WHEN THE GAS GOES OUT OF THE TANK
By Carlo Dall’Olmo
Start…stop!
Accelerate…brake…
…stay in idle mode then drive. Where to? Good question.
Just drive.
Maybe head over there…no wait…that’s not right…turn around and head back.
WOAH!!! Slam on the brakes!! That was close one.
Hear that putt-putt-putter sound? That’s the gas tank on fumes.
SILENCE – GAS TANK EMPTY
That silence…that empty gas tank isn’t my car. It’s me. While I love to travel and take on new adventures, my tank is empty. No stations for miles…just a desolate road on US Route 160.
I’ve taken hiatuses before. I’ve had gaps in my creative endeavors…hell, I’ve even purposely stepped away from writing to clear my head, but this is different. This time things seem completely different to me. In times before, writing was always in the back of my mind – no matter what I did. I was always thinking about writing. If I wasn’t writing, I was filled with a sense of guilt. Like a good catholic boy, guilt was my cloak.
Now though – I don’t know. Now, I feel lost. I don’t feel guilty, but I know I should. I don’t feel like writing, but I know I should. Two scripts and one manuscript draft – rewrites looming large, but my reluctance holds firm. What do I do? Where do I start? How do I get back to loving what I’ve desired most of my life? Was it my passion? Was writing truly my muse? It’s hard to say anymore.
I need a distraction –
I recently took up baking as a pleasant distraction. I found I am kind of good at it. When I want to relax – I bake. I bake cookies, puddings, cannoli and cakes. I make pasta too but that is a different topic. While my wife thinks I am going through a midlife crisis, I believe baking serves another purpose. I think baking has taken over the creative thirst for me and filled me (no pun intended) in ways writing could only hope. While my wife may roll her eyes when I tell her I want to bake today, she inherently knows that it fills a void. She puts up with it because the potential reward for both her and me is real. While the kitchen may be mess when I am done – I do my best to clean up.
Baking, believe it or not, is a creative endeavor – you start from nothing but ingredients (ideas) and put them together to create something (edible sometimes) food (script or book). There is a formula (much like writing) that you follow. You go step by step and in the end, you are rewarded with a product. At times a rather delicious product and at other times a not so delicious one but the difference is – you spend hours (tops) not months or years creating this product. The results are pretty instantaneous. Those who will test your work are pretty easy to find and often eager to try. Unlike asking someone to read your script or manuscript where it takes someone with a keen eye to pinpoint issues in your story, anyone with a palate will do. They either will like your food or won’t. You don’t have to ask them if the filling had a proper arc or if the biscotti had enough of a backstory. They can tell you with certainty why they like your baking and it’s pretty objective…you’ve either added enough butter and sugar or you didn’t. The cake baked at the right temperature for long enough or it didn’t – it came out tasting good or it didn’t. There is not much grey area there. Yeah, baking rocks.
So now what?
Distractions are great, aren’t they? They take us away from our troubles for a while, but they never truly fix the problem. Distractions are just that – momentary deflections to some underlying issue we are afraid to deal with. While I love baking and I believe it is more than just a pleasant distraction, I still feel the burning void that needs to be filled. I need to get back to writing and quiet that little voice in my head that calls out to me – like a frightened child yearning for comfort. I need to write. I need to embrace the ugliness within me and fill my tank. Just not sure how it’s gonna happen.
My tank now is empty but if I look out yonder, I think I see something on the horizon…maybe it’s a tow truck, maybe it’s a tanker filled with gas. Hard to say. It could just be a mirage. I hear that happens out in these parts. I think I will sit here and wait. Ponder my rewrites over a crispy cannolo. I do love me a good cannolo. The way I see it, you can’t drive on an empty tank and surely can’t write on an empty stomach. Maybe I can marry these loves and finally get something done. I think I need some milk.