Waking Up

Last night I was looking through one of the "catch-all" boxes we moved from our last house to this one -- things I knew I wanted to keep at the time but didn't have a place for. Amidst photos from college, spools of thread, and old birthday cards I found a few stray pieces of notebook paper covered in my own handwriting. At the top I'd written only, "Waking Up."

It turned out to be one of the very few pieces of writing I did when my kids were little, this one when Sweetpea was about 18 months old and just taking her first steps (on her own schedule, even then). In these few pages of thoughts, scribbled during a nap or a rare moment alone and then forgotten, lie the seeds of so much I'm still working on today.

Questions like how to play this strange role of mother, cast by our children as their gods, their mirrors, their first experiences of "other" ... and rarely, if ever, on our own terms:

For months, the question "Where's Mommy?" was met with a blank stare, an innocent unblinking gape, as if humoring a crazy person. Later, cheerful pointing: at the clock, the radio, her dad. Mommy was omnipresent. Now she points an accusing finger directly at my chest and proclaims me "Mama," more sure of herself. Mama. Separate. Pleased with the knowledge she can pull my hair and not be hurt. Delights in my predictable yelp as she pinches folds of my neck between tiny fingers.

How to let them grow, and let them go, at their own pace:

Slow as she's been to move I am still one step behind. Even now, I look for her where I've left her, it takes me a minute to comprehend why she's not there.

And of course, how to achieve what some days still seems like an impossible task, to find the common ground between "writer" and "mother":

For the last 18 months it's been harder to breathe, to write. Longer: since the moment I imagined her ... She -- the idea of her, even -- supplanted my will and desire for any other kind of life, and I felt driven toward motherhood like a vocation, a calling. I watch other women and wonder if they somehow feel less or if they have just learned to conceal it, this glow like skin rubbed raw.

She keeps me grounded, but also trapped in the literal, untangling the differences between 'car' and 'bus,' 'cat' and 'dog,' until I almost confuse them myself. Wondering how I ever learned to distinguish yellow from orange, purple from blue. Some days this distracts me to the point I think if someone were to ask me I might get them wrong; afraid someone will overhear me calling the dog a 'ball' or 'clock.' ... How can I be expected to write metaphors in these circumstances?

I opened the piece by saying I felt as though I were emerging from a coma, blinking myself awake. I couldn’t know then how much more sleep was yet to come, how far I still was from daybreak. Nearly seven years later, I’m still waking up.

Making peace with the mess

I am addicted to the moment in writing when the magic happens -- when a collection of words and images I'm playing with begins to form itself into a poem, and I can suddenly glimpse order within the chaos. In that moment, though I still have many drafts to go, I feel grounded again. I am "home."

I stick to short, lyrical works in part because I know bigger subjects would mean more words, more chaos, and a longer wait before order and meaning emerge. I haven't wanted to stay in that uncertain (and often uncomfortable) place any longer than I have to.

But ... I find myself lately pestered by a subject that is far too big for a single poem. (Trust me, I've tried.) There is just too much here. New angles appear at every turn. No clear meaning or neat structure is revealing itself -- just occasional moments that whisper, Something real is here. Moments promising enough to keep me plowing blindly ahead, deeper into the uncertainty.

For perhaps the first time in my writing life, I am 10,000 words into something and I don't have a clue yet what it wants to be.

It's a little like cleaning out a closet. I began with great enthusiasm, focused only on dragging everything into the light, a faint image in my mind of a spare and tidy future. But now I am surrounded with the years of clutter I've hauled from the closet's bowels, and it's time to start organizing the mess. Suddenly I have an almost irresistible urge to flop down on the floor and stay there, weeping and twitching, until someone makes it all go away. Or to stuff it all back in and slam the door.

It's not just about writing, I know. Marriage, kids, career, friendships ... anything worth loving eventually brings me to a point where my mess spills out of the closet and all over the floor. Then I have a choice. I can do the things I've done in the past: Stuff it quickly away, make it look tidy. Cut and run, let someone else clean it up.

Or I can attempt something infinitely more difficult. Stay in the chaos. Breathe. Let patterns and meaning emerge in their own time. Wait for the magic to happen.

The stories of my life -- the one I'm attempting to write now, and the one I'm attempting to live -- are messy and complicated. Rushing to easy conclusions will not do them justice. No neat structures, no tidy morals here.

