Folks, I’ve been whupped: by two wonderful but needy children, by a week of no preschool due to snow–during which my 4 year-old and I both had the flu–by a job I love but is a lot of work (yes, husband: I hear you. I know I shouldn’t assign so many papers, ’cause then I wouldn’t have to grade them).
Whupped by my final semester of graduate school (where I want and hope and try to stay engaged and productive), by this wonderful new weekly writing deadline (i.e. my new newspaper column), by a house in which the mess multiples like Hydra’s heads, by writing the next novel in any spare (ha!) moment I have, and by always–always–wanting to be in every single place at once, so my family won’t miss anything.
But I am missing things. So I’m not signing off here, but just stepping back a little until the summer. My posting will be sporadic, but I’ll be sure to link to my weekly newspaper columns when and if they’re available online, and I’ll keep y’all posted with any other writing updates. As always, I’ll drop in if I see something too great not to share. I will also try to update my author Facebook page with news and maybe share a little on my Pinterest boards (I’ve recently posted new stuff there).
I hope you’ll forgive me and stick with me! And please don’t be a stranger: I want to know what you’re reading and doing outside in the great big world!
I'm on a major deadline for Monday, and my 4 year-old's preschool was let out early one day this week and cancelled for three days due to snow and ice. Less than two inches of it (it's the South). I'm basically a basket case, because the time I needed to spend working on those deadlines was spent teaching and at home corralling my precious little scamps.
Okay, so I went sledding with my 4 year-old. And my dog.
And we walked downtown for bakery items and to make snow angels with friends.
And I watched DVRed reruns of The Newsroom. Which is going off the air after it's 3rd season. Sigh. Nobody writes for television better than Aaron Sorkin. Come on!
So this is partly my fault. But still: three and a half days of no preschool does make a couple of writing deadlines tough to meet. You try to get anything done with a 4 year-old and an 8 month-old in the house. I dare you.
P.S.
I do actually have one thing to share, for those folks in Brevard, NC and nearby: Native Eyewear is hosting the Locals Only Project Award Party at The Lumberyard in Brevard on Saturday, Feb. 8th from 6 - 10 p.m. The new catalog, complete with shots from all around our fair town, will be handed out. I have heard that it's absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait to celebrate my adopted hometown!
It finally feels like Fall here in Western North Carolina. We woke up to 38 degrees this morning, which isn’t so unusual at all this time of year in the mountains, but hadn’t happened yet. If you’re planning to travel to see the leaves, especially on the Blue Ridge Parkway, this is definitely the time to do it.
Last week I posted about getting ready to head to the Cataloochee Valley of North Carolina to see the elk. Well, we went, we saw, and we had an incredible time. There were six of us: two of my best friends, one with her 2 year-old son, and me and my girls (ages 4 years-old and 5 1/2 months). We met in Waynesville, NC, which is about midway between all our towns and the Cataloochee Valley, regrouped, and caravanned into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We’d waited for two weeks for the government to reopen so we could go, so we were psyched to be there among the gold, red, and orange trees, the other visitors, and of course the elk.
Driving through the Valley this time of year is a little like driving through a less-crowded
version of Yellowstone.
People stop their cars, hop out to take pictures, and get much closer to the wildlife than they should. This year there were signs near the road warning cars to stay out of the fields. You’d be surprised–or maybe you wouldn’t–at what some folks will do around wildlife.
Cough. Including us. We unfurled our picnic blankets in the middle of a meadow where a turn of the century (the 20th century) church sat, pulled out our PBJs, yogurts, Goldfish and hot chocolate (can you tell we were with kids?), and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. My 4 year-old and my friend’s 2 year-old ran around squealing like little happy banshees. (Yes, I know banshees are NOT happy. But that’s what they sounded like.)
During all this, my friends and I–all of whom have been outdoor educators and worked in the field–kept wondering aloud if it was really smart to picnic in the middle of the meadow during rutting season. But then we shrugged, since we’d done it before. About that time an enormous young male elk wandered across the creek from another meadow near by and walked right past our blankets. We gathered the kiddos close and stayed still. A park ranger with a big ol’ stun gun slung over his shoulder wandered our way and chatted with us while we watched it walk by.
Yep, we were THOSE people. We felt like idiots. But boy was it fun to see the elk up close!
The ranger told us that though the elk are doing fairly well, they’ve had a few die lately due to various causes, including being hit by a car, caught and tangled in underbrush, and shot by idiots. I mean people. One man apparently drove into the Cataloochee Valley, walked right up and shot one of the elk.
