Joining the Writing Process Blog Tour

During the years I’ve been writing on the internet, I’ve met some inspiring and engaging women at various stages of their lives. One of those is Bella, who tells her story through words and amazing photography. It’s been a privilege to watch her creative and personal life grow and develop, and also to see the great love and care she has for her family and home. So, this Writing Process Blog Tour: Last week Bella invited me to participate. Yes, I thought. We writers, don’t we love to talk about our “process,” as if it were a tangible thing we could get hold of and manipulate. Don’t we love to spend time thinking about writing, planning for it, saying “if only” about all the things we want to do with it.

Yes.

But it was harder than I imagined. Apparently, I take my writing process for granted. I just do it. These questions being asked - why do I write what I do, how does my writing differ from others of my genre - they nudge me to consider this thing I do in another light, turn it around like a globe to expose a normally dark side.

Here is what I uncovered...

♥ What am I currently working on?  Ongoing writing entails updating my blog twice weekly, and writing several regular columns for All Things Girl magazine. After seven years of writing a blog, I decided to compile a small book of  posts representative of my Life In General during that time. I’ve been sifting through over 400 posts, categorizing and culling. Doing a lot of remembering, smiling at my silly self, crying about losses recalled afresh. I will be self-publishing the book and my goal is to have it ready by Christmas. Next week I'm starting Christine Mason Miller's  e-course called The Conscious Booksmith, which is designed to facilitate creating a book while in the midst of daily living. Oh, do I need that help.

♥ Why do I write what I do?  For many years the subtitle of  my blog was “reflections on life in general and my own in particular.” My life is not “exciting," I don’t make public policy or create great works of art. I simply live every moment to the best of my ability, hoping to connect with other people through my words as well as my actions. The stories I tell about my life are probably very much like the stories you live in yours. In my telling, and your reading,  I hope we’ll share a connection that enlightens and enriches our journey. 

♥ How does my work differ from others of its genre? I don’t know that it does differ so much from other “lifestyle” writing, and maybe I don’t want it to. I feel as if I’m part of a large collective of writers I greatly admire who are sharing their personal perspectives, using words to make sense of their journey through life.  The internet gives us a marvelous platform for doing that. Although we each have our unique viewpoints and writing styles, our mission is similar- to connect and inform other through sharing life stories and experiences.  

♥ How does my writing process work? I’d love to tell you that I have a set writing schedule to which I adhere religiously, that I get up at 5 am every day and write prolifically for several hours. But I’d be lying. I do write something every day, even if it’s three pages of stream-of-consciousness journal writing first thing in the morning. These “morning pages” are critical in helping me think through life situations as well as inspire ideas for later writing projects. I write best in the morning, so whenever I can set aside an hour or two between 9-11 am, I use that time for new writing projects. Ideas come to me willy nilly, mostly when I’m reading, walking, and (unfortunately!) driving. I’m experimenting with an index card system for writing down quotes and ideas that inspire me and might be useful in writing later on. 

To continue this Writing Process discussion, participants are asked to invite three others whose writing they admire, so I’m issuing the invitation to  Joan Z. Rough, Melissa Sarno, and Rachel Kain - and to any of the other awesome writer friends out there who would like to add their voice to the conversation!

Planning Process

The month of May is one filled with busy-ness, even in this pared down version of the life I once lived. There are concerts, rehearsals, and numerous end-of-season events to attend, while the siren song of spring calls me to the flower beds and the deck chair. But where I once panicked at the sight of my scribbled over calendar pages, I feel much more sanguine about the the month of May - in fact, I feel a welcome sanguinity about life in general right now, savoring this sweet spot I’m in where everything is going well. This overall sense of well being is nudging me toward some tentative steps for dreaming of my future.

It takes a certain audacity to plan for the future at my age, and in these days we live in. Having lived through a period of personal and national upheaval (2009, I’m referring to you), it seems almost dangerous to make plans - I can plan and prepare all I want, but the world will always have an agenda of its own that may not comfortably coincide with mine.

I feel silly writing this, but at age 58 I’ve just now figured out that life doesn’t always go as planned. It isn’t as if I knew nothing about fate before 2009 - the year I refer to as The Crucible. But in all the years leading up to that one, I think I believed I was planning when I was really just moving events around, reacting to what life presented me and going with it (or not).

True planning - thinking into the future about something you’d like to achieve or have happen, defining and implanting events or actions toward making that a reality - that’s a totally different animal. Still, Jim and I are allowing our minds to creep forward into the next decade or so, allowing ourselves to imagine “perfect world” scenarios and ways we might get there.

