For the last month, while Northern California has been slammed with wonderful storms that battle back talk of drought -- almost enough snow in the Sierras to approach "normal" -- I've been having a writing dry spell. I take that back - not a dry spell in terms of writing, because I've cranked out enough direct mail pieces and grant proposals and play scripts that if the paper on which they were printed miraculously turned back into trees I could name a small grove after myself - but a poetic dry spell. I suppose you can only write "Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution today that will benefit thousands of people" so many times before the Muse becomes disgusted with you.
Winter isn't my most creative writing season to begin with. One poem about rain looks much like another, and the natural world is frequently my inspirational touchstone. But layer on the dank weather a lack of time, a husband who's now working from home and a work-jam, and I suppose I have enough excuses.
But I don't want excuses. I want poem time, the kind of quiet that isn't filled with anxiety about your To-Do list growing rather than shrinking despite working weekends and evenings. I want to just look at something and forget myself long enough to really see it. Time for a walk, I think, and to study some clouds.