Eventually, of course, there’s hope that the elk will do so well that there’ll be a hunting season for them, especially since their ancient natural predators–mainly wolves and panthers–no longer roam the Southern Appalachians. But that’s a long time coming.
At the end of the evening, when the sun had set below the ridges and the clouded sky grew dark, we loaded up our cars and headed out of the Valley. One friend (sans kids) decided to camp. The other and I had to get our children home to bed. It was a 10-mile drive down a pitch dirt road to reach highway again. We all agreed we’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Apologies, but I've got to postpone my usual Show & Tell Friday until next week. I am an exceptionally busy and important woman.
KIDDING. I'm postponing because I look like this:
Yep, that's me at my desk moments ago. What you can't hear in the background are the soothing tones of a teething baby trying to go down for her nap.
I love my baby. Both my babies! I love it when they're like this:
Aren't they sweet? I'd set Willa (the baby) on our bed while I threw on regular clothes to take Wylie (my 4 year-old) to preschool. Sometimes I go in partial pajamas. Not that day, boy howdy! I was wearing jeans!
I love motherhood. It's been the most transporting, the most spiritual, the toughest, the hardest, the most incandescent experience of my life. I think, when you're a parent, the act of parenting--and the weighty, unimaginable love of your kids--takes your ego and drop-kicks it. Have you ever watched Australian football? Well, it's nuts. Awesomely nuts. Those guys can take the football and drop-kick it from, I swear, anywhere on the dang field, and it sails through the uprights. And then they try to murder each other.
This, my friends, is what has happened to my ego. And that's a good thing. If you don't get the schnike kicked out of you by your babies, if your ego is unaffected, you're not really parenting.
That's my take. Hey, remember the first photo, above? That's what I look like today.
Some days I look like this, though:
Ha ha! I had showered! And Willa's exceptionally interested in her knee.
But, seriously, most days I look like I do today:
Moving on.
* * *
ELK TAILGATING IN THE CATALOOCHEE VALLEY! This afternoon I'm packing up the aforementioned babies and heading North (Northwest?) to the Cataloochee Valley. We're going to go elk tailgating. That's right, you didn't read it wrong. Elk used to roam these here parts up until the turn of the 19th century, but in 2001 they were reintroduced to a gorgeous part of Western North Carolina called the Cataloochee Valley, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The Fall, and mainly October, is the best time to view the elk because it's time for the rut. This is mating season, y'all. And you're likely to hear the male elk "bugling" to warn away other males. It's AWESOME.
For a 2011 article in the Macon County News about the elk reintroduction, click here.
A few years ago, when my oldest daughter, Wylie, was a 1 year-old, we went elk tailgating for the first time with one of my best friends. We packed a picnic, some blankets, a thermos of hot chocolate and bundled up because it was darn cold. Wylie was in heaven, and so was I. I can't wait to take her back today, and I feel so thankful that these elk and this incredible place are there for her to see.
No kidding, it's worth the drive to be a part of this place. It will feel and look like a National Geographic Moment. You will think you've stepped back in time 200+ years. The scene will sink into your soul. But more than that, it'll feel right.
Me, yesterday. Yes, I'm wearing sunglasses
inside my house. I had a migraine. It was that kind
of a day.
So. Today should be an edition of Show & Tell Friday.
But.
It was a helluva parenting week, let me tell you. My 4 year-old has decided to wake up at 4 a.m. each night and to defy our every parenting request–from as simple as “take off your shoes” to “Go use the potty” to “For the love of Pete would you please eat your yogurt.” My just-turned 5 month-old is STILL wailing at night and fighting sleep during the day. So that even when my husband gives her a bottle–which should be her last meal of the night and should mean I get a break–about 30 minutes later she’s wailing, and the only thing she wants is me. Or, if I’m completely honest, the boobs.
Yes, I said “boobs.” On my author blog. It’s just been that kind of week. So I’m channeling Alexander. Remember him? From Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst? “I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair….” He’s my go-to guy this week. My compadre. My kindred spirit. My muse. We’re gonna go live in Australia together.
Hey. That’s another great childrens’ book to add to the Christmas list of the kids you know.
Have I mentioned that I have a new baby? (sarcasm)
I earned my Master of Arts in English from a wonderful joint program between the College of Charleston and The Citadel a few (cough) years ago. It was a heavenly two years of living on a sea island in Charleston, SC, raising my puppy, and reading, writing and learning all about great literature. I truly loved my time at The Citadel, which for those of you who don’t know, is the military college of South Carolina. My professors were fantastic–true teachers and scholars who inspired my creative writing.
