Digging with a Spoon

Please visit me...

2009-12-04T02:12:00.000-08:00

...At Harriet's Voice: Home Base for Writing Mothers. Lots of great links and quotes that will appeal to all writers (not just moms!). Sign up for updates, as contests, events, and the blog continue to evolve. Creative moms (not just writers), please take the survey.

I would love to add your quotes, tips, links to the site--please send suggestions via the contact link.

Thank you for your support,

Katherine

Hiatus

2006-08-19T03:11:00.000-07:00

I woke at 5 and wandered in the dark between our bedroom and Gavin’s, patting every flat surface until I touched on my glasses. Husband and son breathed deeply, and I crept away to the basement to write.

Nearly every Saturday since November has begun in this same fashion. Starting this blog meant a concrete reason to get up and write. It meant I kept a promise to myself.

I learned the names of 2 Greek mythology figures this week. Scylla and Charybdis are the names of 2 sea monsters who flank a narrow strait, and the sailors passing must move carefully so as not to trigger either vicious threat. The expression between Scylla and Charybdis preceded between a rock and a hard place.

I have been evaluating my writing time, or lack of it. Working full time and mothering a 4-year-old fills my days, and then some. Work has picked up, both for me and Tom. The hourglass seems to be shrinking, and my book is in serious danger of neglect. I have also promised myself that I will have at least 4 freelance queries in circulation at any given time (borrowing from Hope Clark’s magic number of 13, which I hope to build up to over time).

I love my Saturday morning blog, the newness of it, the surprises, and I am guessing it will be resurrected in some fashion (perhaps an account on the journey of my book proposal!). I realized this morning that my blog has been a bit like dating: a good time, no heavy agenda, full of new possibility. My book is more like a marriage: a good time also, but subject to more ups and downs, requiring more thought and effort—something that offers a great return in the long haul but isn’t always exciting or romantic. But for now, even though the romance of the blog calls, I am taking a hiatus. I am encountering my own Scylla and Charybdis (so much I want to write, but threats on either side of my narrow writing strait).

If you come upon Digging with a Spoon, I hope that you find some encouragement here. I would love to hear from fellow readers, writers, parents, dreamers. Please drop me a line at khauswirth@sbcglobal.net.

Cool Snap

2006-08-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

We are in a snap of cool weather (at least for August). What simultaneous delight and dread, to wake and shiver when it is chilly and dark, to layer a cocoon of cotton sweater and socks over my flimsy pajamas, to debate the relative merits of going back to bed, of hot versus iced coffee. The coolness seems to bring with it an anticipation different than the sweet, sultry anticipation of a cricket-heavy summer night. It is more like the blank, freshly cracked notebook of back to school.

Blank notebook, also simultaneous delight and dread to a writer. So much to say, but how and where do I begin? Will anyone want to read it?

I keep picking up a book that my sister sent: The Practical Writer, a collaboration by the Poets & Writers staff, is one of the best collections of writing advice I've seen. It's got everything from editor etiquette to how to promote your work digitally, and a long list of Grants and Awards in the back. Juicy.

This morning I flipped to a piece on the essay, "literature's most misunderstood form". It contains a quote from OB Hardison, Jr: The essay is the enactment of the process by which the soul realizes itself even as it is passing from day to day and from moment to moment. Yes, that is what I love about the poor, misunderstood, even maligned, essay.

It is true that people don't light up when you tell them you write essays. They think of school compositions, bone dry and contrived. They don't think of Death of a Hornet by Robert Finch , or Living Out Loud by Anna Quindlen. These authors are so different: the first pulls off reflections on Cape Cod nature with admirable grace, the second is a hodgepodge of fresh thoughts on mostly female-oriented topics. The key for me is, as Hardison said, you can see both writers realizing their own souls. It is a treat to be invited into the process, at least when writers write as well as these.

I worked on a book chapter on spirituality this week and had to put it aside. So much, and so little, to say. Thinking with a refreshed mind, maybe I was not so far off the mark when I described writing as the biggest spiritual thing I do. Maybe I should do more, but there it is. To sit and muse, to indulge in contemplation, to drink in the unusually cool August air and appreciate the hush of the morning and the warmth of my sweater while creating something new, to me this is somehow a holy indulgence.

Gavin found a new and completely unexpected way into my heart yesterday. Although I 've read him plenty of books (latest favorite, highly recommended: The Wolves in the Walls) I have not discussed literature with him. He laid a gem at my feet, courtesy of a short lesson by his teacher Tyler. We sat and watched Everybody Loves Raymond while we digested our supper and got ready to go to bed. Gavin wondered aloud: Is this nonfiction? I could have kissed him (actually I'm sure I did): my budding writer. Sweetie, that's what Mommy writes. Did you know that? We talked about how Raymond is probably mostly fiction (but could be autobiographical), and then we read Lyle, Lyle Crocodile (decidedly fiction) before bed.

PS: I am contemplating ending this blog: time is so scarce and my book is languishing, undernourished from lack of consistent attention. Can I transfer the hopeful essence of my Saturday morning blog to my book, so that now every Saturday without fail I wake and write (or revise) a chapter? It might make more sense.

PPS: Found a fun blog this morning when searching for Robert Finch. Onepotmeal (where bears smoke and type) describes itself as a weblog about reading, writing, nature, culture, and bears with bad habits. It's got some very thought provoking quotes, and a great sense of humor.

After the Storm

2006-08-06T04:02:00.000-07:00

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin — real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these ‘obstacles’ were my life.
—Fr. Alfred D’Souza

The storm hit Thursday and took a leggy maple and electric, phone, and cable wires down in the front yard and across the driveway. Our services are finally restored, and Tom will spend at least half the day reducing the tree to pickup bed sized limbs and making dump runs. I will be disposing of most of the refrigerator contents and trying to catch up with laundry, etc. Gavin will be having a small “film festival’ (videos on the couch) while I try to regain household equilibrium.

We spent the second hot, powerless night at a nearby hotel and I managed to revise one of my book chapters. I am writing about Harriet Beecher Stowe, and finding that one of her gifts was to weave writing in with her very hectic life, rather than trying to separate it out.

I love the quote by D'Souza: I suppose a real pessimist might say, oh, great, this is life? But I see it as an opportunity, as a reflection of deeper beliefs. Every moment is an opportunity to live fully and thoughtfully. Realistically, at least for most of us, a space will never clear where suddenly we have gotten all of the ‘busywork’ done. We have to find our spaces away from the hustle and bustle (today, a beach afternoon at our friend Cecilia’s) and figure out the best ways to weather our personal storms.

The Gift of Insomnia

2006-07-29T02:03:00.000-07:00

Insomnia in small doses is a writer’s best friend. As long as it remains an occasional visitor and leads to quiet, uninterrupted writing time, I welcome it. In this case I brought it on, though not intentionally. I forgot to say “decaf” when I ordered my coffee at 7 PM. I find that I can often fall asleep after an evening coffee, but wake up perky a few hours later (of course if I don’t make up the sleep I will crash at the other end of my day).

I had a revealing exercise in this morning’s wee hours: I dug up a mission statement on my writing that I had written when Gavin was an infant. Eventually, amid cobwebby piles of 3-ring binders, I found two documents that I had nearly forgotten. My personal mission, although I have not consciously referred to it in half a decade, still rings true: To empower seekers to maintain or grow closer to the beliefs that life is good, we are all in this together, and that there is a God. I want the sensuality and sincerity of my writing to bear witness to hope, and to refresh and renew the human spirit. I had also completed a stream-of-consciousness response to the question, “My passion is…”: Living life in full appreciation of the gift it is. Continuing to learn. Being a good steward of what has been given. Being real. Shedding light on true beauty. Offering peace. Writing about all of this in a truly unique, compelling way. Making my son proud.

This resurrection of notes on my mission and my passion revealed two things. The negative aspect of dusting off my ponderings was the realization that I had not honored it enough. The words may be corny, impossibly lofty, but for me they represent what I really give and gain from my writing. These are words that deserve more respect, a place on my office wall. On the positive side, the writing I am doing now resonates with the sentiments I penned years ago. I can hear the harmony between then and now, as if played on invisible strings. This is how I feel purposeful passion. It feels like music.

I flip open a book by Barbara Sher, who wrote I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was. I saw her on public television once and I loved her no nonsense way of inspiring action. She is not the kind of motivational speaker who lives in la-la land. She understands that people have jobs, financial worries, families and can not just move to a desert island and pursue their dream of painting seaside scenes. She has a way of saying get off your rear and take some action in so many words, and of making it sound completely possible. Today she virtually shouts at me from her book: What you’re really supposed to be doing is whatever makes your heart sing. Another resonant chord is struck. My heart is singing now, and it sang for the last two evenings when I worked on my book, so I guess I should keep writing.

