It’s funny. Last week after I posted about art and envy, I second guessed myself.
I thought, nobody’s going to relate to this and I will have exposed myself as a singular and pathetic yearner-for-more.
I thought, maybe I oughta go back to my gratitude posts and stay there.
I thought, maybe I oughta choose a pseudonym.
But then ya’ll stopped by.
And it turns out every last one of us thinks about how we receive news of our own successes and each other’s. It turns out we all have various spiritual and psychological veins we tap when times are tough. It turns out that we’ve all compared ourselves to others, gotten antsy, or rolled our eyes at overnight success. It turns out there have been an awful lot of “why not me” moments in our humble pasts.
But it turns out that very few of those “why not me” moments translate into “why her (or him)” moments.
It turns out we relish and wallow in and cheer and welcome the success of our compatriots. It turns out we believe there is space enough for all of our books on the bookshelves. It turns out we are pretty good at going back into ourselves and our own work with compassion and determination. It turns out we’re mostly patient (on the days we’re not impatient) and mostly industrious and dedicated (on the days we’re not flailing about) and mostly open to inspiration — in the world and from each other.
I am comforted, no end, by this affirmation of community. My desk is not an isolated island. Neither is yours. There are bridges and boats and messages in bottles between us.
I am here, working, but I don’t mind a little distraction now and then. So, when you get a chance, send good news…
This week, the trees popped green one day and suffered hail the next.
The cats dragged muddy paws through the house and across the bed.
The laundry’s overflowed upon the floor.
This week, our eldest had to take her first big whopper of a standardized test.
We had to go to lost-and-found three times.
The plumber’s bid came in too high.
This week, I tossed and turned and woke up too early four mornings out of five.
Including today. But a couple of hours later, walking up the sidewalk into school, I saw that the sign out front had been changed, to this:
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year.
Which is Frost. Just waiting for us on this chilly, tired Friday of a day. I read it aloud to the girls and, honestly, I nearly cried with relief. They smiled and took my hands and pulled me toward the front doors. I think they were finding me a little unstable.
But I assure you I’m not. How could I be, in the springing of the year?
A Prayer in Spring — By Robert Frost
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the happy bees, The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird That suddenly above the bees is heard…
We need each other’s careful critiques, but we also need shared rejection letter humor, encouragement when we’re blocked, and the whispered exchange of agents’ and editors’ names.
We need each other.
And yet. And yet, it is another writer’s success that can most swiftly and surely send us to the darkest little hole in our heart.
Actually, this is probably the conundrum of the artist, not the writer exclusively. That it is our own community — the community that inspires us and lifts us up — that can also drive us ugly-green with envy.
I’m here to admit right now that I’ve been on both sides of this thorny fence.
I have many friends who have garnered significant acclaim and/or monetary recognition for their work, and boy-oh-man do they deserve it. But if their award ceremony or book signing or big-money advance coincided with my zillionth consecutive week of editorial slap-down, I wasn’t always graceful. Well, I mean, I think I usually was graceful on the surface, but there were days I suffered self-imposed lock-jaw rather than own up to what I was really feeling, which was, “Why not me???”
The flip side? My own good times that I eagerly share with my support network — my writer’s groups and blogger pals and such — knowing that they might be locking their own jaws, even as they hug and cheer me.
Often — usually — I’m at my own desk, working on my own words and the world outside is (don’t take this the wrong way) immaterial. But other times I sit stewing in the midst of these questions and think, “What ‘s a gal to do?”
This week I was newly inspired to mull it over after the wise and talented Sara Lewis Holmes announced her awesome two-book deal with Arthur A. Levine Books. The very next day, Sara posted about her own fear of success (or failure) and acknowledged that other people might want what she got. “I… know (because I’ve been there myself),” she said, “that there is no hearing about another person’s good fortune without a tinge of ‘But what about me?’ “
Sound familiar?
I am relieved to say that for me, this time, Sara’s good news was pure — partly because I adore her (and her writing) soooo much and partly, probably, because I’ve had such a good year myself. (I can sometimes be a little self-centered that way.)
