Interior: On Writing

I struggle with this idea of writing. There is a part of my heart that loves it, that loves the release that I feel when I put together something that resonates with me, with others, brings others to tears or laughter or whatever it is. I feel like sometimes this will be my mark if everything falls into the shitter and I leave this earth earlier than anticipated, something for my kids and my friends to hold onto. 

And there is another part of my heart that understands the weird precarious nature of writing, the part that doubts that what I do is useful to anyone that doesn’t know me, that pieces are touching because the people that read them are people who already love me, and that for those people it’s like reading a piece torn from a diary from which you can identify parts and pieces that make sense. But I wonder, really, if these things I trace onto the paper make a difference to anyone outside of the circle of my friends who hold me and my experiences close. I’ve had amazing feedback from people that I have loved and I’ve been really wounded by people I have loved not giving me any feedback. It’s an interesting and tender spot that I don’t want to care about, but I do.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, wondering if that is why I have chosen the rapid-blogging format I use (I don’t know if this is such a thing or if I made it up, but this it’s writing all in one shot, less-than-miniscule-to-zero revisions before posting, get it out and get it up style). If I do it quickly, nobody can remark on the quality. If there are no revisions, I can blow off any mistakes or feedback. If I don’t put in the effort and if I only rely on the whim of the moment, I can’t be expected to be serious about this in any real way. In short, I avoid all of the conflict of criticism or the reality of feedback by being 13 again. My mother would laugh out loud at that idea.

So I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’ve been thinking that I still only really want to write to get things out that I notice, that I love just writing thinking that people I know on Facebook will read it, that I am not a “writer” and I have no aspirations to make this any more than it is. But I need to take this to another level, maybe work in a longer format or build in revisions or begin to take things out of this stream-of-conciousness format that it lives in (as I am typing now) and into something more coherent and cohesive. There is part of me that loves things raw and I have experienced my friends transitioning their gifts from raw talent to tutored and trained talent with mentorship and help and sometimes the transition is rough. I’m not sure what it means to lose your edge and some of the authenticity either. Maybe I’m trying to convince myself already that this is not a good idea, so I’m going to say it before I back away from it completely… I think when I get to Providence, I am going to find a writing coach.

There, I said it.

Now I have to do it. Or come up with a really freaking good reason why not to (which may be, well, I’m not writing coach material).

So wish me luck, friends. I’m peering beyond the edge on this one.

Raising successful children

There is an inordinate amount of time spent at indoor soccer. Inordinate meaning days every week for watching practice or scrimmage-like games, days where you see the same kids playing pretty consistently. My kids enjoy soccer, but they are not the kind of players that are hungry for the ball, first across the line, driven by some inner force that zips them up the field. Nor am I the kind of parent that coaches (at least not all of the time) from the sideline, calling to their kid when they are standing at midfield to give them pointers or tell them how to run plays. Those are the achievement-oriented parents who are gunners themselves and have gunner kids...or don't. I've always wondered that. What's it like to be a non-gunner kid of a gunner parent?

And there is also a little something in me that wonders if the decision we made not to be pressure-focused and achievement-forward parents has meant that my kids step back a little too much, are less driven than they probably could/should be, less likely to get into the college of their dreams, less likely to be superstars who have climbed mountains and made a perfect grade on their SAT and started their own magazine by the time they are 12. It's also a privileged position that my kids don't have to think about these things the way other children do. I think about this a lot and I wonder, as most parents do, if we are doing the right thing not manning up our boy or perfecting our girl, if the lack of nightly math homework will really screw them in the end.

