The Age Factor

My friend Millie is quite a bit older than I - in fact, she's old enough to be my mother.  Somehow, though, I always think of her as a contemporary.  She's stylish, fit, active in all aspects of life, and she keeps a schedule that makes me tired just thinking about it! Millie is one of my musical mentors...she taught me everything I know about playing handbells, shepherded my acceptance into Classical Bells, encouraged me to do all the kinds of things I didn't think were possible.  We've traveled together, lived together, shared lots of laughs over hot coffee in the morning and glasses of wine in the evening.

Although I no longer perform with Classical Bells, Millie and I are stand partners in our church bell choir, a group she herself directed for many years (played in and directed at the same time, I might add, and that's no mean feat!)

Last Sunday we played in church for the first time this year, and I was forced to accept something I've been noticing for a while.

She's not as sharp as she used to be.

Oh, she's fine in rehearsal, but when the pressure of performance time hits, and she gets a little flustered, things go wrong.  She loses her place, or picks up the wrong bell, and then she gets more flustered and perhaps turns two pages.  And then, it's pretty hard to recover. 

Now you'd never guess it to look at her, or listen to her speak, but my friend Millie is 72 years old.  And when you reach that age, it's pretty inevitable that the brain synapses aren't going to fire as rapidly as they once did, that change is going to be a bit harder to handle, that stress is going to take a bigger toll than it once did.

So, why am I telling you all these things about my best friend, whom I love so dearly?

Because the man who could be President of this country is also 72 years old.  Should he be elected, in the ensuing four years he will face unparalleled stresses on his mind and body.  People aren't talking a lot about the age factor in this election, but they should be.  A man that age, particularly one who has already suffered some pretty significant health problems, has absolutely no business running a country, especially one in huge crisis.

When my friend is pressured, gets flustered, and loses her place, it's not a big deal.

But if it happens to the leader of the free world, it's a very big deal indeed.

Marathon

My apologies for the late posting this week...I have been inundated with work, and the past few days have been a marathon of writing (of the medical, technical variety).  My daylight hours have been chock full of typing and paper shuffling, and last night during the time when I usually put the finishing touches on Write On Wednesday's post, I was sleeping blissfully in my easy chair. C'est la vie.

Speaking of marathons, there is a real writing marathon about to begin, the equivalent of the Boston 26 miler run in a chill November wind.

It's called NaNoWriMo.

Short for "National Novel Writing Month," it's an internet based writing venture whose participants pledge to write 50,000 words (a 175 page novel) between November 1 and midnight, November 30. 

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

In 2006 and 2007, I completed the challenge.  Although I'm not a runner, I believe the experience was something akin to getting through one of those long races...the initial excitement at you start out with chapter one, the miles midway when it feels as if your heart (and head!) will burst with the effort of slogging through the daily 1667 words, the moment when your second wind kicks in with a brave new idea or direction for your story, and the final rush of adrenaline when the your word count hits 40,000 and you glimpse "the end" in sight.

What do I have to show for all that work?  My "trophies" - sheafs of typed pages neatly bound in paper folders and tucked away at the bottom of my bookshelf  - will probably never be read by anyone other than my grandchildren, who may run across the pages when they're clearing my belongings out of the nursing home.

The other "trophy" - the sense of accomplishment, albeit a private one, the sense of satisfaction that, yes indeed, there was a completely evolved story residing inside my head which I was able to coherently put it on paper in the space of 30 days - well, that one I get to carry around with me forever.

Although I'm taking this year off from NaNoWriMo, I'll be here on the sidelines cheering on all the participants as they pound the keyboard in their race to the finish line. 

Write On.

So, how about you?  If you've done NaNoWriMo, what was the experience like for you?  If you've never done it, do you think you could?  Do you have a novel residing in you somewhere, waiting to get out?

A Clarion Call

"This country and the dream it represents are being tested in a way that we haven't seen in nearly a century. And future generations will judge ours by how we respond to this test. Will they say that this was a time when America lost its way and its purpose? When we allowed the same divisions and fear tactics and our own petty differences to plunge this country into a dark and painful recession? "Or will they say that this was another one of those moments when America overcame? When we battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other's success?

"This is one of those moments. I realize you're cynical and fed up with politics. I understand that you're disappointed and even angry with your leaders. You have every right to be. But despite all of this, I ask of you what's been asked of the American people in times of trial and turmoil throughout our history. I ask you to believe – to believe in yourselves, in each other, and in the future we can build together."

~From Barack Obama's speech in Richmond, Virginia

My Little Psychopath

It's been a while since I've written about her, a former music student, now special ed teacher, but with so many deep seated psychological problems that for the past two years she's been on a revolving door into the psychiatric ward.  She calls me periodically, usually crying, to let me know that she's "not doing well" or has "tried to hurt herself." One of those calls came in about a month ago - she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt, and she was calling me from her room.  Her car had been impounded, she said, sobbing, and she didn't know how to get it out.  

I know she wanted me to help her, but those were the days leading up to my mother in law's death, and in all honesty, I was just tapped out. 

"You need to call your mother," I told her.  The girl does have a mother, even though their relationship is apparently god-awful.

"I'm afraid!" cried.  "She'll only make it worse!"

"Then talk to the social worker at the hospital, and find out what to do," I counseled. 

