Swan Song, Laughing.

Dearly beloved, we have gathered here today to get through this thing called life 
Electric word life it means forever, and that's a mighty long time, 
but I'm here to tell you there's something else.... **

A new site.  I mean, I'm in the process of building a new blog, a different sort of place all together, and so it's time to put NilsenLife aside for a season.  What a wonderful season it's been here!  We started when Lars was brand new - 3 months old maybe? And now we have the most gorgeous family of growing-so-fast kids, all 3 of them, and as they look forward their mom looks up and says what next?

Me, wondering What Next?

Who knows what next.  But it will be something new, something creative, something that asks me to think, explore, and grow.  Because that's the point of this thing called Life, isn't it?

As a last post, I'm giving you guys a list of things that make me laugh out loud.  Not LOL, not ha! but seriously, genuinely, laugh out loud.  In no particular order:

• the sun, after days and days of cold grey rain
• the logic of preschoolers
• a 10 year old's budding attempts at irony
• photographs involving angry dwarves
• terrible puns
• my husband - daily
• every single one of my close friends - we can't be tight *unless* you make me laugh
• Beastie Boys videos

Not even a Top 10 list, but enough to get me through the day.  Laughing out loud is as holy a thing as I know, and I am profoundly grateful to find things to laugh about every single day.

So with that I leave you.  NilsenLife will abide here as long as Blogger will let it, with its gentle posts on babies, and growing, and a parent realizing that so much good awaits.   On to the next. You will always be able to find us, and all of our laughing, here: at The Yellow House.

** total extra credit points if you finished that little riff at the top there, and then dove right in to enthusiastic air guitar.   For those who didn't, it's Prince and, the first cool song I ever memorized:  Let's Go Crazy.   Yes in fact it IS on my running playlist to this very day.

No One Said It Would Be Easy

Things like rocket science, investment banking, brain surgery - these are tough. Widely acknowledged to be challenging pursuits: those requiring a whole mess of education.

Raising a family - nurturing a crowd of respectful, inquisitive and creative future citizens of the Earth. Eating dinner together. Fostering connection with those next to you, those around you, those in your daily round. This is the easy stuff, right?

Today was a typical Tuesday afternoon here at the Yellow House: shouts of THE BUS!!! sprints to meet The Big Sister, rapid fire debriefing/homework/snack and then dashing back out the door to track down playmates. I managed the politics of three year olds in the sandbox, and whilst slapping at post-Irene late September mosquitoes, my mind wandered dangerously close to the Big Ideas that loiter in the shadows of half-thought and distraction.

I blinked twice and it was already 6.10 - far too late to be starting dinner but the very soonest it could've happened. Crouching in front of the fridge I waited to be inspired, then gave up & started heating tomato sauce, water to boil pasta, sliced zucchini to steam.

Then it was 7, and the lights were quieted through the house. My three kids sat, and somehow all the glow of the late evening centered itself around our long table. Tonight the candles - so often forgotten and left unlit - cast a spell that meant silliness spilled onto the plates more than salt. Our youngest held the floor as she told us all about her first day of preschool; Lars told us about his first official math test of 1st grade, and Ms ThreeDaysAwayFromNINE explained Brief Constructed Responses to mystified parentals.

I took a break from the milk pouring, the cheese grating, the Use-Your-Napkin reminders. I listened with all my heart - to the giggles, the elementary school jokes, the older two remembering their first days at preschool - and the truth shouted at me all around the table.

It isn't easy. In so many ways it's 1000% more difficult than rocket science or brain surgery because there are no rules, no degrees one can get that teach you how to build a family. That teach you how important the Tuesday night penne & marinara meal will be in the piece-by-piece construction of a life.

It's a beautiful quote from that Annie Dillard on writing: no one ever said it would be easy.

No one ever did.

Not the writing, not the parenting, not the building of a life.

No one ever said it would be easy. But the hard makes every living moment of our dinner time tonight worth it.

*******************

Time for Just Write again tonight my friends. I was humbled beyond measure by all the kind comments on the post last week, after such a very long time away from the keyboard. This may be a less lyrical attempt, but inspired by Heather and the incredible Annie Dillard, tonight I had to Just Write all over again. Until next time.

On Harvest Moons and writing

My eldest and I gasped simultaneously.

Did you see that Mommy??

I did, sweetheart.  It's pretty amazing, isn't it?

A huge harvest moon had just begun its ascent, and hung right above the horizon.  Luminous in the dusky blue of a September evening.

I almost pulled the swagger wagon over to the side of the road, just to look.  In and out of the trees it seemed to bob and weave - or maybe it was me bobbing and weaving.  And then, for a long stretch on I95 I had an uninterrupted view.

I watched that moon from the corner of my eye as I drove.