Still, her comments made me think we should out this issue. Let’s admit what’s hard and what helps. Better to lay bare than to bury.
Here’s what I’ve tried, for years. It doesn’t always work, which I think may just prove that I’m unelightened. You all may have much greater success than I.
Remove the ego. Writing is like yoga this way (going back to my own tried and true metaphor). The practice is the point. Judging oneself on the mat (or on the page) is just gonna make you lose your balance. It isn’t about what you’re doing compared to what anyone else is doing. It is about your own best work — centered, soulful and true.
Here’s something else I try. This one’s a little Pollyanna but it really does help.
Allow yourself to really celebrate your friend or critique partner or colleague or competitor. Really and truly. Acknowledge how dang hard they’ve worked, and how nimble and vivid their art is, and even how luck was on their side. Send them flowers or a new pen or 13 emails. Really celebrate. The joy can be contagious and inspiring and better on the digestion than jealousy or greed.
And then there are the lessons to be learned.
We can either choose paralysis or proactivity. We can freeze in the face of each other’s successes or be inspired to kick it up a notch. We can ask ourselves, like my friend Lindsey does when the green-eyed monster threatens, “Am I ready? Am I in shape? Have I gotten all my proverbial ducks in a row? Is my office cleaned? Are the mss polished? Are they out in the world?” Lindsey reminds herself that on one hand, she’s exactly where she needs to be today, and that on the other hand, dissatisfaction can inspire her to keep her eye on the prize. If we want the things other people have, Lindsey says, “we should put those things on the list to shoot for.” Right?
Finally, there is the little itty bitty reminder that, um, it’s not all about us. It’s about our work. It’s about what we are bringing to the table and to the world. Our contribution. Our gifts — not as something to laud, but as something to be received by those to whom we’re giving. It is, for me, about the kids I’d like to connect with through my books. Awards and big-dollar advances notwithstanding. Honest to pete…
The illustrious Cynthia Lord wants to know what middle graders think about books. She is speaking at a Washington State SCBWI conference in April and she’s gone straight to the mouth of babes for her material.
My nine-year-old agreed to answer a few of her queries, and you can just color me enlightened right now.
I didn’t know she wished Pacy (from Grace Lin’s Year of the Dog) were real so they could be best friends.
I didn’t know she wouldn’t choose a book if the cover were messy.
And I didn’t know that she thought this:
One thing I see in books that isn’t really true about kids is that all kids hate there siblings.
On Thursday, I went to hear Barack Obama at a Town Hall meeting.
On Friday, I tried to early vote but the lines were too long and I had somewhere to be.
On Saturday, I received 6 (6 I tell you!) recorded phone calls from various local, state and national campaigns.
In case you’ve missed it, Texas and Ohio are holding primaries on Tuesday, which may (or may not) determine the democratic nominee for president of the United States. These are days charged with import and I tell you, I’ve been feeling the weight of choice hanging heavy over me. (At least it’s a decent excuse for not sleeping well…)
So needless to say, I totally embraced the comic relief of my younger daughter’s classroom last week.
When I went in to help out on Friday morning, they were awash with all things patriotic. Because, not only is the presidential race electrifying everyone, but just barely in our rearview mirrors (objects may be closer than they appear to be) are President’s Day and Martin Luther King’s birthday. So, on that last, extra day of February, the teacher asked her first graders to make lists of the things they knew about the United States of America — facts they’ve absorbed these last few weeks of winter.
Here are just a few of my favorites. I prefer many of the them to the clips we’re hearing replayed again and again on NPR…
Washington was the 1 president of United States of Texas and all.
The statu of libertus hole bodey is still.
The bald eagle is a simble.
Somebode wantid the turke to be a presedenshel bird.
Lincoln kept impordent paprs in his hat.
The USA has not had a UFO.
People look out the statu of libertres hat.
Georg Washington died.
The USA is nice.
(Public service announcement: The USA will be even nicer if we all exercise the right to vote. See you ’round the ballot box on Tuesday…)
One of the unsung benefits of being a lowly adjunct professor at a community college is getting to meet the visiting writers, up close and personal. The ones you’d ordinarily have to admire from afar? You get to go out to dinner with them. And their guide dogs.
