Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen:
Laundresses Carrying Back Their Work (1898)

"It might qualify as an obsession."

With one exception, whatever else I'm doing, I know what I should be doing instead. I should be doing my work instead of whatever else I'm doing unless, of course, I'm doing my work. I might be obsessed, though I confess I do not know how to do otherwise. My work calls me, and it punishes me if I do not heed it. I fear offending whichever god granted me my work, for I do not feel as though I chose it. Maybe it chose me. However it came to be, it owns me. It jealously guards my time, scrutinizing how I allocate it. I, therefore, inhabit one of two states. I'm either doing my work or playing hooky from doing my work. Doing my work does not satisfy any obligation I might hold to be doing my work. It's not worthy of reward, just not subject to chastisement.

When doing my work, I do not feel haunted by ghosts pulling me back into my work. I feel guilt-free for that duration. Otherwise, I worry. I fear that I will not complete whatever it might be that I am supposed to achieve. I do not know what I am supposed to achieve, just that I had better keep creating. I cannot judge if I'm accomplishing anything other than sheer volume. I know that I completed something yesterday. I cannot yet say if what I contributed then amounts to very good or even adequate quality, for such judgment requires time to emerge. I only know the urge to keep creating, a Sisyphus-like curse that might also qualify as a blessing.

I rise in fear of falling short. I leave bed because my bedclothes feel guilt-ridden and shameful. I measure my days by whether I've completed that day's contribution. If I haven't, I deny myself breakfast. I rarely choose to lay fallow. When I do, I move like a shadow without substance. I feel distracted and cannot focus. I feel cheated and cannot be generous. I feel much smaller than myself then, denied my freedom. I feel itchy and unresolved. When I can finally get BackToWork, I regain my focus and recover my mind. I always find myself there, waiting impatiently for my return.

I see some seasonal distractions impending. Next week, I'm supposed to start creating my holiday poems, and they seem like distractions from my regular work in the same way that house painting or yard work seem like distractions and not actual work at all. My real work entails creating, editing, and compiling stories into series for later publication. As dedicated readers know, my publication function isn't currently functional, so my finished series presently reside in a hole. I have yet to discover the trick to turn publishing into feeling like my work. It seems so alien and mysterious that I haven't been able to wrap my arms around it. It doesn't call to me like my writing does. It still seems impossible.

I try to explain what I do for a living. I respond when asked that I'm a writer and hope that satisfies my inquisitor, for I do not understand how to explain it further. I am not a writer by choice but more a chosen one. I am not a worker by predilection but by indoctrination. I was shown how it would be once I'd grown when I was still relatively small. I took a job when I was ten and began learning how to nurture the sense that I should be getting BackToWork even then. My work became more important than school. More important than everything else. I learned that sense of what I really should be doing, even when attempting a holiday or vacation. My work demands twenty-four/seven attention. It might qualify as an obsession. It does not intend to produce satisfaction. It has no end.

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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