about those values

My mother, a number of ex-teachers and professors, a former boyfriend or two, and more than a couple former bosses will tell you that I don't really flourish in an environment of micro-management and close oversight. I balk at being told what to do, even if that thing is in my favour or something I want to do (sometimes even if I was already planning to do it).

There are two solutions: first, a little self-awareness goes a long way in doing things anyway. Second, creating structures that keep me accountable without too much ridigity keep me moving forward. I'm a pretty big fan of checklists, coloured spread-sheets, etc, but I have a long history of abandoning projects and commitments if something goes awry - dribbled paint in the powder room trying to create a feature wall? Stop work, you incompetent loser. Cheated on your diet? Eat all the things and pretend you're okay being fat. In modern business lingo, I have not always been agile. I have been brittle.

This year, before the whole world got sucked into an unplanned redesign, I started to take a deep dive (that has turned into a LONG soak) into the world of fulfillment, which lead me into the realms of character and ability, which lead me into really considering and clearly defining my values. It's been an interesting journey so far, and I'm considering what to do with all the information I've amassed. Today, however, is about what's keeping me moving forward, mostly because I have more questions than answers at this point.

Back to the point at hand and structures for fulfillment that aren't bossy schoolmarms: last week I had started a daily task list, but that felt SO uninspiring that I knew before I even started that I wouldn't want to stick to it. Since I already had a print out of my core values and what each value means to me, I decided to create a matching daily values check-in - and that does inspire me.

Now each day I can see which values I've taken action in, and at the end of each week I can see what's been neglected and where I might want to focus my attention. It's not necessary so much to practice every value every day, but handy to see where things might be out of balance. I have slipped both pages into glass-fronted picture frames that sit on my dresser, and I use whiteboard pens on the checklist, so I can wipe it off and start fresh each week.

I'll tell you in a month how that's going.

his name is "Jeff"

This morning I put the finishing protective coat on my first painting in at least 16 years. I am not a painter or a visual artist. I have trouble getting images in my mind down accurately on paper or canvas using any medium but words. Yet every once in a while the fancy strikes me - put colour on canvas. Add pigment and light where there is none. And so I try. Sometimes the results frustrate me, and sometimes - as today - they satisfy.

I started this painting a couple months ago and completed it in fits and starts. Being creative is a significant contribution to my recovery from the depression and anxiety that over-whelmed me last spring, but sometimes I forget that. TV doesn't heal; writing, knitting, singing, dancing, loving, painting, exploring ... these are the things that nourish me. I do well when I remember that.

But enough about me; this is about Jeff. This morning I completed a painting. This afternoon I will adventure to a smaller island in the Salish Sea to celebrate the life, love and artistry of my friend Jeff Molloy. Jeff is truly an artist. A creative mind that could look at life and see whimsy and folly and history and culture and wrap it all in a mackinaw or a Hudson's Bay blanket so you saw it too.

Jeff was also a husband - his wife of more than 30 years was my first boss in Victoria and is the kind of passionate, engaged, powerful woman I love to surround myself with and learn from. Working with Kathryn I learned to change the world. Watching Kathryn and Jeff love each other I learned to love and laugh and commit to creating lives worth sharing when you find someone willing to do the same with you.

And Jeff was a dad. He and Kathryn's three children were adolescents and teens when I met them, and the adoration in that family was clearly a five-way street. Those 'kids' are now adults with their own babies, and so Jeff had become Poppa well before he said good-bye this summer.

Yes, Jeff died of cancer. Another good man gone with generations left to mourn him. But that is not what we gather this afternoon to remember. That is not why Jeff is worth celebrating.

Jeff lived a life. He loved well. He expressed what he saw of the world. He celebrated music and encouraged the musicianship of his children. If a rising tide truly floats all boats, Jeff was a tide for the people around him.

As I finished my painting this morning, I thought of Jeff. I thought of his unwillingness to live the expected life (a creative life is always an inspiring act of courage and rebellion), of how he embodied the WestCoast life. I thought of the mischievous twinkle that he always had about him. And I thought, presumptuously no doubt, that Jeff wouldn't mind if I name my playful orca after him. I'm only sorry it's not wearing a mackinaw.

the good news is, there is no muse

I’ve begun reading Ann Patchett’s This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, and it, more than any other writing or creativity book I’ve read - and there have been many - has me at my computer at 6:30 in the morning committed to “developing the craft so I can master the art” (yes, that’s a rough quote from Patchett). 