I am plowing through books this morning, looking for a specific quote about the universe conspiring with the artist, about how things have a mysterious way of coming together. And the universe is having its fun with me: I can’t find the quote. But I do find this whammo quote instead, by Frederick Buechner (Of Fiction and Faith):

There is something deep within us, in everybody, that gets buried and distorted and confused and corrupted by what happens to us. But it is there as a source of insight and healing and strength. I think that is where art comes from.

It is nice to search for that something deep and find that it is still there, ready to serve as a wellspring.

For now, though, I must leave the wellspring gurgling below its cover and go back to sleep.

Wordsmithing

2006-07-22T03:50:00.000-07:00

It is one of my small pleasures to be given a piece of writing and asked, what do you think? I let the words fall over me and search for their message as they pass. I tuck, prune, and tighten with my pen. I think of new ways to say old things. I scribble marginalia. It is a vast relief to read something other than what I’ve written, a treat to enter the mind of another writer. It almost doesn’t matter what I am reading; I relish the opportunity to wordsmith.

Most of the time these pieces are medical, for work. When I was new to the medical writing world, I wrote a piece for Pilgrimage called Words through a Stethoscope. I wrote about the precision that medical writing and medicine shared, and also about the limits of my new endeavor: Sometimes I would plead for the life of a medical nuance or colloquialism, while a senior editor squeezed the rules around it until it was sterile and bland like a big fat post-amputation dressing. But I looked for creative opportunities everywhere: I made sure my words were smoothed over until they flowed instead of splattered on the page. I got to put words together for a living, perhaps not the kinds of words I’d dreamed about but words nonetheless.

Writers and editors that I know sometimes use wordsmithing in a derogatory way, to mean oh, that writer’s just rearranging words aimlessly. There’s no real substance to her suggestions. And I guess there is wordsmithing for the sake of wordsmithing, like the woman who pipes up at every meeting just to hear her own voice out loud. But a real lover of words would never be driven by that kind of agenda. A real wordophile treats even technical words with reverence and enthusiasm. When words must be cut away, as they usually must, they are disposed of with an efficient, quiet respect.

I woke up thinking about my first career transition, from nursing to medical writing. And now I am thinking about the next ever-so-gradual leap, from medical writing to creative writing and editing. I keep making mostly small submissions while I try to cook up big ideas. Since I like to wordsmith so much, particularly when I need to pare a piece down to fit, I’m starting a Word Count Guru business on the side. What a joy it will be to turn this passion into some income!

Last week, I wrote a blog called Something’s Coming. I later realized I had a blog by the same name in April. Reading it back, I see it embraced the same delicious hope, perhaps at a higher intensity driven by the advent of spring. I agree with what I wrote in April: There is a story somewhere beneath all of this sweet, ordinary life.

Today is another chapter in the sweet and ordinary: a final swim lesson for Gavin and then some shopping. If Gavin naps I will resurrect my latest book chapter. Starting my day with writing feels like a taste of chocolate before breakfast.

Something's Coming

2006-07-15T03:11:00.000-07:00

I disobeyed my writing office’s primary rule today. It’s an informal office, and the rule was jotted years ago with a Sharpie on a Post-It, which I then taped to my monitor (those Post-Its don’t stay up long term without a little reinforcement, and this rule needs vigorous reinforcement!).

The rule says Write First, Surf Later. It evolved because I endured this whole phase where I spent my writing time with online groups and newsletters. I was pretending to be a writer, and maybe I needed to hobnob before I broke away and started to actually write. But Web surfing is a vast and tiring endeavor. One link leads to another, and another. I needed to spend my energies more wisely. The limited time I have now goes mostly toward writing, with a little surfing as a wrap-up reward. The sign helps.

But I’ve had this feeling that something good is coming, so I had to check my e-mail (which inevitably leads to surfing). I submitted a piece via e-mail last week (don’t you wish more publications allowed this practice?) and have attributed my something good feeling to a prescient sense of imminent acceptance. No acceptance letter, but I did find some contests worth entering and some presses worth noting. Thanks again to Hope at Funds for Writers .

Of course, the something good may have already happened, and now I am greedily expecting more! I had the afternoon off yesterday and got to shop first for others and then for myself. The gift and toy stores where I shopped for others wrapped my packages with flair. I then strolled around Marshall’s, musing about how to spend my gift card. I emerged two shirts, a throw rug, and a kid’s puzzle later, feeling satisfied. On top of that, I took the wrong coffee off the pickup counter at Starbuck’s. It was a scrumptious chilled mocha. They let me keep it (since I had already sipped it), and gave me the one they had made me, too. No wonder I only slept for about five hours!

I am working on queries about my book, and am teetering on a scary precipice. Once I’ve sent the first query I risk rejection and even failure. Initial feedback on my draft has been encouraging, although one writer suggested that only amateurs start a query with a question (and I thought I was so clever!). Another writer suggested I spend three months researching agents. This sounded ridiculous to me, as I am the act first, fill in with research later type. I have researched some, but now I want to start my query process. Perhaps I can restrain myself while I research a bit more. But definitely not for three whole months: I’m afraid I would burst from the delay.

I was inspired not long ago by The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio, a memoir about a mother who subsidized her large family with contest winnings: jingles, poems, essays, and the like. She was a feisty, clever mother who used her very limited time (she had 10 kids) to simultaneously fulfill her creative impulses and earn some much-needed cash. I don’t think I’ll ever reach her level, but once in a while I hit it right. I’ve won a handful of contests, mostly small potatoes but one was an all expense paid self-publishing package. The latest one I entered was, if you can believe it, a love letter to witch hazel. Surely worth the 3-paragraph effort for the $1000 prize and the chance for a trip to France. Oh, and of course a lifetime supply of witch hazel (which I actually do use so I was not prostituting my talents).

Another Saturday, another swim lesson for Gavin, although this time my mom will join us in the pool. Then off to the Deep River Ancient Muster, which is a huge event in our area. I heard the drum tattoo last night as Gavin and I hunted for fireflies. Later today and tomorrow I get to give out nearly all of those daintily wrapped gifts I bought yesterday. My friend Pam’s daughter and my visiting niece will get Calico Critters (the hottest new girl’s toy – I was amazed by the volume of choices). My 16-year-old niece will get a jewelry set, which a teenager in the store helped me choose. I am hanging on to one box, Gavin’s birthday gift to my mom (she reads the blog so no details here). I will get the satisfaction of a gift well chosen and hopefully well received. Maybe that’s my something good. Whatever it turns out to be, I am delighting in the guessing game.

Not an Elevator Speech

2006-07-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

It is a why did I go decaf morning. I have worked long hours this week and have to work more this weekend. But first, I get to blog. Infinitely more uplifting than writing about my work project, herpes in HIV. I won’t go into the pictures I have had to view.

My book is taking shape, although it seems way too short. They don’t hire editors to put text in, do they? My theory is that all this technical writing, the day job, has made me way too succinct in my creative life. I am thinking about authentic ways to add some meat to the book’s bones. I don’t think increasing the font to 18 will fool anyone.

Despite my undernourished draft, I wrote my first draft of a query to an agency yesterday. A big New York agency on Broadway. Just the thought makes me starry-eyed. I had fun touting all the compelling aspects of my unfinished book. It’s an e-mail query, and I struggled with the balance between grabbing the reader and sounding overly slick. I also had to restrain myself and not just run off and send it in an enthusiasm spasm, not without second, third, and fourth opinions.

I thought about posting my draft to my writing group, but I have become very possessive of it. There are two factors at work here: I have this loopy notion that someone will steal my idea, and I don’t want to be deflated by a less than flattering critique. But as I write this, I realize that I have to take this step (and hope there are no essay burglars in my group!). Honestly, I don’t think anyone but me would want my idea. It’s a bit offbeat, and some might say too academic. I’m not sure if this makes any sense, but you’d really have to be me to write it.

I have to find an exciting, pithy way to explain it. Marketing types call this the elevator speech. But I’m not sure the kind of writing I do lends itself to elevators. A bit of history, reflection, memoir, some writing exercises: it’s the opposite of edgy. Instead of a finding a hook I find a nice, soft pillow. Pillows are wonderful, but how exciting can you make them sound?

I know I am in for the long haul. I read once in Poets and Writers about an author who lost her whole book in a house fire. As I was leaving to pick up Gavin, I hesitated on the porch and remembered that author. Where was my laptop? Where was my disk? I was running a bit late but went back inside and grabbed the disk anyway.

I got an early start on my weekend. I get 4 paid half-day Fridays off this summer, a nice little perk. I had to forego my half-day for a project last week but made sure I left early yesterday. I was pretty flattened from some heavy work to stay on deadline, and only felt capable of getting my nails polished. But sure enough, after that breather, after someone massaging my hands with mango lotion, dipping them in paraffin, and making them look glamorous, my hands (and tired brain!) felt ready to type again. Reviewed my last chapter, typed my first book query. Gavin and I had a nice supper and walk to the beach at my mom and brother’s place. I watched Gavin’s delight as he jumped in the cool evening sea. Today, more water sports (swim lessons). Gavin floated solo (not clinging to me) for the first time last week. Life is good.

