1. Hydrate. This isn’t so much to replace the bodily fluids you’ll lose while writing (unless ya’ll are doing it really differently than I do). It’s that you want to take care of as many excuses not to write as you can, before you sit down to write. Therefore, grab a beverage, write on a full stomach, have plenty of rest, and either do enough of the chores that would otherwise be staring you down while you write, go somewhere that you won’t notice the dirt, or camouflage the mess creatively until later. (This is why laundry baskets were invented: not for transporting clean, folded laundry to its destination, but rather for piling dirty and/or clean clothes hastily and then stacking in one’s closet until the kids are 18 and have to move out and take it with them). Hence, why most, best writing is done…let’s face it…after everything else.
2. Draft quickly, edit slowly. I have learned to get the whole mess down in one big splat and then go back later and pick out the good stuff. (Ok, that makes it sound a little like when my cat eats her own vomit, but we’ll leave that there. That’s also my approach to her vomit, hence why she has to clean it up herself. Anyway.) Writing should just flow (stop thinking about vomit. Now.) Once all of the ideas are out on the page, one can step away, breathe, and come back to find the few items worth keeping, and start over again. Like I’ll need to with the whole vomit thing.
3. Your hilarious moments are usually funny to most people. Your drama is rarely interesting to anyone. It’s a lot is easier to commiserate than it is to sympathize, and usually more interesting, too. Knowing the difference is what transforms a diary into a memoir.
4. Assume that no one is interested, and work from there. Work for your audience. Question everything. Read your work in the voice of your cruelest professor, the teacher who said you’d never amount to anything, your mother, your ex, whatever it takes to mock yourself at your worst. Those are the voices that kept you writing to prove you could, and will keep you writing, to prove you should.
5. You can always lose more weight. Not YOU, you. Writer you! Cut and paste has “cut” first for a reason. Often I will save all the stuff I’ve cut from a piece onto another page, and then I’ll decide if any of it really needs to go back. Usually, all the weight the piece has lost was just that: dead weight, and the cut stuff all gets deleted. Every once in a while there will be a turn of phrase, a word, or some idea that finds its way back, but usually in a slimmer, sleeker way.
6. Listen to your day. Your week. Your life. There are stories every day that would make great novels, movies, poetry, essays, whatever. I must turn to my daughter at least a few times a week and say, “I gotta write about that!” I don’t get to all of them, obviously, or I’d be too rich and busy to do this. Some things just don’t work out once I get them going. Some are in process: either on the page or in the “percolator”, and some are just in procrastination mode. Sometimes life just gets in the damn way. But I keep my ear to the ground anyway, every day, for that next thing. Keep listening for yours.
7. The Devil really is in the details. The trick is, not selling your soul for the wrong reason, here. Details that you have to get right: your voice, maintaining a style that is consistent with the tone of the piece (there’s nothing wrong with a Valley-Girl Zombie, as long as the tone and style mesh. Zombielike tone with Valley Girl style: a bestseller amongst the tweens-set I’ll bet, and who’s to say that most Valley Girls aren’t Zombies, right? But, go too campy or scary and you’ve lost your audience.) The details that can be cleaned up by any good editor: minor grammar and punctuation, consistency issues, etc. Only you can sound and think like you. Make your work your own and then do what any good supermodel would: pay someone to touch up your flaws and make you look like a pro (or a ho’, depending on what you’re going for here.)
8. Go all the way. How far you take this is up to you, but I figure whatever type of writer you are, or piece you are working on, be bold with it. No writer was ever remembered for his or her “mild turn of phrase,” or “middle of the road,” opinions. Getting a reaction from the audience is part of the process, even if it means flying vegetables (do people really do that anymore?) or venomous postings via Facebook. I’d rather that I offended, and know I awakened, someone’s sensibilities, than to think I lulled my audience into a comfortable slumber.
9. Writing is exercise. The more you do it, the stronger you get. Yes, you start out flabby and weak, but with the proper training one can build a literary beast. Having to carve out time to write is like taking time out for any other exercise: you have to give up something: TV, sleep (see #1 though), time with someone besides yourself, or some other screwing around on the computer that generally involves irritated fowl or something. It’s heavy lifting, sweat, tears, and pain. The aching muscle between your ears will get stronger. You will get over the steepest part of your personal mountain and on the other side you’ll find: a piece of crap that has to be totally rewritten. But, you can tackle that another day. You’ll be stronger then and ready for the challenge.
10. Writing is a team effort. Anyone who attempts writing in the vacuum of one’s own home or office without the input of a Writer’s Guild, Group, or other source of support, is only putting in part of the effort. The real work, and joy, comes in sharing the results of one’s efforts with a group of individuals who share the same passion, and hopefully not the same opinions. Peer feedback is the most valuable, since it is the most trusted. Only those who have labored over their craft can praise and critique as knowingly as this kind of gathering. Find a group and join it. Praise yours to others who may need one, and keep extending the invitation: it took two years for me to accept. Writing is one of the few arts that is performed in private, often enjoyed in private, and crafted in small, dedicated groups. Be part of one.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Oh Won't You Be My...
My drama of the week took place while waiting for my daughter at the hair salon. Thank goodness this drama wasn’t one that involved me or my child, but it easily could have and has, on occasion, in the past. So, as I watched the hairdresser, child, and man who were all entangled, all I could think was A) “Boy am I glad that isn’t me” and B) “Wow, the English language needs help.” And it was all Sonic’s fault.
