At the Top of the List

Wisdom sometimes comes in very unexpected places. I went in for a haircut late this afternoon and my stylist took one look at me and said, “Hey, are you okay?"

“Oh, I’m just tired,” I said, my stock answer when anyone asks me why I’m not quite up to par.

“It looks like more than that to me,” she said. She is a wise Muslim woman, about my age, with one daughter who is married and living in Texas. We commiserate about the distance between us and our only children. She rejoiced with me at Connor’s birth, and we talk about how much she hopes for grandchildren of her own soon.

“I think I’ve been trying to do too much,” I said. “Moving to the new house and trying to clean up the old house, working on a project for my office job, helping my friend with the community theater project, subbing in other friends bell choirs, doing things for my mom..."

“Bless you, Becca,” she said. “You are just doing too many things for too many people and not enough for yourself."

It’s an old story, and no doubt you’re tired of my complaints about it. But I can never seem to find the right balance between the outside world and my own inner needs. I spend too much time fulfilling obligations and not enough time doing things that are simply fulfilling. In trying to make life easier for others, I end up making life hard for myself.  If I don’t value myself enough to make my life a priority, why should I be surprised that other people don’t value it either?

I have never fully accepted the concept that I’m worthy of care, never given myself permission to put my own needs first. The things I do for me - writing, reading, taking walks, playing music - those always come last, in what little bits of time and energy are left after the work and the chores and the meetings and rehearsals.

Which means that I’m putting myself last in the long line of priorities I call my life in general.

Toady, the end result of that position was obviously written all over my face. My hair stylist could see it. I’ve been seeing it in the mirror every morning - in my dull skin, my limp hair, my sad eyes.

Time to start moving myself up from the bottom of the list. Time to put myself first and stop feeling guilty about it. Time to take time -  to read, to write, to start finding my way in this new place I’m living.

“Be happy, Becca,” my stylist says as we hug goodbye. “God gave you life to live and be happy."

Such wisdom for the price of a haircut.

TLC Tours for The Sunday Salon: Because You Have To: A Writing Life

I’m a writing book junkie. Sometimes, I'm one of those people who loves to read about writing more than I actually love to write. There is a mystique surrounding a writer’s life, especially for those of us who are wannabe’s, who worship at the throne of “real” writers - you know, the ones with actual books that have been printed with paper and ink.

So when TLC Tours offered me the opportunity to read/review Because You Have To: A Writing Life, by Joan Frank, I readily agreed to feed my reading-about-writing habit.

Frank contends that those who are called to write must do so, no matter what the privation. She uses herself as a prime example, discussing the ways she has supported her writing (a published body of work that include two short story collections and three novels) with mostly low-paying office jobs. She talks about co-workers who complain that she is unresponsive when she drifts into a daydream about her latest work. She relates tales of ekeing out moments to write between fielding phone calls and typing letters. “There is never enough,” she titles one of her chapters. Never enough time, money, silence, appreciation.

She talks about the isolation that writers sometimes feel, the need to “build a kind of coherent wholesome scaffolding around the essentially lonely, aberrant, and certainly unjustifiable act of writing.” She advises the writer to “be careful whom you tell,” about your writing, because “Americans tend to feel uneasy when confronted with someone professing to practice art.” She shares some “gruesome stories” about marketing and rejection.

She does not sugar coat the writer’s life, oh no she does not.

But still, this reader can sense on every page how compelled she is to put words to paper, to express ideas, to work out emotions and scenarios and possibilities on the printed page. Frank looks at the writers life -well, frankly - but in a way that makes you still want to be part of that mysterious brotherhood.

She even writes about those writing books I love to love so much.

You can collect dozens of technique books. In the end, writing that has life in it can’t issue from someone else’s formula, like dance steps painted on a plastic mat. Anyone with an instinct for the shape and sound and movement of language must somewhere in her heart recognize this lonely truth, and agree to trust herself to go forward, absorbing the advice that fits along the way, tossing the rest.

Because You Have To: A Writing Life.  Joan Frank tells it like it is in this very personal, sometimes funny, sometimes acerbic, sometimes joyous book about what keeps her coming back to the page.

We write to investigate, attend, witness. When even the biggest literary names make victorious reading tours, they often admit how unhappy they feel until they have settled into the next writing project - how hungrily they miss working on something, amid whatever aclaim. I believe them. The itch, the yearning, the glimpse of the next tantalizing, disturbing idea - how can I broach it, solve the inescapable problems? Where might I take it; more accurately, more excitingly, where might it take me? The call of the dream: getting back to it, getting it down. Product is good, but process, we learn the hard way, it the real tugging star. One following onto the next, a whole sparkling cosmos of them.

