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Contribution by Stevie Kirby Gosh, it’s hard being a stay at home mom. No one ever told me before I did this how taxing it would be on me both physically and emotionally but I’m trying to get through it one day at a time. It seems like not so long ago I was an attorney trying to build her own practice going to networking events, looking on BANK-CARD-PROCESSING.com and calling fresh graduates and here I am nowadays up to my knees in diapers. It’s not that I don’t love my kids, I really do, but sometimes I feel like my brain is just melting into mush. It’s tough not having a lot of adult conversations anymore and I know if I tried to go back to work now all I would think about would be the kids so I feel like I’m kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. I always said I wanted to stay at home but I guess I never realized how hard it would actually be on me when it happened! |
Write On Wednesday: Outside Opinion
Earlier this summer I participated in an online writing class which turned out to be a very rewarding experience. I completed six essays on a variety of topics and in a variety of formats, connected with six other amazing writers and got the benefit of their feedback on my work, and got some vital insights about ways I could improve my writing.
It's been a long time since I put my writing up for grabs. Sure, I write blog posts all the time, but since you all are such a forgiving group those posts are like chatty letters to a friend rather than a piece of writing up for critical review. I won't lie and say it wasn't a little scary to write something completely different and then put it online for my classmates to read and critique. But luckily my fellow writers were very supportive, our group leader was gentle, and we all learned a great deal.
Something I missed growing up as an only child was the opportunity to have a critic, someone not afraid to tell you when your outfit looks dorky or your haircut is lame. I'm sure those of you with siblings are saying, "Opportunity?? It's more like a pain in the a#@!!" But, taken (and given) in the right spirit, an outside opinion can prove invaluable as you're learning to navigate the wider world.
Same with the world of writing, I think. Anne Lamott refers to her "second opinion" readers as "midwives," who bring her best work to life. "Theoretically I could do it alone," she says, "but it sure makes it easier to have people helping." I know that I appreciated the writers I worked with this summer, and will not hesitate to seek outside opinions whenever I'm able.
Outside Opinion
"I always show my work to one of two people before sending a copy to my editor or agent. I feel more secure and connected this way, and these two people get a lot of good work out of me. They are like midwives; there are these stories and ideas and visions and memories and plots inside me, and only I can give birth to them. Theoretically I could do it alone, but it sure makes it easier to have people helping." Anne Lamott, from Bird by Bird
Other than blog posts, most of my writing is done in a vacuum. No one ever reads the scribblings that go in all the assorted folders on my computer - the "creative nonfiction" folder, the "memoir" folder, the "short story" folder, and certainly not the "novels" folder. For some time, I've had a nagging feeling that this needed to change, that it would not only be nice, but advantageous, to have another pair of eyes look at this stuff and tell me if it's worth anything more than just a way to fill time.
The perfect opportunity arose when one of the bloggers I most enjoy offered a six week online creative nonfiction class. Andi is a writing teacher and a creative nonfiction writer, and I thought this would be the perfect way to inch my writing out into the world.
I was right. It was a grand experience, not at all painful, and it gave me not just one pair of eyes, but six more too. It helped me see what I was doing well, and not-so-well, how I needed to go deeper into my subject and my psyche in longer essays, as opposed to the short blog posts I'm used to writing. I learned that I have a tendency to mix up tenses all too often. I'm more aware on unnecessary phrases, and of those that need more explanation.
Revision has always been the most difficult part of writing for me, because it's hard for me to know where I'm going wrong. Having a group of writing partners for a few weeks started pointing me in the right direction.
Andi is offering the Intro to Creative Nonfiction class again come September - check it out here, along with her Facebook page, and her blog. She is also part of a consortium of other writers, The Whole Story Media Group, who have come together to offer editing and marketing assistance with all manner of writing projects.
Getting Ready
I'm getting ready for a trip here in a couple of days. Heading out on a jet plane to one of the hottest spots in the nation right now. And I mean that literally.
Yes, we're on our way to Frisco, Texas, which, along with the rest of the greater Dallas area, has enjoyed a record breaking 37 days of temperatures over 100 degrees.
And we thought the hurricanes in Florida were bad.
What I'm wondering is, if my only child has to live 1500 miles away from home, why does it have to be in a place where the weather plays these ridiculous tricks on people? First it was Florida, with the ever present threat of being swept away by tidewaters and tropical winds. In Texas, apparently you run the risk of being roasted alive. That is, if you don't spontaneously combust from the drought. It's not bad enough that he drags me and his father into these places, now he's bringing my grandson into the world to live in extremis along with the rest of us.