A little boy, I would say maybe 5 years old, had entered the salon with what looked to be his brother, as that child looked quite a bit like him and was a little older, accompanied by a woman that the little guy called mom, and an adult male. Mom left the kids with the man, he said he would handle the haircuts while she shopped for groceries, and they would all connect when they were done. Super boring. Don’t even know why I retained the exchange, except that she was tall, loud, frazzled, and yelled a lot, so I felt like I was supposed to be following all the directions she was issuing in the general area (what I wouldn’t give to be commanding. I can’t even get my OWN family to listen to me like that.) Anyway, the little dude also happened to be toting a very large stuffed Sonic toy, which was remarkable, since I didn’t even know that Sonic had that kind of juice with little kids anymore. Go figure.
Haircutting time came for Sonic boy, and he was escorted to the hairdresser and she was instructed how the boy’s hair should be cut: bangs, short. Rest of hair just a little shorter, but not too short (it was almost shoulder length, and now that I was completely involved in this child’s life, I wanted to speak up and say “Oh, dude, really, at least off the collar! He’s only 5! This is the only time you have control over this stuff so set a trend while you can will ya?” But, I just stared disapprovingly over the top of my People magazine and tsk-d to myself.) As she started cutting, Hairdresser Lady made conversation about Sonic and how cool he was, voicing my thought that she didn’t even think they made him anymore, to which the boy answered, “He was made at a garage sale.” As Sonic was almost the size of the boy, she made the practical suggestion that perhaps Sonic would be safer waiting elsewhere during the cut, so he wouldn’t be all hairy at the end. The boy shook his head (never a good move when someone has scissors poised near your ears) and gripped the toy in the kind of clutch that only a child in terror can manage.
Hairdresser Lady tried to go one step further, which is, of course, where we all go wrong. She kindly offered, “Maybe your Dad could hold him for you?” to which the child answered gutturally, “That’s NOT my dad. THAT’S my mom’s BOYFRIEND. I don’t KNOW where MY dad is.” Boom. There it was. The social turd in the punchbowl. No fishing it out out and pretending it wasn’t there, now. And the dude? The one who knew all about how to cut the child’s hair, and had been deeply involved in helping the other child (who knew who in the heck that kid was now…his child? A friend? Somebody they just kidnapped and were cutting his hair so no one would recognize him and the mom was in the store buying hair dye to complete the transformation? Dunno…all bets were off now!) yeah that dude didn’t rush to the rescue now. Now, he was in full boyfriend-not-my-problem-it’s-not-MY-kid-mode, and Hairdresser Lady was on her own to stammer, apologize, and work around Sonic, and everything else, for the rest of the cut.
This scene, of course, got me to thinking: this is replayed all the time. It has happened to me with my kids when they were younger and I had a boyfriend. It is such a common part of society, and yet we have no words to save us from the verbal landmine of “that’s not my dad/mom.”
I am old enough to remember when the Census Bureau had to come up with a way to count unmarried partners in the 1970’s. Here is a quick reminder for some, or lesson for others: POSSLQ: is an abbreviation (or acronym) for "Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters," a term coined in the late 1970s by the United States Census Bureau as part of an effort to more accurately count households with adults living together outside of marriage. I recall hearing jokes about it around my home, and on TV when staying up past bedtime.
As cohabitation became more common in the ‘80s, the Bureau began directly asking respondents to their major surveys whether they were "unmarried partners," thus making obsolete the old method of counting cohabitors." By the late ‘90s, the term had fallen out of general usage. But it's actually still in use, as a specialized term for demographers. Although interesting to note that it still exists! (Definition taken from various online sources)
This concept was so popular, Charles Osgood famously (perhaps infamously) wrote the poem below:
My POSSLQ
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and crystal brooks
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
There's nothing that I wouldn't do
If you would be my POSSLQ.
You live with me, and I with you,
And you will be my POSSLQ.
I'll be your friend and so much more;
That's what a POSSLQ is for.
And everything we will confess;
Yes, even to the IRS.
Some day on what we both may earn,
Perhaps we'll file a joint return.
You'll share my pad, my taxes, joint;
You'll share my life - up to a point!
And that you'll be so glad to do,
Because you'll be my POSSLQ.
How much of Charles Osgood's poem, “My POSSLQ,” was original? Well, the first four lines certainly "hook" you, don't they? They were lifted, with additions, from this poem:
The Bait, by John Donne
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
(First 4 lines only…you get the drift…)
And, if you have a frightening, cobwebby, Grandma’s attic of a memory like mine (and of course if are old enough…) you’ll recall that this doggerel was also turned into a song, circa 1980, creatively titled: “The POSSLQ Song” lyrics by Osgood, music by P.P. Jennings.
Obviously, adding a new acronym to the lexicon isn’t easy. Look at the POSSLQ: it didn’t take into account homosexual relationships. That speaks volumes for where we were then, and how far we have come. But this is also proof of how far we have to go that we only have words for mother, father, stepmother and stepfather, and no neutral term that the general public can use to refer to adults in children’s lives, to avoid the Sonic Situation.
I would be remiss if I didn’t make my own offering, of course, before closing. I’ll admit, though, that this is a lot harder than it would seem at first glance. I worked at it quite a while. Although I believe I’ve incorporated the elements necessary to make the term inclusive and general enough for common use, I think the acronym itself would need some tweaking in order for it to fall into common use. Then again, I may be wrong. For your consideration, here is my take on the POSSLQ for non-parental figures:
Adult Supervisor Sharing Housing/Other/Living/Etc/Space: ASSHOLES
Yeah, maybe it needs a little work.