This is the first morning of what I intend to have become a habit*, and already I can see it will take some forethought. It will take getting to bed earlier and not reading late into the night. And it will take remembering that in this game, writing every day is more important than a few extra minutes in my warm soft bed. My warm soft robe, on the other hand, is just one more reward for getting up. 

I never think of Ann Patchett when people ask me about my favourite writers, and yet when I look at the list of her novels that I’ve read, I’m struck by how much I enjoyed those stories. Enjoyed is the wrong word. I savoured them. I re-read passages not because I’d missed something but because I wanted to spend more time in that scene; more time with those characters and in that setting. It shines through that she started out to be a poet, learned the skill and craft of story in short stories, and grew into being a novelist. Her skill with language and plot marry beautifully - perhaps even happily. 

While This is the Story of a Happy Marriage might be the worst title ever for a writing book (from a marketing stand-point), it’s still a great book. And I’ve only read the introduction and the first few chapters. Oh, and the version I am reading happens to be large print. That’s the version that was in the bag of books my parents lent me last spring, so that’s the version I have. It turns out a large print book is about what I need right now. Ha. At least early in the morning on the bus in a day that has not quite burst into full bloom the large print makes a difference. Of course, I’d sort of rather that no one on the bus notice that I’m reading a large print book, but … what does that really matter? 

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage makes me want to call in sick, brew a big pot of tea, and curl up on my couch all day. I guess I can do that Saturday. It’s also clearly the kind of book that makes me want to get up and write, which is not something that has seemed like a good idea for the last several months. Patchett makes really clear in her first couple essays that she practised her craft. She actively learned it. She sought teachers she admired and trusted and respected, read from them, and worked with them. She doesn’t espouse getting an MFA or doing a summer writing workshop (although she’s done both and then some) so much as getting down to it. Being disciplined. Doing the work.

Patchett’s entree into writing was freelancing for magazines. Some pretty big magazines. She got to be a go-to writer for GQ and the New York Times Magazine and others. Eventually she traveled on their dime. She conducted research for her novels on their dime (during her research Bel Canto, which is about opera singers, except it isn't, she was sent by Gourmet magazine to tour the great opera houses of Italy - they got a great travel series out of it, and she got familiar with the life of modern opera). 

Patchett undeniably has talent. Perhaps she had a little luck. But more than anything what she had was productivity and willingness. She was no ‘artiste.’ She took what assignments she was given and made them into something. She did not protect her darlings but willingly cut words and sentences and paragraphs to make the article work for the editors. Yes, eventually she was able to stop that life. 

She has long since become a prolific and respected enough author to focus full time on writing novels, and she still approaches it, according to her essays, as a job. As something you get up and do every day because that’s the career you choose, not because the whimsical whispers of the muse are stirring. She has never had writer’s block, mostly because she doesn’t believe in it. She believes in procrastination, and that writer’s block is mostly just a form of mental procrastination. To anyone who has suffered greatly from the ‘affliction’ I imagine that could be an affront, but maybe she’s on to something. Maybe the solution to writer’s block is simply to write. 

That’s what has inspired me from Patchett’s story of her writing career. Nobody can predict when a muse will strike, but everyone who wants to call themselves a writer can get up a half-hour early, sit at the computer, and plunk out words from whatever is around them. This morning I happen to have a subject on my mind, and when I don’t, I’ll look at a photo on the wall and describe what’s outside the frame. Or I’ll see a colouring sheet (we’re into ‘adult colouring’ at my house right now) and share the story it is telling. Or I’ll look at one of the antiques in the room and tell a story from when it was new. Inspiration, it seems, is not in the wind. It is everywhere around us if we’re willing to see it. 

As I sit in the living room nearing the end of my first 30 minute session, I’m thinking ‘30 minutes - that wasn’t very long.’ No, not the first morning it wasn’t. Not while my sails are full with Patchett’s admonitions. But what about in two weeks. What about when I’m tired, or ill, and it’s cold in here, and I DON’T WANT TO. 

