"Oh no!" cried the middle-aged woman in dismay as she frantically searched the Focus section of the July 23 Butler Eagle. The woman was looking for my column, as she has for the past four years, six months, and two weeks. But to her disappointment, it was not there.

"Are you sure?" asked her husband, apparently concerned over his wife's distress. "Maybe they ran out of space in Focus and had to put it in the Sports section," he said, sauntering to an easy chair with his favorite section of the newspaper. "I'll check for you."

While I doubt that the absence of my column two Sundays ago created anywhere near the kind of scenario suggested above, I do hope that after 118 regular, biweekly columns, somebody noticed that one was missing.

"Why was it missing?" you might ask.

Well, you see, I was gone the week it was due, away from my home, my work, my children and my husband. By myself for the first time in more than 30 years. Free. Free in a way that I had almost forgotten. No cooking. No planning for others. No organizing. No long commute. No work. I was without responsibility. And deeply appreciative of that freedom, in a way I couldn't have been the last time it happened — in 1975.

That was the summer my college roommate and I camped our way across the country in my VW van. Teachers at the time, we had spent several summers back then traversing the United States and Canada, from the beaches of Los Angeles to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. From the bistros of British Columbia to the fish hatcheries of Nova Scotia. Going wherever we wanted, doing whatever 20-somethings with little responsibility do.

That year of 1975 was also the year I married my husband. The year my life took a more serious turn, or at least veered toward life's more settling experiences: marriage and children and work.

When I was away for a week last month, though, my travels weren't quite as far-reaching. I was at a college in Ohio, attending my first writer's workshop. There I sat through sessions on poetry and fiction and memoir writing. I learned again of rhyme and meter, of the importance of pacing a story, of the grit that tension brings to all writing.

I lunched with published authors, famous ones, too. Larry Beichart of "Wag the Dog" was there, as was Cathy Smith Bowers, an up-and-coming Southern poet likened to the more widely known Carson McCullers.

Also built into the workshop schedule was a copious amount of free time. So I rode my bike, swam, reflected on below-the-surface changes going on within, read, and tried to write. Certainly with a week to write a column — something I usually bang out on a busy weekend — and the free time to do it, I should have been able to return home late Sunday night with a completed column.

Except I had writer's block. Really. At a writing workshop, and I couldn't write, at least not my column. More than 100 columns written under pressure and on time. Now, with only one to write and time to spare, I froze.

After several painstaking attempts, I called my editor, who offered me a reprieve. This time.

Just goes to show you how dangerous a little freedom at my age can be.

Linda K. Schmitmeyer is a freelance writer living in Middlesex Township. Her e-mail address is lks260@zoominternet.net.