A little boy, I would say maybe 5 years old, had entered the salon with what looked to be his brother, as that child looked quite a bit like him and was a little older, accompanied by a woman that the little guy called mom, and an adult male. Mom left the kids with the man, he said he would handle the haircuts while she shopped for groceries, and they would all connect when they were done. Super boring. Don’t even know why I retained the exchange, except that she was tall, loud, frazzled, and yelled a lot, so I felt like I was supposed to be following all the directions she was issuing in the general area (what I wouldn’t give to be commanding. I can’t even get my OWN family to listen to me like that.) Anyway, the little dude also happened to be toting a very large stuffed Sonic toy, which was remarkable, since I didn’t even know that Sonic had that kind of juice with little kids anymore. Go figure.
Haircutting time came for Sonic boy, and he was escorted to the hairdresser and she was instructed how the boy’s hair should be cut: bangs, short. Rest of hair just a little shorter, but not too short (it was almost shoulder length, and now that I was completely involved in this child’s life, I wanted to speak up and say “Oh, dude, really, at least off the collar! He’s only 5! This is the only time you have control over this stuff so set a trend while you can will ya?” But, I just stared disapprovingly over the top of my People magazine and tsk-d to myself.) As she started cutting, Hairdresser Lady made conversation about Sonic and how cool he was, voicing my thought that she didn’t even think they made him anymore, to which the boy answered, “He was made at a garage sale.” As Sonic was almost the size of the boy, she made the practical suggestion that perhaps Sonic would be safer waiting elsewhere during the cut, so he wouldn’t be all hairy at the end. The boy shook his head (never a good move when someone has scissors poised near your ears) and gripped the toy in the kind of clutch that only a child in terror can manage.
Hairdresser Lady tried to go one step further, which is, of course, where we all go wrong. She kindly offered, “Maybe your Dad could hold him for you?” to which the child answered gutturally, “That’s NOT my dad. THAT’S my mom’s BOYFRIEND. I don’t KNOW where MY dad is.” Boom. There it was. The social turd in the punchbowl. No fishing it out out and pretending it wasn’t there, now. And the dude? The one who knew all about how to cut the child’s hair, and had been deeply involved in helping the other child (who knew who in the heck that kid was now…his child? A friend? Somebody they just kidnapped and were cutting his hair so no one would recognize him and the mom was in the store buying hair dye to complete the transformation? Dunno…all bets were off now!) yeah that dude didn’t rush to the rescue now. Now, he was in full boyfriend-not-my-problem-it’s-not-MY-kid-mode, and Hairdresser Lady was on her own to stammer, apologize, and work around Sonic, and everything else, for the rest of the cut.
This scene, of course, got me to thinking: this is replayed all the time. It has happened to me with my kids when they were younger and I had a boyfriend. It is such a common part of society, and yet we have no words to save us from the verbal landmine of “that’s not my dad/mom.”
I am old enough to remember when the Census Bureau had to come up with a way to count unmarried partners in the 1970’s. Here is a quick reminder for some, or lesson for others: POSSLQ: is an abbreviation (or acronym) for "Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters," a term coined in the late 1970s by the United States Census Bureau as part of an effort to more accurately count households with adults living together outside of marriage. I recall hearing jokes about it around my home, and on TV when staying up past bedtime.
As cohabitation became more common in the ‘80s, the Bureau began directly asking respondents to their major surveys whether they were "unmarried partners," thus making obsolete the old method of counting cohabitors." By the late ‘90s, the term had fallen out of general usage. But it's actually still in use, as a specialized term for demographers. Although interesting to note that it still exists! (Definition taken from various online sources)
This concept was so popular, Charles Osgood famously (perhaps infamously) wrote the poem below:
My POSSLQ
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and crystal brooks
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
There's nothing that I wouldn't do
If you would be my POSSLQ.
You live with me, and I with you,
And you will be my POSSLQ.
I'll be your friend and so much more;
That's what a POSSLQ is for.
And everything we will confess;
Yes, even to the IRS.
Some day on what we both may earn,
Perhaps we'll file a joint return.
You'll share my pad, my taxes, joint;
You'll share my life - up to a point!
And that you'll be so glad to do,
Because you'll be my POSSLQ.
How much of Charles Osgood's poem, “My POSSLQ,” was original? Well, the first four lines certainly "hook" you, don't they? They were lifted, with additions, from this poem:
The Bait, by John Donne
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
(First 4 lines only…you get the drift…)
And, if you have a frightening, cobwebby, Grandma’s attic of a memory like mine (and of course if are old enough…) you’ll recall that this doggerel was also turned into a song, circa 1980, creatively titled: “The POSSLQ Song” lyrics by Osgood, music by P.P. Jennings.
Obviously, adding a new acronym to the lexicon isn’t easy. Look at the POSSLQ: it didn’t take into account homosexual relationships. That speaks volumes for where we were then, and how far we have come. But this is also proof of how far we have to go that we only have words for mother, father, stepmother and stepfather, and no neutral term that the general public can use to refer to adults in children’s lives, to avoid the Sonic Situation.
