What's Your Comfort?

Writing Assistant

I’m racing against a couple of deadlines, and I’m suffering the writer’s afflictions of self-doubt and not-enough-time. I need comfort.

When I write, I often have a playlist of music that might include medieval polyphony, Louis Prima jazz, Ne-Yo smoothness, and lately, my soul has been aching with A Great Big World and Christina Agullera as they beg a beloved to say something before love is lost.

Saturday, the music stopped working, and I moved on to movies I’ve seen so many times I soak in familiar voices and words that slide to the background as I write. I turned to Hulu, which suddenly offered me the BBC’s 1980 Hamlet, starring Derek Jacobi. I saw this when I was too young to recognize Patrick Stewart as Claudius or David Robb (the delightful Doctor Clarkson from Downton Abbey) as Laertes. I first read Shakespeare as a child because I learned to read in the books on my father’s bookshelves, so Shakespeare’s rhythms and wordplay wake the memory of those yellowed pages beneath my fingers and the scent of salt and sea sliding through the metal web of a window screen.

I laughed when Hamlet first told Horatio he’d seen his father, and Horatio, who truly had seen the elder Hamlet’s ghost, asked him so earnestly, “Where?” I cried when the ghost demanded his son remember him. I worried as Hamlet shucked off the humanity that kept him from revenge-killing instantly, and I yelled at Gertrude and Laertes and Hamlet to stop drinking and fighting with all the poison.

Taking a Closer Look, Via the Keyboard

After I found Hamlet, I began to think of other things I’ve loved, a commercial that was popular when my son was born—new parents meeting their brand new baby, while a song called “Julie through the Glass” played. I wept with that song, and cuddled my own brand new boy, and didn’t even notice when it stopped playing. Six years later, my daughter was born. I was pretty sick, and we stayed in the hospital for over a week. The morning we left, I felt kind of ill, and I was worried about various things as I packed my bag. All of a sudden, on the television in my room, the familiar song began to play. I turned to see Julie’s mom peering through the glass, watching her daughter thrive and grow, and that was comfort I don’t have words to describe.

And, finally, I have a relatively new comfort. My writing assistant, George, who hangs out and occasionally attacks my cursor or my fingers, or both. We lost our 20-year-old cat last year, and I never thought I could love another pet friend like I loved Kitty. (I’d never been much of a cat person, but my family wanted Kitty.) Twenty years later, I was the one providing his geriatric care, and when he left us, I felt broken. Finally, after many months, my brother-in-law persuaded me that loving another catty was not a betrayal to Kitty. Somewhere, a kitten needed us as much as we needed kitten cuddles. George stole my heart the second he strolled out of his fosterer’s carrier. He isn’t always a cuddler, but when I’m working into the wee hours, as wakeful as Hamlet’s ghost, Georgie does my sleeping by proxy, close by, where his company brings me joy because Kitty taught me to be a perfectly content cat lady. :)

What comforts you? What Hamlet from your past brings you back to a moment you loved? Or what brings you happiness now like my sweet orange writing assistant?

What familiar joy makes your work day happier?