Love Me, Love My Lucky Bathrobe

There is a zen sensibility to how I write. Get up at 5:30 a.m., come downstairs, brew tea (used to be coffee), put on music, begin. In many ways, that early hour makes for an almost spartan feeling to writing. Before the sun even rises, when it's still dark and cold. When I am alone and I feel like I am the only person. When the stars in my corner of the world still dot the sky and the moon still hangs there whispering to me. Alone. Me and the moon.

But when all else fails, I will bring out my lucky bathrobe.

Because, as I have shared before, I am a tschotschke (pronounced, roughly, choch-ski) person. I have all my funky writerly stuff around me, like my Buddhas and candles and elephant statues, and my canary (named Zen) and my finches (Myra and Roy--free autographed copy of Trace of Doubt to the first person who posts here and guesses correctly why they are named that!). And my stuff. And every once in a while, when I am in a bad spot with my writing, I put on my lucky bathrobe.

What is this lucky bathrobe? Well, it belonged to the man I probably loved most unreservedly my whole life--my late grandfather. And it has a HUGE rip on the shoulder but is so threadbare, I am not sure it can be repaired. And when I put it on, I assume by some cosmic circumstance, he, from wherever he is, is telling me he loves me and I can do it. I don't try to understand the quantum mechanics of it. I just believe it.

The bathrobe is ugly, by the way. A plaid that is frighteningly garish. I'll try to snap a photo of me in it and post it.

I think most writers have an equivalent of a lucky bathrobe. I think most PEOPLE--writers or not--have the equivalent. When they are blocked or lonely or stuck or grieving or betrayed or simply sad, there is something that unfailingly quiets those feelings for them.

So? Your lucky bathrobe? And if you email me care of this site, with a picture of you WITH your lucky whatever it is, I will post it.

Peace,
E