oh this is hard

Questions for Writers

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Kristen’s blog, Little Lodestar, is one of my regular reads.  Last week she asked as series of nine provocative questions that I have not been able to stop thinking about.  I wanted to share them here, along with my answers, and pose them to all of you at the same time.  I’m endlessly fascinated by and hungry for the details of the lives of writers, the sources of their inspiration, and the particular decisions they make on a given day.  I am impressed by Kristen’s deliberate effort to call herself a writer as that is something I struggle with myself.

This blog, and the online world I found through it, has brought me many surprises, but one of my most favorite has been how supportive the blogging community is.  My interest in Kristen’s questions and in your answers is just a further manifestation of that support and community. I found the comments on Kristen’s post engrossing and look forward to learning more here.  Another way this community works is that it was my friend Nina Badzin who originally gave me the idea to share these questions, and my answers, here.  She did the same yesterday and I hope you will click over and read her thoughts on the writing life and on Kristen’s questions.  Nina and Kristen are both writers for whom I have the utmost esteem and affection, and I am grateful every day to have met them in this online world.

Without further ado, I’m happy to share Kristen’s questions and ask any of you who are willing to answer them here in the comments (or on your blog!).

1. Do you share your work with your partner or spouse? Does it matter if it’s been published yet? (I share with my husband something that I submit elsewhere only AFTER it’s been published, and I am pretty certain he does not read my blog 90% of the time.)

My husband reads my blog most of the time, though I think the attention that it receives varies depending on the day.  I show him my published pieces too, though don’t know that he’s really focused on most of them.

2. How much of your family and/or closest “friends in real life first” read your stuff…let alone give you feedback about it? (Comments from my family and friends, either online or in person, are overwhelmingly rare. I’m totally fine with that, but I am curious if this is the norm for others.)

Many of my family members and close friends do not read my blog, though some do.  Those who do rarely comment but when people do reach out to me it means a huge amount (enormous thanks to those of you who do this!) My feelings about this topic are complicated. Agree with Nina that it’s a lot to ask that people read.  On the other hand, I’m deeply grateful that some people read.

3. What do you do with the pieces that continually get rejected–post on your blog? Trash? When do you know it’s time to let it go?

Sometimes I post on my blog.  Sometimes I just let them go.  The truth is I don’t submit a whole lot.

4. Are there pieces you write for one very specific place that, once rejected, you just let go of, or do you rework into something else?

The only specific place I really write for is my blog, so I don’t run into that much.  Or, if asked specifically (for someone else’s blog or for a magazine or something).  I have written a complete memoir and half of another one, both of which I let go of.  I wrote about that particular letting-go process a couple of years ago.  That was a big one.

5. What is your main source of reading-based inspiration (especially you essayists)? Blogs? Magazines? Journals? Anthologies? Book of essays by one writer?

Blogs, books, and poetry.  I read several blogs religiously, many more regularly, and I read fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.  I always have a book on my bedside table and read before bed almost every single night.  Actually I do read every single night, but now and then it’s a magazine instead of my book!

6. What tends to spark ideas more for you: what you see/hear in daily life or what you read?

That’s such a good question.  I would say I draw inspiration from both of those sources; what I see and experience as well as what I read.

7. Who have you read in the past year or two that you feel is completely brilliant but so underappreciated?

Another excellent question.  There are many bloggers writing today whose work I think is as good or better than what I read in more traditional channels; I think many are underappreciated.  I wish more people read poetry, because as a genre I think it’s wildly underappreciated.

8. Without listing anything written by Dani Shapiro, Anne Lamott, Lee Gutkind, or Natalie Goldberg, what craft books are “must haves”?

Stephen King’s On Writing comes to mind.  I dip into Philip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay from time to time.

I would sincerely love to hear any of your answers to any of these questions.  Thank you Kristen for the inspiration!

 

And still. And yet.

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The truth?  It has been a difficult month.  For a few weeks now I’ve been having that world-is-slightly-off-its-axis feeling more days than not.  A soul-level unease that manifests in clumsiness, over-reactivity, and exhaustion.  Do you know this feeling?  I’ve been dropping eggs and feeling more impatient than usual in various parts of my life, taking things personally (despite my own constant reminders to others and myself that I realize things are almost never about me) and forgetting things, sleeping hard and soundly but never feeling quite rested.

I’ve also been more aware than usual of trust, feeling cautious about where I place it, observing that everywhere I go people seem to be talking about other people.  This makes me more and more uncomfortable, this behavior.  As I’ve acknowledged many times, I’m a porous person, but lately that aspect of my personality is frankly overwhelming, and I can’t get out of my own way.  Every day I am startled by sharp words and sliced by unexpected, jagged emotions.

And still.

And yet.

The parade of glorious sunsets out my window takes my breath away and almost every night my heart lifts as I tuck my children in.  There is so much beauty here, even in a month that has been difficult for reasons I don’t understand.

Is this what happiness is, the awareness of all this grandeur even in the midst of painful hours?  I don’t know.  I told someone recently I’m not sure traditional, unalloyed “happiness” is part of my emotional arsenal.  But this feeling may well be contentment.  And that, I’ll take.