A while back someone in The Citadel Graduate College office contacted me for an interview, and I happily complied. I’m a bit embarrassed that I completely forgot about it. But, then again: BABY.
William the Conqueror
(Doesn't look like such a baddie. But he was.)
It’s been a rough several weeks, my friends. See the title of this post? No kidding. I’m not exaggerating.
Seriously.
My sweet little angel baby (otherwise known as Wilhemina the Conqueror) decided to start teething at 3 months old. I’d write a quirky little ditty about it, right now and for all y’all to read and enjoy, but I’m not enjoying it. Not one bit.
I don’t recall teething being this gawd-awful with my 4 year-old. I think memory loss is the Lord’s sneaky little way to get us to have more kids.
A little 12 lb baby has done me in. Kicked my fanny. Made me want to cry to my granny. Got me beggin’ for a nanny.
Okay, I’ll stop.
You know I love my baby. I’d eat her up with syrup if I could.
This
morning, I threw caution to the wind. Got in my car—just my dog and me—and headed
for the hills. Played my music LOUD. Left
my life behind.
Goodbye,
cruel world. Hasta la vista. Sayonara. Arrivederci.
Eat
my dust.
Okay,
so I was only headed down the mountain to the vet’s office, so he could remove
stitches from my dog’s ear, but still. It was a moment.
Allow
me to share:
Have
I mentioned that I’m pregnant? Very, very pregnant? And that I have a 3
year-old? A particularly rascally 3 year-old? And a husband who works from
home?
I
do. And it’s GRAND. But this morning, I got hit with the ornery stick. And
everything about all of it—mostly being very pregnant—came to a boiling point. Remember
that scene in whatever Will Smith movie it was where the asteroid hits the
Earth? Like that.
First,
it started with me waking up and realizing that I. was. still. pregnant.
Shocker,
right? And how could I tell? The aching hips, legs, ankles. The ginormous
belly. Oh, and the fun fact that I no longer possess a jaw line.
And
then there was the moment in front of my closet when I realized that since it
was going to be a creepy 60 degrees today, I officially had nothing to wear.
That even my maternity clothes weren’t fitting comfortably. And I had to go
back to my hometown. A place where people actually look presentable on purpose. As I’m standing
there, throwing discarded clothing in a pile on my bed that was beginning to
resemble Jabba the Hut (the monstrous pregnancy pillow that keeps me sane each
night giving it an extra lift), there was some lovely background music.
It
went like this: screaming 3 year-old, refusing to go to the potty. Angry daddy
threatening the screaming 3 year-old. Dog-on-pain-meds-who-can’t-control-her-bladder
barking, for the love of Pete, to be let out of the ever-loving house.
But
back to me. In that mature clothes-flinging moment, I also remembered the fact that
every single person who has asked when I’m due to have this baby guesses
months early. Months. And when I tell them, they’re surprised. Some, mostly
men, have told me outright I look like I’m well into my third trimester.
Like
the lovely young gentleman (all of about 26 years-old) who sidled up next to me
at the Freshens stand in the Atlanta airport a few weeks ago. Our conversation
went like this:
Him:
(looking down at my belly with a smirk. Yes, a smirk.) Having a baby?
Me:
Yep.
Him:
How far along are you?
Me:
About 23 weeks.
Him:
Man, you look more like 30.
Me:
Why, you precocious little s%$#.
Kidding.
But I thought about it. “One of these days, Alice … POW! Right in the kisser!”
So,
back to the ornery stick. It hit me hard this morning. I groaned. And moaned. And pouted.
And scowled. And slammed doors. My husband tried to appease me. Nothing he said
helped. My daughter tried to appease me. That just made me feel guilty. My dog
looked at me with learned wariness, from afar.
Yes,
Mr. Melville. I felt like taking to the sea. Like knocking people’s hats off.
In
the car on the way down the mountain, I fumed. Thankfully, there were no
tourists in front of me, inching down the winding two lane road at 5 miles per hour. (They’ll get
here about April. Grrr.) I vented to my dog. I tried to think of a way out of my
current situation, but really, there's no cure for being 26 weeks pregnant.
I
did this to myself. (My husband helped.) I’m not sure I’m doing it again.
The
only thing that soothed my bitter soul? The sweet, raucous sounds of Brandi
Carlile’s new album, Bear Creek.
Girl’s
got pipes. And songwriting skills to boot. The song on repeat in my car this
morning was “Raise Hell.”
Check
her out singing live on the Craig Ferguson Show:
So,
I’m home now. Calm. (Okay, calmer.) My
dog got her stitches out. My daughter had a good day at preschool. My husband
is still my husband.
