Keeping Focus in My Forties

Aside from feeling a little creakier when I wake up in the morning, I don’t think much about getting older. I just know that it’s happening and it’s fine because, as the old saying goes, getting older is better than the alternative. The joke I tell my friends is that if it is supposed to bend, it hurts—knees, elbows, ankles, etc. Some days worse than others, some days not at all. But it’s nothing I can’t handle, it’s just part of the package.
One area where aging kind of snuck up on me, though, is in that my brain works differently. It’s nothing worrisome because it’s just a fact that after your 30s, your brain slows down a bit. One thing I’ve noticed lately is that my ability to multitask—especially when I’m trying to write—is all but gone.
When I was in high school or college, I could sit and write papers or stories with headphones on, no problem at all. These days, though, I can’t listen to anything with words while I’m writing because when I try, everything grinds to a halt. I’m not taking in the words I’m hearing nor am I writing anything worth reading. I just can’t do it anymore. No music with lyrics, no NPR, nothing.
I don’t need total silence. For example, I’m writing this out on my front porch with the sound of traffic, birds, dogs, the wind and everything else. And I could throw on a Miles Davis album and have no problem, either, but once you add lyrics to a song, I lose the handle.
I remember reading an article about Stephen King (or maybe seeing an interview?) where he said that when he writes, he likes to have rock music blaring. I wonder if he still writes like that. If so, more power to him.
I’ve read some articles about it because I find it really interesting to be able to actually recognize that I’m slowing down in certain ways. There are a lot of articles about there, but this one on NPR summarizes it pretty well, “the older we get, the more of these thoughts (internal chatter) we have rattling around our brains.”
Writing has always been something that has come naturally to me and it still does, but I need to be mindful of my environment. So if this means that I take the Elvis Costello record off the turntable and replace it with John Coltrane, I can do that. I should probably broaden my lyricless horizons, too. A little classical or maybe some trance? I don’t know.
What is your favorite soundtrack for writing?
