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Writer’s Block

“This stupid term paper,” Cassandra Phoebe Gilmore grumbled to herself, facing the final hurdle blocking her academic emancipation. The school’s official ruling, delivered by her Language Arts teacher, reverberated in her head: “Either get your grade point average to at least 70% or you’ll be repeating the eleventh grade.”

Cassie’s deadline to turn in the paper – June 1^st, 1989 –  was only ten days away. But with other homework overdue as well, along with daily trips to visit her father in hospice, Cassie was in complete panic mode. And this stress only seemed to stifle what few creative juices she might still have had.

Caregiving duties for her father over the last seventeen months affected her studies. While hospice was just a short bike ride away, the impact was unavoidable. Aunt Ruth was of course a big help, but she couldn’t exactly do Cassie’s homework for her. No, the eleventh grade had been all uphill. She had fallen so far behind.

Ms. Phillips had a reputation for being mean, but only those who had never had her would think to call her a ‘battle axe.’ The well-kept secret was that she was tough but always fair. And for many kids from troubled homes, she was like a second mom –always an available ear and compassionate heart, there for the asking. That is why her students loved her so much and made sure their younger siblings and friends requested her.

In Cassie’s case, Ms. Phillips had tossed her a lifeline. “Cassandra, give me a well-researched, well-structured, and well-written paper that is persuasive and has heart. That should do the trick.”

“What should the topic be?” Cassie asked, her eyes openly pleading for guidance.

Ms. Phillips would normally have responded, “Why, that’s up to you.” But she correctly read Cassie’s face and instead said, “Give me a paper about some important figures in Maryland history and tell me how their exploits affected you in some way.” And with that direction, and the slow wave of Ms. Phillips’ dismissive pointer finger, Cassie was on her way.

Cassie grabbed a couple of snack bars from the basket on the counter, and a Diet Coke from the fridge, and returned to the scene of her misery. As she lowered herself into her dad’s duct-taped office chair, she swore she could still smell his cologne. Or, at least, that’s what she told her friends, what few she had.

Snatching a Kleenex from the box under a tarnished brass banker’s lamp, she dabbed away lingering moisture from her cheeks. She tossed the used tissue toward the NSYNC trash can under the window. It missed.

Having stalled all she could, she wiped her palms dry on faded denim pant legs, took a substantial sip, stretched out her arms, cracked her knuckles, and then – nothing!  A deep sigh escaped as she slumped. Exhaustion and stress weighed heavily on her creative spirit. “Writer’s block! Ugh!” she lamented.

“Come on! Think!” Cassie commanded herself. The good news was that she had at least decided on a topic, one she trusted would be “persuasive and have heart” – whatever the hell that meant. She had chosen The Founding of Havre de Grace, hoping it would magically stir patriotic heartstrings with Ms. Phillips.

Having already completed the research, Cassie now faced the final step of crafting a compelling narrative. The afternoon sunlight had begun to dim. Clicking on the desk lamp, a small clump of dust slipped from the shade and lightly powdered her notepad, spread open and marred by illegible scribbles.

She scrolled the computer screen to see what she had written thus far. Sitting back in her chair, she read all about the brave ventures of Peter Minuit and Godfrey Harmer, heroic settlers of Havre de Grace.

“This stink.” The sound of her voice, breaking the silence, startled her. It’s basically like telling the teacher the very facts that she just told us, she realized. This will never do. But, now what?

Facing writer’s block yet again, and with the deadline looming, Cassie thought a mental escape on a short bike ride might help. She hadn’t been on her bike in, like, forever. Pushing out of the garage, she headed down the driveway, the tires making a clicky-clack noise as they passed over the bricks her grandfather had laid many years earlier. Cassie had to stand on the pedals just to overcome the driveway’s steepness. 

She banked onto Strawberry Lane and, in an instant, felt a sudden rush of freedom. Memories of her sister made her look over her shoulder. She also felt pangs of guilt, knowing that her father was only blocks away, lying in a hospital bed, wires strapped to his chest.

Could she afford this diversion, she wondered? She thought of turning back, but the wind gently caressing her face, was too irresistible. Her shimmering hair danced a joyous waltz as she coasted across Giles Street and south toward the lapping waters of the Susquehanna.

Seeing the paper in her mind’s eye, she prayed that the ride would clear the fog that choked her creativity. Banking to the left, Cassie coasted effortlessly past the Bayou Hotel. As she rode along the seawall, the familiar scent of salt and fish flooded her nostrils while Park Island disappeared behind her.

An idea suddenly struck her – to climb the lighthouse. More and more, the bike ride was triggering childhood memories, as when she and Mary would go to the tower to ‘hide away.’ It was there, atop the lighthouse, on the watchman’s bridge, where they would sit, their four legs dangling and kicking senselessly, 30 feet above the riverbank below.

The Concord Point Lighthouse, the second oldest in Maryland, had been erected in 1927 to mark the precise point where the Susquehanna River converges with Chesapeake Bay. As she navigated the final path from the street to the structure, she jumped off her bike, letting it fall with a muted thud onto the grass.

Not waiting to catch her breath, Cassie ran to the tower’s rusted, steel door. However, instead of ascending the stairs as planned, something persuaded her to first enjoy the inlet at ground level. Roosted on the damp lawn, her back pressed against the structure’s weathered concrete, she listened to the tide’s rhythmic rising and retreating.

