For those that haven’t accompanied me on my adventure journey yet, here is a quick rehash:
For more than ten years I have been going pregnant with an idea. It is a great idea with a lot of potential. I’d push it to the back of my mind because I didn’t know what to do with it. But whenever I was least suspecting it, bam!, there it was, out of its box and disrupting whatever I was doing. For example, when taking a shower, the idea would wait until I was all lathered up before popping into my head, as if saying `Here I am again and you can do nothing about it. Look at you, all soapy, hahaha!´
This annoyed me to no end. I started to scheme and think and ask around how best to deal with this situation. A prune of a woman, so old that some geological ages are probably younger than her, had the answer: the best way to deal with pesky ideas is to lure them out. Give them a body and they can’t slip back inside you any longer. In particular, a blank page of paper proves irresistible to them.
So, on an otherwise unremarkable day in May 2018 I sat down, turned my laptop on and started a brand new Word document — the closest to a blank page I’m ever likely to come.
Nothing happened.
I tried to sit still for a while, pretending to think of something else. Still nothing. After about 30 minutes of that silly game, a thought occurred to me: I got up and went under the shower. Lo and behold, the minute I was all soaped up, the idea took gestalt. I pounced at her and tried to grab and hold on to it. Not so easy with my soapy hands. It wriggled like mad and almost managed to escape again. But I succeeded to hold on to it long enough to drag it out of the shower and downstairs. The cursor of my laptop was still blinking and looking sad and forlorn, all by itself on the empty expanse of a white page.
I started to type. Haltingly at first, barely writing more words than I deleted again. Then more fluently. The unsteady drip of words gradually became a flow. After a few hours, other people came by and commented on the residual dab of foam still in my hair. I couldn’t care less. Pages had already started to accumulate.
Today, a year and a half later, I am within a day or two of being finished. It has been a long and adventurous story. What the old crone at the beginning hadn’t told me, was that banning an idea on paper would be like starting a love affair. All pink and smiles in the beginning. Then, after a while, comes the first big fight, and you ask yourself if it wouldn’t be better just to end it all. You talk it over with her, you both vow to change and have the best make-up sex ever. There comes the point where moving in together looks like the most practical thing to do. You take the plunge and exchange keys. The fight about dividing up sides of the bed. Sharing long nights together in front of the computer.
To make a long story short, we’ve had our ups and downs but we still love each other. Looking back, I notice how much I changed. Now we have a mature relationship. We have come to know each other, our strengths and weaknesses. In true love, this kind knowledge is what binds you together even stronger.
Last week our first child saw the light of day: it’s a boy. His name is „The Pi Effect“. I get dreamy eyed when talking about him. He’s so beautiful, intelligent and engaging. If you follow along on my blog, you’ll be reading a few of his stops along the way to becoming a man in his own right.
Dr. Chris Kurz 