As I said in a previous post, Vivian at HipWriterMama is the queen of butt-kicking inspiration. She can get you to say just about anything and believe it.
So, in a reckless mood last week or the week before, I declared that, starting today, I’d work at least 30 minutes a day every day on one of my three works-in-progress.
I’m well aware this may sound something between lame and pathetic since I’m, y’know, a writer. But bear in mind that me wee babes will be getting of school for the summer on Thursday.
Thursday.
For the summer.
I’m thinking that 30 minutes a day might just feel like that hill ol’ Sisyphus faced.
And let’s not even nod our knowing heads over the irony that my elder daughter’s home sick with the stomach bug today. Today being the day I intend to launch this grand plan.
Sigh. I sensed a rough start.
But shucks if I didn’t just do it!
Tired little sick girl and I lay down for naps, and when I woke, I sat at my desk and took one of my new picture book manuscripts from point A to at least point L. Maybe even R! I kid you not.
I ignored the pile of laundry on the futon behind me. I pretended that the pile of to-dos falling against my left wrist was a comfort. I didn’t answer the phone.
And I didn’t write for 30 minutes, I wrote for 49.
Rough start be damned.
Tomorrow I’m banking on more of the same, only this time I’m shutting down Outlook when I start. No more lookie lookie at those tempting little envelopes popping up at the bottom of my screen. I’m thinking you know what I mean…
There are so dang many smart, insightful, visionary, funny, creative, witty writers out here in cyberspace that I could pretty much plant myself in front of the ol’ screen and read blogs until my eyes bled. (Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.)
But my favorite bits are her generous urgings to the rest of us to make goals, get inspired and empower ourselves. Vivian’s a one-woman high priestess, cheerleading squad, teaching team and fire-starter all rolled into one.
So, suffice it to say that when she calls my blog a thinker, I get all pink and swoony. Sometimes I feel like I’m barely awake, much less thinking. But thanks, HipWriterMama!
My job now is to tell ya’ll about some other thinkers. So here goes, with the hopes that these aren’t repeats:
When I was in college, I worked for a couple of years for the University News Service, mostly creating newsletter calendars and other decidedly low-brow journalism, but occasionally getting tossed some plumb little piece of work. I also got to brush up against all sorts of Real (capital R) Writers (capital W), including Jackie Mitchard who later became the author of some very big deal novels. As a person, I remember thinking she struck the perfect balance between smart, funny and warm, and I think her blog does that, too.
I love reading Mad Woman in the Forest from Laurie Halse Anderson. It is intimate and generous and specific and funny and experiential and seriously, I mean seriously thinkin’.
Fussbucket is a newish parenting blog and what I admire most is the brutal honesty here. I like that these mamas aren’t just trying to look good to the rest of us slouches…
Margaret Atwood says, “ I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover problems.”
What a vexing truth. All that work, and no solution.
It makes me wonder if Atwood’s sense of poetry is universal? Are poems full of problems, opened up on the table like clam shells, left uncooked and unsalted?
I’ve been mulling this about, reading. The stack of books on my bedside table is getting all high and wobbly, and I’m a little unsettled myself.
Because it’s true, I think. Poems do the work of uncovering. And often, the grand reveal doesn’t happen ’til the very last lines. So that, in the end, we have no choice but to sit there with the problem — an awkard guest come calling. We sit there with it, we serve it tea.
“,,, and why shouldn’t we argue
and sit in the two kitchen chairs, our faces downcast, after I get home, after what we’ve done, what we have allowed ourselves to long for?”
“… everything is so quick and uncertain, so glancing, so improbable, so real.”
“…Outside there are sirens. Someone’s been run over. The century grinds on.”
“…No one hears the tiny sobbing of the velvet in the drawer.”
“…Then I remember: death comes before the rolling away of the stone.”
“… nothing I can do will hurry him or promise it. It might be hours or days before he appears at the door and sits me down and lays his head in my lap.”