It feels frightening to do that. The worrier in me is always ready with a caveat, a quick slap in the face when I get to deeply involved in my dream world. “Sure, that sounds great, but what if - the economy tanks again, one us gets seriously ill, my mother needs long-term care - etc. etc… Why should I put all this effort into planning when it’s more than likely that something -Fate, The Universe, Karma, or just plain Bad Luck - will swipe all those plans onto the ground in a heap of shattered dreams?

Here’s why I keep planning:

♥  Because I like the feeling I get from dreaming, I like having something exciting to think about when I wake up at 3:30 in the morning, in contrast to the many nights in the past decade when I’ve woken in a frenzy of anxiety about houses and stuff and bills and sickness.

♥ Because I want to live a hopeful life, not one bound by the constraints of fear. I want to be expansive, to walk around with my arms and my heart wide open to the possibility -dare I say the probability - of happiness.

♥ Because, although I usually eschew “magical thinking,” I am willing to experiment with Walt Disney’s notion - If you can dream it you can do it- with the poets and theologians and motivational speakers who believe that thinking can make it come true.

There is a yin and yang to this planning for the future, just as there is with all of life:  a determined effort but a willingness to let go, a strong push toward the ideal without pressure for perfection.   I’ve had a taste now of how A Good Life feels, and it’s all the sweeter for having passed through a time of fire a few years ago.  I know more about what I want and have a better idea how to get there.  It is impossible to control every outcome. But I have to balance my latent fears of fate with my shiny new vision of the future and move forward with as much confidence and hope as I can muster.

Pieces from the Past: Kite Strings

“When I think about why people have children, I realize how little it should have to do with the future. If, before any children are conceived, we knew that our reward for raising them would be perhaps several phone calls a month, a very occasional visit, and the sense of having once been important in their lives, we might not do it. But if we realize that the rewards are given during the raising, we will calculate the cost differently. My children have taught me more than I have taught them, given me more joy than I have given them, and their not being present or even much aware of me now does not alter this.” from The Journal Keeper, by Phyllis Theroux Right before my son’s senior year in high school, my friend gave me a framed reprint of the poem titled “Children Are Like Kites.” You may know it -the gist of it is that you spend years preparing children to “get off the ground”; you run with them, patch them up when they’re torn, pick them up off the ground countless times. You let the string out a bit at a time, until finally they’re airborne. At last the “kite becomes more distant, and you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that binds you together and it will soar as it was meant to war - free and alone."

By the time you get to this part of the poem, you’re choking back tears. Even now, some 12 years later, I get teary eyed reading those last few words.

But then there’s the final sentence: Only then do you know that you have done your job.

I believe that’s true. It’s in the letting go that a parent really comes to know what they’re made of. If you’ve done your job well, when you read that very last line you’ll dry your tears, stand up a little straighter, take a deep breath, and move on.

Most of you know that my husband and I are only children, and in terms of feeling responsible for their parents happiness, I think the burden on an only child is rather great. My parents and my husbands parents were as different as night and day in their child-rearing styles and philosophies, but the outcome on each side was exactly the same. Both of us always felt the need to do whatever it took to make our parents happy, even if that might mean giving up something we desired for our own lives.

When we got married, we had a kind of unspoken agreement - if/when we had children, we would not stand in their way, would not make them feel as if our lives depended on their constant presence, not inspire guilt or worry about what we’d do without them.

We would let them break the kite string and soar.

We tried really hard to do that, and I think we succeeded pretty well - in fact, sometimes I laugh at just how well we succeeded. Our only son left home at 18 to attend school in Florida,  traveled halfway around the world on several occasions, then met and married a young woman from a completely different culture. He lived in Florida for 12 years before moving to Texas three years ago.  I’m sure our parents were stunned by his epic journey, and they probably wonder why in the world we let him do those things.

There’s nothing easy about this process. There’s no magic pill you can take to stop missing your children, to keep your heart from aching when you’re apart on birthdays and holidays, to prevent you from wondering what they’re doing or how their day is going, if they’re in a bad mood or on top of the world. I realize that I’ve always been overly involved in my own mother’s life, and because of circumstance, will become even more involved from now on as she draws closer to the end of it. Sometimes it hurts that I will probably never have that kind of relationship with my own child, that I will likely rely on the “kindness of strangers” to shepherd me through old age.

But on closer reflection, I realize my son’s fierce independence actually provides me with a kind of gift my parents couldn’t give me - it allows me to be responsible for my own life in a way their neediness never could. So I watch my son plan his future and take charge of his dreams, and I too learn how to soar.

