Toothpaste Miracle

I ran out of toothpaste about two weeks ago.

The first tube ran out, squeezed all to hell and clearly empty. Then I found a second tube, almost used up. So I squeezed that one too until it was empty. Then I had two empty tubes. I went to the supermarket to buy stuff and bought everything I needed. Except one thing. I forgot the toothpaste. So, there I was, in baaad need of a tooth brush but with no toothpaste. 

What to do?

I ran out of toothpaste about two weeks ago.

Except I didn’t.

Here’s what happened.

I squeezed the first empty tube a little harder. I gave it a little more commitment. And some toothpaste came out. I brushed my teeth. The next day I did the same and the next day too. When the first tube was clearly extinguished, I moved over to the other empty tube and squeezed that with commitment too. Some toothpaste came out. I carried on.

In the time this has been happening, I have been to the shop again and I have bought a spanking new tube of toothpaste. It’s sitting there, startlingly replete, on the glass bathroom shelf. I’ll get to it, I’m sure.

When the second tube of empty toothpaste was clearly dead, I revisited the first tube, just out of curiosity. I took the end of the tube and folded it over, then folded it again and again until the tube was folded almost right up to the spout. There was toothpaste there. Quite a lot of toothpaste, in fact. After a few days, there wasn’t any more, so I moved back to the other tube and did the same. Lots of toothpaste for Ken. An embarrassment of toothpaste.

That’s where I am now, still using the second empty tube. Maybe I’ll go back to the other empty tube after I feel this one is finally played-out. Maybe I’ll brush my teeth with the contents of these two tubes for the rest of my life.

It’s all up in the air.

And, yes, it’s a silly little story. It’s quite true but silly, nonetheless. But, even worse, I can see a life lesson buried deep in the toothpaste droplets I harvest every day. You don’t want to hear it, but you’re going to anyway. If you stick around, that is.

I turned Sixty last year. With that event came a subtle feeling, hardly identifiable but there, nonetheless. A feeling that, in terms of new writing, the tank was now largely empty. I was fine but creativity and originality were gone. I might rework some of the stuff I’d done before, reshape it. I can still be a sort of a writer in that way. But the tank itself was running on empty and no more new miles would be driven.

For better or worse, the toothpaste is telling me something different.

“Writing,” the tubes of toothpaste are saying, “is a bit like a tube of toothpaste.” You may think you’re empty and used-up and ready for whichever recycling bin is appropriate. But that’s simply not true. There is good stuff still in there. Lots of it. Top quality gear.

But there’s the rub, as Hamlet used to say. This good stuff, this writing toothpaste, it won’t come out all by itself. It won’t dribble out onto the page just as a result of being stared at or worried over.

Nope.

You have to squeeze.

You have to fold the end over again and again and again and keep the faith that there’s some good stuff in there still. Because there is. You’ve got to squeeze it out. Which is nothing new. You’ve always had to squeeze it out. It never-ever came out all by itself.

It’s just that, from now on, you're going to have to squeeze a little harder.