Fitting In--and not

Last week I spent a few days working in DC for my 'day job.' While I like Washington, I find travel, especially business travel, to be difficult. It seems that when I'm in between places, and when I get out of my daily life, that I start to examine/assess/evaluate how things (like my life) are going, which isn't good for my state of mind.

Waiting at Logan Airport for my flight to take off, I naturally looked around at the people (mostly men) who were sitting around, waiting for the US Air shuttle. Businessmen, some of them young, and most of them looking sharp in their corporate drag, tapped on their Palm Pilots, or Blackberrys. Suddenly I felt under dressed. After all, I was going to meet a contact at one of DC's museums, and I should look my professional than I did in my comfortable but frayed black jeans.

A few hours later, after checking in at the museum, I had a free afternoon in the nation's capital. And yet I found myself restless, lonely, disconnected. It's often when I travel that I feel the absence of having a significant other, a partner. It's then that I realize--or feel more deeply--the knowledge that there is no one back home missing me, no one waiting for my call.

And so I fell into a funk, the funk of not fitting in. As I walked around DC, everyone seemed to be on a mission, to know where they were going, and why. I walked aimlessly,
anxious to get back to Boston, not because someone was waiting, but because the loneliness I feel here--at times--is eased by the comfort of the familiar, the salve of the routine.

Do What I Say, Not What I (Don't) Do

Lately I've been teaching a series of memoir and essay-writing workshops. Generally, I feel good about the fact that I'm actively writing, and finding ways to get my essays and stories published, (usually in small publications, but at least I'm getting them 'out there). But over the past few months, I've gotten away from my book project, and I haven't felt inspired to write much beyond my Bay Windows column, "Life in the Slow Lane." (See www.baywindows.com).

Last month I co-taught a 4-week course at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and the writers in the class were amazingly motivated. They wrote, refined and prepared to send out new material--good, polished essays. Meanwhile, I'm in a writing funk. I'd love to get some suggestions on how to get unstuck and re-fill my creative gas tank. Any suggestions??