“…What are you supposed to do with all this loss?”
If you read these all together, aloud, your heart will break. The pain of shedding light, the beauty of revelation. The questions, the discovery, the uncovering.
The last lines I use here are from poems by: Marie Howe, The New Life Mary Oliver, The Pinewoods Margaret Atwood, In the Secular Night Naomi Shihab Nye, The Palestinians Have Given Up Parties Mary Oliver, At Black River Marie Howe, More Margaret Atwood, Down
When my hubby and I decide to take on a project, we don’t kid around.
Move all the furniture out of our bedroom and paint it red (the room, not the furniture), & while we’re at it, paint the girls’ room turquoise. Or dig up the backyard. And the front. Or rearrange the living room. Completely.
This kind of behaviour makes our elder sweet pea just a tad bit uneasy. Because she doesn’t like… well… change. She likes things how she likes ’em, and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and I yam what I yam. You get the picture?
So needless to say I was on guard last weekend when we launched a total overhaul of guess-who’s room.
We’d been mulling this one over for awhile. It was a room in limbo — stuck in the awkward puddles between little girl and big girl, and home to nobody in quite the right way.
To note: a toddler train table serving (very poorly, I might add) as a desk. Board games hidden beneath said train table, and y’know what they say about outta sight, outta mind. A rocking chair that embraced, mostly, laundry. I could go on, but it’s depressing.
So, last week my smarty-pants spouse was offered not one but TWO new jobs here in Austin, and he accepted one of them. Thus confirming that we are indeed dug in here but good. (I know, you’da thunk we’d have already grasped that since we’ve lived here — not in this house, but in this town — since we met about a thousand years ago. Guess we’re a little slow on the uptake.)
Anyway, the new job provided the motivation to grow-up the girls room, pronto. This entailed hauling everything out, shifting bunkbeds from one wall to another, getting rid of as much as possible, and building a whole new wall of shelves and a desktop. Y’know, for girls who want to write and draw sitting up like homosapiens instead of all hunched over a toddler train table.
Fortunately, my previously-mentioned spouse is not only clever but handy, so he was up to the task. I, on the other hand, was not so sure. I was to be the emotional frontman.
We. Are. Going. To. Redo. (pause, gulp) Your. (gulp) Room.
We are?
We are.
What do you mean EXACTLY?
So I told her. And she didn’t flinch. And then we got started and still, nothing. Except a little bit of (dare I say it) enthusiasm! I relaxed. We turned up the music and starting looking at funky little deskchairs at IKEA.com and plowing through toys that’d become obsolete. And I’m just sittin’ pretty, thinking we’ve dodged a bullet. There would be no transition trauma. Rejoice!!!! But I didn’t say this because I’m no dope and I don’t want to plant any ideas in her head.
Turns out I didn’t have to. Because a couple of hours into it she says, “Has anyone noticed that I don’t mind that we’re rearranging our room?”
We freeze, the rest of us. We nod, very gingerly. We gulp.
“Yep,” she says. “I think I might’ve outgrown that feeling.”
And now I’m thinking, if that’s true, my job as a mama might be done. A kid who can embrace change and articulate it? A kid who can recognize her own growth? A kid who’s ready for the next step? Bring it on.
But then she comes and folds all 4 foot 9 inches of arms and legs into my lap for a little congratulations hug and I hold her while her dad screws new shelves up and her sister traces her fingers through the sawdust on the floor and I think, phew. My job isn’t done. Not by a long shot.
All my grades are due today, which means it’s time for… a little procrastination. Right? I mean, at least I’m straight-up about it.
I love writing. I love teaching. I love talking to students about the craft of writing and seeing little lights go on and reading what they’ve written. But the long slog through end-of-the-semester piles with the sole intent of qualifying the work with a letter grade? I do not love.
Thus, the procrastination. But really, this is something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while now because I’ve been teaching in the emerging, evolving field of Distance Learning, about which there’s a lot to say.
