What happens in the night? All the little tasks I have procrastinated about in the day line themselves up on my internal desk, ready to roll. The first is to add to what I wrote the night before. If I’m stuck on a story, I may write half a sentence, sleep on it, and see where it takes me when I return.
Sometimes I write several idea leads and leave the rest of the page blank. It’s amazing how fertile a blank space can be once you have separated yourself from it for a while. And that’s where my friend procrastination does double duty by providing me with an excuse to perform needed tasks during the separation time.
If I didn’t procrastinate during the day, I might never get my laundry done, one of my favorite nighttime activities. There would be no talking with books on my shelves and the conversations that give me great ideas. I mean, if I could just sit at my computer well in advance of a deadline, where would I be? No clean clothes. No trying out new recipes. No middle-of-the-night calls to friends in different time zones.
No walking barefoot through the house, making mental notes of what needs to be repaired. There’s a crack in the paint on the edge of my bookcase that houses the works of unknown poets. It’s been there for five years. It may never get repaired, but it goes in my mental notebook and stimulates my thinking. I once even googled how to repair it myself. Then that went into my mental notebook.
If I took these notes during the day instead of sleeping off all the notes I took the night before, I would likely call repair people for estimates. Then I would have to interview them, compare prices and suddenly the whole afternoon is gone and I haven’t met with one creative thought.
So I procrastinate and that takes me into the night, where I search the hallways for adjectives. Adverbs tend not to hang out in the hall but entwine themselves around books, spilling out easily as books are pulled from their shelves.
Adjectives, on the other hand, like long, narrow spaces where they can unhurriedly bounce from wall to wall, sharpening their skills for the big reveal when they reach the library. Following them from one place to another takes time, which is one of the reasons I stay up so late. Each activity embraces another. It has made for an interesting life.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com.