Ablaze at Both Ends

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I one of the lucky few.  Most days I like my job.  Every day I like my coworkers.  But there are some days, when I’m on a writing roll (in quantity, not necessarily quality) that I begin wondering how much I could get for a slightly dented, c-listed kidney so I could finance a writing life.

I joined a writing workshop with author Jon Katz at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, NY, a community theatre and arts center back in May of 2012 with the idea of improving my skills and, hopefully, finding to make a writing life.   I was nervous about both aspects.  The workshop had an application process, and, while I think any artist has heard him or herself say, “I could do that” when embarking on a new work, I was secretly terrified that, surrounded by real writers, I would find out that maybe I could, but I shouldn’t.  I was equally terrified that Mr. Katz would (as a few workshop leaders in the past had) have to explain the unpleasant facts of the writer’s life to us and make us understand that only a select few can ever enter that special circle.

Mr. Katz has had an long and successful writing career, by any measure, but, like many people, has seen his career go through rapid changes with the onslaught of the digital age.  I went into the workshop aware that the internet had driven down the incomes of many creative professionals – stock photos can be had for $1.00 a piece regardless of their production cost, ebooks at $.99 abound – and I was doubtful that anyone could still make a living writing unless they were already an established author or a movie star with a scandal to sell.  But Mr. Katz had invited us to Hubbard Hall to peddle optimism and encouragement – not negativity.

He spent the first hour of the first workshop talking about all the opportunities for writers – established and emerging – and by the time we took a break, I was ready to race home to my computer and wear down the keys a bit.  I still hadn’t figured out what I would write – his first assignment to us was to create our blogs – but I knew something would come.  And then he gave us a piece of advice which has – for the most part – wiped out writer’s block for the last 7 months.  “Look for the stories that are close to your life,” he said.

I thought about that for the next few weeks as we set up our group page on Facebook and each of us began testing the waters with our blog ideas.  The blogs began evolving, and we could see each other developing as artists.  I stopped calling myself a wannabe-writer, coming to the conclusion that writing is where I belong.

So now it’s Monday morning, and work is about to begin.  I’m sitting at my kitchen table watching the snowfall and getting ready to sign on to my employer’s group chat, but before I do, I burn a little of my writing candle.  I’ll work till I can’t see the snow anymore, and after dinner is done and homework for the kids is checked, I’ll burn a little more.  At one point I wondered if burning the candle at both ends was a good idea.  At some points I tell myself it’s just until I can have a full-time writing life.  The reality is, though, that this fire at both ends does not consume me, it sustains me, and it’s just enough to keep the dream alive.

A Moment on the Soapbox

I spend Inauguration Morning 2013 trying to write and thinking about inaugurating another diet for the umpteenth time.  (There have been multiple first diet days since the first of this year.)  It seems an strange day to be dwelling on something so mundane.  It’s MLK-day after all.  Our country’s first African-American president is getting worn in for the second time.   And yet, somehow, letting the mundane absorb the three members of our family who got to stay home for the holiday is oddly appropriate.

I’ve lived on two other continents in two different hemispheres.  Thanks to my parents’ wanderlust, I had the opportunity – at a young age – to see how bad it can be but also how the good we have isn’t necessarily isolated.  We got to plenty of countries where elections happened peacefully and where political debates are lively.

As youngsters, however, my sister and I also had the chance to travel and live in South America at a time when election results were often in dispute and transfer of power wasn’t always peaceful. Widespread poverty (and depending on the year, dangerous conditions) was a common symptom of the political instability, and I have memories of walking with my mother in Lima, Peru and noticing many beggars parked between street vendors.  My parents still maintain the friendships they made there, and I remember hearing occasionally of one friend or another having to leave the country quickly even after a relatively peaceful election.  It was anything but mundane.

I thought of that today as I took the kids to Bob’s Diner in Manchester Vermont for a treat.  Always hopping, it was a mob scene on this holiday morning.  The bulk of the dining population was of the tourist variety, but – as always- there was variety.

There were well-heeled flatlanders in perfectly coordinated ski pants and jackets sitting shoulder to shoulder with burly plow drivers in their customized jackets.  There were Obama stickers on pickup trucks and Ron Paul and Romney stickers on slick new SUV’s from ‘down south’.  There were T-shirts with slogans ranging from the peaceful to the political to the profane, and it was just another Monday at Bob’s.  Even after an election season completely characterized by cynicism and bitterness, even in the face of an increasingly strident debate on gun rights (and privacy and religious rights), this confluence of humanity – with its politics on its sleeve in some cases – was not only civil, but jovial.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote that the Tree of Liberty would need to be refreshed with the bloom of patriots.  I don’t question his courage or passion for his country, and I know he and his suffered to sow the seeds of our liberty.  I also don’t think those words were written without an understanding of their potential consequences.  But Jefferson did come of age in an era when duels at twenty paces were still considered a reasonable way to settle a dispute.

