Time

I need to leave for work in 14 minutes and I still haven't put make-up on, done the dishes, made the bed, or folded the two bags of clean laundry that I washed on Saturday afternoon.

Ever feel behind?

I have, however, worked on my memoir, researched for a paper I am working on, read NieNie and CJane, walked the dog, played ball with the dog, had dinner, talked to my mother-in-law, and updated my Amazon Christmas wish list.

Priorities, mine are ever changing and sometimes misplaced.

What about you?

A Writer

Since I am not taking any classes this semester, I have a hard time answering when people ask, "What do you do?"

I keep house.

I care for my husband.

I read.

I raise a kitty and a puppy.

I jog.

Mostly, I write. Does that make me a writer?

Can I say, "I am a writer." without being a fraud, without feeling like a fraud?

I haven't published a book. I don't write regularly for anyone but myself. I don't get paid to write. Am I still a writer, just an as yet unrecognized talent?

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Why does what we do matter so much socially? What kind of a question is, "What do you do?" I often want to answer,"I live." An unexpected answer to what I think is a semi-ridiculous question.

I am ultimately more interested in the who's and why's and how's than the where's and what's.

Maybe I am a writer after all.

Drowning in Ideas

Not only am I a student, housewife, and dog & cat Mommy, but I am a writer. I have had small pieces published in a local paper, a car club magazine, and my college literary magazine. Not much, but it is something. I have yet to finish a couple of larger projects I am working on, but the ideas have been flowing and the writing has been flowing copiously the past few weeks.

Recently I went to the Newburyport Literary Festival. I heard DeLaune Michel and Ellen Meister speak together about their books which are primarily about the friendships between their characters. Both of them talked about the real life experiences that inspired some of the scenes in their books. I left there all abuzz with ideas.

A long time ago I had a friend. His name was Anthony. One wintery day when we were 7 or 8, he fell in the pond behind my house because he just insisted on pushing an iceberg with a stick and...kerplop! I laid on my belly in the snow with a rake in my hand. He grabbed the handle of the rake and I pulled him in. Then his feet got stuck in the mucky sidewall of the pond. I had to help him relax enough to slowly pull his boot out so I could pull him up and out. Then he went running home to him momma as fast as his frozen feet and legs could carry him. I've caught up with him a few times over the years. Last I knew he was doing special effects make-up for Nip Tuck.

After hearing DeLaune and Ellen speak, I knew I had to write a fictional story that spiraled out from this incident. Two friends and how this one incident effects their lives. What if the boy who is saved goes on to commit a heinous act? What if they come back together after many years? What if he is wildly successful and she is struggling? What if they end up all grown up and living in the same neighborhood with spouses and kids of their own?

And the ideas keep flowing, but they are one thing I don't mind drowning in. Ideas and...chocolate and... affection ;-)

Poetry Prodigies

Across from my house is a middle school full of eager young minds. A couple of days ago, I learned that those eager young minds have some phenomenal teachers.

Lining the sidewalks outside of the school, there is student poetry written in chalk.

I think this is a brilliant idea. It builds student confidence in their work. It expands students' ideas of what school, classroom, and learning are. It challenges students to think about what art is. I just love the concept.

Of course, I took photos of this art installation. They will follow in posts of their own.

Kudos to the students and the teachers!

Cry in the Night

I woke up this morning to a stuffy nose, sore throat and headache.
I got Mr. B&B out the door.
Then I slept pretty much all day.
5:30 P.M. I awoke.
Made dinner.
Hung out with Mr. B&B.
Did dishes.
Went to bed at 9:40.
11:00 P.M. A cry in the night.
Kitty cat cry.
I bolt out of bed to find her wild with her stuffed mouse.
Running away from me.
And now I am without a doubt.
Awake, but soon to be
chasing dreams.

Darling DeLaune

A few summers ago I took a literature class. One of the books we read was by a burgeoning new author named DeLaune Michel. Her debut novel, Aftermath of Dreaming, was by far my favorite book all semester. As an additional treat, we had a group phone chat with DeLaune about her book. She did not disappoint.