First off, let me just say that I don’t find teaching online nearly so engaging as teaching in a classroom, but I realize we are reaching students we wouldn’t be otherwise and I’m glad about that. I think we do a pretty swell job of getting important content and concepts to students via email and interactive web sites and such.
And for me, teaching in both venues keeps me on my toes. Or rather, keeps my fingers nimble and my jaw joints loose.
But here’s the thing, I’ve noted a remarkable lack of inhibition and informality in the online environment. Scary remarkable.
“Well, duh,” you say. “Your students spend a good portion of their waking hours on MySpace and FaceBook and in between, they’re texting.”
I know, I know. The walls have come down. But if they’re not learning, at all, how to discern between various forums and audiences, hasn’t somebody dropped the ball?
I mean, think about when we were kids. We knew that you wore one set of clothes to school, another to muck around in the mud, and a third to get on the airplane to visit grandma. I’m the first to admit that dressing up for the airplane was a rotten idea that I’m happy to see has evolved (or devolved, as the case may be), but the point is that we understood pretty early on that context determines behavior.
Now don’t call the shrink on me. We still get to be ourselves – I’m not talking about true chameleon un-tetheredness here – while acknowledging that certain things we wear, do, or say are more appropriate in some situations than in others. Can you give me that?
Somehow, this concept has not crossed technological boundaries. My students, lots of them, are with me as they are in FaceBook.
“Well, good,” you say. “If Distance Learning is going to work, it’s got to encourage community and intimacy.”
I totally agree and I fill my discussion boards with puzzling questions and funny comments and I encourage students to engage each other there, too.
But here’s some of the stuff that is flying under the radar, and oughtn’t to:
SCREEN NAMES: O.K., since this generation is so comfortable in the online environment surely they know that you can have more than one screen name. Don’t you think it would be a good idea if their academic screen name wasn’t pardychik or hot_abs or drinkup? How about a first name and a last name? Or initials? Call me crazy…
TMI: Remember the old, “My grandmother is ill so my report is going to be a day late, professor” line? No longer necessary. Since we’re not looking each other in the eye, white lies have gotten tossed out the window in favor of the bloody truth. In the past 6 months, I’ve been told about an affair, a drunk-driving arrest and three break-ups. And then there was the student who said, “I don’t know why I’m not doing my work in here. I think I’m just being lazy.” Actually, that one was refreshing after all the reality TV show fodder. Listen, I really want to be there for my students. As a personal support but also as a resource for the help they need – in any area of their lives. But this off-the-cuff confessionalism isn’t about accessing me for support (or even compassion), it’s about thinking I’m their roommate and we’re hanging out in our bean-bag chairs at 2:30 a.m., eating cold pizza and sharing a flask of Jagermeister.
PAY IT FORWARD: Y’know all those forwards (jokes, political manifestos, spiritual uplifts)? Don’t we all get enough (read: too many) from our colleagues and granddads and in-laws already? I’m thinking a little discretion regarding who gets sent what is wise and thoughtful. Yes? There are, no doubt, notable exceptions — I love it when a student, especially one I haven’t seen in a semester or two, sends me a link to an article on Judy Blume or a piece on how writing prompts are being used in therapeutic situations or, best yet, notice of the student’s own successes or publications. But the please-forward-this-on-to-your-ten-favorite-people-and-your-wish-will-come-true emails? No thanks…
TIME SPACE DISCONTINUUM: Something happens to clocks, calendars and due dates in the virtual world. I mean, really happens. Maybe it’s just that guilt doesn’t work very well digitally. Coming to class over and over again with nothing to hand in (or not coming to class at all) is just too shame- and guiltifying for most of us. But not showing up online? Big whoop. Think about the old reminder, “Call Your Mother.” Doesn’t have quite the punch, does it, when you’re not hearing it in a Brooklyn accent with the scent of garlic in the air?