"Okay," she says, the flat, resigned tone I've come to expect whenever I offer advice of any kind.

I called my friend Pat, who, knowing my situation at that time, agreed to go out to the hospital and see her. 

The next night, very late, the phone rang again. 

"I called my mother, like you said," came her voice, low pitched, dark, and completely flat sounding - the scariest sounding voice I ever heard.  "She came here and brought me some money."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" I asked hopefully.

"Yes," she answered.  Then, after a long pause, the dark voice continued.  "Here's the thing," it went on in my ear, "the thing about my mother.  When I was little, and then when I was a teenager, and even now if I go home, she gets into bed with me and she's naked and she touches me."

Dear God. 

Obviously I am in way over my head.

And that's "the thing"...this girl is supposedly getting treatment at one of the finest medical facilities in southeastern Michigan.  Why is she calling me on the phone from her hospital room?  Why is she attempting suicide right outside the building after leaving a session with her therapist?  Does that make sense?

Anyway,  that was last month. 

Last night, after a particularly grueling day at the office (which you'll hear about eventually, I promise), she calls again.  She's sobbing (and driving) which is so often the case.

"Things are just so hard right now," she says, gasping into the phone.  "My classes are so bad, there are so many kids who are violent and have to be restrained, and it's impossible to teach, and I just feel so suicidal I can't do anything."

"Where are you now?" I ask. 

"On my way home from therapy," she answers tearfully.

I know that's at least a 40 minute drive.  So I did my best to redirect her attention to something other than killing herself.  We talked about finding something to do each week that she would enjoy, we talked about her years in college, and how she felt better during that time than any other time in her life, we reminisced a little about funny things that happened during high school, and how they had seemed so bad at the time and now we were laughing about them.

After about 20 minutes, I could tell she was done talking.  She hadn't eaten since noon (this was about 9:00 p.m.) and I convinced her to go through the Wendy's drive through.  She assured me she was allright to continue on home.

"Thank you for talking to me," she said softly.

"It's okay," I answered.

"I love you," she said - she always says that at least once.

"I love you too," I replied.

And I do ~ she's a sweet natured, brilliant girl, who has never felt she was worth anything.  She's obviously in need of some unconditional love and support - the kind you're supposed to get from your mother.

I get really angry at people who mess up their children.  I know we all have "issues" of our own, but people who damage their own children- psychologically or physically - just don't get any excuses in my book.  There's no exemption for that kind of behavior, no matter what your problems are.

And I'm worried that somehow this girl is getting lost in the system, that without an adult to advocate for her, she's not getting the treatment she needs or the kind of advice to help her get her life on track. 

Ultimately, of course, I'm worried that I'll fail her too - that one day my conversational gambits and lame attempts to play therapist simply won't cut it, and she'll succeed in her quest to  escape from a life she continues to find more and more untenable.

And that's the biggest fear of all.

Everybody Write!

The other morning, as I was sitting with notebook blithely writing away at my morning pages, I had a funny little frisson of thought~you know, those strange notions that seem to pop into your head occasionlly, like a waking dream. For just a second, I had the feeling that everyone in my neighborhood, everyone in the world, actually, was writing too. With a quick mental shake of the head, I came to my senses. How ridiculous is that? But then, a wave of sadness came over me, sadness for everyone I know that doesn't write, because they are missing so much. Using words to express our needs, our thoughts, our emotions, is basic to life, and something every child is taught from the earliest of ages. Unlike playing a musical instrument, or painting, or dancing, learning command of our languge through speech and the written word is deemed one of life's most necessary skills. Isn't it exciting to watch children master the use of words, to figure out that the use of words makes things happen? Who hasn't cherished a child's scribbled notes and poems, written with such excitement and freedom, their first forays into the world of written expression?

Back in 1938, when she wrote If You Want To Write, author Brenda Ueland insisted that "everybody is talented, everybody who is human has something to express." We let that creative engergy, that drive to express oursleves get "drummed out of our lives by dry obligation, and because we don't respect it in ourselves and keep it alive by using it." Fast forward 60 years, and Julia Cameron publishes Right to Write, in which she advises us to "write because it's human nature to write. Writing claims our world. It brings clarity and passion to the art of living. It is good for the soul. It connects us to our insights, and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance." I don't believe writing is just for the "chosen few," but that everyone comes hard wired with this need to express themselves with the written word. The proliferation of blogging as a means of personal expression is testimony to that.

In the high school where I worked, we had a period of time each day known as "Silent Reading." It happened about 10:30 a.m., right after morning announcements. Just after we heard results of the volleyball game, meeting time for National Honor Society, and were reminded to wear red and black for spirit day, the announcer says, "Now it's time for Silent Reading." The entire student body -all 2100 of them- including teachers, stops class and reads for 20 minutes.

I love being there when that happens. I love the idea of everybody stopping in their tracks just to read, to enter into someone else's world for a while. Wouldn't it be fabulous if the whole world took time every day to do that? And, wouldn't it be even more fabulous if the the world took 20 minutes every day to write, to enter into our own worlds a little deeper, express our vision of life and ourselves on the page. Wouldn't we all become more mindful of the beauty that surrounds us, the people that intersect with our lives, and more keely attuned to our own thoughts and dreams? Those are just some of the ways my writing experience has enriched my life.

So, how about you?  Do you make time to write everyday?  Don't you think everybody should?