Just, every once in a while, a moment that whispers, Pay attention. Something real is happening. Moments interesting enough to keep me taking one more step, then another, into the unknown.

My cup runneth over

Week before last, I was on a roll. I was writing so much, I could barely stand to come up for air at the end of the school day. I carried my notebook with me everywhere, desperate to capture every one of the thoughts that followed me around like a cloud of gnats.

It doesn't seem possible that was just over a week ago.

Then ... midwinter break happened. Three days of Sweetpea out of school, a long weekend, and a sick day for Sprout tacked on the tail end. In the meantime, I also dealt with two teeth that needed pulling (Sweetpea's), four shots that needed shooting (Sprout's), two testicles that needed removing (the dog's -- relax, Hubby's are fine, thanks for asking), and one nasty sinus infection (all mine).

Now here I am, finally with a bit of energy and a few hours of free time, wondering where, oh where all those creative juices have gone. This balance is still so fragile.

While I wasn't writing last week, I was doing a lot of research about allergies, looking for tips that might help me clear up the sinuses for good. I learned that our bodies can tolerate a certain level of environmental allergens without overreacting. For the last few years I'd apparently been staying within that limit and feeling fine. Then (because life around here was getting a little dull), we got a puppy. In my case, dog dander was the drop that made my personal allergy bucket overflow.

Since we're not keen on getting rid of the dog (and breaking my children's tender young hearts) (OK, my heart), I need to look for ways to limit my exposure to dander and other allergens until I reach that healthy threshold again -- by closing doors, covering mattresses, filtering air, etc.

The creative balance seems to work roughly the same way. Everyone who writes has to deal with at least some other responsibilities, I know. But at some point, the bucket just gets too full. Beyond that invisible line, if you do happen upon a spare hour, you're probably not going to spend it writing sonnets. In fact, you're far more likely to spend it on auto-pilot, nervously wiping counters and waiting for the next child to cry. Or maybe that's just me.

The tipping-point is different for everyone. I know this, because I have friends who managed to continue writing even when their kids were babies. Several years after sterilizing my last bottle, I still can't fathom how they did it. I remember most days having just enough free time to eat or shower, but not both. Where would I have fit in writing the Great American Novel, exactly?

An inch or two of room has finally opened up. But even now, I need to be diligent in managing all of the other demands on my mind and time, if I am to maintain this creative space. Last week, the bucket just plain overflowed.

It looks like tomorrow I might get back on track. To do that, I'm going to have to scale back demands on my energy to a healthier level. By closing some doors. Maintaining boundaries. Filtering requests.

So, please don't be offended if it takes me a few days to respond to an email or return your call. With any luck, it just means I found an inch or two of breathing room, and I'm hanging on to it for all I'm worth.

Because I said so

Every time I sit down to write lately, a Greek chorus of negativity (roughly the size of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) kicks in. Much of this is the everyday, run-of-the-mill self-criticism. But there's also a subtler recurring theme emerging: "Why?"

It comes in many forms. "Why this?" "Why now?" "So what?" "Why is your house such a mess?" "Why not take the dog for a walk instead?"

That one little word can stop me in my tracks. I start an essay, and within two pages I'm wondering why anyone would want to read it. I get an idea for a children's book, and in the back of my mind I'm thinking, "But what's the point?"

I've always been more comfortable doing things that come neatly packaged with a ready answer to the question "Why?" Usually some form of, "Because someone else wants (or expects) me to." "Because someone is paying me to." "Because this will earn me someone's approval." Etc. And lately, "Because the kids need me to."

Meanwhile, I put off those tasks that have a less obvious (or simply more personal) justification. Indefinitely.

Of course, these are precisely the things I promised myself I'd tackle during this sabbatical. So it makes perfect sense that, in finally facing this hang-up head on, I'm stirring up a hornet's nest of "Why?"

I've been working on some new answers:

It's fun.

It's new.

It makes me happy.

It scares me.

I feel like it.

I don't feel like it.

It feels right.

I dare you.

Then again, the answers aren't really the problem, are they? What I really need are some better questions. Instead of "Why?":

How?

What next?

What's stopping you?

What if ... ?

What's the worst that could happen?

And of course ... Why the hell not?

If I can't stop questioning myself, these should at least prompt some more interesting answers.