Well, I hope that in those morning when the alarm goes I’ll give myself a talking too, shrug into my soft warm robe, and get myself back in front of the glow of the computer screen with its blinking cursor. Because I am a writer, dammit, and writers write. And now I’m just stalling because if there’s one writing habit I’ve trained myself in, it’s writing things in blog-post length and I write that in under 30 minutes. But there is still one minute on the clock and I am not going to cheat myself of 60 seconds of writing time this first morning out. 

*No, I don't intend to post every morning's ramblings - I just thought that posting this one would add another layer of accountability. :) 

the dying of the light

When is the sunset?
Is it the moment the sun touches the hilltop and flares brightly for a moment,
as when you first kissed me
and I - weak in the knees -
had to hold you strong moments longer
until I could again stand on my own?

Or is it when the last ray dips behind the hill,
when the last email is sent and
I know there will be no reply;
when the last kiss is identified
only long after the fact?
Was it when I walked away still clinging to the last high rays pinking the clouds?

The light between one and another moment spans
space and
time and
memory and
thought.

It's here.
And it's gone.

A realist would say the sun is both always rising and constantly setting.
A realist would say the sun moves on.

And so, I suppose, must I.
At long last light, so must I.

I have something to say

I have something to say. But first I have a story to tell. I may have told this story before - here or elsewhere - so if it's familiar to you, just bear with me: 

I started performing, in one form or another, very early in life. My sisters and I first sang a 'special' in church when I was only 4. I couldn't read the words so my mom helped me memorize them - I still remember that tune. I took a fairly immediate liking to the experience - the singing, the attention, being in front of our small church. I have never really been afraid of a crowd. 

With that early reinforcement, it didn't strike me as all that note-worthy when I was in grade 7 and my English teacher - Helen Rogers, an imposing woman who suffered no fools - asked me to join the Drama Club. I was flattered, but it just made sense in my egotistical teenage mind. I was fairly certain that she saw some spark of genius in me. 

Mrs. Rogers, mid-lecture, 1981

I acted. We were a very small school with a very small drama club putting on very small plays. We staged two or three one-act plays twice a year.We attended and hosted regional drama festivals. We went to provincial arts festivals. By grade 11 or 12 I did a little directing. It helped me hone some rudimentary assessment and leadership skills, though I doubt I knew that at the time. 

The week before my graduation from high school, Mrs. Rogers - who remained my English teacher through most of junior/senior high - and I had a private chat. I wanted to acknowledge her for encouraging me to write, for letting me write creative responses to readings not just essays (in addition to, not in place of, mind you), for teaching me critical thinking, and for helping direct my anything-and-everything love of reading into something a little more useful. Mrs. Rogers was too stern to ever be one of my favourite teachers, but I had the good sense to at least recognize her as one of my most valuable teachers. I also thanked her for that long ago invitation to join the Drama Club for all the fun it had been. 

With her trademark dryness, Mrs. Rogers said to me, "I wanted you to join drama because I wanted you to learn how to speak. You have so much to say, and much of it is worth hearing. But when we first met you spoke really fast and in a high pitched voice like you just wanted to get it out without anyone noticing, and I wanted you to speak so people would listen."

I was slightly flabbergasted - and perhaps a smidge put in my place - at both her insight and the long-range game that she had been playing. It still moves me. 

---

I have been home from Jamaica for 2 and a half weeks now, don't see any immediate prospect for work, and am frightened by my quickly draining bank account. Having not been out of work since 2002, I am finding the job search frustrating and, frankly, soul-sucking. It's been hard on my confidence. Chatting with my friend Cheeky last night, I admitted that part of the problem may be that I don't want a job, per se - I want contracts. I want to write and teach and let others know that they have something to say and provide them with the tools and confidence to say it. And I want to be location independent - to be able to take my work anywhere in the world. 

Cheeky said "well, are you the best at what you do?" And I hedged my answer and said it was a silly, possibly mean-spirited, question and there are a lot of great writers and teachers/trainers/public speakers in the world and ... . He interrupted. He persisted, and at first I thought he was trying to get me to be reasonable, to see that I am not the best in the world, and to go take a job like a good North American. 

Me, mid-lecture, 2015

It turned into one of those things. A few minutes later I was sitting on my couch in my flannel pyjamas proclaiming my awesomeness just to shut him up. He made me keep saying it not until he believed me but until I did. 