Its glow seemed so self contained.  The huge circle hung in the sky, not gold not yellow not orange.  Just....the color of warm light itself.  The moon seemed to have no compulsion to cast shadows, to spotlight anyone or anything.  It seemed content to glow within itself, guarding a secret knowledge of the autumn to come, the long winter beyond it and a spring that will surely come. 

I want to live like that harvest moon, I found myself thinking.  I want the inner glow, the self possession that doesn't include bright flashy sunbeams cast on those around me, but rather inspires them to glow themselves. 

But.  But. I know that that spark within me, the origin of the glow is the writing.  And honestly, that light has been dim for such a long time.   Every time I sit down to write anything, I start, then sigh, and stare at a blank screen.  I hit delete-delete-delete-delete and keep that moon from rising on the horizon with its radiance and indescribable color.

Just write.  Its a message I have muttered to myself so often in the past six months.  Just write.  And yet the darkness feels unshakeable - a total eclipse, if you will.  It doesn't mean the moon has gone away - it simply means it is obliterated temporarily by the brilliance of others in its orbit - by the roles of mother wife daughter teacher.

So here it is.  I'm just writing.  Inspired, as with so many other years, by the reflections of autumn, by the wisdom gleaned in gathering days, by those around me who urge me  to Just Write.

**********************

Heather at the Extraordinary Ordinary - a blogger who makes me laugh like few others, and then choke up with tears with her very next post - yesterday put a challenge out there.  Can you do it? she asked.  Can you let go of your inner critic, of your daily routine just for a moment, and Just Write?

I am so grateful to have someone ask that simple question, the night I talked with the harvest moon.

Pardon me, Madam, your neuroses are showing

Ah yes.  There's a title to pull 'em in.

This spring was a strange ol' season.  There was a fair bit of 'putting myself out there' - a big writing project for church, a reunion, a 10-week fiction workshop.  Some of these went a little more successfully than others: the church thing went well.  The reunion, super happy. The writing class, tragical crash n' burn.

What, you say?  You crashed and burned at writing??  Why yes, yes I did. Somehow I might have convinced all of you that the words come burbling from me like a mountain stream straight out of Heidi, and that I am, in general, a wildly confident person cruising around town in my Swagger Wagon.  If so, well, high fives.  I didn't mean to trick you.

Actually, there are a fair few games that my head plays with me.  And let me just say, my head does not play fair.  In fact using the word 'games' seems to give it a little frisson of fun, which is misleading because my head's not such a fun playmate these days.

There's the sneaky procrastination game, where my head convinces me that absolutely, tonight after the kids are in bed I mean early tomorrow morning okay so maybe during naptime if you can distract Lars with your iPhone things will get written/researched/dealt with.

Then my head starts up with the you can'ts and you'll nevers and the what is your frakking point??s.  Oh, and the constant sarcastic background noise of Awesome parenting, there, girlfriend. Keep it coming!

Add to this the standard (but usually quashed under layers of denial and willful ignorance) freakouts over  finances (oh, a stay at home mom?  hm.  yes, the finances are always a source of freakout), over What Will I BE When I Grow Up, over ack, you know.  Lots of things.  I'm kind of a professional freaker-outer.

In a totally polished and cheerful and zen sort of way, of course.

Why do I share this with you?  (See there? The what is your frakking point?? just popped up again.)

Well.  There is a lot out there on the interwebs about how we only present our very bestest most perfect selves on our blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter.  And this makes all the other people on the interwebs feel bad/anxious/depressed, imagining all of these perfect lives and being confronted with charming snapped-on-the-iPhone evidence of the perfection.  (I am guilty of the iPhone snapping. Sorry.)

But for all of that perceived perfection, I'd hazard a guess that most of us are just people trying to get by.  People doing the best they can, trying to ignore all the crazy in their head, one day at a time.

Maybe, just maybe, the sharing of small moments of joy has much less to do with lording my "perfect life" over yours, and more to do with trying to find whatever magic there is in my day.  Maybe it is a reminder to myself that amidst the yelling and the eye rolling and the peanut butter sandwiches there are tiny little shards of brilliance:  shards that, combined, make a gem of a life.

I'm thinking there must be those shards for all of us to gather.

How Simple is Simple?

This weekend I got my chops busted on Facebook for the following phrase:  "So often, simple is the very best answer.  Simple."

I had no great agenda behind my statement - it was actually prompted by the joy of a quiet Friday night, instead of the hectic one I'd had planned.

But a friend chose to see this as a political statement - or at least to respond to it that way.  He posted a link that suggested that choosing to live simply implies a willful ignorance of the inequities and injustices of the world.   (The actual specific politics of the link he posted can be tracked down on my Facebook page if you're really interested.  But that tangent is beside the point.)