This is relatively new to me, this thrum of peace underneath all of the emotion.  In July I observed in myself a sturdy sense of joy and it’s this that is carrying me now, I think.

Inside me there has been a kind of deep settling and an emotional sigh.  Now, when I glance at all the corners of my life I notice both the piles of dusty regrets and the glittering treasures.

I can’t imagine a better way to live my life.  And for this, I offer the most profound thanksgiving I know how to express.

I say the only prayer I know how to say: thank you.

I posted this last year, on November 27th, and it’s exactly how I have been feeling for the last several days.  Maybe it’s a time-of-year thing.  I sure hope so.  Can’t keep yelling and dropping eggs!

Overwhelming awareness of this life’s sweetness

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Grace and Whit have just finished two remarkably joyful and relaxed weeks with my parents on the coast of Massachusetts.  One day last week, I left Boston early in the morning and went down for the day to work from there so that I could surprise them at camp pickup.  My work phone has been screwed up anyway, and there’s wifi, so, I thought, why not?

It turned out to be a weirdly, unexpectedly difficult day.  I seemed to be clunking through the world, knocking things over literally and figuratively, Whit was entirely unimpressed to see me at camp pickup (“why are you here?  OK, fine, I’m going to bike home, see you there”), they bickered on the tennis court, and it was hot.  I was generally out of sorts.

The three of us did have a lovely dinner on the back porch in the cooling, beautiful evening air, and we walked to the ice cream store and down to the yacht club to look at the harbor.  This has become a tradition that Grace and Whit like as much as I do.  As we strolled home, Grace sighed and told me how much she loved beautiful evenings like this one.  The air felt soft on my arms.  Dad and I had a fascinating conversation about Walt Whitman (whose work I’m ashamed I don’t know well enough; I’ve already ordered Leaves of Grass) and Grace and Whit calmed down and got in their pajamas and Mum came home from her meeting and suddenly, facing my departure, I felt a swell of keen sorrow. I didn’t want to leave.  As it sometimes does, my life crashed over my head and my responsibilities felt heavy.

I tucked Whit in and he rolled onto his side, his eyes gleaming in the dark.  “I love you,” he said, and gave me our secret sign that means I love you.  “I love you too,” I told him as I stood in the door.  “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

I went down to the kitchen to say goodbye to Grace.  With the eerie ability to see into my thoughts that both she and Whit sometimes display, she gave me a hug, and said, “tomorrow, when you’re at your desk, Mum, just remember that I’m cheering you on.”  My head snapped back to look at her.  Only half an hour ago she’d been pouting that I wasn’t spending the night.  When did she grow into this empathetic, mature young woman who knew how to put what I needed first?  My eyes filled with tears and I nodded.

I hugged my parents and Grace walked me out.  She stood barefoot in her pajamas on the sidewalk and watched me get into the car.  I told her I loved her and she gave me our secret sign and then, as I turned the car on, she leaned into the open passenger window.  “Mummy,” she said, her wet hair wavy on either side of her face, “You’re my wonder woman!”

“Oh, Grace,” I said to her, shaking my head.  “I don’t know about that.  You’re my wonder girl, though.”

I was blinking back more tears as I drove away, and as the road turned left the whole expanse of the sunset came into view.  I gasped out loud.  The sky was striated with red, orange, pink, and I pulled into a parking lot to try to take a picture.  I couldn’t get a good angle so I kept driving, but I did take one of the fading light as I got onto the highway (ab0ve).  As it so often does, the sky acted on my spirit in an ineffable, undeniable way, and I felt the aggravation and challenge of the day ebb almost instantly away.  I thought of my parents, who had each been so fully themselves that day, of my children, arguing on the tennis court and yet appreciating the glorious evening and then knowing exactly what I needed at the end of the day, of this place I had so long loved.  I felt deeply rooted in the world, a sensation akin to the sturdy joy I’ve written about before.  My awareness of this life’s sweetness overwhelmed me, so sharp I felt it in my chest.

And watching the sun go down, I drove home.

Commencement

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closing ceremonies of Grace’s Beginner year, 2008

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closing ceremonies of Whit’s Beginner year, 2010

I’m not sure if it’s because I live in a college town, or if it’s a relic of my many years in educational institutions myself, but there’s something essential in my soul that still beats on academic time.  I feel the end of something as profoundly at the end of the school year as I do at New Year’s.  This time of year, when people swarm my neighborhood in academic robes and caps and when I keep reading graduation speeches, I feel the grip of some inchoate sorrow that feels as incongruous as the world is bursting into riotous bloom around me as it is undeniable, unavoidable.

The truth is, right now, I feel sad.  Today is the end of something.  As I wrote last year, “no matter how many times I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, I still feel the loss.”  Today our children celebrate their closing ceremonies, Grace and Whit moving from fifth and third grade respectively.  There’s excitement – the summer lies ahead, with beaches and camps and later bedtimes and lots and lots of joy – but there’s an undeniable sorrow, too.  At least for me.  Something that will never be again is over.  I will never again sit in my car at the corner and watch my third and fifth grader walk through the school gates, big backpacks bobbing on their backs.  All year long, watching them go gives me a lump in my throat and a swell in my chest, but that feeling escalates as we near the end of the year.

