artefacts.
I had underestimated the RMO, and overestimated my agoraphobia, and assumed I would only be able to stand 45 minutes outside alone before I had to escape back to my den.
I was there for two hours.
How could I leave? I had to crane my head back to look a sarcophagus in the eye; a woman was sketching statues in the corner; there were cameos (gems carved in relief) depicting dogs and hens and gods and eagles, all impossibly tiny and intricate.
When I left my legs ached from standing for so long, and I was starving, but so happy. The words! I could sense them in my fingertips. I took advantage of my courageous mood and stopped for a bagel and coffee, pulling my notebook out to test my theory. Yes, there they were! Words freed like water from a stagnant pool; a little murky at first but quickly gaining clarity.
All of this to say; walking is good for writing. Going outside and looking at things and feeling things is good for writing. You can sit there and stare at a blank page ‘til kingdom come, or you can walk up the road, down the road, wherever. If you’re like me and populated areas are No Good, then see if you can go to a place in nature. A river, a forest, a waterfall, a desert, a park, anywhere. Put some little booties and a puffer jacket on that inner chihuahua and go walkies. Your words will thank you for it.