Nesting Instinct

With all three of my pregnancies I got rather sick. Morning sickness remained throughout my pregnancies and sapped me of my strength. When I was pregnant with my oldest, Willy, it was the worse. For several months we couldn't understand why I tended to feel somewhat better outside our apartment, and worse in our living room. During the visit of a friend of ours, it clicked in Mark's mind that there must be something in the living room that was aggrivating my condition.

My mother-in-law gave us a couch...but not just any couch. This couch had been in Mark's sister's basement and, as far as this sister knew, the couch was being thrown away...unbeknownest to her, or us, it was being "thrown away" into our living room. Mark was in a manic phase, and had a male companion to help, so when they investigated the couch and found a strange, pink mold...they tore it apart piece by piece and threw it out the window into the alley. They did transport it to the dump after that, but initially they threw it out the window. Slowly, I recovered from the drain and was able to "nest" our apartment in preparations for our arriving child.

With each child, despite the weakness brought about by severe morning sickness (that wasn't all because of the couch), I would "nest." For those unfamiliar with the concept, it's like spring cleaning...and then some.

No, I'm not dwelling on this because I'm pregnant. I'm dwelling on this because birth is not the only form of creation in which I partake. As those who've read my resolutions for this year are aware, I'm committing (or re-committing) myself to some major creative projects which are going to be long-term and are going to require a lot of thought, energy and devotion. And it just occurred to me...I go through that same "nesting" process prior to such projects.

At first, I thought of it as productive procrastination. Besides, the house needed to be clean anyway and it's much easier to work on said projects with my desk and writing table unearthed from the rubble of the paper volcanoes that go off every December. But, as I'm exhausted and rather loopy from lack of sleep (because I didn't take HistoryMike's advice!) my mind started dwelling on previous endeavors. My successes, my failures, and my processes...and my procrastination, which truly is a problem for me. However, I also realized that before I truly committed myself to a consuming creative project, I would always clean first. Kind of like wiping the slate before beginning anew.

Perhaps it's just the sleep-debt, but then again...my post-clean writing sessions tend to be rather productive, with a high degree of committment. Could I have stumbled upon some sort of insight into how my mind/body ticks? Then again, maybe I should just go to bed.

Please excuse any gross violations of the English language that may or may not be present here. I'm serious about the sleep-debt...I owe myself big time!