I drive through Harvard Square and notice that they’ve begun erecting the tents for graduation, and this always reminds me of the sharp ache I used to feel when they started putting up fences and tents for reunions at Princeton.  The fences marked off each major reunion’s location, but they also delineated the end of another year.  Still, to this day, I remember the tears that used to spring to my eyes.  And the same tears came, unbidden, as I watched Harvard transforming itself to celebrate another commencement.  Today we do the same at Grace and Whit’s school.

I feel out of step with the celebration in the air today and this time of year, the overwhelming, enthusiastic rush towards summer I sense all around me.  Hold back!  Wait!  I say silently, wanting another day to dwell in this, here, now.  I’m always keenly aware of life’s accumulating farewells, but I think this time of year is when I feel them most acutely.  Kunitz’s feast of losses seep into my waking and my sleeping.  Today, I’ll blink back tears as I watch my 3rd and 5th grade days come to an end, as I marvel at this glittering life, turning so quickly I can barely keep up.

And so we go on, round and round and round in the circle game.  Captive on a carousel of time.  Another end and beginning twined together.  Life itself is a series of commencements, isn’t it?  Every day, we commence.

I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, though, I still feel the loss.  – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2013/05/commencement/#sthash.qEhpjhfz.dpuf
I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, though, I still feel the loss. – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2013/05/commencement/#sthash.qEhpjhfz.dpuf
I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, though, I still feel the loss.  – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2013/05/commencement/#sthash.qEhpjhfz.dpuf
I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, though, I still feel the loss.  – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2013/05/commencement/#sthash.qEhpjhfz.dpuf
I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, though, I still feel the loss.  – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2013/05/commencement/#sthash.qEhpjhfz.dpuf

Can’t have one without the other

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We had a spectacular spring break.  The trip to the Galapagos was more magical than our everyday life, of course, and Grace and Whit, sponges that they are, soaked it all up.  As we headed home, on the last morning, Grace was tearful. In the airport lounge (as we embarked on what would be a full 24 hours of travel) she looked at me with mournful eyes.  “I don’t want it to be over,” she said, hugging me hard.  I nodded, my own eyes filling with tears.

“Why does it have to end?  Why does it have to be so sad?” she asked me, her voice muffled against my shoulder.  A wry smile flitted across my face, though she couldn’t see it.  Why does it?  This is something I ask myself every single day.

“Oh, Gracie.  You can’t have one without the other,” I said.  She pulled away and looked me in the eye, a question in her face.  “You know, the amazing experience is part of it and then being sad it’s over is the other part.”  She nodded silently, chewing her lip.  We sat in silence, the huge ceiling fans in the Guayaquil airport spinning slowly overhead.  I watched Grace’s knee jiggle as I thought of the two edges of this world, of the joy and the sorrow, of the beauty and the pain, of how inextricably linked they are, of how ambivalent I feel that my daughter is learning this lesson already.

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The last night of break, Whit came out of his room a few minutes after I had tucked him in.  I walked him back into his dark room and sat down on the edge of his bed.  “What’s on your mind?”  His cheeks were wet and he had clearly been crying.  He shook his head and I waited.

“I want to go back to the Galapagos, Mummy.  And I am just sad.  Sad about everything that’s over.”  I stroked his blond hair off his forehead.  “I’m sad we’re not going back to Legoland.”  I nodded.

“I know, Whit.  It’s always sad when things are over.”  I had a lump in my own throat as I spoke.  Over and over again, Grace and Whit seem to go straight to the heart of all the things I find the most difficult.  This is what they do: they drag me to confront the emotions with which I most struggle.

“So many things,” he hiccuped, “that didn’t seem that much fun at the time, like the hot slow bus to the turtle farm, or the long layover in Guayaquil, or the flight where we didn’t sleep…” his voice trailed off.

“Or that lunch in Puerto Ayora when you were so cranky,” I offered, and a small smile cracked his face.

“Yeah.  All of those things.  They didn’t seem that much fun when we were going them, but now I miss them all.”

Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember. – Oscar Levant

I read this quote the day after that bedtime conversation with Whit, and I think it’s saying what he was, too.  So often things take on the sheen of joy after the fact, their memory burnished with something that wasn’t necessarily there as we lived it.  I don’t think this is a bad or a sad thing, though it does make me more aware that the experiences that feel like a slog (and Whit is right, that long bus ride back and forth across Santa Cruz qualifies) often become cherished memories.

It’s all connected, all of it: the delight and the sorrow, the experience and the memory, the difficulty fading into the background as the joyful center of an experience moves to the front.  You can’t have one without the other, of any of these dualities, of that I’m sure.  It’s a bittersweet thing, to watch my children learn this, and they both did on our trip to the Galapagos and in its wake.  And it’s something I’m still learning, too.