It’s my usual storm: when I have lots of time to write, I have little inspiration. When I have inspiration, I have, at best, snippets of time.

These days, this week, I’m writing a sentence here, a note there, a reminder to myself. My thoughts are scattered sticky notes.

My yard is beautifully (and safely) flooded from the recent downpours here in the Chicago area. We are in the flood plain. In several days, my backyard will return to its full glory soccer field/baseball diamond/catch zone/tickle park. Right now, I get to watch my children splash and explore. When they get wet and tired, we have “Pickletime,” which is where I dust off my education background and spend an hour a day keeping their minds sharp. We’ve covered story structure and fractions this week, with science experiments, music theory ahead. On Friday we will tye-dye. I’m happy to do it, and the hours I spend planning these activities are happy ones, and ones I do not spend in “heavy writing” mode.

In between all that, I tend house and giggle with the toddler and cook and try to think. I wonder sometimes if I didn’t think through the starting date of my 100 Days of Writing. But I write.

The Food and Wine Festival was so magical and awful and hilarious and inspirational. It was one of the few times in my life where the days felt filled with such newness and novelty and joy that almost every detail stands out in sharp relief. My usually verbal memory slid to visual for those days. Glorious, that, and something I’m not really able to access or process as I tend to Toddler Girl or First Graders, as they like to lean against me as I type or write or think. It’s hard to think with a foot on my arm or a head on my shoulder or an elbow in my solar plexus (they mean well.)

I scribble and dash…terrified I will lose it. I write, knowing I can do better, faster, stronger writing…just feeling the challenge.

I scribble and dash.