When Everything Hits the Fan. . . .

Has your house ever exploded?  Neither has mine.  But that would’ve been easier to clean up compared to what I’ve gone through all week.

Living in New York is a blessing and a curse.  A blessing ‘cause there’s so much opportunity, such an abundance of people and culture.  A curse because the scourge of humanity also resides in the city—bed bugs.

I know, I thought bed bugs were a thing of the 1800s, too, till Andrew started looking like a connect-the-dots drawing.  Long story short, we all started getting bitten and eventually found one, hanging out on Andrew’s mattress.  We bagged him.  Little did we know that was the first of many baggings to come over the next few days.

To get rid of bed bugs, you have to bag everything.  Everything!  All your clothes.  All your electronics.  All your books, papers, trinkets, toys, office supplies.  These little suckers get into everything.  You use clear bags ‘cause, if they’re hiding, they come out searching for blood.  Little vampires!  If you spot them, you throw in poison to kill them.  On top of that, everything must be bagged for at least three weeks.  The larvae can live that long without blood till they die.  Right now, we’ve still got two weeks to go and living out of plastic bags like this is pretty much the suck.

Once you’ve bagged everything (everything!), the exterminators come and basically drench your house in poison (our mattresses were damp).  For them to do that, all furniture and your million bags have to be moved away from the walls, so every room ends up with huge piles of stuff crammed in the middle.

That’s just the first spray.  They come again two weeks later and you have to repeat the moving and piling and stacking process.

Then, when your hour is most dire, you’re left alone because none of your friends will come near you.  Who wants to go through what I just described?  No one can help you bag.  They might get contaminated.  You can’t go to anyone’s house.  It might get contaminated.  Now I know how plague victims felt in the Dark Ages.  (Just to add fuel to the fire, these past two weeks I’ve also had lessons to prepare for my church congregation, church activities to organize, chapters to write for school workshops, lessons to prepare for my students, a cold to fight just for fun, and a clogged toilet to snake.)

So what does this have to do with writing?  Every now and then, everything hits the fan.  Your life explodes and you’re left running around trying to catch the pieces.  When that happens, make sure writing remains high on your list.  It’s easy to let slip, but it’ll keep you sane.  Just keep writing.  You know what they say—some of the best creativity spawns from adversity.