I would be remiss if I didn’t make my own offering, of course, before closing. I’ll admit, though, that this is a lot harder than it would seem at first glance. I worked at it quite a while. Although I believe I’ve incorporated the elements necessary to make the term inclusive and general enough for common use, I think the acronym itself would need some tweaking in order for it to fall into common use. Then again, I may be wrong. For your consideration, here is my take on the POSSLQ for non-parental figures:
Adult Supervisor Sharing Housing/Other/Living/Etc/Space: ASSHOLES
Yeah, maybe it needs a little work.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Sea Monkeys and The Goodness of Aging
That old saying, “Age has its privileges,” always sounded really snooty and annoying, when I was a kid. I understood it to mean that my elders got to do things like go ahead of me in line at the store, have some cool stuff that I didn’t, and maybe they all secretly belonged to some club, and I was on the outside looking in and just didn’t know what I was looking at since I was still a dumb kid. Well, some of that turned out to be true and some didn’t. Rarely did adults get ahead of me in any lines throughout my youth, unless they only had a few items, and I had a lot. And sometimes my mom still had to tell me to let them go ahead. It’s not that I was greedy; I just didn’t usually notice that stuff. I was a kid. I was busy reading the Archie comics at the register that my mom wouldn’t allow me to have, and performing my rudimentary math skills to see if I could afford a candy bar or not. Some adult standing behind me with a baby in one arm and a thing of laundry soap in the other might as well have been invisible in my world, which ended right about at the belly button of the adult cosmos. Seems to me I got more aware of the needs of others as I got…taller. The ability to make eye contact is a rarely considered factor in the development of compassion.
Anyway, the second point of age having its privileges, adults might have cool stuff that I didn’t, was also mostly true. Kids had cool stuff in my day, but mostly my covetousness surrounded the ownership of comic books and Barbie dolls: the two “shalt nots” in my home. Surely, if those had been allowed and something else banned, it would have been those other banned items I craved. I guess for me, probably for most kids, banning an item creates the greatest desire for it. Or, I am just an early example of how the Fall occurred. I ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Archie and Jughead whenever I could find a kid who collected the comic books and would practically ignore my playmates until I had caught up on the antics of all my favorite characters, peered curiously at the ads for the Sea Monkeys and tried to decide how I could get my friend to defile their comic book and tear out an ad for me to take home, and then figure out what a money order was and where to get one, since there was no way my mother would give me a check for them. This dilemma I never resolved, and so remained Sea Monkeyless throughout my developing years and was sure it would mark me for life, without taking into consideration that I never did see any of my comic book collector friends with a grotto of happy Sea Monkey people grinning and waving to them in their rooms, like the ad showed. That seems strange now, taking into account how many kids’ rooms I lay on the floor of, dodging smelly socks and fetid tennies while talking about Sea Monkeys. The general consensus had been their coolness, and most kids let on that they had an order on the way shortly. Makes one wonder where they are all now: the kids, and the Sea Monkeys. The kids are all on Facebook, I guess. I fear the Sea Monkeys fate is about the same in productivity, but with less IM’ing.
As far as that club, the one the adults belonged to, but I was on the outside of and felt I must be stuck looking in, but without really seeing…that, I think I accomplished a rare childhood feat: I figured that one out way ahead of myself. There is totally a club. It is a grown-up thing, and until you get there, you don’t even know that you’re headed in the front door of the place. I don’t know that much about it myself. There is no Grand Poo-bah to greet and orient you, or perform any rites of membership. Those occur over time. For me, this club, the club of “Adulthood and its Privileges” came after I turned 40. I do mean after. I needed not to say, I Am 40, but I Am Over 40. It is the secret phrase that has let me in to all adult permission and understanding, I am telling you. Let’s say I am struggling to read something on my computer screen, and the person on the phone at work is waiting for me to give a response. If I sigh, and apologize for my over-40 eyes, and that the font might be readable to the 20-something programmer who set up this information, but it’s going to take me a moment to figure out how to get it to a size the rest of us can read, the caller laughs in not just sympathy but empathy, and I have a few more minutes to get the information than I might have otherwise. Same story for memory issues; no caller on a Monday morning isn’t going to relate to a poor-over 40-brain that just doesn’t warm up like it used to-the engine on the car and the one in my head are both needing a little longer to get going these days.
I hated turning 30. I felt frightened of Father Time, as he Death Marched right over me, and what his intentions were for what was suddenly the second half of my life. I had always thought of myself as a glass half full kind of person, if there is such a thing, and suddenly, my glass was much more than half empty and draining quickly. If it had sprung a leak, I couldn’t find it, but was feeling desperate to fill the hole if I could be shown where it was. But the rest of the decade got very busy with children to raise, and then suddenly raise without a partner. Illness blossomed in various places and forms throughout my body, and my focus shifted from career to regaining, literally, my stride.
Up and out of a wheelchair, and truly back on my feet, I am looking at my glass again. And whether it is the Over-40 in me, or just standing the tests of time, I find that there is no half-full/half empty to it any longer. There is just a glass, and I am grateful to have it. Age does have its privileges. You can fill your own glass as well as help others with theirs, and buy your own Sea Monkeys to add to it.
Anyway, the second point of age having its privileges, adults might have cool stuff that I didn’t, was also mostly true. Kids had cool stuff in my day, but mostly my covetousness surrounded the ownership of comic books and Barbie dolls: the two “shalt nots” in my home. Surely, if those had been allowed and something else banned, it would have been those other banned items I craved. I guess for me, probably for most kids, banning an item creates the greatest desire for it. Or, I am just an early example of how the Fall occurred. I ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Archie and Jughead whenever I could find a kid who collected the comic books and would practically ignore my playmates until I had caught up on the antics of all my favorite characters, peered curiously at the ads for the Sea Monkeys and tried to decide how I could get my friend to defile their comic book and tear out an ad for me to take home, and then figure out what a money order was and where to get one, since there was no way my mother would give me a check for them. This dilemma I never resolved, and so remained Sea Monkeyless throughout my developing years and was sure it would mark me for life, without taking into consideration that I never did see any of my comic book collector friends with a grotto of happy Sea Monkey people grinning and waving to them in their rooms, like the ad showed. That seems strange now, taking into account how many kids’ rooms I lay on the floor of, dodging smelly socks and fetid tennies while talking about Sea Monkeys. The general consensus had been their coolness, and most kids let on that they had an order on the way shortly. Makes one wonder where they are all now: the kids, and the Sea Monkeys. The kids are all on Facebook, I guess. I fear the Sea Monkeys fate is about the same in productivity, but with less IM’ing.
