Why I Didn't Post Anything Last Week

By Susan Esther Barnes

The surface reason I didn’t post anything on my blog last week is I was still recovering from a head cold that sapped my energy, and my brain wasn’t working too well. But the deeper reason I didn’t post anything is I didn’t have anything to say at the time that was worthy of a post.

That may sound obvious, but people sometimes remark about what “discipline” I must have to write on a regular basis. The people who say that seem to think I make myself write because I desire to post. They have got it all wrong.

I didn’t start writing in order to post on my new blog. I started blogging because there are times when things happen, and my brain, of its own volition, starts to write. Words and phrases start to put themselves together in my head, and the only way for me to be able to set them aside and to go back to thinking about other things is to write them down.

I don’t write because I want to blog. I was already writing, and the reason I post what I write on my blog is because I want to put my writing out in the universe where people can read it and respond to it.

Sometimes, when I am more than half way through the week and nothing has told me it wants to be written, I start to worry. Where has all the inspiration gone? Will nothing interesting present itself? Is it all over so soon?

Any time I try to “force” myself to write something, which I sort of did last week, it doesn’t come out right. Although I would like to post something every week, the fact is I only write well when something tells me it wants to be said. And the thing that wants to be said always comes in its own time and in its own manner. It is not something over which I exercise any meaningful control.



I don’t often remember my dreams, but sometimes I have a vivid dream that I remember in detail. These vivid dreams are almost always easy to interpret, and they are always telling me something I need to hear.

Sometimes, like last week, I try to write even though I’m not sure a subject I’m thinking about is ready. And sometimes, as happened last week, I have a particular recurring dream.

Whenever I have a version of this dream, in it I am pulling something out of my mouth. In this case, it is a piece of string, almost like a piece of dental floss, that I am pulling from between my teeth. No matter how much of it I pull out, there always seems to be more of it.

Before long, as I’m pulling out the string, my teeth start to fall apart. They are detaching from my jaw in twos and threes. The only thing I can think of to do is to clamp my jaw shut and hope they will reattach themselves. I have some vague memory in the dream that this technique worked the last time this happened. However, with my jaw clamped shut I cannot speak.

The message is obvious. If I try to pull something out of my mouth – if I try to write something before it is ready to be said – the results will not be good. Things – ideas – that are important to me will start to fall apart. The only thing I can do then is to try to stem the damage by shutting my mouth and waiting for a time when it is safe for me to open it – and to write – again.

That time is now.

Distracted Driving

By Susan Esther Barnes

Earlier this week I was driving to work when I saw something out of the corner of my left eye. I glanced over, and discovered a couple of thin, shiny threads directly to my left. I swiped at them with my hand, successfully removing them, thinking that would be the end of it.

A couple of minutes later, I saw something moving out of the corner of my left eye. I looked over again, and saw a tiny spider ascending an invisible piece of web. I understand how helpful spiders are, eating mosquitoes and other flying pests, and yet they, especially large spiders, freak me out. Many years ago I saw the movie “Arachnophobia,” which was the only time I actually lost control in the movie theater, instinctively pawing the air in front of me as scenes of spiders filled the screen.

I consoled myself with the fact that this was a tiny spider, as well as with the idea that it was simply making for the safety of the top of the inner car door, where it would likely cower in fear until after I exited the vehicle. Alas, it was not so.

No, this critter was in no way intimidated by my presence or my recent destruction of its earlier strands. As I sped down the freeway at (actual speed has been omitted so as not to incriminate myself, but truly I generally try to stick to no more than 5 or at most 10 MPH or so over the speed limit, and have so far – knock on wood – never been pulled over), this brave tike just went about its business, building its web on the inside of my car window.

Needless to say, this activity was a bit distracting, but I just couldn’t bring myself to kill it, and it never occurred to me to pull over on the side of the freeway to evict it, so I just kept glancing over at it to make sure it wasn’t going to try to use me as one of the anchor points for its web.

Unexpectedly, this experience with the spider turned out to be prophetic of how my week would feel.

It felt like the week was speeding by. While normally I have intense powers of concentration, focusing so much on my work that I tune out everything around me to the extent that sometimes I don’t even notice a colleague calling my name, this week I was decidedly distracted.

As the week rushed by and I tried to concentrate on the task at hand, other thoughts kept popping into my head. Lists of things I needed to do at work, items I wanted to remember to pack for my trip to Israel, the last few items (snacks!) I wanted to buy at the grocery store this weekend, kept ruining my concentration.

While I worked late every evening to make sure I didn’t leave a pile of work for my colleagues while I was gone, and while my mind darted from one thing to another, it became clear that my blog would suffer.

I wanted to write about Judi, who fell in Chicago and hurt her leg so badly she will be in a care center for weeks and in rehab for months after that. I wanted to talk about how delivering a meal to the sick is different when it’s someone you know.

I wanted to write about Rose, whose signature is on my ketubah as a witness to my marriage. Rose, 93 years old and one of the most active people at the synagogue, who is back in the hospital after having a cancer tumor removed, and then developing an infection and abdominal seepage after she was discharged from the first hospital too soon. Rose, who for years has said she’s not afraid of death, who says her first thought upon awakening is, “Oh! I’m still alive!” Rose, who told me last weekend that as they wheeled her into the operating room she suddenly realized, “I don’t want to die.”

Usually when I want to write about things like this, I can feel some semi-conscious part of my mind going over it again and again, picking out words and phrases, harrying it mercilessly until I know it’s time for me to sit down and let it flow onto paper.

This week, the thought process would start, then get derailed, then sputter along a bit, then get dropped entirely for days, then peek up again only to be pushed aside. It was as if all week a little spider just on the edge of my sight kept pulling my thoughts off the road.

At least I have a reason to be distracted. Next week, in Jerusalem.