But
my temper tantrum of a morning taught me a little something.
It
ain’t pretty, but sometimes—just sometimes—mama needs to raise a little hell.
Can you tell I love my Writer's Thesarus? It keeps me warm on cold nights.
But back to the topic at hand: It's true, and at 15 weeks along there's no denying it. I am expecting Baby #2--gender yet to be revealed--on May 8, 2013.
Holy freaking moly.
To say that trying to manage all those things in my life I love to talk (or complain... cough) about has been difficult would be a massive understatement. As so many mamas know, working, parenting a young child, taking care of a house (snort), trying to promote a novel and attempting to be a reasonable spouse all take on an entirely new meaning when you are "in the family way."
Add a full graduate course load and attempting to write a second novel, and it's a circus act of massive proportions. Except, in my case, it's not snazzy, fancy Ringling Brothers, but instead one of those state fairs where the carnies running the ferris wheel look like meth-heads, all the animals in the 4-H competitions bolt for the hills, and carnival-goers all seem to look as if they'd sprouted from the same gene pool.
What I'm trying to say is, the past 3+ months have been a doozy. And I've not done anything--parenting, wife-ing, teaching, writing, novel promoting--particularly well.
See, I'm a college English professor who just used the word "wife-ing." I should be shot.
Thankfully, I seem to have moved out of the I-want-to-die-NOW portion of pregnancy, that oh-so-lovely first trimester. (I'm writing that in a whisper, so the nausea gremlins don't get me). With this move into the Lord-be-praised second trimester, I seem to have reclaimed some of my old energy. When I was pregnant with my now 3 year-old, I used this energy to grade papers, to exercise, to hike some pretty big hills.
Somehow, this isn't the case with Number 2. There's more to do.
I don't have the antidote. The magic potion. The solution. If you do, send it to me. Please. Now. Ye shall be rewarded forthwith.
Some day, "they" tell me, I will write about all this. And I'll be calm. I'll be enlightened, helpful, humorous.
But for now, I'm just pregnant. Happily, but maddeningly, "fecund, fertile and fraught."
This is the state of my bedroom. For my Mom, this will probably bring flashbacks (or, as I like to call them, fond memories) of the state of my teenaged bedroom.
But no: this is my bed, now, as I pack for 11 days in Montpelier, Vermont, at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. I fly out Wednesday morning for my second residency, and thus the beginning of my second semester in the MFA in Writing program.
I'm looking forward to it: 10 days of lectures, readings, workshop, and just being around writerly people. I'll get a new advisor for this new semester, and I'm curious about whom it'll be. And as much as I'm a wee bit sad (and a bit anxious) about leaving my family for that long--namely my two year-old--I'm looking forward to 10 days of just thinking about myself.
Sounds supremely selfish. But it's true. Only having to worry about me, about where I need to be and what I need to do, will be heaven. It also doesn't hurt that I'm renting a house in Montpelier with friends I'd made over the last residency. I'm envisioning wine on the front porch, exchanging of book lists, lots of talk (okay, gossip).
My first semester as an MFA in Writing student was an interesting one. It flew by, and I never truly felt like I'd a minute to slow down. Truthfully, it was a balance act--teacher/mother/wife/writer/student--with a landing I'm afraid I didn't quite stick. I'm hoping that this coming semester will be a bit more manageable, if only because I've done it before.
Running the gauntlet
(Photo credit; en.wikipedia.org)
Even as I write that--be a bit more manageable--I cringe. Because I know that won't be true. Happily, my novel comes out September 15th, which is obviously a dream quite literally coming true. But with it comes several months of promotions, some travel, and quite a bit of work. I'm also teaching classes. And, oh yeah, back being a grad student. Trying to coordinate these roles alongside navigating family life at times feels like running the gauntlet.
You know the gauntlet, right? It can be as fierce as the picture to the right--all medieval and brutal and sharp--or as ridiculous as one of those Japanese reality shows where the contestants are knocked by enormous rubber waterwheels into foaming florescent water. My life seems more like the latter--really, really funny at times. With an ouch.
It's been an exceptionally busy few weeks. Good weeks, but crazy ones. My daughter is out of school. My husband took a new job that has him traveling and working from home. (More on the two-people-in-the-house-working-from-home hootenanny in a later post.) We celebrated his birthday and our 8th anniversary with our first date in months, which was wonderful. We went to an early movie and dinner in Asheville, N.C.