And then I have a day like the other day where I am driving down the road with my precious cargo when the topic of change comes up: big changes, small changes, god knows we've had our fill. D says "Well, this year I have been through A LOT of change." I smile, thinking "no doubt, dude", but I ask him what he means and the conversation goes something like this:

D:  Well, this year I have been through A LOT of change, Mom.
M:  Like what, bro? What kind of change are you thinking about?
D:  Um, Mom? BRACES?
M: Braces?
D: Yeah mom, BRACES. It's like the biggest thing that's ever happened to me. It's huge!
M: Well, it is, D. Your parents also got divorced and don't live together anymore and we are all moving to Rhode Island in a few months, but I hear you on the braces.
D: Well, the divorce was ok, though. I mean, I know it's hard for a lot of kids, but it has not been a big deal because you and Dad did such a good job with it. I meant to say that to you the other day. I just don't know what the big deal is about divorce.
M: (totally misty). Well, it is a big deal to a lot of kids, D, I'm glad you recognize that. And I'm glad you feel confident about how your dad and I have worked things out. I love you, Buddy. You're the best.
D: Thanks, Mom. (big smile, squeeze on shoulder)

It's those moments where I think that it's all going to be ok, that we are raising some emotionally kick ass kids who think a lot about things, whose strengths lie mostly in the way they relate to others, whose lives are held tight by people that love them, many of whom do not live under the same roof.

I'll always be worried about the path, in so many ways different than the one that I was given as a child. I'll always be worried that I haven't done the right thing as a parent, that love is not enough, that my kids will look back and wonder why I didn't push them harder or expect them to achieve more. I suspect they will, in any condition, know that I loved them, more than anything in the world. And their 43 year old selves will continue to feel that, whatever path in life they choose.

Aloft

For a long time I have had a recurring scene pass in front of my eyes, a flickering black and white clip of a man with artificial wings affixed to his arms, running dead set for the edge of a cliff. He runs, flapping like hell, only to pull up short just feet from the edge, not trusting his homemade contraption to hold him against gravity.
He is Icarus, Daedalus' son, anxious against the bright sunlight, worried about his own weight on the wings, worried moreso about his undescribed and hidden desire to fly to the highest heights with abandon.  What that will mean and what that will make, his desire to fly is thwarted by last minute doubt and worry.

But tonight, Joseph Campbell's recording of ancient wisdom rang true:
“A bit of advice
given to a young Native American
at the time of his initiation:
'As you go the way of life,
you will see a great chasm.
Jump.
It is not as wide as you think.' "
--from A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

Today I bought a house, cementing my decision to move to a city long considered a future home, under different conditions and for different reasons, but an idea set in motion long ago. And I'm here, now, and happy and excited, this bittersweet taste in my mouth not crowding out my delight at new discoveries, but also not salving pretty profound feelings of loss and change.

It's like coming back to something and knowing it for the first time, like T.S. Eliot talked about, but not really. It's holding the space of what was with the space of what might be. It's being unsure about how to marry what has already happened (the people you love(d), things you've experience(d)) with an unchartered course.

My girl, Bridget (who is truly a gifted spiritual advisor) noted that this is a time to accept & be, explaining that if things could be different, they would be. And so I move forward, buying a house on a familiar street under radically different circumstances, celebrating a new life in environments that hold many memories, stitching together what is new and old without being totally clear on the design that will unfold. More crazy quilt than the careful block pattern that has governed the stitching of my life for so many years. Stepping into it, breath deep in my lungs, stomach tight, arms strengthened and ready to hold these heavy wings aloft, trusting in my own ingenuity, ready to take flight. 

Light as air, it's not as wide as you think.

Eye trained on the sky

As part of the writing workshop with Cheryl Strayed (right?!), she offered us a series of prompts to consider. Here's one...

Create a summary of who you are.

There was Leo and Cygnus and Cassiopiea. And Draco and Virgo and Libra. But most of all I remember turning my face to the heavens and finding the points that made the handle and cup of Ursa Major. Alkaid, Mizar, Alcor, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Merak and Dubhe, names I didn’t know then, flat on my back, my skinny brown legs held fast against the earth in my 7th year.  

The sky over my hometown was always lit with stars, as far as you could see, the light pollution of larger cities far away. To my untrained eye and not scientific mind, the nighttime sky was a blur, an ocean of light, awash, save for the handle and cup, the only way I could get my bearings in the canopy of the world. 

