Writing Under the Influence

My good friend Tina and I walk our dogs, an Australian Shepard named Sunny and a Cocker Spaniel named Chloe, around  Fountain Park in Fountain Hills Arizona.  We meet at 5:00 in the morning because the day heats to 108F  as soon as the sun comes up. We take one lap, a little less than 1.5 miles, around the lake. The lake is manmade and is filled with recycled water.

We give names to the mallards and the eagles. The birds cackle in the trees and we discuss life.  Twice a week we sit and have coffee at the Fountain View Coffee shop on the edge of the lake

I drink my iced cafe latte and she drinks a juice made with lemonade. We talk about our dogs, health, and food.

The other day I brought up the topic of writing. I am having trouble getting back in the groove of writing. It is because of the pain I have been suffering for almost two years. Arthritis pain. I had a hip replacement in January and am still limping my way around the lake with frequent stops at the benches

We talked about writers who produced works of writing while under the influence of drugs, alcohol, and illegal drugs. She suggested that I drink a couple of glasses of wine while am writing. It wouldn’t work for me. I would end up with my head on the computer keyboard asleep.

Tina told me that pain should not keep me from writing.

With the help of ChatAI, I found the following information on writers who wrote under the influence.

Pain is a common thread among these writers:

Stephen King: The Shining under the influence of alcohol and cocaine

Elizabeth Wurtzel: Prozac Nation under the Influence of prescription drugs and other substances while battling depression

James Frey: A Million Little Pieces under the Influence of Drug Addiction and Drug Rehabilitation which turned out to be fiction

Virginia Wolf: To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway under the influence of depression and a bipolar disorder

Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar under the influence of depression and personal pain

Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea battled depression and alcoholism as a result of physical pain and injuries from World War 1

Louisa May Alcott: Little Women: Chronic health issues which caused great pain throughout her life

Philip Roth: The Anatomy Lesson experienced severe back pain.

My physical pain comes from the arthritis in my shoulders. A surgery I don’t wish to have. It causes me pain to type on the computer. It causes me pain to write with a pen in my journals.

It is a pain that is different than the pain I had when my husband passed away. That pain was in my heart. I wrote letters to him every day for three years in my journal. It made me feel much better. I can’t get rid of this pain by writing about it.

Typing this on my computer makes my shoulders ache. I am not taking any drugs or drinking any alcohol.

This pain is the beginning of a new chapter in my life.

Woolf explored how pain and suffering are processed over time. It has taken too long for the pain from my hip surgery to go away.

Plath says that writing is a necessary outlet for emotions.

Pain can lead us to understand ourselves and tune in to the effort our body is making to recover.

Experiencing pain has given me more empathy for others who are in pain.

I had booked a tour to Greece in December thinking that I would be in great shape at the end of April. That didn’t happen. I didn’t want to cancel the trip so I went anyway.

It wasn’t easy. I realized how difficult it is to travel when you have pain or can’t walk.

Pain is a problem. Pain is what we must deal with when getting old. I am only 68. I hope I can make it to seventy.

Now, I am going to open a bottle of wine my ex-sister-in-law gave to me a year ago and pour a glass. After that, I will go to bed. No writing under the influence for me. I only hope that it won’t be long before writing my next article.

Cheers Tina!

Thanks for your inspiration