Seven days in the garret – final update – finding the plot

Wow! Seven days of writing. It’s enough to drive someone to… find the plot. These seven days have been great. Sitting at my very untidy desk thinking and writing, it’s been luxury. I’ve decided on the full plot for The Waiting List and almost finished the identity book. The incubation was worth it.

Better that that, I found something I had lost a long time ago. It must be a while since I sat around for a week without some kind of DIY project or holiday to rush off to. This week was all mine. I just was.

I remember about ten years ago when I had just come out of hospital with a neck injury and was facing my future with trepidation. I had three children and a part time income, no qualifications to speak of, but I was counting my blessing because I was free.

To be honest I was, as they say, on the floor. Lost the plot. I didn’t know how much fight I had left in me, but I was willing to do anything to make a life for my children. This may have been the last time I just ‘was’. I remember watching a film with Sandra Bullock, something about 28 days where she had an addiction and she ended up in rehab. Rehab, back then, looked to me like heaven. Peace an quiet, no shouting or arguing, just peace. That’s what I wanted.

Towards the end of the film she stands in a flower shop and the therapist tells her that if she can keep a spider plant alive for two years she is ready for another relationship. Same with a pet. During the next two weeks I obtained a spider plant, a dog and a cactus. The dog, my beloved Hoochy, passed away a couple of years ago, aged eight, and we very happy together in our symbiotic relationship. I’m honoured to share my life with JD now. I have hundreds of cacti all over my house; everyone who knows me has an offspring of my prickly pal.

This weekend I re-potted my spider plant. Also the mother of many, many tiny plants, now off into the world to grow on their own, she stands majestic now in my bathroom, an impressive tumble of life spilling out tendrils of newness. Bigger pot, lots of care, time spent pruning – bigger life.

I guess that’s what’s happened to me. I found the plot. I had it all along. Just took me a while to realise it.