Be

Don't apologize

Because you didn't get to church

Or can't make decent soup

Or walk too slow

Or sometimes feel down

So down you don't feel like feeling at all

Just go

Without the sorries thrown in

Just cook

Without knowing what you're doing

Without enough salt

Without a cookbook to help you

Just walk

In the direction you find most meaningful

At the speed that suits you

In the way that makes your hips feel okay

And doesn't hurt your feet

Just feel

What's really thrumming there inside you

Not what you ought to feel

Not what others say is real

Not the person others claim is you

But you

Only you

Be you

Just be you

Just be

Move Me

Patience is a virtue

I don't have

Give me a plot that moves

A conversation that brings up something new

Or lose me

Make characters change

The world

Themselves

The inner workings of my brain

Or I'll move on

Grow

Or help me grow

Beyond the confines I am used to

Or I will finish up your book

(If I finish it at all)

And sigh

Well

That was

Okay

But

Nothing

Really

Happened.

Being Unfaithful

One of my friend writers online, who has been struggling with his novel for quite some time, tried something a little dangerous.

He tried working on something new. Several other writers had encouraged him to. "If your novel isn't cooperating, just move on," we told him. "Find another project that makes you want to write every day. Obviously this one isn't working for you right now, but you can always come back to it."

He tried to be tempted. He tried digging into another project, something with less baggage, less stress attached to it. It was then that the sweating started. His eyes shifted around the room to see if anyone noticed his infidelity. The words of his first novel came to him, whispering guilt, pain, and shame. How could he do this? How could he dump the novel he'd devoted his life to and start something else?

I admit that I still have similar misgivings. Instead of a lover (or spouse), though, the novel feels like a child. The first child is always the hardest, too. I don't want it to cry, or fall and hurt its knees, or feel lonely for even a second. I've revised my first novel about 25 times now, and it's still not quite ready (though it's getting awfully close!). But the first time I started working on something else--when I'd only revised the novel about 15 times--it felt like I was turning my back on my only child. Would she forgive me? Would she ever speak to me again?

What if she didn't? What if she was my only chance to express myself fully, and my creativity dried up completely? Karma. Wouldn't I deserve it, for being such a bad parent?

But part of my problem was that I had other children waiting on me. They were pulling on my apron before they were ever born, and I have still more gnawing at me now, wondering why I haven't started on them.

The truth is, my second child, though still only in revision #5 or so, helped me make my first child better. And my third helped me figure out POV in a way the other two hadn't. Each little child I created helped me return to the other ones with more patience, more depth, more perspective. They are better, more capable, more meaningful, and more interesting children because of their brothers and sisters.

I still feel wracked with guilt. Each hour I spend on one child is an hour away from the others (including the two children I bodily gave birth to). I have to drown out the voices, the little hands pulling at my skirt while I work, whining at me because I am not devoting that hour to them. And so I switch. I work on one until I am stuck, until I don't know what to do. Then I set it aside, putting it in front of cartoons while I spend some one-on-one time with another child.

I hope, when they are all grown and gone, they will not still resent the time I left them in a room alone and played with a sibling. I hope they all grow to be capable, meaningful well-adjusted novels (and plays).

Not Ready

The pseudo-Rapture

Has come and gone

And I am here

Will the morning bring news

Of empty clothing

Strewn around the world

Of people taken in their prime

To live here no more?

I cannot know

Until my Sunday comes

Yet come it will

And I feel blessed

To have another day

To live

My novels whine for me

Tugging at my shorts

As I cook dinner this evening

My son still needs

A patchwork comforter

My daughter needs a hug

My work is yet unfinished

So I smile with relief

To see my ordinary self

Still sitting here

Well beyond the deadline set

For launching from this earth.

Summer Goals

Over the last few summers I've posted a huge list of goals. Most of you know I'm the queen of lists. Even now I'm sitting at my laptop, glancing over at my list book as I write, considering the list for today.

But I just can't make a list for this summer. I know, generally, what I want to accomplish. I want to get my fourth novel finished, revise my first, second, and third novels and get them ready for sending out to agents, and revise my most recent play (which I just finished last week).

Really, though, I just have one big goal: WRITE.

I hope to write every single day. One blog entry and one hour of writing each day minimum. Bigger goals won't be accomplished without the smaller, daily task of writing. The big goals, at this point, look too big. It's rather like weight loss. If I only set my sights on the final goal weight, then that means every single day I remind myself how far I am from that goal. But if I just concentrate on exercising and eating right today, I have a chance to eventually make it to that goal, mainly by my daily action.

So I'm off. My lofty goals drift around, yes, but they are not the plan. The plan is just for today, the last day my kids are in school. I hope to spend the afternoon writing. How about you?