Here's the thing.  The conscious pursuit of simplicity in one's life has nothing at all to do with ignoring all that is seriously screwed up in the world.

On the contrary.  The pursuit of simplicity - living with intentionality, with a focused discipline on reducing distractions - is surely the only way we can consider the situation of those less fortunate with any meaning, any consequence.

By choosing to live simply, I choose not to purchase, acquire, and consume in the manner that my culture seems to think I should.  By choosing to live simply I spend less time focused on the lifestyles of those who contribute [not much] to society and spend more time focused on the lives of those who bring Quality to mine.

I don't mean to preach.  I didn't mean to preach when I posted the simple statement on Facebook.  But neither do I like to be misunderstood on a matter that is a core belief.

Intentionality. Conscious existence.  Stillness.  These are the things that allow me to live meaningfully.

Simply.

**************

This little rant was written for Stream of Consciousness Sunday, which I stream-of-consciousnessed about last week. 

Adventuring

Had just my big girl with me the other night - the other two were on a big sleepover at Grandma's. We had a boring school-type meeting to attend, but she was thrilled to pieces to have her mom to herself for the evening.

We parked across the street from Chinese Food / Japanese Sushi Restaurant. Seriously: if it had another name I never saw it. Emerging from the meeting, her dad met us there and she was insistent that we should all go to dinner at Chinese Food/Japanese Sushi Restaurant.

Really sweetie? we said. Wouldn't you rather go to PF Chang's just a few blocks down? You know, one that you've been to before?

NO, she quietly insisted. I really really really want to try THIS ONE.

In an instant, I heard it all: two tired parents, asking wearily if they couldn't go somewhere we knew, somewhere 'safe', worth our hard-earned dollars. At the same time I heard an eight year old who hasn't had the adventure worn out of her - a little girl who is curious about absolutely everything, including new places to eat. Who has faith that things might just turn out perfectly, at any given moment. (Even if her hopes are repeatedly dashed by the prosaic existence that is suburban life.)

Under my breath, I said to my husband (who, in his day, has found more adventures for us than is even fit to print) - sweetie. when is the last time you had an adventure? This man, who loves us Nilsen ladies in a very big way, far more than he hates Chinese food, chuckled, and said - great. C'mon. Let's eat over there.

Chopsticks 101

So I started thinking about adventure. The willingness to look past the uncertainty, to go beyond the safe. I am way too prone to stay where things are safe. My husband has always been my adventurer, taking me out to the edges of 'usual' and saying but what if we went over there instead? So when I heard him resist, heard him wonder if we wouldn't like to just find a restaurant we knew about, I realized even the most curious of souls can be worn out by commutes, deadlines, plumbing, phone bills. By the life more ordinary.

Then, inevitably, my thoughts turned to writing. Always back to the writing. I thought about how creative effort is an adventure - taking you to places you never knew about, to places that make you feel uncomfortable, unsteady, but also these places are the truest parts of you that are so much a part of your being they are hard to see.

It's time for me to adventure again. It's time for me to ignore the street signs that tell me I shouldn't travel those roads, to curiously turn corners in confidence that it is the way forward, to actively find new places.

Part of the adventure is knowing I might not have the right gear, the right maps, or even a good sense of direction. This poor little un-designed blog is testament to that. We'll figure it out along the way, shall we?

It's Blinding Me With SCIENCE!

Hey readers out there!! As if the scintillation of the every-other-week posting around here weren't enough, I have something SUPER exciting for you this evening.

The brilliant minds over at Classic Play have published a new issue of their e-zine, and this time it's all about SCIENCE. There are the gorgeous crafts, activities and gift guides that you always expect from Ellie Bellie Kids, and of course there's the writing. The writing! Classic Play have rounded up an eclectic team of contributers from all over the globe, and you. do. not. wanna MISS IT!!!

Scamper scamper scamper to check it out - and make sure you leave those people some comment love, because darn if they don't work hard to make our lives lovelier with that magazine.

Where I'm From

I am from ancient quilts reeking of mothballs, from lemony furniture polish and well-tuned pianos.

I am from suburban bricks on a cul-de-sac, from spaces filled with books and inherited furniture, from darkened rooms with flickering Super8 family movies on Friday night.

I am from the redbud, the azalea, the tall oak and maple - the riotous daffodils, the drifts of cherry blossom.

I am from Friday's meal of potato and beans and from the Family of Righteous Indignation, from Joan and Jack and generations of Klooster.

I am from the corner of Stubborn and Devoted - the two intersect in many places.

From a house where rowdy boys riled a peace-loving sister; where quiet quirkiness was venerated.

I am from a remnant church, a community in the world but not of the world. I am equally from the wider world that then found me. I am from faith, I am from love, and I am from a life that offers grace at every turn.

