Magic

I felt it when my block broke this week. Normally, I don’t realize I’ve made it through a bout of writer’s block until I’m well on the other side, elbow-deep in fresh words. This time, though, I can pinpoint the moment it happened.

My husband and I were eating dinner at what is fast becoming our favorite local bar. I sipped an excellent Old Fashioned and listened to him recount the mundane horrors of his work day. The bartender poured a frothy, butter-yellow drink into a cocktail coupe, a tea candle’s flickering light reflecting off the glass, and a tingle started behind my ears and sizzled into the bones of my right hand. Every cell in my body became alert, like a dog recognizing a certain car door slamming closed.

No burst of inspiration or lightbulb idea followed. Words did not flood my mind.

But a whisper of a promise hovered over me in the steam from the hand-cut French fries: I will write again. My story is ready for me, and I, for it.

I wrote 2,000 words the following day.