I’m sitting down to write because I must. I’m 39 years old, I have two young children, and the most important thing I’ve done for the last week is to attend to their needs. These have variously been carrying socks sodden with muddy river water on an outstretched stick, revulsion averted by the amusement of imagining myself as Dick Whittington, sit-down races on mini skateboards involving mild acts of contortion and climbing the curtseying branch of a sycamore tree, gleefully and with no need to pretend to enjoy myself.

But there’s an adult brain inside this body and that brain wants, for more than several sacred minutes, to do adult things, even if the space to do them is on top of my bed due to the sprawling Scalextric track dominating the shared living space. It seemed cruel, and fairly pointless, to clear it away for the creative hour I’m carving out for myself as my children sleep. It stands as testament to the dynamic of the moment – small humans enjoying their summer holidays as selfishly as they should.

Writing simply isn’t the priority for the next six weeks, and I worry it’s slipping away from me. It’s an irrational thought, I found my love of writing again with little effort after over six years as a primary carer starved of intellectual stimulation. Opportunity knocked, confidence was swiftly rediscovered and the compulsion and occasion to write has been a healthy electrocardiogram since. It must be deep seated within me, this urge to write, a neural pathway whose origin I can’t accurately determine. Small pauses won’t hurt.

Having had such a long hiatus from creativity though, I’m doubly conscious of not letting it go again entirely. The shelf behind my bed has books of poetry, etymology and psychology lined up next to classic works, first novels and punchy non-fiction all designed to keep my mind awake, elastic and fixed to its course. I’ve been gifted Margaret Attwood’s On Writers and Writing and Julia Cameron’s The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity and I’ve committed to read Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence. The promise is not hollow.

Writing just doesn’t meld well with family life which requires a parent, in particular a single parent, to be fully present, not shut away in a quiet room contemplating or in flow. I share windows onto my literary world with my two boys, encouraging a love of reading, actively visiting libraries and art galleries, engaging in stimulating conversation at mealtimes (they have surprisingly good – often poignant – answers to big questions) and imaginative roleplay games but it’s light touch for now and the focus is necessarily on them.

But oh this creative hour has topped up my internal resources no end. I will go to sleep tonight feeling the subtle knife has created an opening into a parallel world. Knowing it’s waiting for me when the tide delivers me back to that happy place, that joyful state where I can see the details and nuances in the every day that make me feel connected with every vibrating atom in this beautiful world. When I can look up and out (and not down and left to right) and feel the energy of strangers and share in the dance of life.

For now the circle is a small one, a bubble of exhaustion, excitement, repetition and delight, a sphere within which duty and love mingle and memories are experienced in real time. I’ll miss these days, so I face into them with good grace and a spirit of eagerness, pushing other needs aside in favour of establishing the building blocks that may lead to a creative life – or at least the choice to pursue one – for my own children. They will go soon, but they will come back to me, and then together we will head to the sea.