I'm from Malaysia, from England, from Veja-Links and cucumber sandwiches.

From the steel-grey and ever-elegant piano teacher who guided a crowd with laughter and poise through war, heartbreaks and car crashes, always taking the higher road. From the gifted and also-elegant elementary teacher who is everything and nothing like her mother, who has a heart forty three times her size.

I am from no place - I am from Family, located on eight hearths before I was eighteen. I am the books, the photos, the film reels, the stories: the memories of a host of genetics. At the core is Family.

***********

This post is linked as part of The Red Writing Hood, over at The Red Dress Club. The assignment this week asked us to participate in a long-running writing exercise in which we were all invited to complete the same basic form, delineating our perceived roots: where we are from. You can read more about the exercise here. I'd encourage you to try it, even if (especially if!) you don't see yourself as a writer.

I'm a FEATURE, dontcha know

Well I tried most of today to think of a clever way to introduce the shameless self-promotion I'm about to undertake, but, then I thought, why have a blog if not for shameless self-promotion?

I'm the Featured Blogger today over at The Red Dress Club, which is an inspiring and powerful blog gathering writers and aspiring writers from all over to stretch their writing wings and learn to 'fly' in different ways.

So being 'featured' is very cool indeed, but in my view being a part of that community is absolutely the larger gift. I have learned a huge amount just by reading the work of others, others who are practicing their craft each and every day.

Anyhoo, go on over and check it out: I've spilled the beans on how the blog got started, and what animal I think my husband looks like, among other things.

Letter to Kirsten, Age 21

Dear Kirsten

You live and die by the contents of your little mail cubby, and I'm delighted to offer a few minutes of distraction whilst you endure another mandatory chapel. I know that you love nothing more than a good juicy letter, and boy will this one be a corker.

It's funny, writing to you now, because there is so little I want to tell you to avoid. You have a pretty solid head on your shoulders, and you seem instinctively to make some smart choices - ones that keep your future wide open.

But this word - instinctively - it's something I really have to talk about with you. You need to start paying attention to your gut. (And no, not that completely-invisible-to-everyone-except-you-belly-pooch. Stop with that - its time will come.)

You come from a long line of strong, smart women. At 21, you fancy yourself a strong, smart woman. You're old enough to know you don't know everything, but you're still pretty confident in what you do know. So let me just tell you this right now: life is not so much about what you know in your head. Life - and living - is very much more about what you know in your gut.

Ms 21, after a muddy flag football game

You gotta start listening. 'Cause I'll tell you - right now you're getting into a relationship that you know, you KNOW isn't going to work for you. One of your very closest friends has given you the best warning he knows how - "be careful, Kir. I'm just saying... be careful." Even as those words sound a hollow echo in your heart - your heart that knows the words to be true - blithely, confidently you'll persist in pursuing this one to the ends of the earth. All I can say, because you won't be able to even wrap your head around the details of how badly you will get hurt, is that in your gut, right now, you know the right answer. It is all wrong for you.

In a few years, as the wounds from this heal into angry scars, your instincts will be refined. You will know that you should have listened to yourself. And still you will ignore your intuition - time and time again.

I am writing to you to say trust yourself. Listen to yourself. You know the answers - the intuition engraved deep in your DNA is yours to tap into, and if you are able to somehow start listening earlier - not waiting until your mid-30s to start trusting this sense, you will save yourself repeated disappointment, hurt, and frustration.

Intuition will guide you in early marriage, will guide you in career choices, will guide you in parenthood. Listen - train yourself to be still and to listen. Not everyone is born to this gift, but you are. You are.

Finally: I say with some authority that you are now as hot as you will ever be. Ditch the grunge threads immediately and buy yourself something cute. You are not now nor will ever be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're going to work the whole tall blonde thing, now's the time.

Signed with so very much love (and jealousy of your 21 year old thighs)

Kirsten, Age 37

*******************

This post was written for Friday's Red Writing Hood, the prompt being "write a serious letter to your younger self." Luckily for me and my younger self, letter writing is something I love with all my heart.

Getting clean

Had to take last week off, but we're back on track with The Red Writing Hood this week.  Today the assignment is "writing a first-person piece about [...] taking a shower - without using a personal pronoun." Egads, thought I.  The personal pronoun is the blogger's BFF! What is one to do?  Sit down of an evening, and bash out her best effort, that's what one is to do.  Here ya go peeps - Description.

********
Getting Clean

Cranking the hot water faucet with an impatient twist of the wrist.  Stupid plumbing.  Stupid old house.  Stripping the sweaty running shirt off, then the sports bra, the shorts, the rank socks, the grimy shoes.  Gotta get new running shoes.  Sigh.