So now that I’ve firmly established myself as a grouchy curmudgeon, I should note that I’ve read some stunning poetry this semester, and have seen some courageous students come out of their shells in a way they might not’ve in a classroom. So there is a flip side. (Isn’t there always?)
Speaking of which, I gotta get back to my students’ work right NOW before the day gets away from me. It’s that time-space discontinuum thing.
When you live in Austin, Texas, it’s manditory to go swimming every single day all summer long. And when we say summer, we mean May-ish through October-ish.
It’s not a bad rule. Whoever cooked it up was onto something. It’s really flippin’ hot in Texas and full, watery submersion can help with skin tone, swollen ankles and marriage. I’m serious.
And the weatherman must’ve gotten with the mayor and the mayor must’ve been a mother, because you can hardly turn a corner in this town without falling into a pool or swimmin’ hole. They make it really easy on you.
Still, as you might imagine, all this swimming becomes quite a commitment. Time, a bathing suit budget, and the porch railing forever hung with wet towels. So I like to wait, each spring, until I just can’t stand it anymore.
Yesterday was that day. The predicted ‘high 80s’ were really the low 90s, and we took the plunge in our neighborhood ‘pool’ which just so happens to be a 3-acred, spring-fed nirvana called Barton Springs. First, we hemmed and hawed and dipped our toes like the wimpy procrastinators we are (it’s 68 degrees). Then we swam. I swear, you pop up in a different mood than the one you dunked under with. It’s that instantaneous.
There’s a rocky shallow end that the kids love especially, for the au naturel sense of adventure. It’s where Huck Finn’d hang if he were a city boy.
So there we were yesterday, delighted by the particularly abundant crops of minnows and tadpoles. Really, the water was all flush and squirmy. And our girls tried to catch them in their hands, just like every kid in the history of kid-hood has tried to do. Many giggles, a few tumbles on the slippery stones, quite a few ‘fish that got away.’
One slightly older boy, though, had caught himself a big ole’ bag of minnows and was carrying it around, happily, in his hands. His father followed him, suggesting over and over again that the boy release the fish. All the reasons — they’re going to run out of oxygen, they’re crowded in there, they don’t like plastic, they want to grow into big fish — all the reasons fell on deaf ears because the boy wanted to keep the fish. And he said so.
The dad massaged his forehead and looked a little desperately at the baggie full of fish — pretty worried, I think, that he’d have blood on his hands. And then he said, to all of us, “When we were kids we didn’t always want to keep everything. Did we? I think we all just caught ’em and let ’em go.”
I don’t know if that’s true. In fact, I can think of a couple of specific exceptions including a small snake that somehow escaped the cooler we had him in and was never to be seen again, much to my mother’s displeasure.
But the discussion that evolved yesterday, as the fish were wilting in the bag, revolved around today’s immediate gratification, consumer culture. If our kids get what they want when they want it (now, if not before) is it really that surprising that they want to keep nature’s booty, too? Nevermind the plastic bag and lack of oxygen, our kids have been trained in acquisitions.
So how do we talk to them about wanting the most out of their lives and working toward that and, at the same time, teach them that there is much in this world that isn’t ours and oughtn’t be?
One of the catch-phrases has always been, “Leave those (flowers, frogs, shells) here, so there will be more for the next folks to enjoy.” But that implies that nature is here primarily for our amusement and pleasure.
I think this has to be a question of stewardship, of a responsible and ethical use of power. I think if we empower kids to tend to the natural world (which sometimes means, of course, simply getting out of the way), that caring for nature rather than keeping it will become habit.
Even the water, still cold, pools at our feet and we leave it behind, where it belongs.
Elder daughter woke up this morning with a fever and a raging sore throat, which is kind of unfair, what with the soccer game at 11 and the violin recital at 5 and the general melee that is spring.
But even worse? The poor little lamb gets delirous when fevers strike. This morning there were “mice running around in her head. Not a headache exactly. Just scurrying.”