My husband and me, celebrating our 8th anniversary
(The movie, Snow White and the Huntsman, which I thought I'd be ambivalent about but which I really, really enjoyed. Charlize Theron is fantastic as the evil queen, Chris Hemsworth brings surprising dimension and even tenderness to the Hunstman, and Kristin Stewart makes a darn good bad-ass. Plus, the abundance of Golden Globe, Emmy and Oscar-winning actors is a win: Ian McShane, Theron, and more.)
I've yet to figure out how to successfully navigate life as a fully-functioning (read successful) workingwritingMomwifefriend. I've read dozens of books and blogs on the subject, hoping that one would hold the magic key. Most say the same thing: get organized, schedule, enlist help, make time for yourself.
Time for yourself. Bah ha ha ha ha.
Kidding, kidding. It is possible. It can be done. Just maybe not this week....
* I may post while at VCFA, I may not. I hope you all have a wonderful end of June!
I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.
~ L. M. Montgomgery
Summer is here, summer is here, summer is here! For me, there is no real dilineation of the season except for the letting-out of school, the thick mist low on the bottomlands, the emergence of green corn, and the appearance of the lightening bugs. I still feel summer like a child does, like a glow low in my abdomen, spread out to the edges of my appendages, sparking at the fingertips and bare feet. It is, as it always was, a gorgeous, magic, infinite time of year, no matter how old I get or how my life changes.
This past week I abandoned the Internet for a week at my family's lakehouse in the South Carolina foothills.This, and my willful, lazy embrace of summer, are the reasons for my not writing in a while, here. I don't have a good excuse.
The lakehouse is a special place for me, with a honing beacon that pings and lights no matter how long or far away I go from it. I could fill a book with the memories made there. But this past week, I was there because my husband was out of town on business, my daughter is out of preschool, and I'd just finished the last packet of my first grad school semester--30 pages plus 20 more for my summer residency mailed off--and for the first time in several months, my reading material was my own.
I packed an extra bag full of novels, biographies, new magazines, and DVDs, certain I'd wake early and stay up late, just to soak it all in. I took my laptop, thinking I'd be so inspired by sunrise over the lake and blue mountains that I'd be up every morning long before anyone else, typing away as I used to there as a teenager, so easily inspired.
My soon-to-be three year-old, whom I was solo-parenting for the week, obviously didn't get the memo that Mama was going to be reading. And writing. She woke every night between 3 and 5 a.m., and only took a nap on the first and last day we were there. I spent days chasing her up and down steps, pushing her on the swing her Grandaddy installed at his Tiki Bar, just for her, and funneling her away from the edge of the dock. It also rained for three days straight. At the end of the week I looked about ten years older, and not tan. So not tan.
But still, it was a good week away from my house, my desk, my work worries. Sometimes you simply have to physically remove yourself from those things to disconnect. And, I had good friends visit, time with them and their kids, time--even if only snippets of it--to talk, to share, to laugh, to simply be. And this is priceless.
Navigating motherhood alongside being a writer (and now, again a student) has been nothing but a challenge: an obstacle course like one of those mud runs, where you get to leap over fire and scale slippery walls and climb under barbed wire. You know the ones: where you come up utterly exhausted, your clothes trashed, with muck in your mouth and in your nose but a huge grin on your face.Yep: motherhood is like this.
Thank God I like to get muddy.
Since it is summer, and the ferns are green in the woods, the crickets sounding their thrum at night, I vow to soak it in. To breathe. To go barefoot, eat a popsicle, ride a bike, and get dirty. I may be doing all these things with an almost three year-old in tow, and on very little sleep, but they'll happen. For it is summer (my, what a word!), and it doesn't get much better than this.
I have been not-so-secretly obsessed with Wonder Woman since I was four years old, when I got to be her for Halloween. It remains my favorite of many wildly creative Halloween costumes (man, my Mom could sew), and included red rainboots, stars-and-stripes Underoos, and aluminum foil magic bracelets. I felt powerful. At four years old. I never wanted to take it off.
It didn't matter that I was a tiny towhead better suited for a Heidi costume: Wonder Woman was my girl. I loved her.
Wonder Woman has followed me throughout my life, and once lived on a huge poster on the screened-in porch of a cabin in the North Carolina mountains that I shared with six other 20s-ish women. We were outdoor educators (basically a fancy way of saying camp counselors and trip leaders), most just out of college, working through the Fall and early Winter on group programs for middle and high schoolers--in hiking, biking, team-building, paddling, climbing, you name it. The cabin wasn't insulated (in fact, the windows were covered with screens, which is interesting in October in the mountains), and we slept in our sleeping bags in a row of bunkbeds, tobaggons on our (sometimes wet) heads and double layers of socks on our feet. On the other side of the cabin lived the male counselors, and though they were a bit smellier than we were (only a bit), we were a big, happy family, silly and raucous and entirely invested in working with kids and teenagers and living an outdoor life.