Long Weekend, Long Range Plans

2006-07-01T02:46:00.000-07:00

My biggest challenge these days is the need to cushion myself from stress, from things that sap my optimism and energy. Work has gotten busy, and I woke up thinking about it. Then I came downstairs to my quiet, early morning home office, which is usually my haven. The same Male Someone who was hurtful last week left a message in my e-mail box, sounding manic. Then another e-mail hit. He is full of “revelations” that make sense only to him. I feel sick in the pit of my stomach. My only revelation is that he is getting sicker, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Is it selfish to want to write in spite of the chaos that swirls around me? Despite the guilt that I sometimes wrestle with, I know that for me writing is sanity preserving and life affirming. And have I mentioned fun?

I hang onto the dream of a life that lets me write full time, but I was given serious pause by something I read today. Hope Clark, of Funds for Writers, wrote a small editorial on going freelance. Her advice for making the big break included having enough funds for a half-year of bills, having a decent health insurance plan, and being able to estimate your full-time income from your part-time efforts. This advice is both wise and discouraging.

Six months’ worth of bills: my mind doesn’t want to calculate that intimidating sum! The excesses of our twenties (credit card spending: young people take heed!) are haunting us into our forties. We are chipping away at our debt, but progress is painfully slow. I do have an ace card: when the time comes to go freelance, I can get medical writing work while I pursue more of the writing that I love. But what’s the point of making a big break if I am simply doing what I do now, but in my basement?

Obviously, I need to spend less and save more, something that is so much more easily said than done. But it can be done. It fits so well, too, with my belief that my life requires more simplicity. More dinners home, more “no” responses to invitations, more hours (okay, I’ll settle for minutes!) on the porch.

I was inspired by the book Choosing Simplicity years ago. The authors surveyed people who made conscious decisions to cut down on their chaos quotient. This wasn’t a new spin on the rural flower child movement: for some people simplicity meant country living, for others it was moving to the city so they could walk everywhere. For some it was growing their own produce, for others it was job sharing. The book is a great reminder that there is more than one way to simplify and save. It’s time to dust it off again.

Hope Clark’s advice to measure your freelance income capacity by the part-time writing you produce now is a call to action for me. I submitted a piece yesterday, but my serious submissions to decent paying markets are few and far between. It’s time to get serious. While I pine for a book contract I need to write some “bread and butter” pieces. How-to articles seem to be my strong sellers. I had better start advising the world, and quick!

I have come around to my Saturday morning optimism again. There’s a lot to do, but on this long weekend I have 4 days open before me. I look forward to swim lessons with Gavin, shopping with Mom, a July 4th party, an overdue outing with a friend. Hopefully we will dust off the deck and have some quiet family time, too. I’m already scheming for some writing time on Monday or Tuesday.

Enlightenment (Still Don’t Know What it is)

2006-06-24T03:56:00.000-07:00

I’m in the here and now, and I’m meditating
And still I’m suffering but that’s my problem
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
—Van Morrison

I woke today with Van Morrison’s voice in my head. He was singing the chorus to Enlightenment, and boy do I need some this week.

My next book chapter has been done before, but I feel I have a new slant that’s pretty compelling. The book is on creativity, and this chapter’s theme is creating a space for yourself (both physical and psychological). I had small seeds of ideas in my head and couldn’t wait to get alone and write. Tom had Gavin for the night, and possibility lay stretched out before me. I didn’t know I was about to get a loud lesson in my own healthy need for space, the psychological kind.

I turned down an invitation for a quick bite at McDonald’s with Tom and Gavin. But I faltered when someone else asked me to dinner. This someone is very close, and still someone I want to protect, so I’ll leave it as a Male Someone who is very dear to me. I told this Male Someone that I would meet him at Penny Lane, a local restaurant.

My gut said that I needed space, but I often view my need for space as selfish. And if it’s space so I can create, I seem to double the guilt. I have great quotes on my computer that remind me otherwise. My favorite is attributed to Nelson Mandela:

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

Anyway, with this particular person I have a particularly high guilt quotient. We go way back, and he is mentally ill. I try not to define him that way, but the illness keeps rearing its ugly head. I want so much to be helpful to him.

This dinner out left me in tears. My special Male Someone said some cruel things, and I want to think it was the illness talking. But over the years he has found many ways to be cruel. On this particular night, even when he could see I was vulnerable, he was relentless in his attacks. I was honest with him about how he’d hurt me, but still he pressed on. Finally I walked away. I am still sick about the whole experience.

I am a proficient advice-giver. I have a background in psychiatry, and a general affinity for being a good listener. Except to myself. I always tell my girlfriends Listen to your gut. But my gut was screaming to me that I needed time alone, and that this person (at least at this moment) was toxic, and still I sat there.

Van Morrison has more to say on enlightenment:

Good or bad baby
You can change it anyway you want
You can rearrange it

In this particular circumstance, this statement seems nearly impossible to me. I know that I can’t change this Male Someone or his circumstances. But thinking more about it, I can change how I interact with him. I can limit our contact. I can walk away sooner if it gets ugly. I can channel all my angst into a brilliant piece of creative work. In fact, maybe I should have written that night, after the tears, instead of giving up and going home.

I often wake up with a song in my head, and I think my “song for the day” tells me what I need, the way other people have prophetic dreams. All the intellectual puzzling and postulating I can muster is not enough to solve some problems, or even to understand them. The spiritual realm beckons once again, and I’ll again set a tentative foot on the path to some practice, some regimen, some religion that speaks to the deeper parts of me, to the need for peace that “passes all understanding”.

It has been a stressful week all around, and I have suffered from poor sleep. I look at least 5 years older in the mirror. Gavin, my little live-in-the-moment guru, brought me back around in such a sweet way when he woke up today. In the way that 4-year-olds do, he stammered and stuttered his way to a very important question: If it….if it….if it rains today……if it rains today and then it stops……can we jump in puddles? Somehow that question and my yes reply made everything feel much better.

Pedicures, Prose, and the Date that Got Away

2006-06-17T03:42:00.000-07:00

I had the afternoon off yesterday. After weighing all of the possible pleasures, I found myself up on a pedestal with pants rolled up, feet soaking. I had made it to a long-awaited pedicure.

A young woman who spoke little English worked hard on my feet, which I’m sure were in rougher shape than the other ladies around me. I watched the practiced customers and watched for cues: When did they give the tip? Where did they put the flip flops when they left?

I was supposed to be reveling in this rare, pampered moment, and all I thought about was, when will she be done so I can go write? I had a printed draft and some other materials in my car, and could have kicked myself (if my foot wasn’t being massaged) for not bringing them in with me. But, had I been so clever, I’m not sure I could have written well in that cushy leather chair. I didn’t like this scenario, this stranger laboring over my unpruned feet. I didn’t like that none of the customers talked to the workers, even if there was little English to exchange. It felt like the Twilight Zone. It wasn’t me.

Still, my toes are pretty this morning, nails sweetly rounded, in a glossy cherry red. And I might go back sometime, at least at the start of next summer. But as I sat in that chair (can you believe it has a massage mechanism built in?) I realized that I finally know myself. I know what turns me on, and it’s not salon services, not even a massage chair. I seem to keep falling for the idea that I should be better polished: I spent a lot of money getting my hair colored before I admitted that I preferred my $6.99 box of Clairol. And I spent a couple of hours getting a pedicure when I would have rather sat, unpolished, in the Starbucks down the block, writing up a storm.

I did have some time, when I finally got home, to write on the back deck. I propped my pretty feet up and marked up my latest draft. But I had lost a lot of momentum, and mostly I was just cranky.

My crankiness was compounded when I heard that we had to cancel our anniversary date (a major reason for the pedicure!). The babysitter couldn’t make it. This particular date meant a lot to me, because I was going to actually prepare for it. The usual scenario is that we pick Gavin up together and drop him at my mom’s. I am often still in the clothes I wore that day, or if I change it is in haste. We tend to have to come home right about when we’re unwinding. We smile at each other wryly and say that was nice. But we wish we had more time and energy, more romance.

But this time, in honor of our 16 years and a distant memory of dates where I actually felt sexy, I was going to take a shower, iron my outfit, and dress up with shoes that showcased my sparkly toes. We were going to stay out later than usual. We were going to have Tibetan food.

I thought about our relationship, and how we keep plugging away at making it work. And how, in this phase of our lives, the disappointments (when it comes to romance) seem too plentiful. Work and childcare demands make time alone together, time when we are not exhausted, a rare commodity. I can see how couples drift apart, and the only preventative measure I can see is to keep at it, to pay attention, to (borrowing a phrase from the Long Island Railroad) mind the gap.
As always, art echoes life. I am leaving the honeymoon period behind on this book. I’ve drafted 4 chapters and have some solid ideas for my proposal, and I am just plain tired. I love the writing process, but it is hard work. It is a constant struggle to find the time, and to find new approaches that keep my juices flowing. I’ve had ideas that sputtered and died before, and I want this one to be different. And I feel in my gut that this book will actually happen. But, like my marriage, it’s not going to happen on its own. As someone once sang, I have to keep on keeping on.