As far as that club, the one the adults belonged to, but I was on the outside of and felt I must be stuck looking in, but without really seeing…that, I think I accomplished a rare childhood feat: I figured that one out way ahead of myself. There is totally a club. It is a grown-up thing, and until you get there, you don’t even know that you’re headed in the front door of the place. I don’t know that much about it myself. There is no Grand Poo-bah to greet and orient you, or perform any rites of membership. Those occur over time. For me, this club, the club of “Adulthood and its Privileges” came after I turned 40. I do mean after. I needed not to say, I Am 40, but I Am Over 40. It is the secret phrase that has let me in to all adult permission and understanding, I am telling you. Let’s say I am struggling to read something on my computer screen, and the person on the phone at work is waiting for me to give a response. If I sigh, and apologize for my over-40 eyes, and that the font might be readable to the 20-something programmer who set up this information, but it’s going to take me a moment to figure out how to get it to a size the rest of us can read, the caller laughs in not just sympathy but empathy, and I have a few more minutes to get the information than I might have otherwise. Same story for memory issues; no caller on a Monday morning isn’t going to relate to a poor-over 40-brain that just doesn’t warm up like it used to-the engine on the car and the one in my head are both needing a little longer to get going these days.
I hated turning 30. I felt frightened of Father Time, as he Death Marched right over me, and what his intentions were for what was suddenly the second half of my life. I had always thought of myself as a glass half full kind of person, if there is such a thing, and suddenly, my glass was much more than half empty and draining quickly. If it had sprung a leak, I couldn’t find it, but was feeling desperate to fill the hole if I could be shown where it was. But the rest of the decade got very busy with children to raise, and then suddenly raise without a partner. Illness blossomed in various places and forms throughout my body, and my focus shifted from career to regaining, literally, my stride.
Up and out of a wheelchair, and truly back on my feet, I am looking at my glass again. And whether it is the Over-40 in me, or just standing the tests of time, I find that there is no half-full/half empty to it any longer. There is just a glass, and I am grateful to have it. Age does have its privileges. You can fill your own glass as well as help others with theirs, and buy your own Sea Monkeys to add to it.
3 a.m. Rapture
"In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning."--F. Scott Fitzgerald. When I first read these words, it was as though I had been waiting for Fitzgerald to explain myself to me. Any worrier is an insomniac, and vice versa. I have been both since childhood. My earliest memories are of listening to wind whipping through the branches of the 300-year old oak tree outside my bedroom window. I would terrify myself with thoughts first of whether I had let the cat in, or left any toys out, and if not whether any or all would blow away. Then, as the hour grew later, my fears would turn to the tree itself. Not so much about any harm it could cause, strangely enough, as that would be the sensible thing to be afraid of, the heavy branches that could break off and smash windows, or if the whole thing came up, the damage it could do to the roof or the house itself. No, being the special variety of worrier that I was sprouting to be, my fears were centered on the terrible nature of the idea that this tree was so very old. Three hundred years…now how anyone knew its age while it was still standing, I do not know. This was just what I had been told, and at 5 years old, I wasn’t in any position to argue the point. When I considered this concept during the day, it didn’t really matter to me at all. I didn’t even really consider it anyway, as I swung on the plank that hung from two pieces of rope that my daddy had tied to one of its enormous branches, or ran around its base, chasing Timid Timothy, my kitten (so named after his look-a-like in my favorite book, and ironically he and the kitten in the story…and I…all shared kindred spirits which are probably obvious from the title.) At night though, I considered that tree quite a lot. Three. Hundred. Years. My house wouldn’t have been built. Not the neighborhood even, not in 1672. I imagined just grass and trees, this tree just a sapling. I imagined a Native American child playing around it, although not in a swing, since the tree would have been too small. Then, I would begin to scare myself. Where is that child now? Dead. Long dead and gone. And three hundred years from now, where will I be? I will be dead. Not the tree, it will be here. Mom and dad had said how oak trees could live for hundreds and even over a thousand years. Oh, where would I be in a thousand years? Still dead. "That’s a looong time to be dead, while this tree lives on," I would think. Finally I would sleep, but morning would come too soon, and my parents would be irritated that I had dark circles under my eyes again. Having parents that didn’t believe in God, though I did as a child, made those nights so much longer. As I grew up and older, the fears about the tree, and what came with it, deepened. Questions about God and death were answered with a shrug that there is “No God,” and “When it’s over, it’s over. Don’t worry about what you can’t change.” But I continued to search, and worry, and consider that tree. I am still a worrier. I am a worrier on a grander scale than most people will ever achieve. Last night, I was up in the middle of the night (some things will never change) and when I went downstairs I found that although there were no kids in the room, the TV and all of the lights were on, as if someone had been there just moments before. I waited for a few minutes, to see if someone had just left to go to the bathroom and was coming back, but no one returned. My first concern was not that my irresponsible teenagers had gone to bed and left everything on, or even that a crime had been committed. I stood there looking around for piles of clothing, thinking that perhaps the Rapture had taken place and my kids had been taken up and I had been left behind. I came close to checking their rooms. Then I decided that if indeed they had been Raptured without me, I had better go to bed and get a good night’s sleep first. I could find out about it in the morning when I would be well rested enough to begin dealing with this new reality. And that is what I did. Obviously, I was not left behind, for which I am grateful and relieved, and my kids were amused that I would assume their Rapture before their irresponsibility. Although I still live life at 3 o’clock in the morning, and I still do a mental checklist when I hear a storm blowing in (cat-check, toys-check, etc), I do not fear the infinite nature of a very old tree anymore. Well, hold that thought. I can appreciate God’s creation now that I have permission to worship and study our Father and His plan for us. It has taken only perhaps 30 or so years of prayer, worship, study, and only about a lifetime or so left to figure out the rest of His will; but having the freedom, ability, and desire to explore what this all means, is what makes all the difference. The difference between being able to see the beauty in the timeless nature of the oak tree, and being only terrified by it-whatever your oak tree is. Admittedly, the eternity thing is still a pretty freaky thing at 3 a.m., but that is what gets me out of bed to make sure I haven’t missed out on the Rapture.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Zen Summer
Of the four years that I spent as a teacher, there was only one summer that I didn’t either work or go to school. That was the Summer of the Jigsaw Puzzle. Living in a small town and having limited transportation available (meaning that the nearest shopping mall was over an hour’s drive away, and my car was a very unreliable 1965 Ford Galaxie with black leather interior and no air conditioning), I had to find ways to entertain myself that didn’t involve a lot of money or travel.