This week I had the distinct pleasure of breaking bread (well, corn bread) with the poet and memoirist Steven Kuusisto, visiting Austin from his digs in Iowa. Steven is one of those guys who makes you feel a little like a dullard. Not on purpose, but he’s just so dang smart, peppering his conversation with quotes from Shakespeare and Jimmy Carter and Frank Zappa and the like. All the while, loving up the beautiful lab at his feet…
Steven’s been blind since birth — a topic of profound sensuality in his poems and memoir, Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening. There is no lack of vision here, I assure you. There is a sense of adventure in his blindness, really. The traveling around the world by ear, the training to work with a dog, the purchase of a very, very fine 12-string guitar because he was never going to buy a car. His is a contagious clarity and passion that I recommend.
Let’s start with this:
Elegy for a Guide Dog
Corky, where you are now can you see again? Are you free of the aches and all the uncoiled walking That we do down here—
My 1st grader came home yesterday obsessed with Vincent Van Gogh. Not surprising, since she is a passionate kid and Vincent was nothing if not passionate.
As the rest of us listened, she ran through all the big and little details of his life:
He painted with such thick globs of oil paint that his paintings were almost, like, 3-D.
His brother’s name was Theo and Theo was a really helpful guy.
He only sold one painting his whole life. He never knew what we know. That he is very famous and very amazing.
He was so poor and sometimes he spent his little money on paint instead of food.
And that last one? That’s the one that really got her. Paint instead of food. The one painting he did sell, she said, allowed him to buy a wheel of cheese. But on many other dark days, paint instead of food.
We talked a lot about how he tried other careers but they didn’t work out. Vincent Van Gogh couldn’t not paint. Even at the price of paint instead of food.
It gets you to thinking, doesn’t it, about your own calling, your own drive, your own passions? What would you trade? What would you give up? What have you given up? Has it all been worth it? Does it matter?
Last night we went to a backyard bonfire shabbat, which is kind of funny since we’re not Jewish.
But we were invited and assured we wouldn’t be the only ignorant, confused-looking folk in the corner.
(Though, as a rule, being ignorant or confused doesn’t seem to stop our little family from stepping out.)
So, off we went to be part of a minyan.
A minyan, it turns out, is a quorum of adult Jews gathered to perform a religious obligation.
A community.
A village.
And this particular minyan works like this:
Once a month, they gather ’round a backyard bonfire — with a guitar, a little xeroxed prayerbook and some cocktails.
Each month there are returning friends and new members — strangers in name only.
They sing and read and pray in Hebrew and opine and discuss.
And then they eat and drink and go about their merry ways.
Last night, there was discussion of matriarchy — one of the minyan spoke about Rebekah, another touched on Lilith. She pulled up short because of all the sex and violence. Nobody seemed the least bit miffed. I think she could have carried on.
And then a teenager talked about her own mom and how frustrated they get with each other and how, in the end, she knows her mother is just pushing her to be the best person she can be. Her mother was tucked right next to her, in a broad Adirondak chair at the edge of the circle. I watched them from my perch on a log, tucked right next to my big girl.
It was a beautiful thing.
And so was the challah.
May we all find the minyans we need to be complete…
After last week’s find, I decided to do a bit more digging to see what else I’d stashed away.
It’s overwhelming to me, almost, how many poems and how much time I apparently used to have. Or maybe it’s overwhelming how much less time I seem to have now.
Still, reading old work actually puts me in mind of those days — I recall where I worked and what sort of head space I was in. I remember sitting on the floor — all of my work and stamps and submission envelopes spread out before me in some sort of hopeful order. I remember reading many of them aloud at coffee houses and galleries. I remember being jealous beyond measure of other people’s poems — deeper, more evocative, more surprising than my own.
And really, there are plenty of pieces I might oughta burn — I brought a naivete to the page that wasn’t always charming. Or graceful. Or true.
But there are few in there that I wouldn’t be horrified to share. In reflection. So on that note, I think last week started an informal series of, well, we’ll call ’em Poems from the ’90s. Old stuff. Dotage.