And lemme tell you, I know of what she speaks.
Some of my most visceral childhood memories are of those mice. I used to tell my mom and dad that my mind was racing. Sometimes I’d play Really Rosie or Free to Be You and Me on my Sears record player to try to even out the tempo, although looking back, the very Sendakian Really Rosie wasn’t exactly sanity building…
I’m sure my parents thought I was just a wee loopy when I was under the influence of the hots, and they weren’t alone. One time I yelled out so desperately in the middle of the night that my sister was scared to answer my cries and I reported her kidnapped.
Not long after that, I grew out of my ferverish rants, although I still have a doozy of a dream now and again. Last night, for example, my husband driving very, very fast toward a deep, deep canyon and only stopping when his car was teetering on the edge. But that’s another post. Or not.
Now, dadgumit, my daughter’s inherited the scurrying. This pains me, even more than the fact that both of our girls got wide feet. The acknowledgement that I passed on a really mixed bundle of genes — the good, the bad and the woo-woo — is a bitter pill, especially on the eve of mother’s day when I’d prefer feeling generous, powerful and invincible.
So what’s a mom to do? Pull fresh sheets onto her daughter’s bed, place a wet cloth on her forehead, and try to even out the tempo of things. Which is, oddly, just what she’s done for me these 8-and-a-half years. Maybe not the clean sheets and the cool compress, but the tempo, surely.
While I speed up into a manic whirling dervish — managing daughters, dogs, work, love and laundry — she slooows me down. Until here we are, walking together holding hands, curling together like two halves of a clam shell, falling asleep together with a book on our laps.
I mean to say she is generous, powerful and invincible, and suddenly the gene pool isn’t looking that bad.
I’m just back from my Mother’s Day Makeover and Massage, bestowed by my younger daughter in her kindergarten classroom.
You should SEE my blue eye shadow and purple polish. Deeee-vine.
When we arrived, the powerful and mama-ish Ms. Y asked the kids, “How’re we gonna treat our mothers this morning?”
“Like the queens they are,” answered our daughters and sons.
And they did. Juice, strawberries, muffins — delivered as we sat on little chairs and let our nails dry. They’d practiced two massage techniques — chops and rubs — and they’re obvious naturals with the blusher and hair ties.
They’d also filled out personal surveys about us. Mine was almost entirely right on — my girl said that sushi was my favorite food but that I love Mexican restaurants, my favorite thing to do is write books, and my favorite movie is Eloise (as in, Eloise who lives in The Plaza Hotel). Don’t you love that? Another mom’s son said her favorite thing to do is clean house, so I’m thinking I came out waaaay ahead.
Our children were just beamy with pride, and it was so clear that their lessons this week were on giving and gratitude. To sit there, with my baby rubbing aromatic foot lotion into my forearms while she hummed with happiness… who needs Sunday? I am full up.
Now it’s my turn to return the favor. Here’s a little ditty — reportedly Christina Rossetti’s first poem ever — for my mom, for your moms, for all of you…
I’ve just returned from the big D where I spent a couple of days making school visits and attending other bookish events.
Dallas is quite a piece up the road as they say in Texas, so this was the first visit I’d made with my book. What was I waiting for??? Even though my big hair (crazy curly loopy bigness) isn’t what they mean when they say Big Hair in Dallas, I was welcomed with vigor and treated like queen of the hop.
First, I’ve got a set of very funny, thoughtful, loving cousins there – and did I mention funny?!?! One night they served a spectacular seafood lasagna with a very fine Sonoma Syrah, and what better to accompany the meal than pirate-themed paper napkins? All while their Labrador swam in the pool out back. I love whimsy.