Now, when I look at events around the world and see the human consequences of refreshing each country’s soul by pitting citizen against citizen, I know there has to be a better way.  And, listening to one of Bob’s cheeky waitresses cheerfully debate the issues of the day with a hot-headed regular, hearing their banter rise above the clattering of dishes and cries of ‘Order up!’, I realize that we have it, and it starts with hotcakes and coffee and a side of home fries.  It may be mundane, but there’s something to be said for that too.

Cutting the Strings

A friend recently (and humorously) observed that I have a dark side.  The size of this tumor is usually in direct proportion to the amount of news I’m consuming at any given time, but nothing helps it metastasize like an injection of maternal paranoia.  Today’s dose was courtesy of Thing1’s desire not to sit through a second stint of basketball practice.

Thing2’s (our six-year-old) coach had announced a lunchtime tournament at morning practice.  Having sat through one practice, Thing1 had promptly responded that he would not be attending regardless of any promise or threat on our part.  So the decision was made that at twelve-going-on-thirty, Thing1 was old enough to stay home alone for an hour.

Now our town – a bustling metropolis of about 300 – has a motto.  Whatever happens here stays here… but nothing ever happens here.  And, as apt as it is, for some reason, as we drove Thing1 back to the house, I found myself checking my mental list of escaped convicts and serial killers-on-the-loose (I have been watching too much news lately).  With each turn, I rattled off one more rule for Thing1.

“Keep the phone with you.   Keep the doors locked.  Don’t answer the phone…”

“Don’t shower while you’re making toast,” interjected the Big Guy, attempting to deflate my paranoia.

Thing1 listened to my missives with good-natured patience, certain as all immortal preteens are that all would be well for the upcoming hour.  We got back to the house and I walked Thing1 in and laid out the rules once more.  I had grabbed my sunglasses and was heading for the door when Thing1 emerged from his room once more.  He bent down and gave me a big hug (something that only happens when no one he knows is around).  I hugged him back tightly, remembering for a moment – as I often do at these moments – a time when I was able to hold him as a bundle against my shoulder.

Then he straightened and patted my shoulder and said, “You’ll be fine, Mom.”  And he disappeared into his room to pretend to study for the 30 seconds it took me to leave and double-lock the door.  And, as I got back in the car, that dark side I’d been feeding too well lately started to shrink.

Practice Makes Peace

It’s amazing how such a little thing can pull you out of a funk, and I’ve been in a deep one for weeks.

The recent weeks have been flooded with flu’s and funerals and pneumonia, and at a few points I was ready to stop treading water and just sink to the bottom of the black cold pond of life, letting the ice close over if only to get a little quality sleep (I’d given up on the reset button on Friday).  I was still feeling funky Saturday morning as we raced to make it to Thing2’s (our six-year-old son) basketball practice.

Neither the Big Guy nor I had thought to set the alarm Friday night, and when I opened my eyes and looked at the clock, I realized we had 21 minutes to get everyone up, dressed, and chauffeured, to a school 20 minutes away.  I raced to the kids’ room yelling, “Up! up! up!,” half-aware that my twelve-year-old son, Thing1, was already up and locked in a video game (as I threw clothes at both of the kids he calmly explained that he also doesn’t pay attention to clocks on weekends).  Surprisingly the wild goose chase that constituted the rest of our getting ready and on the road did nothing to penetrate my gloom.  But when we walked into the caferia-turned-gym of the elementary school, the ice over my head began to melt a bit.

We live near Arlington, VT.  Their school and the elementary school Thing2 attends in the next town is so small that they have to combine with each other to get the minimum four players needed to form a team.  The kids are all in first and second grad, and, with no million dollar sponsorships on the line, it’s often a toss-up as to whether we’ll arrive at a Saturday game or just an extra practice.  Five minutes after we arrived, we stopped wondering if the other team might just be late, and relaxed as we realized our panic had been completely unnecessary.  Today was a practice.  We grabbed a few folding chairs and found a safe spot at the edge of the cafeteria to wait and watch.

