I intend this blog to be about my life as a person who is disabled (chronic migraine disease) and a writer. When I wrote the first post for this blog, I thought I'd post every two - maybe three - weeks. So I haven't made a good start, given that my first post was more than four weeks ago.

My excuse is that it's August in Washington DC: hot, humid, air quality so bad we're all warned to stay indoors if at all possible. And my migraines are always worse in hot, humid weather. So that first post about accepting all the limitations that migraines set around my writing endeavors turned out to be helpful ... for me. I needed to call on those thoughts several times during the month.

But it also made me think about what keeps my creativity lively and well when I am not, when I must accept that I can't keep a schedule, can't write x amount every day, can't discipline myself to be more productive.

I used to get frustrated with the start-stop-wait-til-I-feel-better routine forced on me by chronic pain. But while I was getting my MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Goucher College's wonderful limited-residency program, I discovered something I didn't know about my mind.

Often when I was lying in my dark bedroom, ice on the back of my neck, cup of tea nearby, and an audio book or a Seinfeld DVD to listen to, my mind seemed to be busy in the background, mulling over what I'd been writing. I wasn't necessarily aware of the process. But at some point the solution to that awkward transition or the particular voice to add to a certain poorly paced dialogue would pop up, ready for the page.

Like many other writers, I keep pens and scraps of paper or small notebooks around the condo because I never know when inspiration will strike. When I'm struck during a migraine, I grab the pen and paper write it down and go calmly back to my ice pack, Jerry and Elaine. For this to happen, I have to be relaxed. Lying in bed frustrated and fretting about all I'm not getting done is not conducive to such inspiration in the way lying in bed relaxed and calm is. 

The neat thing is that a meditative calm with slow, quiet breathing is one of my best pain management tools. It turns out to be a good writing tool as well.