One Week to Go

This is probably the last weekend we’ll be living in this house. I can qualify that by saying living "full time” in this house, since it will probably be several months before we’re ready to put it on the market.

But beginning next Friday, our everyday living at Brookwood Court begins.

Yikes.

I ran into one of my mother’s friends at the grocery today, and she gave me a warm, motherly type hug. “You have been through so much this year!” she said.

Well, I suppose you could consider selling one house, buying another, moving into the new house, and then getting yet another house ready to sell a lot.

Yes, I suppose you could.

Especially for folks like us who have never really moved before.

I don’t know whether I’ve become a more sanguine personality in my old age, or whether I’m in some sort of real estate shock, but I’m not extremely perturbed about the situation. Maybe I’m just burying my head in the sand, and come next Friday I’ll have a complete emotional collapse.

But I don’t think so.

One thing I’ve noticed about being my age - stuff just doesn’t carry the magnitude it once did. I’m talking about the stuff of life, the stuff that used to make me crazy and keep me up nights just thinking about it. Now the really big stuff- aging, and illness, and death - that stuff worries me. And I have been through a lot of that in the past three years.

Compared to that, everything else seems so manageable.

Still, this moving thing is Pretty Big Stuff.

I wander through the little hallways in my house, comparing the number of footsteps it takes to get from my bed to the coffeemaker here (9) with the new house (21 and 15 of them are stairs).

I open the backdoor and let the dogs out at 10 pm and realize that starting next week, I’ll have to go out with them. (no fences)

But then I look at the leaves on the 57 trees scattered around this 1/2 acre lot and realize I’ll never have to rake leaves again. I can scorn the snowblower when I walk by in the garage, plan on giving it to Goodwill, because whenever there is more than one inch of snow it will be shoveled for me.

Mostly, I look at a neighborhood that served this family well for 60 years, but one that is undergoing a major sea change, a metamorphosis that moves beyond anything we can do to change it or make it work for us into the rest of our lives.

The next week will be busy and exciting and sad and frightening all rolled into one.

It will be an experience I never forget.

One week to go.

Write On Wednesday: Three Reasons Why Writers Should Work Out

<huff huff> <pant pant>

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m fresh from my morning work out.  I've amped it up this week to combat a few extra pounds that managed to creep around my waist when I wasn’t looking. I try to exercise at least five days per week, and it’s become habitual enough that I feel out of sorts if I miss a day.

There have been several physical benefits to my exercise regimen. My lower backaches have all but disappeared. I’ve stopped having chronic sinus infections. Best of all, I can eat practically anything I want (in moderation - the aforementioned extra pounds were directly related to my failure to follow this rule and a bag of Ruffles potato chips) and not gain weight.

Physical exercise is good for more than the body. There are real reasons why working out is good for your writing too.

1. Physical exercise boosts creativity. I’m sure there are scientific studies that quantify this fact, but I don’t need them - my own experience is validation enough. I always make sure to have a notebook and pen at hand because so many good ideas come flooding into my head while I’m exercising that I could never remember them all without jotting them down.

2. Physical exercise improves your mood. Unless you’ve discovered a huge market for sob stories, depressed writers are not terribly popular or productive. The endorphins released during exercise plus the stimulation of  blood flow to the brain help you feel happier and less stressed.

3. Physical exercise improves your strength and endurance. Writing may be a sedentary occupation, but it still requires stamina. Strengthening the core muscles prevents back fatigue and pain that can distract you from the work in progress, and force you away from the desk earlier than necessary.

Invest some time and energy in discovering a form of exercise that works for you. I think it’s key to find something you enjoy doing and that fits into your life without too much disruption to your daily schedule.

Then make a habit of it. The dividends are well worth it.

How about you? Has physical activity helped your writing? Discuss.

Earth Shattering

For my generation, it was the second “where were you when...” event in our lifetime. For my mother, it was the third such occasion.

Unforgettable days like these - December 7, 1941, November 22, 1963, September 11, 2001 - are etched in the memory of every American who lived through them. They become landmarks in our personal history as well as in the history of our nation. And what happens as a result of cataclysmic occurrences like Pearl Harbor and John Kennedy’s assasination and the terrorist attacks changes the course of every living person on the planet.