I have to pause a moment. Man, I loved that life.
Okay. So, Wonder Woman. One of my buddies in the cabin stuck the poster up on our screened porch, so we could see it every time we left and entered the cabin. Wonder Woman began to feel like a welcoming committee, after sometimes days of being out with 6th or 7th graders, or high schoolers, trekking through the Appalachian backcountry. I started imaginging that she smiled at me, that she'd give me imaginary high-fives when I'd return sweaty and dirty and happily exhausted.
Today, as a 30s-ish woman, I've got Wonder Woman magnets on my fridge, and a ridiculously cool Wonder Woman mug (I'm actually drinking out of it as I write this). It says, in bold, slanting black letters, that "This Amazon Princess Will Not Bow to Any Man!" Awesome.
I'm even teaching my two year-old daughter to say "WONder WOman!" with the same inflection as the '70s TV show theme song. And if you ask her who her favorite superhero is, she'll tell you, just like that.
I am so proud.
But lately, I find myself reaching for my Wonder Woman mug far more often (I used to just drink from her on Friday mornings, when I was feeling especially sassy). I need her magic bracelets, her gold headband, and certainly her invisible plane, now more than ever.
Every modern woman, I think, attempts to be Wonder Woman. Most of us have jobs, families, avocations, homes, and some of us have kids. Though the balancing act of being a modern woman has become a sort of cliche, especially in modern media, we're juggling all these aspects of our lives like a Ringling Brothers' clown riding a unicycle center stage and tossing up tomatoes. The spotlights are blaring and hot, and beyond the ring of light the bleachers are filled with the faces of our family members and friends. We don't want to drop anything.
I don't have a solution for this. If I did I'd sell it on t-shirts. At the moment I'm caught up in my own wonderful but bone-tiring roles of writer, teacher, mother, wife, student--and I don't feel that I'm doing anything well.
And so, for the thousandth time in my life--including senior year of college, when in order to graduate, I desperately needed to pass a math test that looked like hieroglyphics; or, for that matter, when I was in labor with my daughter for 20 hours--I am calling on Wonder Woman. I need her back in my life, go-go boots, booty shorts, bustier and all.
Because she's my favorite superhero. Because she deflects bullets with her wrists. Because, I think, she gets me.
Life is moving along at the usual clip, we're living comfortably in our daily routines, cocooned by structure and need, and then: shake up. Something happens. Something small, like a low-magnitude earthquake that barely shifts the floor beneath your feet, subtle but odd enough to be noticed: a friend's odd attitude, problems with a car or an appliance, a forced route change on your way to work, a fender-bender. Or, something big happens--an illness, news of a divorce, a job loss, a spiritual epiphany--and this time the quaking lasts for minutes, knocks pictures off the walls and shatters dishes, cracks the street, warps foundations, the reverberations felt and suffered for miles. This is the inevitability of being human: at some point, we'll all get a shake up.
As much as I like to think myself a free spirit, I enjoy the comfortable rootedness of my life. I'm lucky enough to have a home, a family, a job, an avocation, a fairly healthy body, good friends and a great dog. My days are very much the same--something I'd always feared as a teenager and 20-something, when I thought I'd never be happy unless I was traveling the world, constantly experiencing new places and people--and, about 85 percent of the time, I'm okay with that.
There are reasons for this, not the least of which my brain is your basic constant whirlwind, like many writers', I'd guess. It's turbulent, messy, able-to-leap-to-anxiety-ridden-empathy-with-a-single-bound, and at times borderline unstable. The word maelstrom gets overused, but that's what my mind is (and my husband can attest to this). The word is from the early Dutch, its roots are Scandinavian, and since these folks gave us berserk and the Vikings, I think they know a bit about insanity.
Here's the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary definition:
maelstrom 1. A great whirlpool, orig. one in the Artic Ocean off the west coast of Norway, formerly supposed to suck in and destroy all vessels within a long radius. 2. A state of turbulence or confusion.
I've convinced that, over the years, I've kept my wild mind in check with reading and writing--solitary, focused acts that so engage me that the outside world melts away, and I'm just left with the page. And so routine and tradition can be comforting to me, instead of dulling. This always surprises me about myself.
What I'm trying to figure out is how, in the midst of a shake-up--whether it's the possibility of a move, my daughter suddenly deciding she won't nap on a day I desperately need it, or a critic hating my writing--I can calm the maelstrom of my mind, yoke that erratic, fearful energy and make it work for me. The last thing I want to happen is for my inspiration (and sanity) to be destroyed like the monster Charybdis in the Greek myth, who sucked in ships off the coast of Sicily. This is a possibility. My ship could be easily sucked.