There was a small cadre of young teachers in Boardman, that summer. We had befriended each other during the school year, and so we naturally gravitated toward each other for company over the summer. Although there were a few evening hours spent at the local pub, weekly rotating dinners where we practiced our emerging skills in the kitchen, and the occasional party, mostly we needed something to do each day that would protect our reputations and stimulate our minds, on our very short purse-strings.
One day we took a group trip into the nearest town with a thrift store, which was 20 miles away. As we idly picked through the random items, not sure if we were even looking for something or just trying to get rid of another day of vacation, I came across a display of jigsaw puzzles. I started looking through them and became intrigued as I sorted through pictures of cherry blossoms, fall leaves against a forest floor, clouds against a sky so blue and so clear that the breeze could almost be felt off of the box top, and a 1000 piece monster that seemed simple: Cracker Jack pieces scattered and stacked, with the Cracker Jack logo placed discreetly in the corner.
I waved to my fellow shoppers and they saw what I was beginning to see: hours, days, and even weeks of cheap entertainment for low, low prices. We each chose two or three puzzles, and headed home. With no children, and many of us with no spouses to dine with, our dining tables quickly became piled with puzzle pieces, and puzzle pictures taking shape as time went on. We quickly, and a little obsessively, worked at our play.
As one puzzle would get completed, each of us would happily trade with another, so no one was ever without. Then, the Cracker Jack attacked. I will confess to being the one who purchased the dreaded candy-coated monster. Hour after hour was spent trying to match pieces that all had the same color scheme, and almost, but just not quite the same shape. Being foolish, I found all the pieces that had the logo first. This left approximately 950 pieces of nothing but caramel corn and peanuts. Instead of a day or two, maybe three or four for something like the cherry blossoms, this monster stretched into weeks, before it was finally finished. And when it was, there was only one thing to do: take it all apart and send it to the next person on the list. I hated to do both, but did. Every single member of the Round Robin Puzzlers hated that monster. I can’t say that they were too thrilled with me for buying it either, but I think it made for a great finale.
There was something about doing the puzzles that was healing for me that summer. It was the only time I had ever not worked or gone to school. Puzzling over the pieces and the pictures, imagining how the parts would become a whole, kept my mind working when I wasn’t. It’s soothing to do something productive, even when the end result isn’t something permanent. I imagine the Zen Buddhists that create sand Mandalas, only to brush them away when they are done. Life is transitory. That is what the Zen masters are demonstrating with their art. The jigsaw puzzle summer was fun, enlightening, and a perfect Zen experience.
There was a small cadre of young teachers in Boardman, that summer. We had befriended each other during the school year, and so we naturally gravitated toward each other for company over the summer. Although there were a few evening hours spent at the local pub, weekly rotating dinners where we practiced our emerging skills in the kitchen, and the occasional party, mostly we needed something to do each day that would protect our reputations and stimulate our minds, on our very short purse-strings.
One day we took a group trip into the nearest town with a thrift store, which was 20 miles away. As we idly picked through the random items, not sure if we were even looking for something or just trying to get rid of another day of vacation, I came across a display of jigsaw puzzles. I started looking through them and became intrigued as I sorted through pictures of cherry blossoms, fall leaves against a forest floor, clouds against a sky so blue and so clear that the breeze could almost be felt off of the box top, and a 1000 piece monster that seemed simple: Cracker Jack pieces scattered and stacked, with the Cracker Jack logo placed discreetly in the corner.
I waved to my fellow shoppers and they saw what I was beginning to see: hours, days, and even weeks of cheap entertainment for low, low prices. We each chose two or three puzzles, and headed home. With no children, and many of us with no spouses to dine with, our dining tables quickly became piled with puzzle pieces, and puzzle pictures taking shape as time went on. We quickly, and a little obsessively, worked at our play.
As one puzzle would get completed, each of us would happily trade with another, so no one was ever without. Then, the Cracker Jack attacked. I will confess to being the one who purchased the dreaded candy-coated monster. Hour after hour was spent trying to match pieces that all had the same color scheme, and almost, but just not quite the same shape. Being foolish, I found all the pieces that had the logo first. This left approximately 950 pieces of nothing but caramel corn and peanuts. Instead of a day or two, maybe three or four for something like the cherry blossoms, this monster stretched into weeks, before it was finally finished. And when it was, there was only one thing to do: take it all apart and send it to the next person on the list. I hated to do both, but did. Every single member of the Round Robin Puzzlers hated that monster. I can’t say that they were too thrilled with me for buying it either, but I think it made for a great finale.