It’s a busy Saturday: haircuts, swim lessons, and a kid’s birthday in store. Tomorrow is Father’s Day, and I have Tom’s cards and present at the ready. I’m looking forward to our family time together. Tom’s only requirement is that we go “someplace cool”, as the temperature’s supposed to soar. Maybe we can squeeze in a quick discussion, plans to recapture the date that got away.

Tall Blog, No Foam

2006-06-09T02:32:00.000-07:00

(No Saturday blog this week. Just a short entry before we head to Vermont.)

Part of me is cynical about Starbucks, that mega mocha mecca that has so many of us hooked. I suspect that even the retro background music is coldly calculated to induce more coffee purchases. But I must admit I liked Tony Bennett crooning and Nina Simone wailing while I drank my decaf cappuccinos and drafted another book chapter on Wednesday.

This was not so unusual: I often maximize these child-free moments (Tom took Gavin to the mall) to catch up on writing, and my breakaway sessions have me glowing. But the days that followed my Starbucks interlude felt even more promising.

I mentioned last week that I sometimes struggle with integrating my writing into day-to-day existence. Just writing that activated a switch somewhere, and since then I have acted more like the writer I want to be. Writing feels more like a practical matter, and less like a far away dream. I have printed things to read en route, popped open my laptop just to add a thought or two to the latest chapter, and started carrying a disk wherever I go. I have broken through an invisible barrier, the one that saved "real" writing for the undisturbed moments that surface fairly infrequently.

I know I am attached to this book, because I carry a disk separately from my computer. In the unlikely event that someone steals my ancient, 20-pound laptop, I will still have the latest version in my purse. I had to create my own paper holder for the floppy disk (not even sure they make floppy cases anymore! Time to upgrade.).

Tom and I are married 16 years today. Another milestone to savor, but we are postponing our celebration. It's a tall order to get packed, and to get our little family + my mom, brother, and their dachshund out the door before 9 AM. There is little room for romance in a crowded pickup truck!

Until next Saturday...

The Sound: My Silent Witness

2006-06-03T04:19:00.000-07:00

Today I am toasting the Long Island Sound. I have lived on both sides, and it seems to have witnessed so many of my happy moments. On the New York side, we spent our early married years living close to the Sound, in Glen Cove and then Huntington. We always seemed to end up near the water. It was a natural follow up to our childhoods near the Great South Bay (Tom) and the Atlantic Ocean (me) on the opposite Long Island Coast. We both love the smell of low tide, and roll down our car windows at dusk, driving through the marshy areas of Connecticut’s shoreline, recalling memories made on both sides of the Sound.

My most recent Sound encounter was on Tuesday. I am still patting myself on the back for taking the day off and using it well. I dropped Gavin at Day Care and called Mercy Center at Madison from my cell phone. Yes, I could come for the day and use the facility. The fee, including lunch, was $15, surely the least I have ever paid for instant peace of mind.

What joy to wander an expansive, nearly silent mansion and find the perfect room to write! I set up my laptop in the enclosed sun porch overlooking the Sound. I had indulged in a large iced latte (Starbucks en route) and rarely drink caffeine these days, so I found myself taking rather frequent bathroom breaks. But except for this annoyance, I found I was capable of following the often-quoted advice to writers: apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. I propped my laptop on a small table and worked on three book chapters. I moved on to an essay I’ll submit this week. I relearned two lessons about writing: it is one of my biggest joys, and it is also just plain hard work. A reread told me that my chapters have a long way to go.

After lunch, I walked out to the patio. I felt torn between the pragmatic need to plug in (those darn laptop batteries die so quickly!) and the desire to be outside in the balmy, salty air. Then the heavens opened and I found that the patio was wired. I plugged into the outdoor outlet and was happy as a clam. I got so absorbed in writing that I didn’t notice the earth continued to rotate. It rotated me right out of the shade and my left arm turned red, then nearly maroon as I typed happily, obliviously. When I was typed out, I dozed in the shade, listening to a lone swimmer cut through small waves. Every time I massaged lotion into my sunburn this week, I thought back to my heavenly interlude.

I still struggle with integrating writing into my day-to-day existence, and wait for these magic windows to really be productive. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve made writing too sacred and separate. I want my writing to become more portable, to sometimes have my laptop on the couch while Gavin plays, to scribble edits on hard copy while he takes a bath. I know that writing and parenting can (sometimes) coexist happily when I let them.

I am hoping the rain stays away long enough for the Lyme Farmer’s Market, my personal sign that summer is truly on its way. I hope Gavin treasures the memory of visiting the stalls with me and my Mom, sampling cheeses and breads, stealing sips of my iced coffee, having an ice cream. The market is held on a dewy, expansive lawn, and the coffee roasters are just up the hill. Cows and horses graze just over the stone wall. It couldn’t be more picturesque, and the crowd is always relaxed. Back at my mom’s house, we often walk down to, of course, the Long Island Sound.

Reading, Writing, and Returning

2006-05-27T03:34:00.000-07:00

My business trip to Toronto was encouraging and depressing at the same time. I learned a lot about the latest and greatest breakthroughs in psychiatry. I also learned how little we really know about the brain, its chemistry, and what really works for a multitude of disorders. It was a similar dichotomy on the personal level: I had a great room, enjoyed some nice food, and had 5 mornings that started, miraculously, with uninterrupted showers. But I missed my family and hardly saw Toronto.

Sitting in lectures for 9+ hours per day was pretty grueling, even when the speakers were super smart and compelling. In between, I needed to think of anything but psychiatry. I was able to use some breaks as small windows for reading and writing. That silver lining, which I anticipated, is still shining for me.

On one break I walked down the block to Chapters and bought 3 hardcover books, a big deal for me! As a rule I oppose hardcovers: more money for the same text, and much harder to manage in the bathtub. But these titles just screamed to be bought.

Live What You Love: Notes from an Unusual Life was an easy, colorful read that set the tone for the others. Bob and Melinda Blanchard certainly do have an unusual life. They live part time in Vermont, part time in Anguilla. The book might be categorized as self-help lite, because it does offer gentle suggestions between chapters. Mostly, however, it’s a quirky, non-chronological memoir. Before finding success with their island restaurant, Bob and Melinda started and ended a lot of businesses. They fretted over a sick child. They slept in a VW bus. They moved away, and moved back home. Their message, which I needed to hear, was to try new things without fearing failure.

The Lie that Tells a Truth is another form of encouragement, which I hope will get me over another fear. John Dufresne’s chapters on writing fiction are witty and worthwhile. The chapters end in exercises and the margins are chock full of quotes. I like this one by Patricia Hampl: Refuse to write your life and you have no life. To a nonwriter this must sound fanatic. But every writer gets this, I think. Writing has become like breathing to me (except that at this point in my life I must hold my breath and then hyperventilate when I can!).

Writer’s Idea Workshop: How to Make Your Good Ideas Great by Jack Heffron really stole the stage. I had a few moments to do some of the exercises, and suddenly had a really powerful idea! I scribbled some details and used lunch, the airport, and my flight home to flesh out two chapters for a new book. It is very much like being in love. On the one hand, I wanted to tell everyone about my revelation (and of course no one was around). On the other hand, I didn’t want to dilute it by sharing it. I am favoring this impulse and will not blab too much about it until the proposal is accepted. It’s a unique spin on writing and mothering, with some history thrown in, and I am so excited about it! (I may write to Mr. Heffron to inform him that his book has magical powers.)

I hope to spend Tuesday on a mini-writing retreat. Gavin will be in school, so I can turn my full attention back to my infant book. I’ll look forward to it all weekend. In the meantime, the joy of being back home is still new. I swear Gavin has matured since I left: suddenly he is a sophisticated wit. His language seems more subtle and smart. Tom noticed it too, so it is not just some weird perception from being away. I got home Wednesday night but insisted we leave the sign up on the front door: Welcome home, Mommy. We missed you. These were the best words I read all week.

The Ghost of Nursing

2006-05-20T02:47:00.000-07:00

I am flying to Toronto in less than 12 hours, off to cover the American Psychiatric Association meeting for work. The trip has opened up an unexpected dilemma for me. I will get a lot of continuing education credits, which can help renew my certification as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Mental Health Nursing. But I had forgotten that I have to acquire 1000 practice hours in my specialty between now and 2007.

After 11 years in medical-surgical, emergency, and psychiatric nursing, I left it all behind about 6 years ago. I saw dangerously short staffing, preferential treatment for the insured, and administrators who crunched numbers with not even a nod to compassion. There are ugly memories: patients dying in undignified ways, clinicians enrolling inappropriate patients in studies (for the money), uninsured psychotic patients being “held” on a stretcher in the cramped Emergency Room until they were just calm enough to leave. To conserve my strength, I chose my battles. But finally I just had to walk away.