Second, I got me a little free-time (I’m serious – FREE time; can you fathom?) so I visited the Sixth Floor Museum (aka The Dallas Book Depository) which delivers history, political intrigue, and a good cry all in one fell swoop. Jackie, in her pink suit, leaning toward JFK almost as if she planned to kiss him, tender and totally present before hurling herself over the seat onto the trunk of the car in utter terror. And the folks on the grassy knoll running or hunkering down, sure that shots had rung out from there, too. Between the audio tour and the photographs, I was pretty well clobbered.
Third, reading with kids continues to be one of my purest joys. On this visit, I spent a day at The Hockaday School with their pre-K, kinder and primer students. Hockaday’s an all-girl’s school that just sparkles and pops with attentiveness and energy and name tags. I really wish more school kids wore nametags when guests visit. It is such an easy intimacy, being able to converse with the audience that way. Nametags aside, the groups were large, so I did my PowerPoint thang, bringing everyone up close and personal. And we sang songs about pockets and rifled through my fishing vest and had an all-around hoot. Even the question and answer session was fun. (I mean, sometimes this age group’s questions are “My uncle works at a library” and “My mom has those same shoes”).
Then, yesterday afternoon, I read and signed at an event sponsored by Educational First Steps – a truly noble organization dedicated to enhancing early childhood educational opportunities for kids who are likely to slip through cracks. The tea (for staff, board, donors, clients) was on the 69th floor of a bank building downtown (my ears popped on the elevator, I kid you not), and was proper (strawberries and clotted cream, tiny tarts, sugar lumps). I got barely a nibble, but what a delight to sign book after book after book for my tiny audience members, to read to them, to get them giggling.
I scurried straight from the tea to DFW in order to catch a flight and make it back to Austin in time to wrap up my semester at ACC.Suffice it to say, I took a nap today. A happy one. Don’t you love doing what you dream of?
This morning, our elder daughter’s class capped off a month of Greek mythology study with their God & Goddess Fashion Show.
Believe me, Project Runway’s got nothing on these 2nd graders. From Zeus and Hera to Hades and Eres, they were bedecked in silver and white swags of fabric, strappy sandals and shiny beads. Accessories included snakes, flowers and papier mache tridents that I wouldn’t want to mess with, being a mere mortal.
My personal favorite (I’ll bet you can’t guess why) was Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory.
First, I had no idea that mnemonic devices were named after a goddess, did you!?! New found respect, to be sure.
Second, Mnemosyne was mother to the muses. ALL of them! Can you fathom the spelling bees, poetry slams and recitals she had to attend? Hello, Stage Mama. But really, the muses. What offspring.
Third, I’ve got a pretty crummy memory so I figure I could use all the help I can get. If that means cozying up to an ancient mythological diety, so be it.
Fourth, the actress depicting Mnemosyne was none other than my own personal 8-year-old. What did you expect from me, utter objectivity?
Anyway, our shared study of Mnemosyne got me to thinking about poetry and how it used to be recited from memory. My dad can still recollect a piece or two he learned in grammar school. Maybe someone rapped him on the knuckles to get ’em to sink in, but I think it’s pretty slick that he’s always had a little brain space devoted to poetry.
These days, nobody memorizes much poetry and I’m okay with that. I think there are other rich and visceral ways to absorb and embody art. But regardless, I’ve set myself a little goal this week: To memorize a poem.
And what a better place to start than Averno, Louise Gluck’s exquisite re-telling of the Persephone myth. The story laments Persephone’s loss of innocence — a different tone than today’s rollicking fashion show, though our children’s characters came to terms with patricide and unanswered love, incest and
irredeemable suffering, too.
This story is Roman rather than Greek — Averno is the lake in southern Italy that, it is said, marks the entrance to the underworld. And the poems are loooong and, I’ll bet, not easily memorizable.
Still, since Mnemosyne set me off on this quest, the least I can do is try to stay within subject matter. So I’m starting with Thrush on page 72. If I manage it, I might try Part I of the title poem next week.
What about you? Poems, times tables, grocery lists? Feel like committing anything to memory with me?