Lying back, she let the sun caress her face, relaxing it with its warmth. In the distance, seagulls crooned in a seaside chorus. The serenity of the setting succeeded in flushing out those emotions that had most debilitated her.

She decided to ascend the tower at last. Just for a few minutes, she argued with herself. Digging in the dirt with her fingers, she felt around for the skeleton key that she and Mary had hidden for just such occasions. The threshold at the entrance was unusually high, a challenge Cassie’s growing legs seemed better and better equipped to handle with each passing year.

Once inside, she locked the door behind her, grabbed the iron handrail, and started up the spiral, stone steps. At the landing above window height, she scaled the steel ladder to the hatch above and climbed out onto the bridge.

The panoramic view from this height seemed to afford an entirely different perspective. Up here, closer to the clouds, with the wind pulsing steadily, she felt like she was in church. That’s it, she realized, it’s like my own private sanctuary. And God is – right there! she thought, pointing to the heavens.

Are you watching me, mom? Can you hear my heart beating? Suddenly, Cassie remembered when they scattered her ashes from up here. Yes, this is a splendid place to be. I wish I could stay here forever.

But there was work to be done. She had to figure out some clever twist on the classic Minuit-Harmer story. Desperately needing fresh ideas to materialize, she fixated on the mouth of the pass, studying the outflowing current of the Susquehanna as it fought, so relentlessly, to penetrate the unflappable waters of Chesapeake Bay.

In her mind’s eye, Cassie could see the Fogel Grip bulldoze its way across the torrential waters of the narrow pass. She imagined mammoth winds tumbling across the open sky. She could almost hear the whine of the gusts and gales, and the roaring sound of charging water smacking into the ship’s hull, sending sprays of foam back into the ocean.

It was then, while Cassie was fully immersed in the moment, that she began to recognize the river itself as something of a metaphor, something timeless and changeless. She now knew what she wanted to write about, but it would require research – and investigation to find out things about her parents that she did not know.

Shame and regret washed over her as she recalled the many precious opportunities, she had had with them, moments that she had so foolishly and selfishly squandered. If only she could get those occasions back. Interrupting the melancholy, she headed downstairs.

Just two more minutes, she argued with herself. There was a wooden bench by the water, on which she found a small section free of bird drippings. The rhythm of the late afternoon waves, gently plashing against a riprap of barrier rocks that protected the shoreline, lulled her to sleep.

Coming to her rescue, a colony of hungry seagulls cawed overhead, abruptly stirring Cassie from her lazy nap. She found herself stretched out on the lawn, her shoes off, her bare toes interlaced with grass blades.

As she sat up, vivid remnants of a dream kept playing in her head. She tried to hold onto them, but what few tidbits remained made absolutely no sense. A herd of elk grazing in an open field? The sound of tractor truck air brakes? The smell of burning rubber? And are those wind chimes playing?

This sudden jolt back to reality triggered an immediate sickness in her stomach. That all too familiar butterfly feeling of fear, sadness, and unrelenting hopelessness. “My gosh! What time is it?” she cried aloud, as she peddled home, weaving through childhood streets becoming obscured by subdued shadows of approaching nightfall.

Her pace, at first robust with determination to get back to the paper, was now languid and reluctant. The future appeared bleak. With her mother gone, her father surely on his deathbed, and her big sister selfishly off at college, Cassie was now all alone to face the unknown. Well, there is Aunt Ruth, she noted to herself.

The family unit had begun to unravel after their mother’s death two Thanksgivings earlier. That’s when Mary seized that moment to strike out on her own. And her dad, succumbing to denial and surrender, had chosen to hide away in his office, surrounding himself with stacks of medical claim forms and tattered issues of Gun Digest.

Back home, she leaned her bike against the wood lathe that her dad last used before he was too frail. Closing the garage doors behind her, she headed inside. The screened door slammed shut behind her.

She reprimanded herself as she settled back at the desk. Lord knows others have it worse. Far worse! Despite her many challenges, Cassie resisted self-pity. Her dad’s teaching echoed in her mind, “When someone asks you how you are doing, you answer ‘What I’ve got is good.’”

Such a philosophy must have been challenging for Dad to embody, she considered. Reflecting on his life journey, so frequently derailed and disrupted, she couldn’t help but empathize with him. Perhaps she even understood why he had become despondent, quietly wishing for an end.

Just last week, she remembered, a nurse had asked Ed how he was doing. Sitting with his back to her and vacantly staring out the window, she wondered if he had heard the question. Finally, and mainly to himself, he muttered, “Taking too damn long!”

Cassie was tired and hungry. She decided to resume the paper in the morning. Take the night off, and watch TV. Tuesday was Cheers night. Yippie!

She fell asleep on the sofa but was awakened by a random noise outside, around 3 am. Repositioning in her bed, under a thick, silky-soft comforter, Cassie tossed and turned. Unable to fall back to sleep, her mind began to wander. She had heard that this was the witching hour. And it must have been true because, in an effortless stream of consciousness, Cassie was mentally gifted with a complete outline of the entire paper. She just needed a few hours of shut-eye. The next morning, Cassie made a list of unanswered questions and then set about to get answers. Her investigations would take more than a week.

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