Tuesday, January 31

don't give up

In the car on our way home, my young daughter suddenly piped up through the silence.

“Don’t give up,” she said.

“What?” I said, startled.

“I mean, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” she said firmly.

Well. I pondered this for awhile, this small piece of solitary wisdom, imparted as if from nowhere. Unsure of why she had chosen this particular time to share her thoughts on the state of human fortitude and self-possessed longevity, I tried to fit her advice in to the context of my life like a long-awaited, albeit potentially ambiguous, puzzle.

Don’t give up.

I could plug that phrase into my life at any given moment. And I could think of many times I had given up, in the past. Quiet dreams of a career in the theatre, for example. Auditioning, and becoming frustrated beyond belief. Ducking out, right quick, when I realized I possessed not an ounce of backbone for such a thing.

The relationship I had that began when I was sixteen, and which ended at twenty-seven. He, alcoholic. I, wondering how it would be for our future children to wake up and find their father passed out on the stairs as they crept down to their bowls of Corn Flakes.

Then there was the Master of Fine Arts degree, which ground to a halt when my relationship ended, and things became so disjointed, I left in a flood of upset and unwritten words spilling behind me and onto the floor of my city apartment.

I gave up. Many times.

And now, here was my daughter, the words virtually tumbling from her lips and up into the empty seat next to me, the three little words sitting there like a silent, invisible partner, ready to hold my hand. Don’t give up. Try, try again.

But there are some things one must give up on. There are some things that simply cannot be helped, no matter how much one wishes it to be otherwise. Is this giving up? Or, is it giving into another thing, the next journey in a life of multiple journeys? Sometimes it’s wise to give up. The tricky bit is knowing when it’s that time to give up, and when one must put on the big boots and trudge on.

As I write this, I realize that I’ll never give up, as my darling girl so strongly told me. But the thing that I won’t give up on is me. I’ll never give up on me, no matter what might happen in my world, and along the journey that comprises my life. Although there will be things I never complete, things I might falter on, things that might cause me to fall – and there will be those things – the core that binds me here, strong to the earth, is one which will never let hold its grip. So long as I have a hand to clasp. So long as I have an eye to the smoldering, triumphant sun.

 

 

Wednesday, January 18

I've fallen and I can't get up

 

In spite of the seemingly never-ending stress that seems to accumulate as the days pass, my Buddhist tendencies manage to alleviate and ignore it. However. Lately I’ve become so entrenched in the hardcore daily grind of worry that Buddha’s been shushed – his exquisite mouth covered with black electrical tape - and instead, mindfulness forgotten, I’m the screaming banshee of the year.

Angry at the dog, because she’s not peeing quickly enough and I have to get out the door. Angry at my son, because he’s being sarcastic and fresh, instead of the lovely, cooperative seraph I wish for him to be. Angry at my daughter, because…because…well, I’m not sure why I’m angry at her, damn it. Give me a minute and I’ll think of something.

Getting out of this angry phase - or as I like to call it, the let’s-take-out-our-frustrations-on-everyone-closest-to-us-and-see-how-far-we-can-push-them-before-they-snap phase - can be tricky, if not impossible. Usually I’m the one who snaps, and I flee to my room, face in my hands as I pitifully sob and ponder my existence, and where I need to be existentially-speaking, and why, as it turns out, I’m such a bitch.

After two days of losing patience and yelling and being bitchy, we three went to the grocery store together as a last ditch effort on my part to somehow enforce the normalcy of our lives as a family, doing regular things such as putting a gallon of milk in the cart, and noshing on the sample buffet, and questioning whether we should get the strawberry-kiwi or the peach jug o’ juice.

While pushing the cart away to its inevitable place in the cart sardine can, I spotted a young woman standing outside the store. She was crying. My kids walked down the sidewalk in front of the line of stores, and then turned, watching me and waiting.

I slowly approached her, feeling as if I should say something. I reckon If a person is crying like that in a public place, then chances are they’re really sad. I think most of us try to hold it together in front of strangers, particularly if we’re by ourselves.

But she wasn’t holding anything in. Not one thing.

I stood in front of her. “Are you okay?” I asked idiotically. Of course she’s not okay, I said to myself. Fantastic. Now I am bitchy and idiotic.

She nodded.

I reached out my hand and lightly rested it on her arm. I wanted to hug her, but suddenly felt as if the presence of my hand on her arm reeked of impropriety. So I took it off and stood in front of her for a moment longer, then turned and walked away toward my children. My son had a zillion questions.

“Who was that? What were you doing? What did you say? What’s going on? Who was that?”

“She was crying.”

“Why was she crying?”

“I don’t know.”