But, like any red-blooded American mother, I goeth wheresoever my offspring goeth. So off I goeth to Frisco, and pray the power stays on.
Seriously, I think I'm part of a new breed of parent/grandparent. Like nomads, we wander around the world so that we can spend a few precious moments every now and again with our children and their children. Within my fairly limited social circle I have friends who travel to Missouri, Vermont, Santa Barbara, Phoenix, and Texas to visit their children. I suppose I should be thankful - one of my friends from work just welcomed her first grandchild in Norwich, England. And of course, my daughter in law's poor parents live on the other side of the world, at least in terms of visiting this new grandson.
But don't get me wrong - I'm thankful that I have the ability to make the trip, and make it fairly frequently if I so desire.
After all, when you're getting ready to welcome a new grandson in the family, what's a little heat wave?
Food Fancy
It's ironic that I would open the latest issue of Creative Nonfiction magazine which is dedicated to food while eating my meager breakfast consisting of an oatbran muffin baked over a week ago, a tiny dish of blueberries, and a half glass of grapefruit juice. It's even more ironic that I would continue reading it during my lunch, which was more pathetic yet - a meager amount of tuna salad on dry wheat bread and a handful of Goldfish crackers, washed down with the lukewarm water in my Sigg bottle - particularly since the article was a wonderful interview with Ruth Reichl, who is my absolute heroine in the food writing department. She had some great thoughts about food, and writing, and why we're so interested in the whole subject of gastronomy these days. I'm just glad she didn't see what I was eating - there was certainly nothing to write about in those meals.
In fact, she talks about this very subject in the interview. "People want that connection to food," she says, "because they're getting up, they're not eating breakfast, they're grabbing fast food for lunch, and coming home and sticking something in the microwave for dinner. Everybody eats on their own. I think people take cookbooks to bed to pretend. I always thought those spreads we did in Gourmet (magazine) were so important to people because they were like virtual dinners and people wanted to put themselves at that table."
I'm not quite as bad as the typical eater she describes. I usually eat three fairly healthy meals, and they're mostly prepared at home. But I do have a lot more interest in the idea of food than in the actual food itself. I love to peruse the cookbook section in the bookstores, and can easily spend hours watching people like Ina Garten and Giada Laurentis on the Food Network. I could make that! I think, as Ina dishes up some delightfully elegant and seemingly effortless dish to her guests in the garden.
But I don't. Oh, sometimes I might go as far as looking up the recipe on-line and even printing it out. I'll put it in my "recipes to try" folder, where it sits until the twelfth of never.
And I love reading about other people's experience with food. Ruth Reichl has written two delicious food memoirs, Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me With Apples. I get completely lost in those books, and want to eat everything she talks about in them.
But I don't.
I think we all have a food story. Nothing seems more fraught with ways to complicate our lives than food. We either love it too much and overindulge, or hate it (or at least its effect on our bodies) and become anorexic. I grew up with the Southern outlook on food - it's love, it's comfort, somebody worked hard to make it for you so have another helping honey, there's plenty more where that came from. When I go home to my mother's house, no matter what she's cooking I'll eat it up - even if I know in my heart it's not good for me, even if I don't really like it all that much anymore.
My relationship with food is actually rather ambivalent. I enjoy it, but I don't think about it overmuch. If there is really good food available, I'll gladly eat it, but if not, I'm just as happy with the oatbran muffin or the paltry tuna sandwich. I've often said if I lived alone I'd probably subsist on tomato soup and tuna salad sandwiches, with an occasional spinach and feta cheese omelet thrown in for variety. I sometimes resent all the time and money it takes to put those three relatively healthy meals on the table, and occasionally wish I could just swallow a pill that would satisfy my hunger pangs and give me all the nutrition I need.
But then I wouldn't be able to enjoy the dinner I just had. Homemade chicken pot pie, loaded with tender chunks of chicken, carrots, snap peas, and potatoes, all blanketed within velvety gravy, with garden fresh roast zucchini, sweet corn, and sliced tomatoes on the side.
Yum.
Now that's a meal worth writing about. And definitely a meal worth eating.
How about you? What's your relationship with food? Do you love to love it, or just plain love it?