I wrote about it of course. I can see how hurt and angry I was:

I am finally doing it. I am finally saying goodbye. I remember an innocent time when I thought my optimism, my cheerfulness, my willingness to help others would save the day. Now I see that it is a losing battle. My wellspring of caring is nearly dry, and I am saying goodbye before it is depleted. There have been too many years of fighting. Fighting for my patients when others didn’t care. Fighting to get them a room, a decent meal, a place to die. Fighting for some respect for the individual and for some semblance of health care coverage. Fighting for some sense of fairness, of ethics. Screaming for others to look at those who suffer. My heart lights up when I see another nurse who feels this way. I feel we are “brothers in arms.” But despite the fact that there are others like me, I am tired of caring. I am tired of feeling like the only one who cares. The system, the greed always wins in the end. I have fought the good fight, and now it’s someone else’s turn. I’m afraid there will be nothing left for my children, my husband, myself. I want to be greedy and selfish. Let someone else do the hurting, the worrying. I’m used up. I’m cold. I’m hungry. I’m shell-shocked. I’m old before my time. I hurt. You’re on your own.

Despite the obvious stress it caused me, I find myself wanting to rejoin nursing sometimes. While visiting someone in the hospital, I overhear the floor nurses chatting about a nasogastric tube or a new admission. I listen as an insider. I think, I was one of you. Sometimes I think, I am one of you.

Then I think again, about too many battles and not enough victories. I loved the patients but came to despise the system. How would I handle that stress now that I am a mom, now that I am a writer?

One thing that bothered me at first about writing was that I didn’t see it as a helping profession. And it’s not, not like nursing. But I have decided, having been helped by countless things I’ve read, that creative writing can be helpful in a much more philosophical way. Mostly I like that it can give people hope, or new ideas, or just a savored moment, reading descriptions that shine and create a new world right there on the page. But there’s a definite, lingering sadness in knowing I left my first calling behind.

I’ll be sitting in this conference with a lot of clinicians. I will feel like a pretender in that I no longer actually care for patients, just write about them for a living. It will be a good time to think about what to do.

It will be the longest period I have ever been away from Gavin, and I am missing him and Tom already.

But it’s not all heavy. There will a big, comfy hotel room and an endless supply of food. And, oh yes, maybe a few quiet moments to write, on the plane or before the first symposium in the morning. There is always that silver lining.

Writer in the Mist

2006-05-13T04:03:00.000-07:00

I have a dream of being a columnist, to write some commentary on life every day, a little bit Erma Bombeck, a little bit Anna Quindlen, although hopefully mainly me. And my Saturday blog is my once weekly foray into the experiment.

Often though, on Saturdays, I wake up feeling blank. I go on an expedition in my own mind, picking up ideas and tossing them down again. Especially after a stressful week, it is as if someone had ironed all the interesting wrinkles out of the cloth of life. I am on autopilot, and obey a robotic inner voice: Must work, must cook, must eat, must parent, must sleep, must make a list so I can get it all done, must do it all over again. I feel very musty after a week like this, and need airing out. I need a good long walk outdoors, a break in routine.

I think some of my confined feeling this week is from lack of fresh air, a quite literal mustiness. It has been raining, hard, for days. Is it true that Seattle is perpetually rainy? How do people cope? I wonder if it is more of a misty rain. If so, then I could live there. I know I would find other writers, and I love a good walk in the mist (although I have a punishing combination of Art Garfunkel and Groucho Marx hair the rest of the day).

Before the big rain started, Wednesday I think, I parked my car in Chester, and set off in my business clothes with incongruous blue Keds. Chester is an artsy town with historical houses and plenty of small windows on nature, a perfect blend for me. I walked past the marsh on the right side of a curvy road, dragging my pinstriped cuffs through the soggy grass when a car approached. Then up East Liberty, a great old hill with houses dating from the 1700s. When my heart rate topped out I panted past an aged cemetery, complete with picturesque tumbled stone wall and craggy trees, past the town meeting house, and down Wig Hill Road.

I always start out struggling with the I wants when I walk certain parts of Chester, Essex, or Deep River. I see big, historical houses and whine internally, why don't I have one of those? I covet my neighbor's house, as they say in the Ten Commandments. I used to beat myself up about this, then I realized that the houses look so orderly, so easy, and have come to symbolize the fantasy of an easy life for me. I know that if I moved in my stress would not magically disappear - no doubt the current occupants also struggle with clutter, chaos, and covets of their own. I do still envy that their neighborhoods are so perfect for walking. But I comfort myself with slightly sour grapes: I would not get to see this variety of Connecticut neighborhoods if I lived in one of those perfect places. I would walk the same loop every day, and probably get bored.

It was the kind of a mist that threatened to be more, but I felt silly when I tried the umbrella. I heard nothing coming down on it. Umbrella retired, I climbed toward Prospect Street, which would loop me back towards town. Flying flashes of red (both robins and cardinals) were frequent on this particular walk. I decided rain was good for worming, just like it is for fishing. I imagined small open beaks waiting in unseen nests.

The best part of a long walk alone is how the world falls away. Let me clarify: the artifices of the world fall away. I forget to think about what I covet, about obligations, about schedules. There is just the mist on my face, the memories (many of camping) that cool air evokes, glimpses into other lives (human and otherwise), and the physical release of heading downhill again. The varied rhythm of my shoes on sandy pavement, on gravel, the soundless breaks when I walk over sod become a song to replace that awful, robotic voice of stress.

That day, when I went to work after my 45-minute walk, I felt refreshed and renewed. And just recalling my misty walk this morning gave me a bit of renewal - not quite the real thing, but a good start to yet another rainy day.

Natural Space

2006-05-06T02:40:00.000-07:00

I haven’t used this space much for one of my great loves. But in the background, always, I am reading about it and thinking about it.

Right now I am reading Last Child in the Woods and Timothy, Notes from an Abject Reptile. Both fall into the general category of nature books, but in vastly different ways. Last Child is a nonfiction look at how today’s kids are further and further removed from nature. The “plot”, if you can call it that, for Timothy, sounds laughable, but brilliant Verlyn Klinkenborg pulls it off. It is about the painstakingly slow moving and infinitely observant life of a tortoise, from the tortoise’s perspective. It sounds like it might be a cutesy anthropomorphization (anything but that!), but it is the opposite: very lyrical and thought provoking. For Timothy, time is pretty much irrelevant and the present moment is all important. My life is enhanced by garden visits with this tortoise Zen master.

I had to buy Last Child, because it resonated with me from the minute I picked it up. It’s a nonpreachy, convincing argument for unstructured outdoor playtime. Organized play, like soccer, doesn’t count in this author’s view. The ideal outdoor experience is all about poking around with a stick, maybe jumping in a mud puddle, holding a worm, building a fort. Figuring out how the world works, and how it feels. My own childhood was like this, but the world has sped up and everyone seems cocooned. Too often Gavin is shepherded from car to day care to stores and back to car, to home and videos and PBS, in the footsteps of his similarly under-aired, autopiloted parents. He wants to be outside quite a bit, but I am ashamed to admit that I too often have thought it messy and inconvenient, and perhaps exaggerated the dangers (bees, ticks, and poison ivy, not to mention the child stalkers I imagine in our bushes).

The best times I’ve had with Gavin lately have been outside. In Woodstock, after we exhausted the stores and restaurants, we strolled to the local playground. Gavin was most interested in the things beyond the slide and swings: the hawk babies in the cemetery next door, the bees that hovered all about, the couple working their tiny plot of the cooperative garden. We also hiked the Overlook Trail high above town. The highlights for Gavin were rearranging clumps of leaves in a small stream and making “paint” with spit and a red rock. Then, last weekend, our neighbor Rich uncovered a huge black salamander with yellow spots under his woodpile. Gavin promptly named him EyeFace (for his bulging eyes), and we set up a little terrarium for him outside. Poor EyeFace kept darting below the rock we had set down, and wouldn’t eat the ants we offered. He set his pulsating reptilian jaw in defiance, and we had to set him free so he wouldn’t starve. But how excited Gavin was about him! We would be doing other things, and Gavin would tear off to the deck: I have to check on EyeFace. He showered EyeFace with affectionate words and kind questions, not to mention an excess of leaves, grass, and water. All week I have hoped to see EyeFace again, perhaps emerging from under the deck or trekking towards the thick moss by the stone wall.

It’s been a hard week. I have a close relative in the hospital, an event too fresh and personal to air here. And I realized, grabbing a quick outdoor meal in town after visiting hours, that nature is such a comfort to me. There is a fragrant tree in the area that smells like grapes (I must find out the name). All through my quiet, exhausted meal, nature called to me, I am here. It’s me again. It was a balmy night for May in Connecticut, maybe 70 degrees. Everyone was out, reveling in that unbeatable spring sensation of warm evening air on the skin again. These little revelations, these recognitions, are constant like my porch wren (see a few blogs back: Wrens, Woodstock, and the Universe), and often my preferred route to God. Or forget the route, just God.

