The Mommy Writer's Soliloquy

The Mommy Writer's Soliloquy
By Megan Oliphant



To write or to clean--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous filthiness
Or take brooms against a sea of dirt
And by cleaning end them. To write, to clean--
To write--and by clean to say we end
The heartache and the thousand Lego blocks
Scattered in carpet. 'Tis a consummation
dearly to be wished. But to write, to write--
To write--perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub,
In that longing for what words may come
When we have scrubbed off the stains of grape
Must give us pause. There's the need
of cleanliness again and again in so long a life.
For who can bear the whips and scorns of others
Who view our messes with a proud man's eye;
The pangs of cluttered counters, the laundry's delay,
The insolence of children denied food in clean bowls
Or a husband weary for lack of pressed shirts
When we may write a novel of novel proportions
With a silver laptop? Who would bear such
Misery of soul and sole
But for the dread of a story unwritten, unshared,
The undiscovered country from where
No tale comes but for the enticings of spirit
And makes us bear those ills we have
Than fly to others we know not of?
Thus does conscience make mutes of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought
Of clean socks, folded and measured
In proper drawers.
With this regard the novel's currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. 

(A huge nod to Master Shakespeare, who makes even my jaded doggerel sound good.)