Gimme Shelter

What have you written lately?
When are you going to post on your blog again?
Any freelance pieces coming out soon?

These are the questions that I am hearing quite often lately.  I don't have any answers, really. Truth is, I am having a hard time writing.

"Writer's block?" my mother asks.  But it's not.  It's as if the simple, driving need to write has suddenly slipped away.  I come home from work or finish my tasks around the house, sit in my wicker rocker, and stare into space.  A voice in my head says, fervently, "Get up. Go write."

But I shoo the voice away like a buzzing fly and pick up a magazine or book.  Sometimes, I break my own rule of No TV During Daylight Hours and sneak a peek at the boob tube, eager for a rerun of  "Celebrity Ghost Stories."

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Lately, I've been experimenting with new recipes:  low fat cheesecake ice cream, Cajun spice rub for meaty pieces of catfish, green chutney with parsley, mint, and lemon, Cioppino with muscles and shrimp and fat clams, coconut cassava cake.

I vaguely mention to my family that I should start a food blog or better yet a podcast.  The kids say that I should call it "Coffee with Christine," and anyone who knows me well will laugh, because I'm really a tea drinker.

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I heard the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" in the car today.  I had the window down and laughed (with joy? regret?  shame?) as I pictured myself: Thirty-eight year old mom of two rocks out like a crazy teen to the Stones at full blast on a perfect spring day in a mini-van with a load of groceries in the back.  At home she has a binder full of new recipes to test and a rocking chair calling her name.

Oh a storm is threatn'ing

My very life today.

If I don't get some shelter

I'm gonna fade away.

-Mick & Keith