Like most parents, my butt already has a permanent flat impression from years of waring the bleachers at ballparks and gymnasiums, and I am not proud of the fact that part of my routine includes indulging in a little smart phone therapy (I know, I know, I should be committing every play and bounce to memory for the mental scrapbook).   But today, as the coach drafted another parent and a few players’ siblings to participate, something made me put away my phone and pull out my pen.

Thing2’s team is a bit rag-tag in style as well as size.  None of the kids have fancy sneakers, and several play in jeans or whatever the weather dictates.  The kids are competitive but never cutthroat. They’ll share the ball as often as they steal it.  While the coach maintains structure, he’s enthusiastic about the game, not militant about discipline.  When his enthusiasm infected Thing2 again this overcast Saturday morning, SuperDude, Thing2’s evolving, multi-talented and perpetually joyful alter-ego, exploded onto the court and, with a twirl and a leap and a dancing ‘dunk’, yanked me through the hole in the ice, out of my funk and back into life.

Watching him twirl and run, stopping occasionally to climb the makeshift rock wall with a teammate, reminded me once again just how good the rag-tag chaos we call life is.  It reminded me how even the things that fomented my funk are mostly indicative of our blessings rather than any host of misfortunes.  And, as they wrap a tied practice game of two on six (one coach + one parent vs. four players + two sib’s), I am amazed again at how life can breathe itself into you when you least expect it.  And maybe that’s the time you need it most.

Till Death Do Us Part

Most days I don’t stop. I may stop doing the things I want to do, but, like most people, I tend to forget about the work-life treadmill I’m on until something blows a fuse.

Saturday night the entire circuit breaker popped when I returned home from my writing group to hear of the death of an old family friend. This friend was at our wedding, standing up as a surrogate father to my husband whose own parents had died several years before. Our friend had lived a full life but had been plagued with chronic health problems at the end of his life, and, while the news saddened both of us, it was not unexpected.

I didn’t cry Saturday night, however. Nor did I cry last night as we rushed to pack and get on the road for a four hour drive in hopes of beating an inconveniently-timed winter storm. I didn’t even cry as we were driving to the cemetery. As we drove from the entrance of the cemetery to the site of the service, however, and I began to think of our friends saying their final goodbye to their father and husband and grandfather, I did cry.

It was raining and snowing, and the service was brief with words of ritual from the rabbi and words of remembrance from our friend’s family. It was only as the ceremony ended and the attendees formed lines of comfort for the departing family that I realized that all my tears had been for the family and their loss but not for this man whom we loved so much, and it was not until we regrouped for the more informal memorial in the afternoon that I understood why.

Our friend’s daughter had arranged a luncheon following the graveside service. The atmosphere was subdued but not somber as his friends and family stood at the podium and offered their memories of this man. As we nibbled at our lunch we heard from his fellow World War II vets, former classmates, and friends about his contributions and his kindness.

And with each story from an old comrade-in-arms or former co-worker, one thing that stood out was the fact that this man and his now-widow had been married for almost 60 years. Almost every old friend at the podium had been married equally long. In a country with a fifty percent divorce rate, my husband and I were surrounded by couples who had been married for more years than we had been alive. To be sure, there were some exceptions, but the prevalence of long-married couples in the room got me thinking about why I had cried so little and about my own expectations from life and marriage and love. Here were people warmed by the memories of their friend and buttressed by each other.

I began to realize that I could not cry for this man that we love. I can cry for the people who lost him (our family included), but to live and die surrounded by people you love and have loved for most of a long, productive life is a life and and end very few people ever achieve.

Years ago, on our wedding day our friend stood up to wish us and our guests ‘Nachus’, the hebrew word for joy. I think of his words often and never more so than today when we witnessed exactly what he was talking about. He had lived for his family and friends and in deriving joy from them, had given it back exponentially. So, as we left, I was not thinking about the things we lost but the lessons and blessings we will keep with us forever because we were friends.

The Conductor

Every six-year-old has wondered – if not aloud as he’s being sent to bed then surely as he feels Mom’s eyes boring into his back as he’s heading into school – if there is not some top secret shindig that needs only his absence to begin.  Our six-year-old (nicknamed Thing2 for his super human chaos creating capabilities) has certain wondered it (he intimates it every night at 8 PM regardless of his level of exhaustion), but yesterday, as we were taking down the Christmas decorations, he decided that he would be in charge of any shindig that happened in our cave at Minister Hill.