Tweaking the cold water, just an eigth-inch: hard lessons have taught that otherwise it turns more refreshing than God or a health teacher ever intended.  Hopping in, over the 42 cups stacked just so, the firefighter rubber duck, the sandpail making a mysterious appearance in the tub.  Eyeing the old fiberglass shower stall, irritated.  Stupid bathroom.  Stupid old ugly bathroom.

Eyes to the ceiling, water streaming through eyelashes, eyelids shut tight.  Too tight.  Shutting out the noise from Elmo downstairs, the banging washing machine - that can NOT be right - the weeping of a toddler on the steps.  Shutting out thoughts of calls to be made, appointments to be kept, bills to be paid.

With eyes shut tight the tan fiberglass tub and its raised sunray pattern disappears.  With eyes shut tight the Costco-sized shampoo becomes the fancy volume building 'product' that once made a difference, the Cetaphil becomes the facial scrub that used to be ritually applied with a 2" square of muslin, the body wash doesn't have a disturbing scent of Berry Blast or a cap designed as a dolphin mutant.

With eyes shut tight there is no self.  No aging skin to be examined, no belly pudge to be avoided, no piercing scars to sigh over.  There is a human, a sweaty naked real human in the middle of streams of water, forgetting self.  Forgetting for six minutes that she is anything but body, water,  more body, more water.

That, that, is getting clean.

Sneaky Words

Lately I've been thinking about words.

Duh, you say.  Isn't that what you writer people think about all the time?  Isn't that what you, like, DO?

Well, yeah.  But I mean I've really been thinking about words.  Sneaky little bastards.

See, words can let you down. The words, they hang back when you want 'em most.  They play coy when you really need them to put on a big show, to SAY exactly what you want them say.  You stumble over them,  they twist up in your ankles and make you feel clumsy, inept, inarticulate.

Like small naughty children, they run away from you.  Or, they can get all stopped up in your head like a toddler refusing to potty train, and then, hoo boy - all hell can break loose when they finally do get out. Everyone around for a 40 foot radius is sorry when that happens.

The words, they hang around in your head doing gymnastics:  first carefully choreographed into this sentence, then into that one, then flipped around with all the words in different order. Then, pile 'em all up and watch them collapse into a heap of garbled nonsense when it's time for the big show.

Sometimes, sometimes, the words play double agent.  They attack with slicing dicing precision,  they say exactly what you had in your head, they escape with a will of their own, and wreak surgically accurate havoc.  Before you know it, you've scorched the territory around you with the words you used, so helpless were you in their power-driven onslaught.  Betrayed, you are - betrayed by the megalomaniacal words.

But oh, the mystical moments of transcendence:  the fleeting seconds when the words become your lovers, do your bidding, understand your every intention, want to please.  They band together, they create something so much bigger than they are individually.  They create chemistry, magic, intoxication.   They bare your heart in all the right places, they lift you up beyond yourself, make you know what it is to be Better.

This is why we write, us writing people.  Looking for those words that make us - and you, when you read them - Better.  Bigger.  Best.

Ending

it's Saturday morning, and NilsenLife is late again. It's the time of the week when we stretch our creative writing muscles over there at Red Writing Hood, and this week's assignment was a narrative poem about family dynamics. Better late than never, right?

**************

Ending.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

like every morning for forty six years

we sat and the sun poured in onto our chilly hearts.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

you stared into the woods

i stared into the street, watching neighbors kiss morning goodbyes.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

you pushed papers across the table, and said

i think it's time.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

i stared into the woods with you, and said

yes. i think it's time.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i

like every morning for forty six years

and agreed we were done.

**********

**UPDATE: please remember with all this creative writing that it's fiction. Mr NilsenLife & I are doing just fine, thanks. (And, we've not been married for even half of 46 years!)

Pickles

So it's supposed to be a Friday thing. It is.  But I have to tell you, I can't just walk away from a week's worth of noodling & then a bunch of writing, deleting, and more writing.  So I'll just go ahead & link up. I'm participating in a creative writing meme called the Red Writing Hood. Ericka from Alabaster Cow and Cheryl from Mommypants are hosting it over at The Red Dress Club. Join in, link up, check out all the posts! 

************

She's six feet tall, for God's sake - she's not hard to miss.  I whip around the corner just to grab a jar of pickles, and there she is:  all seventy two inches of her.  She stands, with that ridiculous perfect posture of hers, squinting at the shelves of canned goods. She's mumbling 'butter beans...butter beans....butter beans...' under her breath.

The exhausting memory of the last time we talked assaults my brain:  I remember the long pauses as she'd furiously searched for the words to make clear to me precisely what a fuckup I was.  

Why her? my friends had all asked the first time.  Seriously?  She's cute and all, but she's a little....boring.  Hell, we were fifteen.  Straight edge, rocker, geek, freak - the labels had barely settled on kids that young. She was.... none of those things. She was just.... not me. Not like me at all.