My love for nature is inexorably tied in with memories of my father, who died when I was six. I don’t remember many of our conversations, but I specifically remember one about dew on the grass, and another about fog (he described it as clouds on the ground, and the idea still enchants me). I remember my father wading in the Atlantic to fish, and wanting to toboggan in subzero temperatures in Vermont. My mom said he dreamed of a second career as a forest ranger, an escape from his stressful attorney lifestyle. I have my own outdoor dream, too, but mine of course works in writing a book. I want to be the next Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Annie Dillard) or Henry David Thoreau, transmitting volumes of wisdom simply by witnessing the natural world.

Now that spring is here, my predawn blogs are often accompanied by birdsong. I love to hear it swell from solo to chorus. I never tire of the tune as I stare through my monitor, wondering what to write next.

Pious or Present? Food, Religion, and the Promise of Saturday Morning

2006-04-29T02:34:00.000-07:00

My subconscious left me a message when I was sleeping. It was right there on the doormat of my consciousness. I lay there in the dark, wondering what time it was, and a phrase kept echoing in my head: pious or present?

I had been lying there thinking about the Biggest Loser competition at work, and how I lost 13 pounds and gained 2 back. And about how, at work, we Biggest Losers talk about food as if it were a religion. There are the confessions (Bless me, for I ate pizza last night. It has been 3 slices since my last confession) and there are the prayers for the nearly impossible (Before I step on the scale, please let my 2 short walks somehow cancel out my 3 lengthy buffet dinners). And there are plenty of carnal sins: raspberry cheesecake, non-diet soda, deep-fried anything.

So I was thinking about the religiosity of it all, and how I often conjugate my goodness in terms of food: I was good, I want to be good, I am being good. And then real faith (not food religion) came into my head (that’s what happens when you read Annie Lamott before bed). I thought, I don’t want to be pious like that, about food or religion or anything. I want to be here, now, aware of what I am doing and at peace, not labeling myself or anyone else as below par or above par or at par (sorry to throw in the golf analogy).

I had to look up pious in the dictionary, to see if the negative vibe I feel from the word is all in my head. It turned out the definition I had in mind was the third one down in Webster’s: practiced in the name of religion. To me this connotes jaded, going by rote, yawning behind the hymnal. If I’m going to participate in a religion, I don’t want to be practiced. I want to be surprised and renewed at every turn, which is really just calling God on his promise, Behold, I make all things new. (I love quoting God back to him. I’ve got it all in writing.)

My mother’s blood runs in my veins, and I am church shopping as she did over time. Her shopping was slow-paced: she tried Methodist for a while, Christian Science for a while, Lutheran for a while. She has stopped shopping and has been a faithful Catholic for many years. My search is like speed dating: let me visit this church and make a decision, fast. Not one has made it past 3 dates recently.

I have ruled out, just by Web surfing, some churches that sound too hierarchical, too chock-full of missionary zeal. And I realize I may be doing what I tell Tom not to do: I may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If I evaluated men the way I evaluate churches, I never would have met anyone, let alone married. There would always have been a flaw that kept me away.

Of course, the word present, which I infinitely prefer over pious, has many meanings. There’s the gift part, and there’s the being there part, in the sense of being mindful and in the moment. The part of being present I seem to struggle with is the showing up part, especially for church. I have to work on that (as soon as I figure out where to show up!)

So much philosophizing so early on a Saturday! Writing, as usual, was a good sorting out for me, and a great way to start the day. In fact, it made all things seem new. Aha! God snuck in there when I wasn’t looking.

Traveling Blog

2006-04-24T02:48:00.000-07:00

I started writing this blog in the dingy, overcrowded lounge at O’Hare airport, laptop balanced on its lumpy case. My flight was delayed. I had an enormous wet blotch on my silk blazer from the restaurant ice cube I rubbed on it earlier (after I dribbled chile con queso all over myself). I was washed out and bleary eyed.

The Chicago work trip I was sent on was an exercise in endurance. I worked from noon to nearly 11 Friday (after getting up at 4 to pack and catch my flight), and from 5 until 4 Saturday, helping speakers run through their slides and setting up their presentations, fielding questions from bewildered travelers. My room was cushy (but I barely saw it). The Aaah- I’m re-energizing sign from the door handle was nothing more than a wish (of course I took the sign home; it now hangs on our bathroom door with a glimmer of hope for a long bath).

After I made it to the airport, my wonder at the fascinating stream of multicolored, multisized, multilingual masses was truncated by my hasty choice of seat at Chiles, facing a lone and lonely male diner in checkered shirt. I had to stare into my tostadas to avoid his too eager gaze. I was glad when he left.

I was tired and cranky, and now chile stained, but a remote corner of my tired brain and body looked forward to my time alone in a strange place. A visit to the airport-ubiquitous Hudson News woke me up a bit. I drooled over magazines before finally choosing Harper’s and The New Yorker. Further up, Hudson Books provided more enticing choices. An Eric Carle book for Gavin, a Thich Nhat Hanh book for Tom, and Anne Lamott’s Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith for me. What joy, to walk through the airport with (gulp) $50 worth of promising new reads! I had to chuckle at the endorsements on Thich Nhat Hanh’s book. When the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Thomas Merton all have nothing but praise, I guess you could say those are pretty good endorsements! No Dalai Lama for Anne Lamott, but I see she is working her way there. (The New York Times and the LA Times are the worldly equivalent).

The Book god smiled on me, and that would have been enough. But then a new god, the First Class god, also lit my way home. I was commiserating with my fellow delayed passengers about the exodus from H18 to K18, the continual posting of later and later departure times, and incoherent announcements over a fuzzy loudspeaker when, simultaneously, we marooned strangers voiced one breathy, relieved word: finally. They were starting to board at long last, calling out passengers by zone. Like a lottery winner I had to verify what I was reading on my ticket, and leaned over to my neighbor. Does this First mean First Class? Yes it does, channeled the First Class god through a middle-aged woman.

I am still not sure how or why I was seated there, but I was a first class virgin about to be decoached. And everything they say is true. It really is better up there, and not just by a small margin! The flight attendant was amused by my innocence (later, he crooned How was your first time?), and treated me especially nicely (you’re not supposed to tip up there, are you?). I am not sure whether it was the freshly roasted (still warm) nuts, the hot towel for my face and hands, the focaccia, the tortellini, the wine, the dessert I had no room for, or the leg room that sold me the most. But, boy, coach is going to be hard to take next time.

It is late Sunday now, and I have been home since late last night. This blog got added to over several states, at my dining room table in Connecticut, and finally from the bathroom as I watched Gavin soak in his bath.

Last week I had the joys of travel with family, and so much of the joy was about our companionship, our family-ness. Our little family does and enjoys things that we know are unique to us: the kitschy Catskill hotel, the Israeli food in Woodstock, an uphill hike at the Overlook trail. What is best about both my family of origin and my own little family of three is that we all genuinely enjoy each others’ company (well, at least most of the time!). And that is a gift: I know many families who avoid each others’ company.

My travel time alone is all about being alone. I choose what I want when I want it. I linger too long at places where, if I was accompanied, I would surely be dragged away. I watch others drift by and tuck away secret thoughts about their lives, their reasons for travel, their distant destinations. Both kinds of travel enrich me. And in another way, both kinds exhaust me. As Dorothy said, even after Oz, even after meeting three very good new friends, There’s no place like home.

Wrens, Woodstock, and the Universe

2006-04-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

Thirty six hours from now, I will be having dinner in Vermont with my sister Linda and her family, a long overdue visit that I anticipate with great joy. After Easter dinner the next day, Tom, Gavin, and I are headed to Big Indian for a mini-getaway. Big Indian is a Catskills town outside of Woodstock, NY, and Woodstock is near and dear to our hearts. We love the free spirits, the artsy feel, and the country air. We gawk a bit at the hippies playing bongos on the square, eat falafel at Joshua's, and buy too many books at the Golden Notebook. I am sure we will love every minute of it (although I don't think Gavin will eat falafel!).

A prophecy of mine has been fulfilled. Two blogs ago, I wrote: I checked the porch eaves for the wren that comes every spring (no sign yet, but she is coming). And then, last night, there she was. Wren has a special meaning to me: I wrote an entire essay on her visits to our porch: Wren occupied the ledge at the edge, quite literally where my inner life met my outer world.... Watching Wren, I was interested, patient, protective, savoring the moment, graced, illuminated, and waiting for the next illuminated moment. The best thing about Wren's debut this year was the fact that Gavin got to whisper good night to her. She opened her eyes and peered down at us sleepily, didn't stir. I felt blessed by her presence.

After I wrote last week's blog on synchronicity, serendipity, and luck, my mom handed me a book she had just finished on the same theme. I thought Paul Pearsall's Making Miracles title sounded hokey, and I was turned off by the fact that he has written a lot of self help books (not my thing). But this book has new ideas that are sparking some good musings for me. Pearsall writes a lot about quantum physics and chaos theory, and I contemplate these more abstract areas in a vague way until I get to anecdotes, where I can really relate. There are lots of great stories about the power of thought and perspective. Basically the message is that we are one with the universe, and that the universe offers messages for us. When I write it this way, though, it sounds so Shirley MacLaine, so spacey, and that's not it at all. To me, it's about being open to possibility, to the appearance of something that will lead you in a good direction.

