Are You A Peanut Or A Walnut?
This is Fruitycake. Are you a peanut or a walnut? I know. This is a very important question for a Thursday.
Girl Person has been sitting here trying to figure out what I should write about today, and apparently all of her creativity has packed a suitcase and gone somewhere without leaving a forwarding address. She looked at me for inspiration. I looked back at her. She looked outside. She looked at her computer. Then she asked me what I wanted to write about, and naturally I said pizza. She told me we write about pizza too much, which is one of the most ridiculous things she has ever said.
So somehow we got to peanuts and walnuts.
I think some days you are a peanut. Peanuts are pretty straightforward. They aren’t trying to impress anyone. They aren’t sitting around wondering if they should have accomplished more by lunchtime. They are just peanuts, doing peanut things. I respect that. There are days when maybe that’s all we need to be too. We don’t need a brilliant idea or a five-year plan. We don’t need to change the world before dinner. We just need to get through the day, notice a few good things and maybe eat something delicious.
Now, I should point out that Peanut Butter Brickle would have approved of being a peanut and only a peanut. There would have been no discussion. No walnut option. No almond alternative. No mixed nuts. His name was Peanut Butter Brickle, after all, and I think he would have considered this whole question settled before we even asked it. Girl Person says Brickle always knew exactly who he was. Maybe that’s one of the things I can learn from him. Sometimes you don’t need to spend so much time wondering what you’re supposed to be. You can just be your own particular kind of peanut.
Then there are walnut days. Have you ever looked at the inside of a walnut? It looks like a tiny brain, which seems suspicious to me. Walnut days are when your brain feels completely full, but you can’t seem to get anything out of it. You know there are ideas in there somewhere. There are things you want to do and things you need to figure out, but everything feels stuck behind a very hard shell.
I think Girl Person is a walnut today.
There has been a lot on our minds lately, including me. We are trying to get me a vet appointment for next week because of the little episodes I’ve been having. I don’t particularly enjoy being the subject of serious conversations, especially when those conversations contain the word “vet.” I would prefer that all conversations about me include words like pizza, handsome and exceptionally talented. But sometimes the people who love you have to pay attention when something isn’t quite right, even when you would rather pretend everything is normal.
And maybe that is part of why creativity is harder to find some days. Your brain only has so much room. When part of it is worrying, another part is making phone calls, another part is figuring out what comes next and another part is wondering whether the vet keeps pizza in the examination room, there might not be much space left for brilliant ideas.
Girl Person sometimes thinks that if the words don’t come easily, she has lost them. If she can’t think of something creative today, she worries that maybe she won’t be able to tomorrow either. I don’t think that’s how creativity works. I think sometimes it is just underneath everything else. It’s still there, but life is sitting on top of it.
Maybe we don’t have to crack the walnut every day. Maybe some days are meant for noticing instead of creating. You notice the light coming through the trees. You notice someone being kind. You notice your dog following you from room to room because he knows you have been thinking about him. You notice that even when life feels uncertain, there are still things that make you laugh. Those little moments don’t look very productive, but maybe they are filling us back up.
I suppose that means you don’t have to decide whether you’re permanently a peanut or a walnut either. Unless, of course, you are Peanut Butter Brickle. In that case, you are a peanut, the decision is final, and I suggest you don’t argue about it.
As for me, I think I am mostly a peanut too. Maybe that’s something Brickle passed down to me even though I never got to ask him about it. I wake up. I stretch. I find Girl Person. I inspect the kitchen. I go outside and smell things that are none of my business. I come back inside and check the kitchen again in case circumstances have changed. Soon, apparently, I may also be going to the vet, where I plan to cooperate as long as everyone understands that medical professionals should be compensated appropriately and so should patients.
Preferably in pizza.
So if you can’t find your creativity today, don’t panic. You haven’t necessarily lost it. Maybe your brain is busy carrying something else right now. Give yourself a little room. Be a peanut. Be a walnut. Be whatever kind of nut you need to be today.
But if Peanut Butter Brickle taught us anything, maybe there is something pretty wonderful about simply knowing you’re a peanut and being proud of it.
And if you still can’t think of anything to write about, write about peanuts and walnuts.
Apparently, it works.
Fruitycake
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