Why her? my friends all asked the second time.  Only that time it was different friends, a different town, a rougher life.  These friends couldn't understand either, what it was about this plain-vanilla suburban girl that fascinated me. How could I explain to these people that by choosing someone who was everything I was not, and nothing that I was, I could clean the slate? That I could make it all possible, all over again?

This girl - so different.   She was crazy smart, used complicated words to say simple things, made every phone call a challenge to follow complicated metaphors and long-winded ideas.  I wanted it to be simple: her + me = happy.  She wanted.... more than that.  She wanted so much, she was used to so much, and in her quiet way she made me feel, every time, that I hadn't said enough, hadn't said it right.  I was messing up the clean slate.

It was a long hot summer.  I said the wrong things, she said mean things.  Her face soured in the stuffy apartment, and I wished for us that we could be anywhere but stuck in this humid angry city.  I wished we could've found a chilled vacation-y place of possibility, but instead we'd found ourselves in the dead-end alley of unmet expectations.

Any second now she'll turn around and catch me staring.  Of course she'll recognize me.  Maybe she'll smile the fake white-girl smile of HeyHowAREYou?!?!, or maybe she'll give me the flat angry stare she fixed on me that last time.  I really don't want to find out.

At the last second, I look past her, to her cart holding a giggly toddler, crinkling her nose and eyes with a grin that drills a hole in my heart - a smile exactly like her mother's.  That smile I remember, fifteen years later, the smile that made everything right.  I ditch the pickles, turn on my heel, and walk away.

What I want

What I want to do is write. 

What I want to do is sit at my desk and write the Red Writing Hood post that I've been noodling over since Tuesday.  I want to write the article for Classic Play that my extremely patient editor has been waiting on for, oh, say,  TWO WEEKS. [yes - deadline - come & gone.  lost in the wind.]  Hang on:  rather, let's say I want to re-write that article, because I've written it in my head about 46 times, and it's making me crazy, living in there. I want to curl up on the sofa with a glass of wine and write in my journal - write out all the tangly thoughts that won't work themselves into real ideas, write out all the complicated words that are too much ME for the rest of the world to have to suffer through.

But what I want to do is not going to happen.  Not this week. 

Instead, what I will do is my day job.  My day job that's also my night job which is my morning job which is my evening job.  I will drive to and from Vacation Bible School, providing canned good donations on Thursday and snacks on Friday.  I will come home and put stuff away and wash popsicle stains out of t-shirts.  I will nurse one out of three kids all week - they will very politely take turns with their illness, and leave a space of about 2 hours between one recovering from a 103-degree fever and the next falling on the couch holding their head.  I will read stories and practice math facts and clean up grilled cheese sandwiches and wonder about soccer in the fall and wonder about when exactly it was that I got so desperate for time to myself.

I will remember that it was always - that before kids it was work and before work it was school and that there was always something that had to be done, and that this idea of endless hours to pursue one's passions is abso-freaking-lutely unreasonable.  Nice to imagine, but completely without base in reality.

So - I will do what my friend Cheryl so charmingly calls 'putting on my Mommypants.'   I will suck it up and I will do it and I will make long lists in my head in my head of all that I want to do, all by myself.   For that long dreamed of and oft-mentioned Next Life.

My BlogHer '10 Post

Did you ever plan a trip for more than four months?

Did you ever look forward to something so much that you woke up in the middle of the night excited about going?

Did you ever plan a trip that was going to be a really amazing 4 day weekend with some of your favorite people in the world?  A trip that would involve a nice long train ride with a dear friend that you hadn't caught up with in like, forever, and have a few juicy stories you've really needed to tell her?

Did you ever psych yourself up to meet people who intimidate the crap out of you but that you were dying to meet anyway?

Did you ever buy a bunch of new clothes for this kind of trip, wanting to find stuff that looked exactly like 'you'?

Did you ever plan a trip that was going to be completely on-your-own adventure in New York, with restaurants and cocktails and museums and hours of writing and coffee with the ladies and... and... everything else lovely that you could pack into a girls weekend?

AND THEN, did you ever send an email to your friend, asking what time the train left on Thursday and have her write back and say "you mean next Thursday, right?" with a little smiley emoticon?

AND THEN did you ever have your heart sink right down to your toenails (those toenails scheduled for a pre-trip pedicure) as you double-checked your calendar?

AND THEN did you realize that for FOUR MONTHS you've had the big trip (organized around a huge conference) written on the wrong place on your calendar?  That you've planned this entire trip on the WRONG WEEKEND?

AND THEN did you realize that the only other weekend that you're out of town the entire summer is the weekend of the actual conference?

No?  Yeah. Well.  Me either.  ME EITHER.