So far, I've only found two answers:
1.) Be in the woods and alone (okay, so I'm not really alone because I'm always with my dog, Scout, but still). Whether it's twenty minutes or an hour and twenty minutes, being in the woods--anywhere outside and natural, really--soothes my mania. Tames the mercurial beast that lurks deep within my DNA. When it's just me, Scout, the trees, the creek, the thin winter light on the birches, the mud, my heart is free. I can't explain it. Call it time with God, sacred silence, whatever you want--it's a gift.
2.) Wake up early. This one's a toughie for me, because my husband likes to stay up late, and at times I get sucked into (see, the maelstrom again) staying up late with him. Also: there's always the chance that my morning footsteps on our old hardwood floors--and Scout waking and stretching when she sees me, her toenails clicking on the floor, and the creaky, clanky process of starting the coffee maker--will wake my toddler, early, and if it does, well, then... there's just no point. But, when I do set that alarm an hour earlier, when the house and the world are still completely dark and there is something akin to silence in my world, there's a magic there. A dawning.
Speaking of which, that's another word rooted in the Scandinavian:
dawning 1. The beginning of daylight; daybreak, dawn; the east. 2. The first gleam, the appearance, the beginning (of something).
So morning is always, for me, a beginning, especially when it comes to my storytelling process. Anything can happen. "Dawn," the Oxford English Dictionary again tells us, means "of the morning, the day, etc: begin to grow light."
I recently read Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James, and afterwards stayed up late to rewatch the Joe Wright (director)/Deborah Moggach (screenwriter) film version of Pride and Prejudice. The Keira Knightley one. (Which I think is a fabulous interpretation of the Austen, by the way.) One of the most gorgeous scenes in the film--and there are several--is of Elizabeth taking a dawn walk, like she always does when she needs to think, and, pausing in the between-light, she sees Darcy walking toward her, his coat tails billowing and his stride long and sure through the English heath. It's utterly romantic. And it's absolutely the beginning of something--something wonderful and promising and unknown. Something, to be sure, Austen fans have dreamt on over the almost 200 years since she wrote the novel.
I'm convinced: Mornings are magical. Beginnings are good, even when they shake us up a bit. There is, inevitably, a morning after a quake. Daybreak promises nothing but whatever we make of it, however we choose to respond to the actions of the day before--nothing but a beginning.
For those of you who have kids, you'll know what I mean. For those of you who don't, simply picture a ten-car pile-up on the freeway, stir in a little background whining, some nuclear bombs exploding in the near distance, ten car alarms going off at once--and no one turning them off, and getting smacked in the face by an indignant little person. There, can you see it?
This was my morning. We were thirty-five minutes late to preschool, and I missed my twice-weekly hike in the national forest with my dog: a time I treasure, one I look forward to for days for the rich smell of the winter earth and the life-affirming cold of the air near the river, for the silence and the sight of my dog bounding up the trail ahead of me, for the thinking time. Instead, I barely managed to brush my teeth, throw on my bra and a fleece coat (I still wore the fleece pants I slept in), slap a toboggan on my head and tuck my daughter under my arm like Heisman, and make it to the school.
This was after the Mexican stand-off over the yogurt. It wasn't blueberry, and so really, it had it coming. The banana, bless its heart, became a giant crayon which my dear child used to smoosh into the coffee table, to "draw" with. It was World War III over the coat, the right cup, the treatment of the dog. I said "gentle hands" and other inanities so many times I think I'll change my name to Rainman.
I have a pint-sized problem.
She's my little Czarina. My precious little despot. A two year-old schizophrenic with dimples and a killer left-hook. Here's her photo. (See how tall she is? She did NOT get this from me. That, and the tyranny she gets from her father. The big mouth may be my fault.)
Do not be fooled by the blonde hair and the dimples. She's a tyrant, I tell you. A gorgeous little centuries-old Russian despot. The other day, the despot came with me to the post office, and the postmistress gave her a few Priority Mail stickers to keep her happy. I stuck them on her chest and told her I was shipping her to Siberia. Or maybe her grandparents'.