It all began when I was crumpling up some of the paper snowflakes I’d hurriedly cut out to cover this year’s oversized tree.  Appalled that I would so casually dispose of such a seemingly intricate decoration, Thing2 cried out and grabbed the crushed paper from my hand.  His gaze fell on the other crushed casualties of my Christmas clean up, and he scooped them into his arms protectively.

“Mo-o-m!”  He protested, “I wanted to save these!”  And he moved them to another table for resuscitation and rehabilitation.

“You can save them if you get them out of the living room,” I said, moving on to remove the strawberry walnuts we acquired from a friend this year.  Thing2 stared at me for a minute and then asked if I had any tape.  I did, and the tape and snowflakes disappeared into the room he shares with his older brother.  A few minutes later he reappeared to claim the chains of paper ginger-people.  I was not paying attention when he made his third decoration retrieval trip, but on the fourth or fifth trip, I noticed the decorations on the table were fewer in number, and I realized someone had misinterpreted the goal of the tree takedown.

As it happened, he had simply come up with his own purpose because as I began to unwind the lights from the tree and re-knot them before packing them away, Thin2 reappeared in his shinest red superhero cape and announced that there would be a party on the lower bunk at 2:30PM.  Thing2 went from me to Thing1 to the Big Guy issuing his invitations, not waiting for RSVPs before he moved on.

“Okay, Honey,” said Thing1 and I.

“What can I bring?” asked the Big Guy, raising his head from the recliner in the den.  And Thing2 knew he had found the right victim/guest.  Thing1 and I turned back to disemboweling what was left of the tree and sweeping up the carpet of needles, completely oblivious to the party preparations that now began directly behind our backs.

The Big Guy helped Thing2 tape up a few party decorations and arrange a few chairs below the lower bunk.  He even helped Thing2 find a few snacks to serve at the party.  Finally, when the time for the party rolled around, the Big Guy whipped up a few cups of hot chocolate and told Thing2 to summon his guests.

We entered the room, festooned with discarded Christmas decorations and (I can’t believe it either) cleaned up.  Thing2 was already dancing to the music that continually plays in his head, and when he saw us enter, motioned us to the spots he had picked for us.  We enjoyed our hot chocolate and candy and cheese doodles for a little while, chatting and laughing.  Thing2 even offered to go get my iPod so we could all dance (I put a stop to this as his creativity has already claimed the lives a one or two pieces of electronic equipment), and when it was over, he thanked us for coming. And last night, as he passed out and was carried to bed, he snored secure in the knowledge that a shindig might commence when the bedroom door closed, but it wouldn’t top anything he could come up with.

New Year

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It’s been at least two weeks since my last confession, but the fact that I am resuming my writing resolution with the first post of the year is just a happy coincidence.

The last two weeks have been filled with holiday fun, family, and flu. And, while and enjoying all of that merriment with my two cherubs (lovingly nicknamed Thing1 and Thing2) inspired many a blog-worthy tale, the school-enforced break that kept the chaos running at home 24/7 was surprisingly not conducive to the telling of them.  But I figure today I’m starting with a clean slate (the only thing still clean in this house).

My 2012 had a few white-hot bright spots in it – I found my way in to a group of incredibly talented and encouraging writers, while Thing1 and Thing2 had and were some of the biggest moments for me and the Big Guy – but we sorely needed that light to warm us as the year drew to a close.  Too often the antics in Washington had me wondering if someone had stolen our home movies of Thing1 and Thing2 to play instead of the evening news reel and if we should create an official elected position of Federal Den Mother (with the power to withhold allowances/salaries from elected officials who act like children).

And then there were the out-and-out tragedies which seemed to give little room to catch our collective breaths.  Some were disastrous, some were close to home, and one once-unthinkable act that claimed 28 lives was frighteningly close to our hearts.  And, even when I tried to follow Mr. Roger’s advice and look for the helpers in these tragedies (the beacons of hope for our species), the tragedies seemed to come ins such quick succession that I accepted the brief surrender of my writing time (normally sacred thanks to last year’s resolution) in favor of the chaotic cocoon of my family life.

So now it’s on to continuing the best resolutions of last year – 28 random acts of kindness, nurturing my writing, and encouraging others’ self-expression.  There will be new ones – might as well add diet it to the list.  Again.  Start and stick to a budget. Again.  And again.

But regardless of how long the diet resolution or the budget resolution last, the big decision of this or any year has to be the choice to acknowledge the world as it is  – unsatisfyingly unpeaceful and uncooperative regardless of the missives of any holiday season – and push ahead with our lives anyway.  And possibly, in the process, maybe we’ll improve it a little this year.  At least, our little corner of it.