Mind over Matter

On a bright, Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago I suddenly had an impulsive desire to clean up my home office.  It is the room I write in.  It’s a small room, tucked away at the far end of the house, with a large picture window on one side.  The walls are painted a warm, soft yellow.  It’s peaceful, a great place to write and work, most of the time.

Something happened to that room while I was writing A Rose for Sergei.  My neat, tidy room gradually morphed into a catch-all cluttered pile of stuff over this past year.  Stuff to sort through, papers to read, gift wrapping paper and ribbons piled higher and higher.  But I avoided it all as I wrote, focusing only on my book, my eyes glued to the computer monitor.  Given the choice to straighten up the room or write, writing always won.

Back to that Sunday afternoon . . . I started picking up and throwing out papers with a vengeance that day.  Who does this on a Sunday, on a day off?  But for some unknown reason, I kept at it.  After a few hours had passed it hit me like a brick wall.  What I had been trying to avoid brought me to an abrupt stop.  Now I understood the reason I needed to keep busy.  The choice was not one I consciously made.  It was January 11, the anniversary of Sergei Kourdakov’s funeral.