Giving up the ghost

After all that good, solid rationalization ... I turned the job down anyway.

Even now, the reasonable part of my brain is raising a ruckus. (OK, that part of my brain isn't really the ruckus-raising type. But it's definitely grimacing uncomfortably!) See, it believes there are only two good reasons to turn down work that doesn't involve trafficking in 13 year olds. (1) I already have some work, thanks, or (2) Gee, I'd love to, but I have so much of this dang money I couldn't possibly manage any more.

We all know #1 isn't true, and let me assure you, #2 isn't either. So what's the deal?

For years, I have done what can best be described as ghostwriting. We don't call it that in my industry, but that's what it amounts to: taking what someone else wants to say, and helping them say it more clearly and effectively.

I've been told I have a knack for this. At my best, I can rework a piece of writing so that the original author says "Yes -- that's exactly what I meant," even if they didn't know exactly what they meant until they read my version.

The trick to this is to be, like a ghost, invisible. What matters is the content, or whatever version of the content the intended audience needs to read. Your own thoughts and opinions? They don't enter in. Your voice doesn't exist. Those things all stay safely locked up behind the attic door. They may rattle their chains once in a while late at night, but they keep pretty quiet during the daylight hours.

Let me be clear -- there's nothing inherently wrong with what I've been doing. It's good work, challenging work, necessary work ... and I may very well return to it one day. But at some point, locking yourself up in that attic becomes a habit.

For now, I'm tired of speaking in someone else's voice and limiting my thoughts to what some imagined reader wants to hear. In the last few weeks I have begun, for better or worse, to let loose the ghosts.

And you know what? I've got some ideas up there, people! Trunks full of 'em! They're a little wrinkled and musty, but they're there. I suspect there may even be a voice lurking somewhere among these cobwebs. I intend to throw open the attic windows, let the light in, and root out what's been hiding all this time.

So hold my calls, please. This may take awhile.

Therefore I am

I'm now a week into this blog, and it's giving me some angst. So yeah ... we're pretty much right on schedule.

The blog is definitely inspiring me to write more, and to write things beyond my comfort zone. (Perhaps beyond yours, too, but that's not my intention. Just a bonus.) Still, I have moments where I question whether it's distracting me from the more important work, the serious work, the "real" writing I am "supposed" to be doing.

See, when I decided to quit my job, I told everybody I was taking a sabbatical to Write A Book. Of Poetry, with a capital P thankyouverymuch. That felt weighty and important, and much more focused than saying I was quitting because I was tired, or bored, or needed to "find myself." (None of which was true, of course. Especially if you happen to be a potential future employer. I really am very focused and not at all the flighty type. I swear! Please stop reading now and check my references.)

Yes, I planned to do other things as well, like parent my kids more effectively for example. But capital-P-Poetry was my Real Work. But the truth is that since leaving my job, I haven't been inspired to write much of that. And what I have written? Well ... most of it just isn't very good.

Which was making me feel like a capital-F-Failure.

Then I realized: I've done it again. I've gone and made something I do a stand-in for Who I Am.

Funny things happen when I do that. I might, purely hypothetically, get so obsessive about running that I push too hard and injure my knee. (Repeatedly.) I might worry so much about how my parenting looks to others that I stop paying attention to what my kids actually need. I might start spending a lot more time shopping for the perfect Laughing Buddha statue and a lot less time sitting on the cushion. (Where is that cushion, anyway?) Or, I might put so much pressure on myself to produce capital-P-Poetry that I stop writing altogether.

There are all kinds of reasons why defining yourself by what you do is a bad idea, but the bottom line is that it's just plain inaccurate. And as Buddha said, inaccuracy creates suffering. (I might be taking some liberties with the Pali there, but I'm pretty sure he'd agree with me in spirit.)

I am the sum of all I have experienced, of everything I think, feel, and do. As such, I am changing every minute. Every new thought, feeling, and experience creates a new version of what I call "me," with the potential to think, feel, and experience new and unprecedented things. To expect otherwise (of myself or others) is to set myself up for certain disappointment.

So. Right now, I am ... not a Blogger ... but blogging. In a minute, I will be throwing a toy for the dog. In an hour, I will be having lunch with a friend. Tonight, I will be parenting my kids with the fullest attention I can muster.

I hope that soon I'll be writing a poem. But until then, I'm giving myself a capital-B-Break