There was something about doing the puzzles that was healing for me that summer. It was the only time I had ever not worked or gone to school. Puzzling over the pieces and the pictures, imagining how the parts would become a whole, kept my mind working when I wasn’t. It’s soothing to do something productive, even when the end result isn’t something permanent. I imagine the Zen Buddhists that create sand Mandalas, only to brush them away when they are done. Life is transitory. That is what the Zen masters are demonstrating with their art. The jigsaw puzzle summer was fun, enlightening, and a perfect Zen experience.
It’s Always 3 a.m. In My Head
I am born worrier. I not only started young, but continued throughout my life, to find more ways to keep myself and others up all night with a multitude of anxiety producing ideas.
What if the monsters under my bed are not just real, but carnivorous? What if that’s what really happened to all those missing kids you hear about on TV (this, in answer to being told there are no monsters. Turns out at three, I was actually closer to the answer than I knew.)
I have worried about everything from those childhood fears, to bigger and bigger worries. Unfinished homework during my school years would loom large in the middle of the night, assuring me that 6th grade math would prevent my entering college, or even being released from elementary school. I had visions of driving to 6th grade, to continually face my math book.
Junior high was when I was sure I would remain 4 ½ feet tall and flat chested for the rest of my life. I was sure I could get through the rest of those years, if someone could just assure me that I would get taller and have boobs in a few years. I would like to go back and tell that self that there is more to worry about…and there are boobs in the future. I wouldn’t mention the height thing, probably.
My worries about love, acceptance, and achievement plagued me throughout high school and college, with fears of failure and a destiny of dateless single hood clutching at me in the middle of my nights. No way to reassure myself with report cards full of A’s and B’s or a busy social life. The 3 a.m. closing arguments of each day were always more convincing than any evidence I might try to present myself.
Parenthood is no cure for a worrier. It’s like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. Not only did I have the Encyclopedia of concerns to refer to from my lifetime of anxiety, but also now had an easy quick-reference version at hand every moment of every day, from the moment that the test came back positive from my first pregnancy. Did I conceive before or after that party I went to for a friend, where I had a few drinks? Had I used paint in a closed room during that time period? The fumes had been pretty strong. Medications? Foods? Illnesses? What about family diseases that might be a risk for the baby? Should I have amnio? Ultrasound? Lamaze? And this was all just the day the test turned pink. Or blue. Or whatever. It only gets worse after birth, worrying about what you do, they do, others do…I don’t think I’ve slept for 16 years now.
But now it has actually gotten worse. There is only one thing worse for a worrier than, well, living. And that is having a child…with a driver’s license. I thought it would be a blessing, to finally have this child that I have had to chauffer around for 16 years finally able to drive herself around. It was very exciting for the first 2 minutes after she got her license and to watch her enjoy feeling grown up. Then she left the house with my car, and without me. I don’t think I have taken a breath since. There are so many things to worry about, all so very real, and some so deeply horrifying I can’t even write them down. It’s not even a trust issue, since she is bright and conservative, not given to speeding, racing, unsafe actions, drinking, or other things that I could worry about. But she is inexperienced, which is just a fact of life, and out on the roads with a bunch of idiots, who are given to speeding, racing, drinking, and unsafe actions. I would go on, but I’m having trouble breathing. Every time she leaves the house, my heart and respirations stop until she returns. The longer her outings, the more I worry for her safety, and possibly my own survival.
I have had people share so many tips and tricks for how to handle worry, I could write a book about it myself. I have prayed about it. I’ve been medicated for it. In the end though, I think there are people who are serene and accepting without need for advice or prescriptions in order to handle the roller coaster twists and turns that are life’s ride. And others are likely to be screaming and gripping the safety bar, even if they are only on a kiddie ride. I’m a gripping screamer. Whether or not my life is a coaster or kiddie ride is hard to know, perhaps until the end. But every 3 a.m. I’m prepared for the possibility that there is terror around the next corner, even if the only monster under my bed is one I’ve put there myself.
What if the monsters under my bed are not just real, but carnivorous? What if that’s what really happened to all those missing kids you hear about on TV (this, in answer to being told there are no monsters. Turns out at three, I was actually closer to the answer than I knew.)
I have worried about everything from those childhood fears, to bigger and bigger worries. Unfinished homework during my school years would loom large in the middle of the night, assuring me that 6th grade math would prevent my entering college, or even being released from elementary school. I had visions of driving to 6th grade, to continually face my math book.
Junior high was when I was sure I would remain 4 ½ feet tall and flat chested for the rest of my life. I was sure I could get through the rest of those years, if someone could just assure me that I would get taller and have boobs in a few years. I would like to go back and tell that self that there is more to worry about…and there are boobs in the future. I wouldn’t mention the height thing, probably.
My worries about love, acceptance, and achievement plagued me throughout high school and college, with fears of failure and a destiny of dateless single hood clutching at me in the middle of my nights. No way to reassure myself with report cards full of A’s and B’s or a busy social life. The 3 a.m. closing arguments of each day were always more convincing than any evidence I might try to present myself.
Parenthood is no cure for a worrier. It’s like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. Not only did I have the Encyclopedia of concerns to refer to from my lifetime of anxiety, but also now had an easy quick-reference version at hand every moment of every day, from the moment that the test came back positive from my first pregnancy. Did I conceive before or after that party I went to for a friend, where I had a few drinks? Had I used paint in a closed room during that time period? The fumes had been pretty strong. Medications? Foods? Illnesses? What about family diseases that might be a risk for the baby? Should I have amnio? Ultrasound? Lamaze? And this was all just the day the test turned pink. Or blue. Or whatever. It only gets worse after birth, worrying about what you do, they do, others do…I don’t think I’ve slept for 16 years now.