In that moment I remembered back to January when I lead a communications, branding and story-telling workshop for 38 non-profit employees in Kingston. I thought about being at the front of the room knowing that what I said was making a difference for the attendees, the organizations they work in, and the clients those organizations serve. 

And I remembered the feeling of also knowing that, in that moment, at the front of the room, I was awesome. Words flowed out of me, and time both flew and stood still. I may not have been the best in the world, but in that classroom at that time I was what was needed. 

I have something to say. For the longest time I've wanted to write and speak as my way to 'make a life, not a living' but I didn't think I had anything that was worth saying. Last night I realised that I do have a specialty - I have something to say. So do you. And I can help you say it. 

mine

She waited for the steady sinus breathing pattern that let her know he was asleep, and slid gently out of bed and into her solace-filled housecoat. This was not the greatest betrayal possible in a relationship, but in this house it ranked high on the list. After all, the delight she slurped in the darkened kitchen was mint chocolate chip.

No one should expect her to share that.

wondering. creating. moving forward.

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.”

I've been pondering for a while now how I can live a life that inspires me, and I've been checking out people who have the lifestyle I think I want, and trying to learn from their experiences (while keeping in mind the Joseph Campbell quote above).

Along the way, I came across this conversation between Chase Jarvis and Chris Guillebeau, and this statement from Chris really resonated for me "living a balanced life is not the goal; living a fulfilled life is."

And I think. Okay - that's a view of success that works for you ... but am I really willing to do the work that it takes to live a dream life?

As I've mentioned before, I am not ungrateful for the great life I have. I have a love, a home, an education, a family, and a job that I am proud of and thankful for. Yet there's some burning essential part of ME that does not get expressed in my life, and this is not okay with me.

Anyway. Pondering. Not so much writing, of late. But pondering.

a fragment

She was all sharp angles & hard edges. Staccoto. Treble. Dancing like she was marching to war. The kind of woman who turns a life to dry crumbs. She was a desert wind robbing all around of their damp pleasing joy.

Her hair poked out dangerously - metal shavings stuck to the side of her head. She offered neither cooling dew nor passionate steaming humidity, just the arid sucking

When she broke, all that was left were shards and dust. A shattering so complete, nothing could be salvaged.

brain glitch

So I have this weird thing that happens. I'm quite sure that I'm not alone in this, but here it my particular version. When someone - particularly someone I hold in high regard or authority - compliments or encourages me in a public endeavour, I stop. It's happened over and over in university, grad school, singing, etc, and more than once here. 

Which is why after several months of very frequent writing and feeling some momentum and breaking through some barriers to say things that really matter, I've been a little quiet for the last nine days. It's one thing when your friends and family say they read your writing, but when other writers - writers you truly admire - send you feedback and encouragement. 

Stage fright. Sudden shyness. 

And this from a girl who LOVES the limelight. 

pen and paper

I spend my days online, blinking, wavering pixilated screens blasting my eyes to fatigue and my brain to a near seizure state. The ease of communicating online is both its biggest selling feature, and its biggest detraction. For some reason, a blank screen is fraught with danger.

But a blank page and a full pen, therein lies a whole world of possibility. A blank page calls out for the writer in me, for the cool pressure of hand on paper and the scritch scritch scritch of a ball point pen. A blank page can become a story or a sketch, it can hold dreams and secrets. Writing with pen and paper is an act of comfort and creation.

I wonder why I don't do it more. 

movies

When I was a child I dreamt of acting in the movie. More importantly, I dreamt about winning an Oscar, of breaking the bonds of my little life, of proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was special and worth watching and listening to.

And then I dreamt of singing in the movies, though I knew that musicals never won Oscars, I thought I could be one of those rare double threats – an actor and a singer. No slashes. No privileging one talent over the other. I would be an amazing singer. And I would be a compelling actor.

That dream eventually mutated into writing. Meryl Streep faded into Diablo Cody. A screen play or an adaptation - either would be fine, as long as I got to wear a beautiful gown, walk the red carpet, and have my talents recognized.