One interesting thought has been to pay attention to coincidences. The first coincidence was writing the blog and then getting the book on the same themes. This led to a great conversation with Mom on some challenging issues. Then there were 2 moments where I thought of friends who called at that same moment. And finally, Wren appeared. My more jaded side asked, Am I searching for meaning where there is none? But my believer side was answering before the question was even complete: If it has meaning to you, it is valuable.

I guess all these musings boil down to one thing for me: connectedness. There are birds, books, friends out there that seem to appear at the very moments I need them. Whether there is anything mystical about this, who knows? Either way, I am grateful. These birds, books, and friends make me think, they are reassuring, they add meaning to a life sometimes heavy with routine and obligation.

Enough philosophizing. Off to the very concrete pleasures of good food, good company, possibly a date (thanks to Linda's babysitting service!), an Easter egg hunt, and long walks in Woodstock. There is nothing like the pleasure and relief of a long-anticipated vacation.

Serendipity, Synchronicity, or Luck?

2006-04-08T01:57:00.000-07:00

(Speaking of serendipity, a friend Googled me and found that I was a selected entry for a contest at HappyNews.com. I didn’t win the $1000 prize, but am still optimistic about the future (the theme of the contest!).

I feel lucky this week. My mother, brother, and sister all got good news, a mixed bag of good fortune involving improved health, enhanced wealth, and creative opportunities. My work week was a nice mix of research, writing, and camaraderie. I got a precious window to write on Tuesday night and milked the hell out of it. Life is good.

I’ve been thinking about synchronicity this week. Having been an 80s teenager, I hear the tune Every Breath You Take from the Police album Synchronicity whenever I hear the word. So I struggled to get Sting’s throaty voice out of my head while I contemplated the concept at the Paperback Café.

It often happens that I have a sudden, limited opportunity to write, and a 5-minute window in which to grab something to write on (still haven’t fully integrated the laptop concept). I run down the basement stairs, or up to my bedroom, and grab one of multiple blank books, or even an unbound sheaf of paper with some scribbled pages at the top. If my journals were a barometer of my potential creative success, I’d be doomed. My writing is never in one place. It is on the computer, it is on a disk at the bottom of a bag, it is in one of the blank books but not in any linear fashion. Whatever I pick up gets written on or in, with no logic or forethought. Hopelessly scattered; emblematic of the chaos theory (more on that later).

Synchronicity, in case you are also distracted by Sting’s voice in your head, is the temporal incidence of 2 or more events linked together by meaning, without any causal connection (Webster's Dictionary). Synchronicity comes alive when when I write.

For me, synchronicity is running into something or someone seemingly random who is practically holding a sign that says Count your blessings. Pay attention to your thoughts. Look how far you have come. Look at the potential you can tap. Case in point: the Paperback Café. I grabbed an artist’s sketchbook before I ran out the door that night. The gilded pages drew me, plus the fact that I hadn’t grabbed this particular diary in ages. As my black coffee cooled, I perused what I had written. I was still at my former high-pressure job for my last entry, and Gavin was still not quite at peace with the potty concept. I thought, you’ve come a long way baby. I paged back in time to read a writing exercise I had completed from Vinita Hampton Wright’s The Soul Tells a Story (I have been meaning to write to her; her middle name is my maiden name. Synchronicity again?). Wright says: From the moment we are born, our souls are spinning stories and gathering wisdom. Well, I was reading my soul’s wisdom back, something I needed to do in the midst of a happy but hectic week. Those exercises, completed at a retreat nearly a year ago, spoke to me about possibility, reminding me of sketchy ideas now ready to be fleshed out.

The dates in the diary got closer and closer to anniversaries of the current date. April 22, 2001: I wrote Friday night was sad – I had a negative pregnancy test. I think that Tom didn’t know what to say or do. The universe again screamed that I was blessed. Loose pages from a different journal, April 7, 2002, were randomly stuck in by the sad entry. I wrote about my first out-of-state trip away from Gavin – just a short ferry ride to New York to bring my niece home. I was swollen and sore from lack of nursing for several hours, and fretting about my baby across the Long Island Sound. On the way back, I relaxed into it and had my first tentative admission that I could balance time away with being a good mother. How far I have come from that negative pregnancy test, and from those first nervous months of motherhood! I chuckled to myself when I saw the date on the diary’s inside cover. April 4, 2001. I had picked up the journal I started five years ago to the day. Things like this happen all the time.

I have always gotten synchronicity and serendipity confused. Serendipity is the faculty of happening upon or making fortunate discoveries when not in search of them (Webster's again). So it is more of a happy accident than a perception of meaningful convergence. Still, they go together nicely. I am fully aware that cynics would sneer even at the title of today’s blog, but I happen to like the idea of stumbling about rather haplessly and then stepping into good fortune. I even believe that God puts events and people in my path at regular intervals.

Back to chaos theory: one Web site remarks that chaos theory is really about finding the underlying order in apparently random data. So, to me and apparently to some much more physics-friendly folks, chaos is not really as chaotic as it seems. There is order to be found. Sort of like the piles of paper on my desk (I can always extract the right reference from the seeming black and white abyss) or my crazy quilt of journals.

And then there is luck. I have always hated the axiom We make our own luck. It makes unfortunate people sound so lazy! But the flip side of that for me is the constant presence of opportunity (knock, knock). Damn Interesting has a great article on Professor Wiseman, who did a 10-year study on the nature of luck. He looked at the lottery winnings from people who consider themselves lucky as compared with people self-described as unlucky, and affirmed that your perception of luck before a lottery has no relationship to winning (I can attest to that: I am invariably convinced I will win!). On the other hand, people who were supposed to be counting photographs in a newspaper, if they viewed themselves as lucky, were much more likely to notice a disguised message on page two: STOP COUNTING–THERE ARE 43 PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS NEWSPAPER. Wiseman concluded that a major part of one's good fortune is due to one's state of mind and behaviors. In other words, luck has a lot to do with psychology.

I spend all week scrutinizing randomized, double-blind, controlled medical trials, seeing whether the statistics really prove a theory beyond random chance, and whether the study was adequately powered. And in Dr Wiseman’s case, I haven’t read his book. I have no idea whether he is a fruitcake, or a self-fulfilling prophet. But you know what? For matters of the soul I suspend this scientific approach. My own experiences, some of them decidedly not rosy, have proven to me that openness to the lessons of circumstance brings good things.

I only realized recently that I surround myself with like-minded people. (My closest friends totally “get” the whole no coincidences mindset, and even frame particularly trying situations as fraught with potential opportunities). Am I another self-fulfilling prophet? Perhaps. But I have created a new equation, which should make me seem more legitimate. Coincidence + insight + faith + openness + optimism = synchronicity + serendipity + luck. No matter how you parse the equation, it all adds up to me.

Something’s Coming

2006-04-01T06:03:00.000-08:00

I had a lot to say last week on being jealous of Joyce Carol Oates, particularly her 24/7 idea factory. I picture the third shift churning scenes and plots out in her brain as she sleeps, few breaks for the hardworking neurons on the assembly line. She awakes to a fresh batch, maybe boxes some extras for charity, and still has enough left for a lifetime of novels.

I rarely read fiction, but this week I am reading Oates’ We Were the Mulvaneys. I am usually drawn to the flat truthfulness of personal essays, put off by dialogue and the attentiveness required for plot twists. And yet, when I do indulge in the other-world that is fiction, it intrigues me deeply.

The Mulvaneys seem as real as my own family. I can see and feel their rambling farmhouse. I mourn over the bleakness that their tragedy introduces. My real-life tragedies have been different, but my emotions have been right there with the Mulvaneys. Stephen King admits the sin: Fiction is a lie. However, he adds an important afterthought: good fiction is the truth inside the lie. I keep relearning this when I pick up a good novel.

Fiction seems natural enough for Gavin. This morning he added a centipede storm to the list of natural disasters his Rescue Heroes must face. He wanted me to remember his “making things in the junkyard” dream—surely I was there! I love the all things are possible mind of a child. The hardwiring for censorship and propriety has not been installed yet. I want to get back to that place.

But I am pretty hardwired, at this late age of 38. Despite reassuring quotes on the hidden truths, writing fiction feels like lying. I sweat as if my keyboard were a lie detector. Still, all of the arrows keep pointing to fiction of late. I just got an invitation for a fiction writing workshop. I may just sign up.

It feels like it’s time for a sea change. Spring is here, and it feels long overdue. We stopped the car twice to hear peepers in the marsh. I walked without my jacket. I checked the porch eaves for the wren that comes every spring (no sign yet, but she is coming). There is a story somewhere beneath all of this sweet, ordinary life.

