Cabin Fever (ah)

The little one was born in December. Between the fact that you need to limit a newborn’s exposure to public spaces and the fact that I couldn’t drive, we were stuck inside for most of the first three months of the year. Beyond driving around, it was also too cold for us to even take a walk around the block for most of the winter. Then came the Super Cold.

When the weather finally got nice they were doing construction in my neighborhood and the air reeked of chemicals so going for a walk was still out. (This was such a mess, don’t even get me started. The other streets in the neighborhood each only experienced the construction for a week at a time, we couldn’t use our driveway and needed to be shuttled to our cars for two months because we live on the dead end that they used as a work space the entire time. Picture me hefting the baby, diaper bag and car seat clear across the neighborhood and between construction vehicles to get to my car every time I needed to leave the house since we couldn’t take the car seat on the shuttle. It sucked.)

When the construction finally ended, I was desperate for freedom. We got to go out for a walk once or twice but rain kept us inside most days. I couldn’t wait for it to stop raining so that we could enjoy the mild weather of Spring and start going outside regularly.

Then we skipped over Spring entirely and slammed right into a heat wave. The little one wasn’t supposed to be out whenever it was over 80 degrees and since she gets so hot in the carriage anyway this seemed smart but I wanted to cry. I was a lioness, pacing my cage, the iron of the bars suffocating me. I love being outside and I live for the nice weather. To not be able to go for walks outside and be stuck with the air conditioner on instead of the windows open? Torture.

Oh well, it would cool down eventually, right?

And now I’m realizing that those 80 degree days WERE mild compared to what we were in for. As day after day tipped past 90 and then 100, I began to despair of ever being able to leave my house again. At this point, I’ve been out of the house less than a dozen times since December 2012. By two weeks ago, I was so stir crazy, I came up with a series of air conditioned outings the baby and I could take just to get us out of the house.

The day before Outing #1, which involved visiting some out of town friends, my car broke down. I was able to still go that day because I borrowed my husband’s car and he got a loaner but the rest of the time baby and I were housebound. We finally got the call on last Tuesday that the car was fixed, my husband went to pick it up and… the windshield was broken. The repair shop washed it after fixing it which is nice in theory but they used cold water on the car on a day when it was over 100 out, thereby breaking the glass. They agree to fix it for us (which, um, yeah you’re going to fix it since you broke it in the first place) but they couldn’t until Saturday. It is starting to feel like someone out there wants me under house arrest.

And were there moments here and there between all this chaos when conditions were OK to go out? Sure. Old Hillary would have been like “I’ll finish this work tonight, I’m going outside to take a walk right this second before it gets too hot.” But babies are not “drop everything” sorts. Taking a baby out takes planning, a cooperative baby, and a ton of prep work. Maybe it’s easier if you have one of those sleep all the time, shove a pacifier in their mouth and they’re a little passive baby-lump kind of babies that some of my friends have but I don’t have that kind of baby and never have so our outings have been few and far between.

What I’m saying is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHNJPsCDSqo

I felt like I spent a higher than average amount of time in my house before, what with working from home, but I used to at least get out three times a week to go to the gym and run errands. I love being with the little one and don’t want to leave her but holy crud I need to figure out how to get us some external stimuli once in a while or I will go INSANE. The few nights when it was at least a little cooler at night we took a short walk as a family and even that little bit helped so much.

Anyway. I know. I’m whining. And I also know that this is just one little moment in time when she’s delicate and new and that in a  few years I’ll be shuttling here from activity to activity working in the car on my tablet and I will be like, waaaaa, I miss my house.

But what I’m finding is that this constant restless cabin fever has been very bad for my writing. (Clearly, not having any time to write is also bad for my writing but work with me here.) When I have a second to sit at the keyboard, I find I just don’t have anywhere near the wealth of ideas I normally do. Even if every day is wonderful, being stuck in the same location for going on 7 months has glazed this sameness over my brain where everything, even my newest ideas, feel stale. But while I plan to work around the heat and add more outings in the coming months, a certain amount of the mole life isn’t going away until she’s a little older so I need to find a way to work around it.

So I ask you: How do you spice up the sameness and routine that drags your writing and your creativity down? What tricks do you use when your ideas (and you) feel trapped in the same old, same old?