I love the movies – I love the move-going experience. The big screen, the popcorn, chocolate snacks that you can pop into your mouth by the handful. But always and forever there’s a little piece of me that gazes up at that screen thinks ... that could have been me. I coulda been a star.

mirror

Out flew the web and floated wide
The mirror crack'd from side to side; 
"The curse is come upon me," cried 
The Lady of Shalott.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Mirror mirror – trouble-making yes-man of the wicked witch. Shadowy tunnel to wonderland. Downfall of medusa. Taunter of Belle with images of loved ones she cannot see or comfort. Peeping tool of peeping Merlin.

So many traditions and tropes. So many reasons to look the other way. Mermaids own mirrors as symbols of their vanity, and their devious duplicity. But are there fairy tales in which mirrors are a form of torture? Treachery, yes. Isolation, misery, cold-hearted cruelty, entrapment - I suppose those are all their own form of torture.

Sometimes it’s looking in the mirror that is the problem. Sometimes, as with our poor Lady of Shallot, it is in looking out at the world too clearly.

serendipity with 12 pens

This summer it was a jigsaw puzzle at Shiney's. That great communal project that unites and frustrates children of all ages. It got me pondering and remembering and reminiscing. And then it was a little book; for the past month, I've been making my way through The Happiness Project, in which the author notes that the things we enjoyed as children we likely still enjoy if we'd just admit it to ourselves. More pondering. 

Then I began The Artists Way. I'm only on week two of 12, but already I've been coming up against some, apparently predictable, roadblocks. How do I take my inner artist child out to play each week when I don't know what my inner artist child wants to do. It's been so long since I cared to listen - maybe I couldn't hear. 

But somehow it all converged, as the important things often do. One of the artist tasks this week, in addition to the date, was to list 20 things I enjoy. I read that one to STG and said "I don't think I can think of 20 things I enjoy lately."  And so I  looked back - back to the days of playing with Shiney. Back to long school bus rides home to a farm that was full of adventure and devoid of tv. Back to days when I was seldom bored. 

What did I love to do? Play the piano - not actually practice and learn, just play with it. Read and read and read and read. Jigsaw puzzles and board games. Random walks that somehow turned into  mysterious adventures. And colouring. Not drawing - somehow even at that young age I knew that 'I couldn't draw.' But I loved colouring long after it ceased to be 'age appropriate.'

So I headed out this afternoon believing that I'd have the house to myself for at least 2 hours tonight to find either a jigsaw puzzle or a colouring book that caught my fancy and that I could play with for 2 hours on a date with myself. 

What I found was so much more wonderful. In the unlikeliest of bookstores, a display rack of DoodleArt. Now, if you weren't a child in the 70's and early 80's. And more particularly, if you weren't a grandchild of Viola Sylvesta in the 70's and early 80's you might not have the heart-rush of happiness at the mention of DoodleArt that me and my sisters and my cousins are likely to have. It's not just the impossible complexity of the doodles. Or the seemingly endless task of filling them in. It's the hours and hours and hours spent waiting for the light blue pen to be free. Or sucking on a dying felt nib to get just that last bit of green on the page. And seeing your collaborative masterpiece hanging at the end of the downstairs hallway for years, and always knowing exactly which flower or fish was yours, and finding exactly the spot where you thought a fin was a wave and coloured blue instead of orange.

And so, at the ripe old age of 44, I bought myself a DoodleArt.

But that wasn't even the best part. I could tell from the miniscule preview on the poster tube, and from the title, that this particular DoodleArt was about Fairy Tales. But I had no idea until I'd shaken out the pens, reverse rolled the poster, and plopped it on my table that this DoodleArt was really about me. Young. In an outfit with too many patterns and too many colours. Hair askew (though I don't think I ever once had pig tails). So deeply engrossed in a book that entire worlds swirled around me. Me. Captured in a DoodleArt.

And, something sort of magical happened while I was colouring my DoodleArt this evening - I sang. For the first time in a year. I sat at the table with my smudgy felt pens and I sang. Just a little. Until the song ended again. And that's okay. Maybe I don't have to find all of my inner artist child at once. Maybe it's okay if she emerges one doodle, one song, and one date at a time. I hope she does. I really miss singing. 

that said,

I wasn't always pretty.
It came later. Haltingly.
In spite of fat and fear and an untamable unibrow.
I wasn't always pretty.
Or sexy.
Or attractive.
Or whatever word you might choose.
You choose the words.
I'll choose the being of them.
When I'm in the mood.
I wasn't often pretty.
Often, I'm still not.

review, of sorts, of an author I haven't read, but will

You can tell I've come straight from reading The Bloggess again, because my title is so long, and has commas, which I don't think I've ever done before. It's okay though, I love The Bloggess nearly as much as I love run-on sentences. 