Earth shattering.

Stephen King’s novel, 11-22-63, does a marvelous job of revealing the way the course of history can be changed by one event. I sometimes forget that one historical action leads to a series of reactions that shape the future. Without the impetus - the action that sets the dominos falling - the future becomes completely different. In King’s novel, we see his vision of a modern American had Kennedy lived to fulfill his term.

And it isn’t pretty.

Of course that’s just fiction, and Stephen King’s fiction at that, so we don’t expect it to be rosy. But it clarified what a stunning impact one event can have on the future of the world.

So on this anniversary of one particularly earth shattering event, I can’t help but wonder how life eleven years later would be different if those terrorists had been stopped at the security gates, if they’d never been allowed on those planes that beautiful fall morning.

How the world would be different if those same men had grown up without all that hatred in their heart.

If we could all tolerate the diverse beliefs and opinions that exist throughout the universe.

If we could all live in peace.

Earth shattering.

Write On Wednesday: Editor at Large

This process of moving house has become an exercise in revision. For weeks, I’ve been going over all my possessions with a fine tooth comb - must I have four sets of casserole dishes? five travel mugs? half a dozen different styles of placemats? How many black purses do I really need? So I red-pencil items like a good editor would do extraneous words, consigning them to trash bags, donation bins, Craig’s List.

It’s been surprisingly easy to jettison all this baggage, and I feel lighter and freer by the moment. I’m almost loathe to take anything at all to the new house, am delighted at the thought of being pared down to the most bare of essentials.

That’s what a well-written piece of writing is like, isn’t it? Pared down to bare essentials.

The key is knowing what words are essential.

“The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components,” writes William Zinsser in On Writing Well, a copy of which I found buried in a chest of drawers in my bedroom during yesterday’s cleaning. “Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb which carries the same meaning that is already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what - these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence."

Like my cupboards overflowing with coffee mugs and dresser drawers spilling scarves, socks, and costume jewelry, Zinsser shakes a red-ink stained finger at clutter - “the disease of American writing.”  Clear your head of it, he exhorts the writer. “Clear thinking becomes clear writing."

But I can’t help but wonder (a phrase Zinsser would strike right through with red pen) - can things be too clear? Does writing stripped so clean and uncluttered lack some undefinable personality, a spark of cachet to endear it to the reader? This comes to mind as I peruse the top of my piano, the family photographs, the crystal candlesticks, the tiny sculpture of a woman with arms spread wide in joy. Each of these items could be classified as clutter, yet each one means something to me. Like beautiful, descriptive language, each one adds a touch of beauty to the room.

It’s a fine line, this process of revision.

What to leave in. What to leave out.

While my impulse at this moment is to clear out all the clutter, when all is said and done will I survey my surroundings and feel that something is missing?

The challenge is to strike a balance between the two.

I hope I’m up for it.

Off Kilter - But Who Cares?

It’s no surprise that my schedule (schedule? I have a schedule?) is awry. Moving has a way of throwing all of one’s best laid plans into a tizzy. My grand plan in consolidating my three blogs was to write about Life in General on Mondays and Fridays, leaving Wednesdays for Write On, and Sunday’s for The Sunday Salon book talk. Last week, none of that really happened.

Oh well.

I’m seriously unflappable these days. That's surprising considering my life is about to go catty-wumpus with the final move about three weeks away, followed closely by my Grandson’s first visit to Michigan.

But just when I’d expect myself to be frantic, I’m feel like I’m floating -  simply doing what I can do and not sweating the rest. It’s a little bit like being on anti-depressants. Everything feels pretty darn good, and I want everyone I know to be there with me.

This is such a big departure for me, and I’m almost afraid to say it out loud lest I awaken the sleeping giants of anxiety and depression that usually haunts me whenever a big change is in the wind. For the first time in my life, I’m allowing myself to believe in signs, to follow my instincts.

And this overall sense of well being has to be a sign that everything we’re doing is right.

My presence on these pages is likely to be amorphous for the days and weeks ahead.

Just think of me - not with my nose to the grindstone - but wafting through cyberspace on a cloud of pleasant anticipation and contentment.

I wish I could beam you all up here with me.