Learning how to be a mother, a wife, a college teacher, and a writer--not to mention a functioning friend, family member and a generally good person at Christmastime--has been tricky. I'm about to add graduate student to this mix, and I've really avoided thinking much about it. I'm not sure if this is wise, but it's the way I'm going about it. That is, until Dec. 28th, when I fly to Vermont for my first ten-day residency in the MFA in Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. A stack of manuscript pages for my first VCFA workshop (which I'm seriously excited about reading) I've had to put at the bottom of the pile of to-be-graded English final exams and essays on my desk, simply to keep them out of sight. Because, I lack self-control when it comes to reading. Last night, I almost lost my just arrived copy of Diana Gabaldon's The Scottish Prisoner to the lukewarm depths of my bath. Because I fell asleep there. (Not because of the novel--it's fantastic. Because I. am. officially. an. old. person.)
I'm not sure how some writers do it. There's this famous anecdote about best-selling romance novelist Nora Roberts, and how she wrote her first novels at the breakfast table while her boys were eating cereal. I am not Nora Roberts. (Sigh.) In my life, I think the cereal could become airborn. A spoon makes a good catapult... I'm sure my little pumpkin pie would figure that out pretty quickly. She's sly. Maybe she's not Russian. Hidden beneath that exterior of sweetness is the soul of a secret agent. Maybe she's Mossad.
I swear I'm doing almost everything I can to spread Christmas joy. To be enveloped by the magic of the season, a magic I have so genuinely believed in since childhood. Our house is lit with white lights, candles in the windows; our tree is small but hardy, full of glowing bubble lights and beloved ornaments, our stockings hung by the chimney with care, our manger scene placed just out of the sweet little puddin' pie tyrant's reach. Heck, there's even a Santa hat on the rocking horse. We dig Christmas in this family, let me tell you.
See, here we are, enjoying Christmas. Look how calm the despot is. Can you see that blue hundred-yard stare? I think she's just biding her time.
Perhaps I can make a deal with that sweet little schizophrenic Czarina: give me back my precious toddler of yore, and you may return at 16. We'll even let you obscond with the peasants. But despots don't make deals, do they? I think I remember this from World History. They lop off heads. Or utilize efficient firing squads. So maybe I'll lay low, hide behind the dog, play "Frosty the Snowman" on the DVD player as many times as I possibly can, at least until my husband gets home. Until then, writing anything except for this blog post may have to be put on the back-burner, sad as it makes me.
Because a girl's got to make it through the day, нет?
I have entered once again the abyss, and now I'm free-falling, like one of those cave jumpers who dive screaming into the murk until on a whoosh comes a wide, white parachute and a waking dream of the dark and dank and cool.
Okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic. All I've done, like so many others, is make the decision to attempt to go back to school. It's a Master of Fine Arts in writing (fiction) I'm trying for, because--at least at this point in time--the MFA is still considered the terminal degree for creative writers who also want to be professors. I actually started the application process in late summer 2008, and then the life-changing happened that Fall (see the photo above). And the graduate school dream was put on indefinite hold while I navigated pregnancy and hormones and the wonders and stresses and waking dream that is new motherhood.
It's not the first time I've done this: I earned a MA in English in 2004, and I've been slaving away at various colleges and community/technical colleges since then, thoroughly enjoying my job but wanting to find something more permanent and, ahem... monetarily feasible. I know I'm not alone here; there are thousands of us--lowly adjuncts--teaching across the country, working for pittance and wondering why we got the advanced degree in the first place. (This could be a whole other blog, and it's been done, so I'm not going there.)
But I'm not one of those people. I earned my Master's degree in English for two reasons: to work towards a terminal degree (I thought at the time, a PhD), and to acquaint (and reacquaint) myself with the great writers, in order to become a better writer. I never regret school; I feel that education is a beauty "worthwhile in itself." But now that I'm starting the process all over again--and with a toddler, husband, and part-time job in tow--and though I know that it's the right and best thing for me, I wonder if I'm not a little nuts?
What am I thinking? I barely have time for myself now, and I have one child. One. My "free" time is not spent writing, but catching up on school work and bills and laundry and all the sundry and annoyingly wonderful things that come with being a wife and mother in the modern word. I poop out, exhausted, at about 10:30 every night. I'm nuts, I know it.
The thing is, I know that I can do this. I can figure out how to earn (another) degree, be a good mama, a loving partner, a healthy person. I'd just like a magic potion. A pill, perhaps (are you listening, Phizer?). I'll make my best go of it. I just wish it were a wee bit--just a wee bit--easier.
Any advice, you writers-with-children? Students-with-children?
Disclaimer: This post was a result of one week of cancelled preschool due to snow, and three days (so far) of delayed preschool. A bomb filled with toys, magazines, stuffed animals and thermal coffee mugs (don't ask) has exploded in my house, and I just let my toddler wade through it at will. I rock.