I looked back and saw her standing in the same spot, face in her hands, sobbing.

We walked into another store. And walked out again with our purchase. I looked over and noticed that she was gone.

Where did she go? What had happened? Did someone take her home? Did she walk away? Would she be all right?

I had a zillion questions.

Everything seems so fragile, since that day, a few days ago. As if all I need to do is just touch something and it will shatter. So my touch is soft, and I’m treading lightly on the ground. I’m looking deeply at people, and they look like angels – like soft, sweet angels, with hearts so soft, they might break if I’m not careful. As though, if I’m not careful, they’ll blow away with the force of my hot breath, crumple and fall away into stardust, until the heavens are full of them. If I’m not careful, I’ll blow a breath out and the stars will fall down in buckets, washing away like a gentle rain.

I must be very careful.

 

 

Saturday, January 14

assorted thoughts from the dilletante

I’ve been thinking lately about the often alarming matter of being much too jumbled and disparate in my interests, and have come to the conclusion that:

I am no longer feeling apologetic for the variations present in my life, such as they are. There are simply too many wonderful things around in the world to be explored, and I won’t shirk my curiosity for fear of straying from some make-believe niche that someone (quite possibly myself) told me I cannot do without. My primary loyalty is to my own thoughts and ideas, and I will continue to spout them forth – much to your chagrin, perhaps – so that I might have a place to air out everything in a relatively constructive way.

That being said, I’ll continue to blather on about the writing process. But other subjects might invariably wander their way in, in which case I’ll certainly welcome them and let them stay. Perhaps give them a cookie and a hot buttered rum. And then get back to the business of writing, and writing on writing, on topics such as:

Aaaaaand scene.

 

 

Thursday, January 12

in which self-consciousness is thrown to the wolves, and a culinary metaphor is utilized

I sat down and stared blankly at the screen. No amount of will, or begging, could make the words come – at least, not in the way I wanted. I began to peck away at the keyboard slowly, unenthusiastically, hoping that somehow something relevant and exciting would emerge.

Nothing.

“Mom?”

I peeked out from behind the screen to see my daughter standing there. She was holding seven books, some plastic play food, and pick-up sticks with clay strategically placed upon the ends – no small feat, that. I marveled at the quality of her juggling skills.

“Uh huh?”

“Will you read with me?”

Sigh.

“Of course, honey,” I said, hiding away the reluctance. “Come on.”

Into her room we went, and as we did I realized that it was probably for the best. Obviously, my forcing it wouldn’t make the words flow any easier. At least, not today. I was grasping at straws – or at least, at pick-up sticks. With little bits of clay stuck on the ends.

It hadn’t been that long, had it? As I read “Ten Little Monkeys,” my mind wandered, and I thought about how long it had really been. Like old married couples who dutifully keep track of the number of times they have sex in any given month, I was keeping track of how long it had been since I’d written anything spectacular. Or anything at all, for that matter.

Too long.

Afterwards, long afterwards, I sat down once again. This time, all children were in bed, and all distractions were gone, save the dog, who lay at my feet groaning the occasional exhausted and somewhat theatrical doggie-groan.

I didn’t want to do it. But I did it, anyway.

I read my manuscript.

It wasn’t all that bad. I thought some parts were good, even. Surprisingly.

But, I thought, not good enough. Were they? And who was I kidding? Whoever said that I could actually sell this thing? Whoever said I was a writer, anyway? Whoever said that anyone would actually want to read my work, let alone, buy it? Was I destined to be a writer only in my head, in my dreams, writing to the void, to the empty universe, for myself only?

But when I thought about it further, I found that it didn’t matter, much.

It didn’t matter, I thought, that no one would read it. What mattered was I had to write it. All of it. I had to write it down, had to express it, what it meant to me to be human, what my characters were thinking, feeling, the things they did, the mistakes they made, the love they lost, the triumphs they experienced. I needed to express all of this because it was my life, my way of processing my truth and relationship to the world, and to hell with worrying about who would read it.

Who cares, I thought, my mind beginning to wildly awaken, who cares if anyone reads it? Who cares if they read anything?

A first sentence came. And then another. And I had a paragraph. And then my fingers couldn’t keep up with my mind, the words slipping out faster than I could physically handle, ideas coming so fluently that I had to type everything as it came, even if it didn’t make any sense within the context of the thing. I had to get it all down before it was lost.

My self-consciousness had gone. In its place was a river, a concentrated tunnel of language rushing through - as good as it gets. And only later, when I went back to read it over, did I realize that some of it was junk. And some of it, merely mediocre. But some of it, some of it was real, honest life.

And that, for me, was the whole enchilada.