This house almost always has 1 writer in the house. But for about 2 1/2 weeks, while our daughter and her family were here while the Man of Steel and Woman of Aluminum recovered, the writer population around here swelled to 3.
A Philo Phamily writers’ colony right here on the pharm.
As the days went by, the kitchen island sprouted notebooks and pens, the living room resounded with keyboard tapping, the voice of a young author reading her manuscript to the Man of Steel as he recuperated and the Man of Steel laughing at all the right places emanated from sick bay, the excited voices of mother and daughter discussing plot points for new novels tumbled over one another, and young parents sat together talking about how to better develop characters for an audio play.
Think of it as Little Women for the new millennium.
With fewer girls, more mature women, and a couple handsome men. Also a baby whose presence pulled the house’s inhabitants down from the rarefied air of art for art’s sake to fold diapers, change diapers, and play peek-a-boo. And the handsome man who’s a non-writer begging the authors to finish their next manuscripts because he can hardly wait to hear what happens next.
Heady stuff, as you can imagine.
Yesterday, the 2 young writers took their baby home to a neighboring state. Today, the Man of Steel is recovered and back to work. The 1 remaining writer was sad to see them go and good-bye. But as is the way of writers, she was not sad to say hello to an empty house. Because she knows the words inside her head require external silence and time to labor alone if they are ever to come alive on paper. If they are ever to be read by another author and revised. So their timing is perfect enough to make the Man of Steel’s laughter ring out–music to a writer’s ears–when he reads the next manuscript and begs for a new one.
Yes, there’s a writer in this lonely house. And she feels right at home.