Gratitude

November became my favorite month when this little guy was born last year on the 14th. To celebrate, we’re taking a family trip to Disney World. Oh, we know Connor is too young to remember much about it, but Disney is a special place for our family so it seemed like the perfect way to celebrate this momentous event. Celebration and gratitude go hand-in-hand, and so I’m also participating in 20 Days of Thanks on Facebook. Starting today until November 22, it’s a way to be mindful of all the good things in our lives. It’s ever so easy to dwell on the negative, especially after a horrible disaster like Hurricane Sandy. I’m grateful for organizations like the Red Cross, grateful I can send a donation to help them do their important work.

Silver linings. Sometimes we have to squint to see them.

Most every time, they are there.

What are you grateful for this month?

The Sunday Salon: Mysterious

As gusty winds blow leaves into miniature hurricanes, I sit snug and warm in my little writing room, watching from the second story window as the treetops waltz against the sky. Here in Michigan we are not in the eye or even the path of this horrific storm, but today’s weather reminds me how fickle Mother Nature can be. Only two days ago we had windows wide open to invite summer-like breezes to blow through the house. Today seems like a good day for a mystery, and so that’s what I’ve chosen to read. A Beautiful Mystery, in fact, the new one in Louise Penny’s glorious series about Inspector Armand Gamache. While many of her books are set in the lovely little town of Three Pines, this one takes the Inspector farther afield - to a ancient monestery where the monks have all taken a vow of silence, the only time they speak being to sing the ancient Gregorian chants that are their pathway to the Divine.

Except one of them has turned up dead, most certainly at the hands of another.

A not-so-beautiful mystery.

As I read this story, I marvel once again at the research it takes to write a novel filled with such authenticity and perfectly evoked atmosphere. Gregorian chant, ancient orders of monks, prehistoric musical notation - my goodness, the research she must have done. And she weaves it all into the story line so effortlessly (or so it seems).

But I know that is an illusion, and there is immense work and effort involved.

The workings of a writer’s mind are a marvelous mystery indeed.

Be Careful

My 86 year old father always says those words to me when we say goodbye - whether it’s a phone conversation or a personal visit, it always ends with those words, spoken now in his somewhat querulous voice. “You be careful, alright?"

“I will,” I always answer. “Don’t worry."

Truth is, though, I’m not always careful. I usually drive too fast (although since I’m definitely driving an old lady car these days my lead foot is not as much of an issue as it used to be), I don’t always eat three meals a day, I stay up too late and get up too early, I say “yes” to more things than I shouId, I exceed my one-glass-of-wine-per day allowance, I let the world stress me out.

I worry a lot.

And most often, the last person I worry about is myself.

Deb Smouse, my friend (and editor at ATG magazine) writes a lot about taking care of yourself. In fact, she and my Dad would probably get along just great, because she knows just how important it is for each one of us to care for ourselves. Not just the “looking both ways when you cross the street” kind of careful, but the kind that shows you’re aware of your needs and you make time and space in your life to honor them.

In fact, her blog post today reminded me just how often I fail at taking care of the most important person in my life.

Me.

And I cringe a little bit when I write those words, because I was brought up to think of myself last, to put the needs of others first - others being my family, friends, dogs, boss, neighbors, the mailman, the plumber...

You get the picture. “Good girls” always sacrifice their needs and desire for the greater good and comfort of others.

But after reading Deb’s post today, I’m about ready to say balderdash to that philosophy.

"Denying yourself necessary time for self-care is detrimental not only to your body, but also to your mind and soul."   

Why should I feel guilty for taking an afternoon to get a facial or a mani/pedi? Or spend a couple of hours at the movies all alone? Or sit quietly on the deck for watching the sunset? Or even blow off a meeting to meet a friend for coffee?

I never do things like that. Instead, you’ll find me rearranging my personal schedule to accomodate some one else’s needs or to cross something else off my ever lengthening to-do list. I can barely allow myself the “luxury” of sitting down with a book for 30 minutes in the afternoon without feeling that all-too-familiar itch to get up and accomplish something worthwhile.

Why? Because I think I have to do all those things in order to please the people that are important to me.

To make sure they love me.

What I’m beginning to realize is that if I don’t love myself, then nobody else will love me either, because I’m not a very lovable person under those circumstances. I get cranky and miserable. I start running in those vicious circles where I don’t feel good so I don’t look good so I feel worse...ad infinitum.

"FORSAKING YOUR OWN SELF-CARE IS NO WAY TO BE OF SERVICE TO – OR TAKE CARE OF – OTHERS."

While I don’t think this is exactly what my father means in his ritual exhortation, “being careful” to take care of myself has to move higher on my priority list than it usually is. My one precious self is all I have, so I do need to be careful to keep it safe, both body and soul.

Or else everyone in my life loses - me, most of all.

How about you? Are you careful with your one precious self? How do you make self-care a priority?