Phyllis Theroux said it best in the passage I quoted at the start of this piece: My children have taught me more than I have taught them, given me more joy than I have given them, and their not being present or even much aware of me now does not alter this.

Watching a beautiful, strong, colorful kite waving proudly in the breeze is worth everything, and one of life’s greatest experiences.

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Like A Duet

I attended  a wedding a few years ago  and on the back of the wedding program was listed some of the marriage advice the bride’s third grade students had given her. Their comments were remarkably astute. For instance: Always hear each other, never fight about silly things, tell the truth always.

LOVE each other. If you get in fights, remember the good times.

When you fight, don’t yell or call names. On your anniversary, go out to dinner. Spend time together on the weekend and kiss each other before you go to work. Eat dinner together at the table. Kiss each other goodnight. And if one person is sick, the other should take care of them.

Wow. I was pretty impressed with these words of wisdom from eight year olds. But this is my favorite piece of advice, and it probably appealed to the bride, who is a musician:

Marriage is like a duet. When one sings the other claps.

One of the best things about having a good duet partner is that they support you all the way through the song, and applaud your efforts when you’re done. They aren’t out to prove they’re a better musician than you, they rejoice in your success and bolster your performance when things get tricky.

I was lucky enough to marry my own duet partner - literally and figuratively. As teenagers, my husband and I were studying piano with the same teacher. After confiding our mutual attraction for one another, and then confessing our shyness about pursuing it, she conveniently paired us as duet partners for the spring recital. Three years later, we were married, and, as our Best Man said to us in his wedding toast, we have been making beautiful music ever since.

That was thirty eight years ago today. So I’m thinking about the  last piece of advice those third graders had for their teacher, advice that was really more of a charge:

You should be married FOREVER.

I couldn’t agree more.

Happy anniversary to my duet partner forever.

Pieces of the Past: Destination

 I’ve been spending a lot of time sifting through eight years of blog posts and essays to include in my book, Life in General. Since many of my Facebook friends indulge in something called “Throwback Thursday”, posting photos of themselves from the past, I thought it might be fun to do something similar here, posting some of my favorite “ Pieces of the Past.”  Here’s one from 2006:  

Do you know where you’re going to?

Do you like the things that life is showing you?

Do you know?

Theme song from the movie Mahogany, originally recorded by Diana Ross, 1994

My husband I recently purchased new bikes to use at our home in Florida. It’s a perfect five mile ride around the perimeter of our gated community, with lots of inland waterways to admire as you’re pedaling along, and very little traffic to avoid. We try to get a ride in every morning, and Jim gets the bikes out of the garage while I lock up the house. Then it’s time for the big decision - which way to go? We can ride to the end of our street and turn right or left, making a perfect, neatly prescribed circle around the outside of the complex and returning right where we started from. There are no obstacles, no choices about turns, not even any bridges to cross. There are a couple of speed bumps, but it’s generally smooth sailing - a real no-brainer of a ride.

However, we could also ride through the interior of the community, which is a veritable maze of curving streets, glittering ponds, and arched bridges, requiring fancy gear shifting on the bridges, sharp braking on the downhills, and directional decisions all along the way in order to find your way back home.

Jim will usually say, “I don’t care which way we go. You pick.” If you know me very well, you can probably guess what my inclination is - the safe route, with no chance of getting lost, no challenges to face, just easy riding. Lately though, there’s been a nagging voice inside urging me to take the more adventurous way, the “road less traveled.” My husband, perceptive and gentle encourager, will sometimes save me from the decision and say, “Why don’t we start out toward the Town Center?,” knowing this will take us on the path into the unknown. I’m game to follow his lead, nimbly shifting into lower gears on the uphill bridges, flying down on the opposite side and whirling into a sharp turn at the bottom. We’ve gotten lost a time or two, requiring us to stop, take stock, and then venture bravely toward the way we thing we should be going. So far, we’ve always landed safe and sound at our original destination.

Generally I like “knowing where I’m going to.” I’ve traveled though life on well traveled routes that have taken me toward safe destinations with a minimum of challenge or risk. But I have to admit that sometimes I don’t like the “things that life is showing me.” My choice of destinations, while safe and secure, can be - dare I say - BORING. Maybe the destinations for the next part of life’s journey should be a little less predictable, a little more out of the way.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be quite so afraid to head down the opposite side of the road, where adventure might await.

After all, I have become quite fond of flying down those bridges, full speed ahead.