Whenever I have writer’s block, I turn to Carolyn Doty.
Carolyn Doty wore hats with flowers and walked with a cane that had a flamingo head. She brought lemon bars and Chex mix in old Christmas tins to her students. She spoke of her cats as if they were children. She spoke in slurred speech, told outlandish stories and wrote insightful comments always in purple pen.
Carolyn Doty was my favorite college professor and we started every class with five frantic minutes of silent writing. It seemed like a fruitless exercise in the beginning, but it’s amazing what comes out on paper when you’re not thinking about grammar and eloquence and detail. It may not make complete sense. It may not be worth sharing. But it lets you mindlessly see what your mind may actually be full of.
Usually, rather than drawing a blank on thoughts, my writer’s block is due to too many thoughts running around unfocused. In my five minute frenzies, I try to unleash my writer’s block in pure, run-on sentence, let’s just see what we come up with form.
It’s a bit like dreaming drunk on paper…
In the challenges of the blind side, you might find things cross-eyed, but had you looked twice you might’ve seen me. I was standing in the hurtful rain no pain, wet socks and a happy face and you saw right past. Through the drops both rain and tears I couldn’t hear what you weren’t telling me but things I already knew. Whoever told you dear, that you mattered here is what you said to me. I wish you would’ve looked away and stayed that way instead of fucking up my day but you stood there in the rain with another complaint, just another day…of you being you.
A little attitude, a little grin let’s begin this thing before it’s over. And you missed the plane, once again I had to pick you up when your feet left the ground. We couldn’t make it through, you were too high and too fly for something as small as this. Look in the mirror clear and see here what the world really looks like when you have your eyes opened. You said you hate planes and sun rays and anything beginning with the letter ‘L’. I said I hate you but meant to tell you to your face and not to the mirror.
Tomorrow I’ll be a therapist and have you sit on the couch and run your mouth, but I won’t get paid. My ears can’t filter your ignorance, oblivious nature to what is right and wrong. We both know that you know that you are crazy and lazy and some days just unfazed to the fact that life does not revolve around you. But in your mindset I can’t get you to undestand that all that you know as lies has been truth. Quit making stuff seem like it’s outrageous, mistakes that we all make and you tuck your tail in and pump out your chest at the same time. How could you bother to rock to the song that had no melody, you look crazy and maybe to you it’s the only way you feel sane. 
Some day in the distance you’ll try to find me to remind me how good you had it or was it me that had it good? You’ll be in the best mood and wonder why I’m not in the same way. Some day in the near future you’ll get what I meant when I said forget it, forever, always, never none be gone. I stood waiting with coffee and you thought that I’d be okay letting my cup crust over. You took a moment and froze it for your sake until push play seemed like it was on the right track for you. The moment was not mine and I can’t find that exact beat where you found yourself on cue. I wait by the ocean with salt lips and wetness and wonder if you’ll quit holding me under to drown.
Author: Courtney Hartmann
