So, Now What?

Well, it's been three days since my surgery and beyond the effect of gravity on Alfred Monsel's Amazing Mashed Potato Miracle and the fact that I won't be getting any McLovin on my birthday, there's nothing much on that front to report.

However, one moment from my walk with Drea keeps coming up in my thoughts. She was describing how her husband felt leaving San Fransisco after six years and two successful clubs. He lived his dream and now finds himself in Calgary, Alberta wondering what the hell to do next. Drea said, "You're the same, Mel. You did your dream. Now what?"

This has hit me like a ton of bricks for some reason. Not in a bad way, but a 'why haven't I considered this more deeply' way. I bulldozed right over the part where I feel – really feel – the passing of a dream. I've been a lab rat, trying to outrun the grief and confusion and push the red button at the end of the maze. I haven't been able to figure out if this health gong show is just part of the maze (i.e. a big, fat distraction) or a calling to something greater (i.e. my next mission).

But now, even that's kind of finished. I mean, I had the surgery. I'm healing fine. I'm still eating cabbage. So, now what?

Just like my experience in Paris, this experience has resulted in some powerful and fundamental internal shifts. Taking responsibility for my health – and the importance of doing that – for example. This experience has also solidified my need to serve the world. The very sudden and energetic response to the blog and the topic in general was a message from the Universe. But, again, I come to the Question of the Day. Now what?

On the morning of my surgery, I received an email from the Banff Centre for the Arts. I have been accepted into a week-long writing course/residency in September, focusing on memoir writing.

I applied for it a couple of months ago, thinking I would be working on a creative process memoir of my time in Paris. It occurs to me that an HPV memoir would be an excellent project, too. Not some dry, scientific textbook on the thing, but a very personal account of a virus that 16-year-old girls know more about than I do. Even though I've been getting Paps since they were two years old.

I mean, I'm sure you'll all say, "Write both!" And yeah, maybe I will. But I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm a creative magpie. I start one project and then when it gets to the grunty, third-forth-fifth draft stage, I abandon it for the next shiny thing I come across. I am a fantastic starter. But unless I learn about follow-through, my work will continue to languish in a file. Instead of a bookshelf or a movie theatre near you.

And really, writing a creative process memoir about a screenplay I've left to rot doesn't lend itself to a fanfare-filled ending, does it? Sigh.