Hacked

In case any of you got some energetic message from me by e-mail telling you how I just love this particular website, and you have to check it out...

It wasn't me. I was hacked. No idea how it happened, but I've changed my password now, and hopefully it won't happen again.

I have nothing else to post right now. Too busy feeling violated. The rest of the day went well, but I'm still on edge.

I'm off to the piano now for some music therapy. Hopefully I'll be able to get to sleep tonight.

Step Back

Put down the list of things to do

Save it

For a moment when your jaw

Isn't clenched

When the words

Don't blear together

From the throbbing behind your eyes

The floor needs sweeping

So put on some soft socks

To mask the feeling

Tuck the dishes into the sink

And cover them with a towel

The laundry can wait until tomorrow

Now is not the time for stress

Your brain can't handle much more

Without committing suicide

So let go...

Open the shutters wide

And soften your eyes with the green of trees

Drift along with the music

Of the turning of the earth

Feel it rumble under your toes

And echo with your own heart beat

God didn't create while panicked

He made it all slowly

Step by step

Looking over each little plant

To say,

Yes, that is good.

What Do You See?

A squirrel taps its way

Across the road

And up into a tree

A strange cross between

A persian cat

Its tale a fluff of gray

A softness I envy

Grace I'll never hope to learn

And a rat

A pint-sized rodent scavenger

A wild thing

With rat-like claws

A lurker in the shadows.

I know it is more rat

Than feline

And yet as I brake the car

With haste

And watch its tail flip angrily at me

Its dark eyes peek

Suspicious at me

I see a friend

And not an enemy

And so I cannot help

But see humanity

A few true rats, yes,

But most of us

More fluff than claws.

Morning

After a hard night's (lack of) rest

The kindest greeting

Full of hope and joy and expectation

Is sunrise.

Mothering

"The Bath" by Mary Cassatt

Decades ago

One mother

Left me

Choosing some form of righteous path

Abandoning the straining fibers linking

Her to me

Snipping every tendon separate.

I could feel lost

But other mothers

Found me

Fed me with caring

Showed me what love is

Sewed together the ties that had been torn

To themselves

And made me whole again

Mothers of their own choosing

They picked me

And so many others in need

To encourage and help

With smiles and pats and advice

And now

To follow their example

I mother

Not just the children

Tied to me through biology

But all the others

Abandoned and snipped apart

Seeking solace and love

In the embrace of another mother.

Will You Stop Patronizing Me?

I'm an easy going kind of girl. Really, I am. I can pretty much get along with anybody. You can be stupid, and I'll help you get a clue. You're going to be imperfect (everybody is, you know, even you), yet I'll look over the imperfections easily. I have many of them myself.

But just patronize me, and you make an enemy for life.

So many have tried it. One guy in graduate school--a creative writing major--made it clear what he thought of literature majors. We had to work in a group together, three creative writing majors and me (a lit. major), and when the other three were going off on a tangent with planning, I said, "I don't quite understand."

Without blinking, this person leaned over, patted my arm, motioned to himself and the others, and said, "Don't worry. We're very creative people. We'll make sure you're okay."

I wanted to slug him. But since I am a pacifist, I didn't.

There was no shortage of such people in graduate school and academia. Usually it was a teacher of questionable worth who made it a point to patronize and insult the worth of the other teachers or graduate students around him/her in order to feel superior. But I always hated it.

Theatre has traditionally been a place for this as well, but until this last week, I hadn't really encountered it here in the community production of The Sound of Music. Sure, we have a couple divas, and they share their own little dressing room, keeping themselves aloof from the rest of us... but they haven't been too annoying.

Until yesterday.

We were just about to begin our second week of shows last night, and the girl who plays Maria came up to me with a few "suggestions." First, she wanted a bit more stage business for something, since she didn't feel like she could move the way she wanted to without it.

Okay. No big deal. I'd made adjustments for her before. Easy stuff.

But then she pulled out the patronizing card. She put her hand on my arm (always a bad sign), and said, "And be loud. When we sing together, especially. First the audience hears me sing," she says, "and then when you get up there, well, you know." And she makes a face.

Really? Did we have to go there? Three more productions, and we might never have to work together again. But she can't wait. She has to pull out the patronizing card and slap me across the face with it. I could spend the rest of the blog ranting about her acting skills, but I won't. She's not bad. And she can sing. And how well she does it is none of my damn business, since I'm not the director.

But neither is she.

I am grateful to be in the ordinary dressing room, and I'll take this as another reminder of how not to behave towards other people. We all have different talents, different strengths, and different weaknesses, and it's not my job to step on others while on my own personal journey.

It's also my job to do my best, despite the comments, and to do so with a positive attitude. Perhaps what upsets me most is that, even after all of these years, comments like this still bother me.