After the phone chat, I emailed DeLaune to thank her. We have continued to email intermittently ever since. She is the sweetest, most thoughtful, lovely person. She is super busy with family and career, but always makes time for little old me, a mere acquaintance. Her encouraging words keep the aspiring author in me going.

DeLaune's second novel, The Safety of Secrets, was released last summer. When she came to Jabberwocky Books in Newburyport for a reading and signing, I went to meet her in person. It was a thrill! Her cousin, the talented & charming & alarmingly handsome Andre Dubus III, was there signing his book The Garden of Last Days. Newburyport is his hometown. Translation: The reading and signing were a mob scene, but meeting DeLaune was well worth the wait.

DeLaune Michel, Sue of Jabberwocky Books, and Andre Dubus III
via DeLaune Michel

Shortly after that, I began following DeLaune's blog, Scribble Interludes. A candid peek into the person behind the books and the life of a professional author.

A few days ago I got an email from my dear writer friend. She has been traveling around the country to different literary festivals. In April she will be at the Newburyport Literary Festival and would like to see me. I have already booked a room and roped my best friend into accompanying me.

I can't wait!

If you live in Arizona, meet DeLaune at the Tucson Festival of Books this weekend.

Everyone should read at least one of DeLaune's books. They are a great escape and a quick read. Just be sure to set aside a whole day or at least an afternoon because you will no doubt be sucked in and unable to put the book down. For Aftermath of Dreaming, I suggest a bubble bath, candles, and wine. For The Safety of Secrets, a rocking chair and lemonade on your front porch will do. For either/or, I suggest a comfy chair, blanket, and tea. Enjoy!

Free Your Mind

and the rest will follow. So say En Vogue in this song on YouTube. Also a so-sayer and believer in such philosophy,my poetry professor.

On Thursday, during our one-on-one meeting, I asked my poetry professor what one thing I could do to improve my writing. She told me to free-write poetry every day. In her opinion, which I agree with, my biggest weakness is that I think too much when I am writing instead of freeing my mind to go where it wishes and just being the vehicle through which it flows. After looking through my notebook and realizing how often I cross things out and self-edit, Professor suggested I do all my free-writing on the computer so that I do not have the option of crossing out. She told me it is her belief that if I do that I will find at least two or three usable lines a day.

Today I took her advice and this was the result:

Morning tonight feels like waking up to broken glass of shattered window panes. French doors open to English men wearing tweed coats and smoking ciggies. Signs of forced entry lay shimmering in the grass all rainbowy with dew. Was it you coming to steal me away in the night? If you asked I might have gone. Gone from the relative safety of my existence to the windiness of yours. Possibility appeals to me in fleeting moments of temporary sanity. Brokenness is old hat, but there’s got to be something behind that. Walk through it and reach for the light of the lamppost glowing like the moon and stitch me up, lift me up, talk me out of it and in to you. Sleepless sounds of strength emerging as we’re converging verging on reckless. You open a book and fill up with wonder and tear it asunder. Under the words lies the truth. Eat up the inky stains and spit out the blank page to write it all anew. Few resist the urge to abandon truth for greatness. Greed is not in your verbiage. Invisible fingerprints dust the sills of broken windows seeking solace. Tonight morning is found on distant shores where we might have been and might be going, racing time, holding on to moments slipping along the seams of the globe out witting the light of lesser gods. Stars stretch languidly across your face as you become one, a celestial body among celestial bodies. Bodies are piling up, but souls are floating free suspended between truth and humanity. Flight is folly and you fancy me a fool, a high compliment from you. I lay above you and sink below wallowing in weightless wonderment over it and under it singing soundlessly watching the airwaves ripple into dawn. Over breakfast all appears unmatched apples and pears. Swiftly moving songbirds are singing outside and I let them in to feast on leftover bits of peanut butter toast. Out in the barn I sew with a needle in a haystack.