View on Amazon

The author referred to in my unusually long title is one Chuck Palahniuk. Who, you might ask (as did everyone I invited to come with me), is Chuck Palahniuk? Well, he's the author of, amongst many other things, the short stories and novels that lead to the movies Fight Club and Choke. In the interest of full-disclosure and post structure, I will here admit that I have never read anything Palahniuk has written, but I shall soon correct that. I did enjoy Fight Club, the movie, quite a bit as a unique narrative form and creative story - one of the few that has truly surprised me in the last twenty years. But more to the point, the tickets were free. I won them on Facebook in an instinctive response to someone asking a trivia question I happened to know the answer to. And, Fight Club is one of BB1's favourite stories and I thought he might be able to use the tickets. What happened about that is a blog post in and of itself. But back to the point ... 

In the end, STG came with me to the reading, - it was his first, and pleasantly it was the best one I've ever been to. For some people that might not be saying much, but there was a time when I was the poster girl for literature studies at my tiny little university, and attended poetry and book readings what seemed like every few days. So ya, my expectation of book readings is that they are somewhat dry and redeemed only by the relative talent of the author in question ... or their willingness to buy me a glass of wine. 

Not so with Palahniuk. Somehow he manages to be creative, edgy, human, current and accessible all at once. He was refreshingly free of cynicism, despite (or maybe because of) the darkness of some of his writing. His 'reading' was an event - it included participation games that sent almost half of the audience home with an inflatable of one type or another, six people clinging to free books, and many more people munching on king sized chocolate bars during the reading. His answers to the Q & A period were thoughtful, respectful (except perhaps to the fool who asked if he was a dog or cat person - come on!), authentic, revealing, and encouraging. The two short-stories that he read very much left me wanting more, and I look forward to picking up as many of his books as I can. 

What really struck me in his answers and in discussing his stories was how autobiographical, or more accurately rooted in and springing from his life they are. I often stop myself mid-story for feeling like what I'm writing is too 'true-to-life' - even though I know that when I'm inspired by life my writing is its most compelling. So it was hugely affirming for me to hear that someone as accomplished as Palahniuk actually had to take anti-anxiety pills to tell two of his most personal stories. I'm not there yet - that goes without saying - but seeing into Palahniuk's process was enough to tell me that when I can barely stand to write or read a story, I'm likely on the right track. I started a story I really want to tell - a story I really like - early in November, and I can see now that it is the story I need to tell now. So thanks for that, Chuck Palahniuk. And for an entertaining evening. And for the Bounty bar STG shared with me.

red dress blue gown black pen

Wednesdays tend to be my quiet-night-at-home eating poorly, watching too much TV, and surfing the internet with nothing to do but tickle my fancy. At some point tonight on Twitter I 'met' Alyssa, the author of Near Normalcy, whose tweets made me giggle and whose blog struck a chord with me. She had posted about NaNoWriMo, the annual novel writing fest/challenge, and stated that she participates because she wants to be a writer ... and then she caught herself: 

I want to be a writer?  How sad.  I used to say "I am a writer."  But writers write.  Right?  Writers write, and I don't write anything these days ... well, let me qualify that.  I write for a living.  Technically.  I am a writer.  But I write marketing copy, admission letters, college catalog copy.  I write other people's words.

And I write this blog.  And I love writing this blog, and part of the reason I started blogging was to find my voice again.  And I plan to keep writing this blog as long as you keep reading it, and maybe even if you don't.  But at the end of the day, the writer I want to be is a fiction writer.  A novelist.  And I haven't been actively writing fiction since...November 2009.

So I'm here to say that I am a writer, and I am going to write.