Magic and Meatloaf

Today – and every Friday – I will be participating in a creative writing meme called the Red Writing Hood. Ericka from Alabaster Cow and Cheryl from Mommypants are hosting it over at The Red Dress Club. Join in, link up, check out all the posts! This week’s prompt is to begin a short fiction piece with the words, “Your mother.”  Disclaimer: First attempt at genuine fiction since a very fraught experience in college. I'm generally much better at -ahem- stretching the truth. 

MAGIC AND MEATLOAF

Your mother was magic.  Mine was meatloaf.

Your mother knew you were going to propose, and still she screamed into the phone when we called with our news.  My mother smiled, and murmured approving words.

Your mother let me try on her wedding gown, and even as we laughed at how badly it fit me we both knew the moment had marked our hearts in a happy way.  My mother looked confused when I asked if she had her gown:  "who has the space to store that sort of thing??" she queried incredulously.

Your mother gave a giant picnic basket as an engagement gift:  real linen napkins, champagne flutes, diminutive salt shakers.  My mother gave us a juicer - purchased in the 80s, she'd given it a good wipedown and it was practically new.

Your mother lobbied for engraved invitations, and when we hesitated at the cost she graciously agreed you could scarcely see the difference anyway.  My mother furrowed her forehead in confusion as I searched for the perfect typeface for the program.

Your mother enthused on long-distance phone calls as we described our tiny newlywed apartment, and sent napkin rings in the mail - "to make your dinner table pretty!" the note inside cheered.  My mother visited, and sat quietly as I served roasted vegetables on our wedding china.  "I like the view here" she volunteered.

Your mother kept hugging me with tight hugs when we visited, even as the brightness of happy newlywed anecdotes faded.  If my mother noticed the lack of news, the increasingly-tense emails, the solo visits home, she never mentioned it.

Your mother sent beautiful cards, inscribed with simple messages of love, forgiveness, patience.  My mother came to the apartment one bleak October day and wordlessly packed the china, the napkin rings, the picnic basket, and most heartbreaking: the photo albums documenting our years together.  Certainly, there would be no album documenting our coming moments of leave-taking.

Your mother was magic.  My mother was meatloaf.  Neither was enough to make Us.

Going all Retro with a [gasp!] JOURNAL

Do you remember your first journal?

I'm not talking about a Dear Diary sort of thing, not one with dates and days of the week that required details of every day.  I'm thinking about the blank book - hundreds of empty pages waiting for anything that you're willing to commit to paper.

My first ever journal entry, dated June 12 1985, was 2 lists: Guys I Love and Movies I Love.  (Kevin Bacon & Footloose topped both. Sigh.  They're still up there.)

The very last entry in that same blank book was the night before I got married - in that one book I have documentation of the most intense, silly, and emotional years of my life.  (And no, now you mention it I'm not sure where it is.  Yikes!)

What, me? Write a lot? Um... maybe?

So I've been trying to unravel a bit of a knotty issue in my head in recent weeks. (Not naughty, sadly. Just...knotty.)  The sort of thing that's isn't front & center in your brain, but the kind of abstract thinking that pops right up if you have a quiet moment in the shower, or as you drive to the pool or wait for water to boil.

I find myself eyeing my current journal - the leather-bound thick-papered book that has laid on my bedside table since I was pregnant with Cecilie.  Haven't written a blessed thing in it since I was newly pregnant with Annika - almost exactly three years ago.  And yet my thoughts lead me to the creamy blank pages:  waiting for lines of slanting black ink in which I slowly untangle the mental morass.

Is there really a place for journaling when there's a blog?

Up to this point, I would've argued No.  I would've argued that blogging is quality-control - a necessary check on the maudlin, the whiny, the self-indulgent.  It forces a discipline on the writing that ultimately makes the content more interesting not only to a reader, but to me.

But awareness of your audience also forces the writer to leave certain content on the sidelines.  Believe it or not, even a blogger has limits about what she'll share.  Here is where a journal leaps up for its time in the sun:  a journal offers total, open acceptance.  It's just me, the page, and the pen.  Honesty - and ideally, a little clarity - is the only way forward.

Bloggers - Are you my new pen pals?

I write a damn good letter.  I just have to put that out there.

Back in the day, I used to buy special stationery, chosen specifically for the intended recipient.   I would mull over the contents of the letter for days, finally writing AN OUTLINE (!!!) to guide me as I wrote, and man, did I write.  Page after page of carefully crafted prose, words upon words upon words.  Always made sure to include a small bit of humor, a few heartfelt anecdotes, and the luckiest recipients got hand-drawn illustrations in the margins - little cartoons of all that I'd gotten up to that week, or winding vines painted in watercolor.