I am a slow burn, not an idea factory as I would wish. But even with my low simmer, ideas are brewing. I can feel them bubbling up from below the surface.

When I was pregnant, relentless gentle kicks reminded me that something great was coming. This joyous anticipation, also conceived in the spring, feels just like those kicks. Something good is definitely coming.

PS: Yelled to Tom and Gavin, I’m just putting my blog up. I thought of farm women I’ve heard on TV, canning their best fruits and “putting them up” for the winter. I love to think of the storehouse of blogs I am tucking away on the shelves of this cyber root cellar. Maybe Gavin will harvest them someday, and learn a bit more about me. Maybe I will harvest them and craft a book. The prospect is juicier than canned tomatoes.

The Loneliness of the 4:30AM Blogger

2006-03-25T03:03:00.000-08:00

The alarm rings. It is next to Tom, and I mutter snooze, snooze. This happens 3 times before I realize it is Saturday. I can write! I have been writing about depression and prostates all week, and now I can write what I want.

Doing the right thing is hard. At the moment the right thing is to pay some serious bills. The right thing is to spend time with Gavin. This translates to postponing a freelance life that allows more than technical writing, and to limited creative time. I am green with envy when I hear of writers pursuing grants, pounding out book proposals. I know it’s been done by some working moms, but the timing is not right for me. So I cling to plans for a big sea change in a couple of years, when Gavin hits grade school and we’ve hacked away more of this mountain of debt.

Why is balance so elusive? I am finally taking care of myself—walking nearly every morning. But this means less time for the house, less time for Gavin, fewer calls to my family. It negates going in early to work to get ahead on my assignments. It means less writing, although I hope to turn the walks into idea factories (I can muse over essay ideas as I do my mile or two around town).

Not too long ago I Googled something like less than 8 hours of sleep. I was looking for some sort of sleep retraining plan, some evidence that only 5 or 6 hours of sleep might work for me! How much time I would gain! But even Google, with its vast reaches to China, Australia, and Zimbabwe, would not tell me what I wanted to hear. Sleep forfeit is not a long-term solution.

This week I finally admitted that something has got to give. No matter what the magazines tell us, you can not do it all. There are simply not enough hours in the day, not if you are a working mom. So your life is a series of choices. Which task is more important? What can wait? When do tasks stop so you can get some down time? The cascade of choices recalls my days as an emergency room nurse, when I was constantly triaging patients and tasks.

I remember one thing about emergency room life: you had to know what couldn’t wait. Not just life-threatening emergencies, but even little things that would create an avalanche of wasted time. If you let your IV bag run dry, even for a short period, then perhaps you’d have to start a new line. You’d have to get the kit to put a new IV in, a new bag, make room so that no one would bump you while you inserted the new needle. You might not get the vein the first time. Besides the obvious effects on the patient, I learned quickly that even small neglects add up to large swaths of lost opportunity.

I have to think more about how this translates to my life today. Maybe more importantly, I have to choose what must be set aside. I love the idea of cutting out some clutter—physical, mental, or otherwise—to make room for what really counts. But rule number one: I have to know what can’t wait. I’ve got the big things, child care and bills, covered. But for me personally, the can’t waits are my newfound fitness, and the absolute necessity to get my blog in on Saturdays. In a few years, it will be the need to pursue my writing dream full time, before it dies on the vine. I can feel the urgency rising.

Gavin’s still sleeping, so there’s time to check in on some fellow bloggers and my online writing group. Precious time well spent.

Jealous of Joyce

2006-03-18T03:13:00.000-08:00

I looked forward to last Saturday for weeks. Joyce Carol Oates was giving a local lecture, a lecture that had already been rescheduled due to heavy snowfall. I haven’t read too much of her work; I don’t go for fiction much. But I have read enough to know she is a good writer.

Tom makes fun of me because I will watch BookTV, BookNews, or Book Notes on the more obscure cable channels, no matter what the subject. Nuclear physics? The Reagan years? Turkish politics? Bring it on. It is not the subjects that draw me: it is the authors. Each has a unique story of how they researched, how they found their audience, how they published. When I can steal some of these rather nerdy moments, I cuddle up with some popcorn and indulge.

Live writers are even more of a treat, and Joyce Carol Oates certainly filled the bill. Her physical appearance is striking: crimped hair, large glasses, and the lean body of a very dedicated runner. The story she read was striking, too – quite grotesque really: Madison Avenue sales girls turning on a rich, demanding customer in a very malevolent, violent scene. Although not my cup of tea, clearly this woman knows how to write! She is a Humanities professor at Princeton. Boy do I want that life someday: prolific writing, teaching other writers. What a dream it would be.

I didn’t raise my hand when she asked about writers in the audience (suddenly afraid I’d be called on to justify my existence). But I did take in every tidbit of the question and answer session.

Why am I jealous of Joyce? Mainly it is for her stockpile of ideas. My writing ideas come slowly, but it sounds like Joyce’s cup runneth over. She shared, with genuine sadness, that she was sure she would die before she got to write all of her ideas. No doubt, if her will allows it many years from now, she’ll be one of those authors with a series of posthumous publications.

In a few years, when I have tamed some of my debt, I want to take a year and try the real writing life. But I do fear running out of ideas. Where they come from and where they depart to is a vast mystery to me.

I was amused to think about her perhaps frustrated students: she doesn’t understand why they write 10 or 12 pages before getting to the meat of the story. To me, this is just the process. But Joyce forms a story nearly fully in her mind before doing any writing at all. She sees scenes in 3-D, like a hologram. She hears dialogue in her head. How can I get a mind like that?

I do know one thing: when I do get a breather (which is unfortunately quite rare) the ideas come in, first a trickle, then a modest stream (haven’t yet experienced a flood!). I am sorely tempted to try Miss Oates’ favorite pastime: running (read her essay: To Invigorate Literary Mind, Start Moving Literary Feet). I hate running, but if it will build me a stockpile of book proposals it would be worth it (plus, I might get skinny. What a pleasant side effect!).

Then there is the opposite Buddhist advice I have been reading: just sit. Sit and be open. Sit and let the ideas come. I could get into that. For a while I was doing a brief meditation before touching the keyboard, and it did seem to create a positive vibe.

I don’t think it is the physical activity (or the lack of it). It is an openness of mind, of spirit which I hope to acquire one day. It seems I can sit or run, and either way perhaps some more ideas will come. I just have to let them. It seems even a little jealousy can be a good thing.

Cemetery Walk

2006-03-11T03:07:00.000-08:00

I have taken care of myself these past few weeks. It started as a lark - I joined the Biggest Loser competition at work, not feeling especially motivated. The winner after 10 weeks of dieting and exercise gets the sum of all our sign up fees. I don't expect to win - some of the young, single people are going to the gym every night. But the team effort got me thinking, and the thinking got me watching my portions and walking.

For the longest time, as I gained weight and stopped walking regularly, I simply threw up my hands. Oh well, I am a busy mother. Everyone gets fatter when they get older. If I only had more time. It feels good to hold myself accountable, and to rise to the occasion.

Still, ordering my life feels like a game of musical chairs. I walkedked every morning this week, and again on my lunch hour yesterday. But I feel one chair short of a balanced life. If Iwalk, then I spend less time with Gavin. If I walk, then I lose some morning writing time. If I walk, the house doesn't get clean.

Sometimes when I walk I fret about being one chair short. Or I plan my day. Or I envy the large houses I am passing. I am trying not to walk with a Monkey Mind. This is a term from Tom's Buddhist books, which means letting your mind race about unimportant things. It is the opposite of being in the moment.

One of my walks took me to a cemetery. If you have to be dead and buried, Riverview Cemetery in Essex is the place to go. A long, low green hill descends to the Connecticut River. In the wintertime it has a special beauty from the muted green of the hill, the tan rushes at water's edge, and the white, brown, and gray tombstones dotting the landscape.

At first I felt funny, walking briskly among so many dead. But I got a sense of benevolence and encouragement from my quiet companions. It was like they were telling me, you are still alive and you are taking care of that life. You are walking through beauty. Take it in. I let go of my Monkey Mind, stopped calculating how much I stood to gain or lose, time, weight, wealth, or otherwise. I watched an eagle lift off from a tree and soar across the river. His brown-grey majesty made me catch my breath.

I turned around and headed back to my car, silently thanking the lives that spoke to me. How good it felt to be in the moment. I want more of that.

As I typed this last sentence, I skipped an o and typed, How god it felt. Well, this is God to me. Walking on a mild winter day, watching an eagle, singing while I drive to work. I sang a childhood hymn along River Road:

For the beauty of the earth
For the beauty of the skies
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies...

Spring is approaching fast. Dawn is breaking as I write, and a lone bird is singing persistently, maybe to wake the others up. This morning is reserved for business: getting an emissions inspection, opening a bank account, etc, etc. But maybe I can squeeze in a walk first.

PS to my writer friends: Going to see Joyce Carol Oates speak tonight. Details to follow!