I could have written every one of those words, though probably not with such clear sentence structure. So I clicked on a link from Alyssa's blog to 'Write on Edge' - a writing site 'where inspiration meets community' and I read that they are about giving people the freedom to say I AM A WRITER AND I WANT TO BE A PUBLISHED WRITER, and that their original name, The Red Dress Club, was inspired by The Bloggess (she's a SUPER STAR, don't ya know, and one of my heros) post about a red dress

“I want, just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies. I want to be shocking, and vivid and wear a dress as intensely amazing as the person I so want to be. And the more I thought about it the more I realized how often we deny ourselves that red dress and all the other capricious, ridiculous, overindulgent and silly things that we desperately want but never let ourselves have because they are simply “not sensible”. Things like flying lessons, and ballet shoes, and breaking into spontaneous song, and building a train set, and crawling onto the roof just to see the stars better. Things like cartwheels and learning how to box and painting encouraging words on your body to remind yourself that you’re worth it.”

And all of that just rang for me. One of the reasons my profile picture here and on Twitter is me in my blue ball gown is as a reminder. There are other pictures of me that I like - ones where you can see my eyes more clearly, and some that show that I've lost some weight. Ones where I don't have that weird crease on my face. But my lord I love that ball gown. It's so poofy and vibrant and sparkling and unrestrained despite the corset back. It was such an outlandish, impractical purchase. It's still impractical, taking up half the space under my bed. And I can't part with it. I'll likely never wear it again - any future ball will require it's own dress - but I love the pure indulgence and freedom to dream that it represents. 

I love my job. I love that I do work that makes a difference in our community and that matters to me. I love that I work with people who like and respect me and who want me to succeed at work and in my life. And some part of me - the part that went to Ireland on my own; the part that bought her first ball gown at 40 years of age; the part that sometimes has solo dance parties in my living room and that had ice cream for dinner tonight - wishes I could just throw it all away and write. And write and write and publish and tour and win awards. But mostly write. 

We make choices. We agree to commitments and responsibilities. We spend time building futures that sometimes require delaying dreams now to live bigger ones in the future. And we do what we can to keep those dreams alive until they can take over the dance floor. 

The Bloggess has her red dress. I have my blue ball gown. And we all have black ink wells waiting to be emptied across our screens. And now, I must go dance ... 

am so

I said a while back in the Trust 30 posts that I'd start breaking down into eatable chunks the elephant that is finishing my novel. I have indeed been working on that, as well as a new non-fiction project. Somedays it feels like jogging in mud, but somedays I hit a river of clarity and it flows. The balance is encouraging.

I shared an older snippet in that July post, and I figured maybe I'd update you and share something from what I've been working on recently ... just for fun. And because I really like it - it kinda makes me giggle:

She broke suddenly. The overwhelming weight of his absence, hidden so long behind the shroud of his silence, did her in. It started with a quiet influx of air, and then a giant whooshing engulfed all she had thought she was, sweeping violently across the floor, removing his tattered, fart-smelling futon, the furry dog bed, the stain where she'd spilled her wine kissing him. It turned out, once the space dried and healed, she hadn't been swept away at all ... she'd just been cleaning the house some.

So ya. That's all I really wanted to say. Just in case you were wondering, what with all the super dramatic naval-gazey posts of late - yes, I am writing - I'm not as far on the novel as I said, but I had to get the non-fiction stuff out of my head. And I'm working. And I'm trying now and then to have a life.

But ya. I'm writing. And it feels good.

white cotton

There's a luxury to white that entices me.

Dare I wear a white sweater and eat carrot soup, or slurp saucy spaghetti, knowing as I do my clumsiness and white cotton's magnetic powers. It's tempting fate in a casual cottony kind of way.

Lush white towels - fluffy and broad - hang in my bathroom, but I fear sometimes to use them. Instead I wipe my face that might still have traces of mascara on the thread-worn yellow towel to the side, convinced that it's roughness is a good form of exfoliant.

A crisp white sheet of paper contains all the possibilities of the universe, the emptiness itself is an invitation. (I suppose I almost never write on paper made of cotton, but the possibility is just as present on tree pulp).

And bedsheets. Oh for the splendour of crisp white bed sheets, dried in the sun and fresh air, floating down over my body at bedtime.

One could never have nightmares on a bed like that.

What a Tiger Mom Really Does

I meant to enter a writing contest this week. I often mean to enter writing contests, and then somehow manage not to track the deadline or make time/space to do the drafting/revising/editing and then pretend to be surprised when the deadline passes. 