Yes, I was a complete nerd. And I can imagine receiving one of these intensely crafted mini-novels might have been a little...overwhelming.

I had a friend scan & email me a letter this week - one she'd found in her archives, one that was vintage NilsenLife, actually, way before I even imagined a NilsenLife.  I'd photocopied pictures of me and a boyfriend, and mused at length about what the relationship meant (before digressing to discuss a recent trip to Paris, and plans for post-grad life as an English major.)

Got me thinking.

There really aren't any letters like this being written anymore.  At least, not by my peeps.  Not even by me.

You come across old books in a used book shop - entire books devoted to the correspondence between one dry old Victorian botanist and his mentor.   Sometimes I think about these sort of books as I fire off the 493rd email of the day - what if someone were to collect all the emails I send?  What if I become outrageously famous for.... I dunno, my chocolate chip cookies, say, and someday someone wants to piece together my Early Years.  Really?  All these million emails I send will serve to give someone a picture of who I was, way back in the early part of the century?

It's a little sobering.

I will say this:  I'm pretty wordy in my writing, even still.  In a society driven to shorten to 140 characters or less, I continue to get hung up trying to use my big words on Twitter.  I continue to send over-long emails asking a whole series of questions, and cover all manner of Big Ideas.  But instead of waiting anxiously to see if you got a return envelope in the mail that day - or the next, or the next - all you have to do is make the smallest 'click!' on the margin to check one of your many virtual inboxes.

In a way, it's instant gratification.  In a way, for those letter writers among us, something's been lost.  The craft of the letter - gone.

Maybe the blog is the new letter? 

********
I have more - much more - to say about this.  I might need to take you down memory lane tomorrow, to tell you all about the searing heart-on-sleeve letters my poor husband used to get in his mail cubby.

Bird by Bird

Hey y'all.  Guess where I've been?  You know, where I've been since last........Monday?

Yup. On Twitter. 

I haven't been posting that many tweets actually.  Every once in a while I open my little tweety-beak, and RT (re-tweet) something, or comment on someone else's Tweet.  But heck - if you thought using Facebook to comment on the status of the sister-of-your-best-friend-in-junior-high was strange, try commenting on the status of an uber-blogger that you follow. 

The main surprise I've found over there in Twit-land is the sheer volume of links posted - links to other people's amazing blogs.  Links to other people's articles being published in some on-line journal.  Links to fabulous sites where the contributers write/produce/manufacture The. Most. Fabulous. Things!  Twitter can keep you clicking all afternoon long.

Great site designs.  Inspirational connections, insights, and writing - oh, the writing!  There are some amazing people crafting the language out there on the Internets. 

And with each click, with each link followed, the anxiety levels rise......rise......rise.........RISING!!!!!  Looming above me, in fact, with scary thought bubbles that say really helpful things like oh wait, what? you thought you might write a blog after reading all this? ha. HA! Or something like that anyway.

Now I know it ain't cool to whine that the cool kids say all the cool things, and what am I going to say, poor small Winona-Ryder-in-Lucas blogger that I am.  I'm just sayin: Twitter makes me anxious. 

So I'm sort of processing where I go from there.  What do I say when confronted with evidence that it's all been said before, on a site with a cleverer domain name.  Do I go serious? Get all philosophical and perhaps [gasp!] theological? Do I go funny, and talk about how my kid got a black eye from falling off the front of the toilet? Do I stay RANDOM, and leave my readers wondering what the heck is going to pop into my brain that day?

So here's the little thought I have to repeat to myself throughout the day to keep the crazy scary thought bubbles at bay and then collapsing in a heap of hyperventilation:  you're just writing. 

I'm writing because that is what I do.   I'm writing because I made a promise to myself that this little voice o' mine wouldn't get swept under the floormats like so many Goldfish crumbs.  (Remember that?)

It would be nice if my blog had a swishy design, if I could figure out TrackBacks and TweetDeck and Mr Linky.  Actually, it would be nice if I had enough content, you know - stuff to read -  that would justify all the high-speed upgrades.

I am writing because I am a writer. I will keep doing this thing, this putting one word after another here in this space, because that is what I do.  Same way as you get back to running by putting one running shoe in front of the other (preferably with your feet in them), this is the way you learn to write: by putting the words down.

It took me until this very point in the post to suddenly bring to mind Anne Lamott, and her wonderful introduction to Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life:

Thirty years ago my older brother, who was  ten years old at the time, was trying to get a  report on birds written that he'd had three months to  write. It was due the next day. We were out at our  family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen  table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper  and pencils and unopened books on birds,  immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my  father sat down beside him, put his arm around my  brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird.'

And with that, I will leave you with a post about this very topic, by someone I've discovered on Twitter of all places, and who said all that I just said, right up there, a whole lot more eloquently.