I think there might be a tiny nugget of truth in all this "free your mind" business...

Three Teen Girls and a Baby Boy

At the end of October I met Three Teen Girls, my mentees at Teen Voices Magazine. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons we spend two hours together working on their article. Four hours a week doesn't sound like much, but those hours are jam-packed with work, talk, and giggles. Those girls fill-up far more than four hours of my week and no one is more surprised about it than me. I think about the girls every day. I jot things down in my internship journal constantly. I look for tools and resources to help them with their work. I loosely prepare plans for our time together. Time consuming, eh? Why? The only conceivable answer is LOVE. I love the magazine, the work, and, most of all, the girls.

The girls. They have opened my eyes, my heart, and my mind.
My eyes are attuned to details, to each girl's individual world...
My heart is more expansive in responsive to the love the girls so willingly give...
My mind recognizes differences in similarities and similarities in differences...
Eyes, heart, and mind are less stubborn, less resistant, far more flexible...

I am so grateful for the girls' trust, honesty, hard work, and openness to possibilities. It is amazing that we are halfway through our time together. I am loving every minute.

***

One morning a week, I volunteer at Perkin's School for the Blind. I work with an eleven month old Baby Boy. Baby Boy has Nystagmus, possibly 80/20 vision, and low muscle tone. I work with him one-on-one in the early intervention classroom (two trained teachers are present) while his mother goes to an informational workshop with other parents.

Talking with people about Perkins, the common reaction is "How sad." and/or "Seeing what can happen, your desire for children must be much less." For me, there is only joy and my desire for children has remained high and possibly increased. I have always been an optimist, a wisher, a hope'r', and a dreamer.

"How sad." is never something I have felt at Perkins. "How amazing! How inspiring! How adorable! How strong! How beautiful! How smart!" Those are feelings I have had. Every morning I spend there with Baby Boy brings joy. Each successive morning, Baby Boy makes progress. The first morning I spent with him, he napped from 11 to 11:45, but each week he has slept less and less. As time goes on, I notice him sitting up on his own for longer periods of time, reaching for things that I place further away from him, showing me that he is growing physically stronger and that perhaps he can see further than doctors first imagined. He shows me his intellect by repeating actions I have shown him in the past such as banging two items together to make "music". This week, for the first time, when I laid him on the changing table he began furiously kicking his feet, grinning from ear to ear and giggling. Pretty fantastic for a little guy with low muscle tone. Often children with low muscle tone also have trouble with talking and start making sounds much later than normal, but Baby Boy talks more and more each week and especially enjoys talking with me and the giant teddy bear in the classroom. Baby Boy has taught me to live even more in the moment and pay even closer attention to every detail, any shred of progress, than I already do. He has also taught me to be more determined and to push myself well past the imaginary limits I may place on myself. Baby Boy is Joy. Joy leaves no room for sadness.

As far as my still strong, perhaps even stronger, desire to have babies, I don't see how volunteering at Perkins could ever negatively impact that desire. The parents I meet, especially Baby Boy's mother, are inspiring, empowered, and educating themselves in order to be the best parents and advocates for their children. It is a privilege to know them and to observe them. They are incredible and I am in awe. Working with Baby Boy, noting his progress, cuddling his cuddliness, imagining his infinite possibilities, reveling in his accomplishments... How could any of that decrease my desire for babies? Yes, of course these parents and these children have additional challenges, but I watch them continuously meet and overcome them. "but you must have some fear of your children having a disability..." you might venture. I acknowledge that there is always fear when one takes a chance and leaps into the unknown. Bringing a child into the world may be the ultimate gamble any human ever takes. I say, the bigger the gamble, the bigger the reward. I also feel that having this experience at Perkins, getting this hands-on education about differently-abled children, has so far given me greater confidence in my ability and readiness to deal with any challenges my children may have. My strong desire to have children is still intact.