This particular topic was near and dear to my heart. I don't even remember what the prize was (national publication + cash, I think); I just know that the topic was something I feel very strongly about, and that I can speak to. 

The question was, 'How have I changed motherhood, or how has motherhood changed me." And here is my answer: 

I can see now that I was never the wilting flower I thought I was. However, growing up - even while the rest of the world saw me as a gregarious, bold and outgoing leader in training, I saw only the girl who would avoid conflict at all costs and who would say or do whatever she thought she needed to say or do to have people like or at least accept her.

And then I became a mom. I don't know what hormonal or evolutionary switch was flipped, but I knew from the moment my son first cried at someone else's touch that I would tear someone apart rather than let him be hurt. 

I was the original Tiger Mom. Not the nasty, underhanded Tiger of golf. Not the over-bearing, domineering author of parenting how-to books. And certainly not imbued with a certain celebrity's ridiculous conception of tiger blood. I was the Tiger Mom whose eyes burned bright at the thought of my sons being threatened, and whose sharp claws were ever ready to protect them from whatever physical and emotional threats I could see. 

I had no idea how powerful I am before I became a mom. And I had no idea how strong I would need to be. I've battled doctors, teachers, other children. Yet the hardest of all has been battling my sons themselves when they became their own worst enemies. Those are the hardest battles. The battles when I want to just wrap my sons in my arms and hold them close, but instead I am baring my teeth to keep them from imminent danger.

They don’t tell you, in prenatal classes, that no matter how many baby gates and outlet covers and cupboard latches you buy, there will still be dangers. Dangers more insidious than electricity and longer lasting than falling down the stairs. Nobody warns you that sometimes you won’t see the danger until it’s almost too late, and then you’ll have to move at top speed and use every defensive and offensive option at your disposal to keep them safe.

Unjust teachers were easily converted. Doctors with deaf ears quickly had them opened. But nothing prepared me for keeping my sons safe when they were the ones who were hurting themselves, or for what it would take to fight my own instinct to just keep them happy with me and pretend everything was okay when all evidence pointed to a snake in the nursery.

Perhaps it’s not accurate to say that being a mother has changed me. But it has undeniably changed how I see myself. I am gregarious, bold and the leader that teachers and friends have generally seen in me. I am also the sometimes scared wall flower who just wants to be loved and accepted. But underneath either of those options – more base and raw and instinctual, I am the tiger mom who paces in the dark searching for hidden dangers. Who stands between her sons and the most immediate dangers. And who sometimes, when they’ll let me, picks them up by the scruff of the neck and pulls them back to the den to test their own mettle another day.

People used to laugh and call me a Tiger Mom. So be it – if my flashing eyes and tenacious roars mean that my sons get one piece of support, one opportunity or one easy, happy  moment they wouldn’t have otherwise, then Tiger Mom is a label I will wear with pride. 

C - Creative

Strolling to work this morning I was pondering what to write about that fits with the themes of creativity and advent. I wrote just recently about the creative spark, about starting with nothing and bringing into existence something.  Yes, there are certain aspects of Christmas that are inherently creative - finding a present that reminds you of a loved one. Making gifts and treats. Matching the perfect ribbon to the ideal paper to create an object that shows your love. Christmas oozes creativity, but in this year of change it also requires some fresh approaches.

At lunch today I was talking with a co-worker about the Christmas traditions she's building with her children, and I told her about the traditions the BBs and I have enjoyed. And I thought about how different it is this year. They aren't here. And it seems really pointless to do all the things we've always done by myself. It's a little sad, except that what they are doing so well.

So, how does a recently mostly-empty-nester sustain traditions? It'll be a little trickier since BB1 is not even in town, but BB2 is here. And he asked just a week or two about about the advent calendar we've had since he was 5.

No, I don't have two little boys clamouring down the stairs in the morning to fight over the chocolates shoved in the pockets, but I do have one big boy wondering what the plan is. So this year the advent calendar has only one chocolate in each pocket, and it's hanging on his apartment door waiting for him to come home tonight. And when BB1 tells me which tradition matters most to him, we'll make sure that happens when he comes to visit. Or ... maybe we'll start some new traditions. Because a new tradition is a true test of creativity.