But now it has actually gotten worse. There is only one thing worse for a worrier than, well, living. And that is having a child…with a driver’s license. I thought it would be a blessing, to finally have this child that I have had to chauffer around for 16 years finally able to drive herself around. It was very exciting for the first 2 minutes after she got her license and to watch her enjoy feeling grown up. Then she left the house with my car, and without me. I don’t think I have taken a breath since. There are so many things to worry about, all so very real, and some so deeply horrifying I can’t even write them down. It’s not even a trust issue, since she is bright and conservative, not given to speeding, racing, unsafe actions, drinking, or other things that I could worry about. But she is inexperienced, which is just a fact of life, and out on the roads with a bunch of idiots, who are given to speeding, racing, drinking, and unsafe actions. I would go on, but I’m having trouble breathing. Every time she leaves the house, my heart and respirations stop until she returns. The longer her outings, the more I worry for her safety, and possibly my own survival.
I have had people share so many tips and tricks for how to handle worry, I could write a book about it myself. I have prayed about it. I’ve been medicated for it. In the end though, I think there are people who are serene and accepting without need for advice or prescriptions in order to handle the roller coaster twists and turns that are life’s ride. And others are likely to be screaming and gripping the safety bar, even if they are only on a kiddie ride. I’m a gripping screamer. Whether or not my life is a coaster or kiddie ride is hard to know, perhaps until the end. But every 3 a.m. I’m prepared for the possibility that there is terror around the next corner, even if the only monster under my bed is one I’ve put there myself.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Blissed Out
Ignorance is bliss, so it is said...or was said by someone...or is just one of those things "they" say. I hope this is so, because I am studiously working toward being pretty darn blissful. This isn't to say that I want to be unintelligent or uninformed, but rather just remain blissfully ignorant of so much of what seems to pass as important information today.
In the age of Facebook, Twitter, I-Phones with an app-for-everything and a website for everything else, I am slipping further and further behind every day in the communication super-overload that passes for interaction and entertainment. I haven't checked my Facebook page in so long, it is very possible that my friends have set up one of those creepy e-memorials, mourning my passing. Some days, it feels like they should.
I don't Google anything. I have teenagers to meet all of my internet needs, and their sole purpose seems to be to You-Tube and Wiki and Ask.com all the questions I need answered. Without them, I might just go to the library and look up what I need in an encyclopedia. Do we still have those?
Music is something I listen to on the radio, locally not by satellite, or on CD's that get scratched and lost and taken by ex's. I would almost go vinyl, but can't afford the fancy new record players that are being sold now to feed the "retro" minded music masses. I rather prefer the radio anyway, with it's questionable sound quality, limited variety (in Idaho anyway) and the fact that I am totally dependent on the DJ (if there is one anymore; I carefully avoid the people-free stations that just crank out the pre-programmed playlists and pause only for a station break, and where the only human input is from commercials.)
Decision time is coming, regarding my lack of participation in this Human Race...soon I will either have to get up and run with the rest, or forever be left so far behind that I cannot catch up. Not that I much want to compete for first place, but I suppose I don't want to be standing on the sidelines and realize that the last of the runners has gone by, and there is no one left to cheer on, either. I may try out the MP3 player that my daughter gave me, from when she upgraded to a better model (although hah, the new one has already broken and is barely usable, hence my argument with technology rushing ahead of itself faster than it can keep up), or I might update my Facebook status (something like, "Not dead. Now quit arguing over who gets my stuff"). Or maybe I will just surf the 'Net a little bit, and check out some of the websites that are causing such a stir. I hear you can buy a lot of interesting things on this new E-Bay they have...
In the age of Facebook, Twitter, I-Phones with an app-for-everything and a website for everything else, I am slipping further and further behind every day in the communication super-overload that passes for interaction and entertainment. I haven't checked my Facebook page in so long, it is very possible that my friends have set up one of those creepy e-memorials, mourning my passing. Some days, it feels like they should.
I don't Google anything. I have teenagers to meet all of my internet needs, and their sole purpose seems to be to You-Tube and Wiki and Ask.com all the questions I need answered. Without them, I might just go to the library and look up what I need in an encyclopedia. Do we still have those?
Music is something I listen to on the radio, locally not by satellite, or on CD's that get scratched and lost and taken by ex's. I would almost go vinyl, but can't afford the fancy new record players that are being sold now to feed the "retro" minded music masses. I rather prefer the radio anyway, with it's questionable sound quality, limited variety (in Idaho anyway) and the fact that I am totally dependent on the DJ (if there is one anymore; I carefully avoid the people-free stations that just crank out the pre-programmed playlists and pause only for a station break, and where the only human input is from commercials.)
Decision time is coming, regarding my lack of participation in this Human Race...soon I will either have to get up and run with the rest, or forever be left so far behind that I cannot catch up. Not that I much want to compete for first place, but I suppose I don't want to be standing on the sidelines and realize that the last of the runners has gone by, and there is no one left to cheer on, either. I may try out the MP3 player that my daughter gave me, from when she upgraded to a better model (although hah, the new one has already broken and is barely usable, hence my argument with technology rushing ahead of itself faster than it can keep up), or I might update my Facebook status (something like, "Not dead. Now quit arguing over who gets my stuff"). Or maybe I will just surf the 'Net a little bit, and check out some of the websites that are causing such a stir. I hear you can buy a lot of interesting things on this new E-Bay they have...
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