That Library Stillness

Today is Thursday, which means there is tort law beginning this evening at 6:00 p.m. As has become my habit, I am here early and have managed to settle my nerves a little - they have really been out of sorts since this past bout of illness - and have settled in to checking e-mails and looking over some sites that I need for my classes. Having done the necessary things I am now sitting quietly at the computer and writing here and there and being at peace.

A few moments ago another student, a man, came up and sat down at the computer terminal two spaces from me. Then another, a woman, came and sat down one space over from him. That's when it hit me - the library stillness.

It is amazing how many sounds you can hear when people aren't talking or moving overly much. The whir and whine of the printer sounds exceptionally loud, and the click of keyboard keys has an odd rhythm to it that, even though several people can be typing several different things, you can actually hear a strange rhythm to it. The rhythm isn't in sync with the typists, but the keys keep everything in an odd tune. Sometimes this stillness makes me edgy. It makes me feel as if I don't belong or that if there was just some type of music going on everything would be a lot better. However, today this stillness is perfect. The quiet noise of production is just what I need to encourage me to do what needs to be done in the scholastic realm as well as in the creative.

Yesterday I understood, and actually came to accept one of the biggest problems I have in writing fiction: I don't want to let it go. Once it is finished I don't want to let it go. I don't want rejection and I don't want my stories and poems just glanced at. I want them considered seriously. Every writer wants this, of course. The difference between those getting published and me, is that they are letting go enough to submit stories and poems.

OK, I have a problem, but this doesn't mean the problem is indeed a problem, but more a hindrance and a habit I am going to break. Why should I toil for hours and days on a piece of fiction and feel really good about it when it is never going to see the light of day? It is useless. It is less than a "hobby" and more like a waste of my time. I don't like wasting my time in anything. Now is the time to work and accomplish.

Why has this suddenly come to my attention? Well, it began when my Hubby told me he was proud of me! Hubby rarely says that. This time, though, his pride in me made me sit up and take notice. I like making him proud. I like him being proud of me, just as I am proud of him. If he is proud of me for my scholastic endeavors and my recent physical accomplishments, How much more proud of me is he going to be when I become the author I know I could be?

No, his pride in me isn't going to make me change and do better in some things, but his acknowledgement to me of his happiness and pride in my accomplishments has made a world of difference on the inside. A flickering ember feels as if it has burst into a flame that is catching that piled up dried wood into a royal cooking fire.

Even during this past ill stretch he said, and rightly so, "Sometimes I hate trying to help you." I was being quite a grumpy gussie and wasn't taking his advice...at first. Before the night was out I did take his advice and I did start feeling better. The thing that actually helped me be less grumpy was the fact I knew he was proud of me, and when I pushed my own self-absorbing pride aside, I could listen to him much more easily.

Knowing some things in life helps you to actually get over some of the bad things, even on the inside.

Are all of these changes I am trying to make because he is proud of me? No, I had begun the changes before he said anything to me at all. Now I am just working at everything ten times harder, because I know the person who matters the most to me in the world actually sees the advances I've made and is proud of me for my efforts and accomplishments.

Everything in my little world is finally on the move again. Now begins the other creative push, and, this time, I am ready for it.