And 7 turned into 17, my world increasingly complex. I was a failing high school student, newly fatherless, with sexual agency beyond my years, drunk on new freedom, coors light beer and the possibility contained in a thick course catalog from my newly matriculated university that I read like a bible. The stars were dimmed by the Dallas lights but vibrant on the road between Dallas and San Antonio where Sha and I steered her big gold cadillac into the night. Or Dallas to Houston. Or Dallas to Austin, fueled by our own sense of finding ourselves.

Those years felt ungrounded, unfixed, too much and too big. Unmoored, unskilled at navigating the map without an understanding of where I needed to go, 17 became 21 became 25 became 31, with mountaintops and oceans and foreign lands and jobs and wandering, so much wandering, in between. 

I did not fully know then, as I am just beginning to learn now in my 44th year, that I am capable of making sense of the stars, of orienting myself within the blur, of understanding the anchors in the sea of light. That in the universe of stars, and in the universe of life, it’s less about a roadmap and more about points of bearing. For a person who has sought the map, who has felt (and currently brutally feels) that the road is being made right before her feet, this is a revelation. Maybe it’s about integration instead of a specific direction. Maybe it’s about weaving the body, the mind and the mojo, understanding the landscape of possibility instead of a fixed horizon. Maybe the point of exploring is to understand where you are at any given point in time, but not be tethered by a specific path. Look at how well the explorers did when they thought they knew the way, but look at how they successfully navigated a way home by casting their eyes heavenward, trusting their bearings written in the night sky.

Impossibly Imposterous

I leave Tuesday for LA and then on to Hawai'i for a writer's workshop with Cheryl Strayed. I'm late on everything in my life right now, the mounting tension of work and an upcoming event and a move coupled with the emotional baggage of cleaning out my old home has kept me from really thinking about where I am off to and why.

In truth, I am petrified. I'm scared because I remember last summer at my workshop with Lynda Barry that I couldn't write, that my brain felt flat and beige, that I was intimidated by the women in the crowd who were professional writers who, in short bursts of time, could write pieces that left me feeling pale.

I also step back in these spaces, not wanting to be a fan girl, not knowing how to be in this world of workshoppiness. I am not a writer, nor do I consider myself to be. I'm a person that uses this tool to share things that I would normally share if I were sitting across from you. There's a heavy load of acceptance that rides along with it, and ego for sure, but it's never been anything more than what it is: a way to record my experiences, mostly for my kids someday, in a format that I hope helps other people process their own shit.

So why does it matter?

It feels like it's a lot about context, which is a space I've been exploring a lot lately in terms of life in general. What it feels like to get positive feedback from people who love you and wonder if it translates more broadly to a wider audience who doesn't know your story or love you or hasn't traveled so many roads with you. It's life outside of your own personal cheering section. It's this question of being confident in what you bring or wondering if you are believing your own bullshit. It's the journey understanding your own magic in the context in which you live. In short, what if you believe what people tell you about your writing, your spirit, your being...and it's not true. Enter these short bursts of nagging Imposter syndrome that make you wonder how it all works.

This may not make much sense, but they are things that are rolling around in my brain today as a friend and I talk about vulnerability, honesty, confidence and being solid in who you are.

This quote used to hang in my office. I need it tattooed on my forearm.

Between Knowing and Not Knowing

I had written this piece ages ago, didn't publish it and came back to it after a conversation with a friend yesterday touching on trust, using your words to tell people what you want, need and expect and the dialogue that has to happen after to ensure everyone is on the same page. Trust is a bitch.

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I have an image in my mind of myself in fourth or fifth grade, seated at the edge of the big pull-out bleachers in our gym-cafeteria, an expanse of collapsed bleachers a skinny ledge with a 15 foot drop creating a bridge across to the other side where on the wall I can clearly see my name written. The name appears courtesy of someone who hates me and makes my life miserable on a daily basis, my stomach a knot at what must be written there but my nervous system in full blown panic mode at the thought of shimmying across the expanse and sheer drop off (on to tables and chairs) to see. I simultaneously want to know what awful thing has been said and hate myself for the fear of heights and falling that keeps me from to finding out. So my younger self sits with the knowledge on a daily basis that something lingers out there unknown and not dealt with and she sits with the knowledge that it's her own weakness that prevents it. Even as I write this, my skin prickles and my hands sweat just at the memory.