So, fellow bloggers and blog readers, that is where I have been spending my time, with Three Teen Girls and a Baby Boy. Not quite Three Men and a Baby - "They changed her diapers. She changed their lives.", but, minus the cheesy tagline, better I wager.

Changing the World

I just finished reading "Writing to Change the World" by Mary Pipher. It was very helpful to me and got me thinking about what I am trying to say and accomplish by writing my memoir which is tentatively titled "Just Boyfriends" and in my writing in general. She also sets out several clear ways in which to determine your reasons and goals and achieve what you are trying to achieve through writing.

Some thoughts popped out at me more then others. They include:

"I am not interested in weapons, whether words or guns. I want to be a part of the rescue team for our tired, over-crowded planet. The rescuers will be those people who help other people to think clearly, and to be honest and open-minded. They will be an antidote to those people who disconnect us. They will de-objectify, rehumanize, and make others more understandable and sympathetic."

"A writer's job is to tell stories that connect readers to all the people on earth, to show these people as the complicated human beings they really are, with histories, families, emotions, and legitimate needs. We can replace one-dimensional stereotypes with multidimensional individuals with whom our readers can identify."

"Therapy and writing have a great deal in common. Both are highly-disciplined endeavors, involving long hours in small rooms. Both require asking intelligent questions, excavating for emotional truths, and solving complex problems. Often, the work is ambiguous, and success elusive. Wise therapists help clients to think more clearly, feel more deeply, and behave more responsibly. Wise writers often want to do these same things."

"Cynicism is a form of resistance, a walling off of the possibilities for transformation. At its core, it is a response to learned helplessness, a defense strategy. Scratch every cynic and underneath you find a wounded idealist. For therapists and writers alike, the best treatment for cynicism is healing stories."

and finally...

"Many people have powerful stories but lack the skills to be powerful writers. Writers need to be skilled or, when the heart speaks, it is the language of sentimental schmaltz. Yet skill alone is not sufficient. We need authentic emotion to go with it. Powerful writing includes sparkling details, apt metaphors, surprises, and restraint. It has tones and rhythms that change like those of a symphony. The best writing causes readers' breathing to change."

So, that is just a little taste and hopefully gives you something to think about.

Writing to Change the World is very different from other books I have read about writing. I believe it spoke to me even more strongly because I have just begun attending therapy and part of the book compares writers and therapists as Mary Pipher is both.

There has been a lot of talk about change lately with the presidential election nearing. I also find that most people I talk to have something they want to change about themselves, the town they live in, the state they live in, the country, even the world. Writing is one way we can all make a difference or take a step towards change be it in writing a book, sending a letter to the editor of the newspaper or town board, writing an essay, blogging, etc. Pipher's book shows the writer different ways of going about this and brought me hope.

If you are interested in learning more about Mary Pipher and/or reading some of her books you may visit her website at http://www.marypipher.net/Home.html

Sunday Scribblings #119: My Oldest Friend

Though I always read others Sunday Scribblings, I have never written a Sunday Scribbling of my own. This week, though it is now Monday, I will give it a try.
I am my oldest friend, my mother is my oldest friend, but I choose to write about my oldest friend outside my family.
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Born in March 1981, she was just a squirmy, three month old infant when we met in June 1981, shortly after I was born. Her mom, Ida, and my mom, Mary-Lynn, met in college in the early 1970's and became fast friends. There was no question that Alison and I mostly likely would be too. They gave us the gift of knowing each other from infancy and, for a long time, growing up together. I always felt this somehow made us sisters, somehow linked us for life.

Maybe part of why we delighted so much in each other was the joy of looking at another person and seeing one's self. As little girls, many people mistook us for twins. Round faces; wide-set brown eyes like bottomless puddles thick with mud; and impossibly curly, impressively dark, brown hair that shown bits of red in summer. One day when we were about 4, we were out with my mother doing errands. As we walked hand in hand across the parking lot, a woman stopped my mother to ask if Ali and I were twins. Before my mother could speak our two lilliputian voices giggled, in unison, "No, best friends."