I'm spending some time thinking and feeling through what it means to trust and what makes for a good and trusting relationship, what it means to be open to trusting someone, how you have to sit on the edge and contemplate moving across the expanse of all of your prior conditioning to get to there and then work your way back, broken or elated. Part of what I am pondering is the worry that pops up of not knowing what the other person is thinking or feeling, remedied quickly by actually using your words to ask (miracle!). But, in truth, the wounds that still hang around from my childhood lead me to need closure, that I feel like I can handle pretty much anything as long as I know the truth or another's version of it. Learning to articulate it well, to request feedback, to stay on top of things with communication, build verbal agreements. It's all part of it, but it's not the whole thing.

So much of relationships are about the edge of the cliff, moving through our fear and pushing there and back to find what we need to find. Pretty much every moment of it is not guaranteed. But it's made in those moments of moving yourself out, inch by inch, making yourself face your fears anyway. It's really fucking complicated and takes so much work and, in truth, it's work you need to do for yourself and without the aid of others. It's you, no net, nobody spotting you. It's being solid at the core so you can be solid for others, especially the person with whom you are building the trust.

[I feel like I've just written myself into a totally different understanding of what I'd started out to write. Hilarious.]

Winnowing

Somehow this is not how you envisioned it, midday grey skies coaxing through the windows that you notice are in need of polishing before the people come to look at what is there. You envisioned bourbon in glasses and smoke and arms fisted up into clenched hands wrestling over who gets what. But it's not that. It's a Monday and you are starting with the bigger things when your partner of so many years lays it out for you. There isn't a lot there, honestly. Extracting the family pieces that you've either dragged with you or recently dragged in, there's not a lot there worth keeping. Old mattress 10 years on that may need replacing (that saw both of your children home), bunk beds the kids no longer want, too many items from IKEA to warrant a move across half of the nation. Save a few pieces of furniture, all of the accumulated knick knacks and a heavy lift in the kitchen, glassware and dishes, there simply is not much there. Easier to pitch it, give it away, parse it out and buy anew than to spend what it would take to bring it along.

You are not ready for the gut-punch that this brings, the sudden thought of this person you've been with for so long starting a life with barely a trace of his old, your history's imprint erased from the smooth arms of the chair, wiped clean off of the glasses, not nuanced in the myriad of future choices he would make about his accommodated life. But it's not the you being erased that is the gut-punch, it's the history, it's the together, the starting over and moving on.

And for the next few hours, you ruminate over what investment means in a marriage. What not having a lot in common to divide up means. You want to lift this metaphor into the narrative of your marriage, to use it as a tool to make your case. It's proof, you think, because the bigger truth is your heart is sore, because accumulating/not accumulating objects feels like it should mean something, because after 14 years you expected more to be there, because you can't quite erase the image of your partner's back entering a home, not your home, to start anew.

You would be foolish to leave your thinking there, so you don't. You remember hours in the garden, great meals in the kitchen, small people at soccer games and school board meetings and graduate school. You remember moving and packing and unpacking and fishing trips and the long stretch of time that this house you are leaving has afforded you during beautiful summer weather and magnificent fall leaves.  Fourteen years, not measured in big things you bought, slippery to hold onto save for the two bright and amazing beings the world will delight to receive someday. Slippery to hold on to save the small objects from faraway places that you hope his future partner won't ask to remove, the pieces that were too beautiful to let go of, the pictures you stack to split up, the wedding invitations you set aside for the kids, the bags and boxes of life moved through that you haul to the curb. It's all there for the viewing, all of the miles and years of hopeful emotions that you relive in each pile, your heart too soft for this work of winnowing what's worth keeping and what's worth leaving behind.