My memories of our childhood are vast, innumerable. Days on the playground, feeding the ducks at Jenny Gristmill, playing in the dirt when my dad was building her new house, visiting her on the Cape to bring her coloring books and a Snow White doll when she had her tonsils out, playing dress up, riding in the go-cart while she drove, tea-parties at the bottom of her paternal grandmother's swimming pool, swimming lessons at TiTi's, the first time my mom left us alone in the house and we ended up huddled together hiding in the bathtub, days on Duxbury Beach, birthday parties, staying over her house the night before my brother was born and when my parents went to Bermuda, a week in Maine with her paternal grandparents, just everything that makes up childhood, that is a part of growing up.

When I was 10 and a 1/2 my parents went bankrupt and we had to move forty-five minutes away from our old life and in with my paternal grandparents. During that time, my parents cut us off from everybody we had known. As a result, Ali and I were separated, seeing each other only sporadically. The gap widened as we got older. Still we were always there for each other when it counted, for the big life events. I lived in her bedroom for a few months when I transferred colleges and she was in California. It was she who called me when she found out I had abruptly moved out of my parents house, at the age of 19, leaving only notes behind. She who met me in Boston for lunch and sat across from me listening, understanding, interjecting her own thoughts and ideas only when I had finished speaking, sensitively and respectfully asking what information was o.k. to pass on and what I would rather keep between us. I guess we have an innate understanding of each other born from knowing each other since infancy.

Waiting for her in bustling Davis Square two weeks ago, having not seen her for over a year, I was filled with girlish excitement and an inexplicable inner calm, a sense of coming home or of home coming to me. Leaning against the brick facade of the restaurant, looking up from time to time into the sea of faces milling around me, I spotted her in the old Jeep, evidence of the four years she spent in Malibu at Pepperdine University, a self-imposed exile during her parents divorce. It is not the Jeep that I recognize first, but her profile. The plane of her face, her wild curls made wilder by the summertime heat, the spattering of freckles across her shoulder, the almost imperceptible parting of her lips as she pauses before turning into the parking lot, and the movement of her hands on the wheel. I would know her anywhere.

Hearing the beep of her car alarm activating across the street, I close the book I have been reading and look up. As she exits the parking lot, fumbling to put her keys into her quilted purse, she glances up and spots me. Instantly her eyes change and she smiles revealing a perfectly straight and perfectly white expanse of teeth. Her father was a dentist. At the whir of an engine coming toward her, Ali's stride quickens and she opens her arms to embrace me as her feet clear the curb.

Inside the restaurant our conversation is easy. Over gnocci and pizza, we talk of jobs, family, travels, Italy, friends, love, adoption and real estate. She is looking for an apartment closer to Boston, to work, and tonight, after dinner, we will go to look at one together. I love how we are still so non-judgmental of each other, how there is no hint of one-up-man-ship in what we reveal of our lives. If it is possible, we are still as open to each other now as we were when we were children.

Outside J.P. Licks we giggle over ice cream and sorbet, our conversation turns lighter, except for the bit about her cousin leaving for Iraq this week. I make a mental note to add him and Ali to my nightly prayer list. After looking at the apartment, she drops me at the t-station and even then it is difficult to say goodbye. I hop out of the Jeep and we are still talking. We've missed each other. We promise to make this a monthly occasion and I am grateful. She blows me a kiss from the driver's seat. I catch it, blow one back, and descend into the cool dark of the subway system.

Remembering Cody

In April, our family dog died. My mother wrote a column in the local paper about him for the eight years that he was with us. When he passed, I wrote a little something in case she did not have the strength to write her final Cody column for a couple of weeks and needed a "filler" column. It was not published, but here it is:

I remember the first time I saw Cody. It was Halloween weekend, my first visit home from college. I walked through the door and Dad said, "Your brother got a puppy." I said, "What?!?!?! What?!?!?! No way!" Dad said, "Go into the living room." And there they were, the boy and his dog. I couldn't believe it! Sleeping there on my brother's belly was a floppy, warm, bundle of puppy, face obscured by ears. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, can I pet him?" The boy gave me permission and as I laid my hand on the bundle, he came to life. This puppy wiggled and his tail whapped furiously back and forth. Everything about him went into motion. He was just so excited to meet me. My brother sat up and handed the squirmy wormy puppy to me. I introduced myself to the puppy, told him I was his new sister, that I was so excited he was here, and that if I could I would wiggle my whole-self just like him. I held him close to me, made a tent around him with my long hair, inhaled his puppy smell, let him chew on my hands, and he became mine, too.

As time wore on, I came home to visit from college, I moved out, I moved back in, I moved out for good, the boy went to college, and Mom and Dad went about their daily routine, but Cody was our center. A phone call home never passed without mention of Cody, leaving a message on the answering machine always meant a "Hello, Cody", and emails from home always included anecdotes about Cody's most recent shenanigans. For me, I knew that no matter when I came home, who I came home with, whether the humans were home, Cody would be there waiting, howling a hearty hello from the window in the front room as I pulled up, and wiggling his whole-self, especially that whapping tail, as I made my way in the door.

One beautiful spring Friday a few weeks ago, with my husband off on a business trip, I spontaneously went to spend the night with Mom, Dad, Cody, Sam, and Max. I arrived eager to put down my bags and free my arms for the hugging of humans and petting of animals. When I opened the door, Dad was behind it and Cody, I assumed, was behind him. Preoccupied with everything in my arms, it didn't hit me that the house was unusually quiet, that I had not heard that familiar howl as I pulled up, that the familiar sound of the tail whapping against anything in its way as Cody lumbered towards me, was missing. Dad followed me through the house, stood next to me as I put my bags down, and told me "We buried Cody." I said, "What?!?!?! What?!?!?!" Again he said, "We buried Cody." "No way!" I looked around for Cody and my eyes landed on my Mom sitting on the couch in the living room weeping. We all sat and wept.

Some took to calling Cody our "Never Again Dog". As I slowly begin to accept that never again will Cody greet me, never again will I feel his nose nudge my elbow at dinner hoping for a morsel, never again will I rub his velvety ears between my thumb and forefinger or run my hands along the length of his torso, never again will I take him out to the backyard, never again will I wipe the drool from his flues, I realize that Cody is our "Forever Dog." From the beginning he so entwined himself in our lives that, even in death, there is no way for him to ever be disentwined.

Fittingly, the center of our lives is buried in the center of our backyard where he so loved to run, dig secret holes, lay in the sun, chase the squirrels, and bar-be-que with the Big Grownup. Even as we mourn Cody, I can't help but wonder if one day, when the right time comes, Cody will send us another bundle of fur who, though no one could fill the void he has left, will know just how to pick up where he left off.

Thank you, Cody. We miss you our "Forever Dog."

Required Academic Writing

Required Academic Writing plagues me these days, gives new meaning to the phrase "rubs me raw". Never ending papers it seems. Three this week alone, not including reading and research. Though I am quite proficient at writing academic papers (literary analysis and analysis of the writing craft, as well as research reports mostly this semester), I much prefer creative writing. I am not much for the rules and imposed structure of academic writing. A rebel with a bit of a stubborn streak I suppose...

So, when I am inexplicably away, it is because I have been sucked into the vortex, chained down, deep in the mire of academic writing. Hopefully a year to a year and a half from now I will have my degree in hand entitling me to freedom from academia for a little while. I hope for now whoever may be following my adventures in writers land will stick with me.

In the absence of new material, a poem inspired by Jane Kenyon's poem "The Shirt":

The Tree

The tree stands tall

and its limbs reach out in every direction

soaking in the sun to feed its core

deep in its trunk that sinks below the surface where

roots splay out in every direction clinging to the

dirt, seeking water, staying alive.

Greedy tree.