Write On Wednesday: Into the World

Tonight I will be doing something brand new for me, at least new for me as a writer. Tonight I am attending a book club meeting in the role of “author,” a word I still feel strange applying to myself. It’s a momentous occasion, and, as you might guess for this introverted person, a little bit terrifying. 

But still, it’s something I have been so looking forward to doing, something I was honored to be asked to do. And in the end, I keep reminding myself, these women in the book club who read Life In General are women very much like me. They are in the throes of this Life In General business just like I am. I am hoping there was something in my book, something in the words they read there that has connected with their heart and spirit.

This week I’ve been reading The 10 Letters Project, a book by Jen Lee and Tim Manley that captures a year’s worth of emails between these two creative people, emails in which they discussed the intersection of life and art and work. It’s the perfect book to read this week, as I prepare my thoughts for tonight’s gathering. Six months after the publication of Life In General, I’ve been able to see more clearly the importance of putting our voice into the world and gain some greater perspective on the reasons this endeavor was so important for me personally.

And because my original expectations for my book were small, I’ve felt continually bowled over by the reception it’s received. I have been given the gift of being heard, of connecting my story to the lives of other women, many of them total strangers, who now know me in some way, who carry a small piece of me around with them. 

Make no mistake, it’s a scary thing to put your life out in the world for all to see. I have said jokingly to people that “my life is now an open book,” but it’s really true. There is part of me that sometimes want to pull it all back in, to run around and grab everyone’s book and say, “Just erase all that drivel from your mind.” That is the part of me that thinks my life is so ordinary that it’s not worth writing about, and certainly not worth reading about.  

But then one of those readers will reach out to me with a comment like, “I feel so much better since I read the chapter you wrote about church and religion.  I thought I was the only one who felt that way!” 

The gift of a message like that is two-fold: of course it’s validation that my words and experiences can mean something to others. But it also gives me the gift of knowing I’m not alone either. And for someone like me, whose circle of family is SO small, it helps to know I’ve left something of myself behind, let it loose into a world of people that become a little bit like an extended family to me.

“The truth is,” Lee writes, “that with all of our work we are asked to do it on faith. Faith that it is worth making whether we ever see the difference it makes or the pleasure it brings or not, because we never really get to know how far it travels and how much it means and to whom.”

Tonight I will get a glimpse of where Life In General has traveled, and I’m thrilled to go out into the world along with it.

The Heart of the Matter

We’re just home from a short trip to Florida - to the Disney World Resort, where we have a membership in their Vacation Club, which gives us the ability to stay in any of the properties scattered across the mecca that is Walt Disney’s magical “World.” We bought our membership back in the early 1990’s, and have used it to good advantage over the years.  Now that we have a child in the family again, I expect we will continue to make good use of it as we introduce Connor to the wonderful world of Disney.

The resort we like best is Old Key West - it’s style and architecture is modeled after the Florida Keys, and our one bedroom apartment offers a view of a quiet lagoon, with blue herons standing knee deep in the rushes, and willow branches sweeping gracefully over the balcony.

On this occasion, the trip was just for Jim and I, a few days getaway from the pressure of the nine-to-five. Or in his case, the nine-to-seven-or-eight, as it’s been many nights for the past few months. His work life has been extremely harried of late, something he’s not had to contend with for a number of years. So he was definitely in need of a respite. 

As was I. You’ve read my posts about the difficulties of this past winter, the chronic illness, the constant cold weather, the feeling of sadness and want and need that seemed to pervade my spirit. All of those feelings were evident in my writing, and certainly in the way I conducted my life in general here at home. I could put on a pretty good front in public, but at home the guard came down and the frustration and irritability took their toll.

These past few days as we meandered around the resort, wandering hand in hand along familiar sidewalks and avenues, lingering over a glass of wine at outdoor cafe’s, we began to feel all the tensions of everyday life disappear, and with it the tensions that had grown between us. We realized it had been almost two years since we had been away together as a couple. We’ve not been able to travel much recently, and when we have it’s been with friends, musical groups, or family. As enjoyable as those trips can be, it’s not the same as having unscheduled time for just the two of us, where we have only ourselves to amuse, only our own timetable to meet, only our own pleasure to consider. 

It was wonderful and much needed. 

When you’ve been married for nearly four decades, it’s natural to let many things go unspoken. You develop a short hand language - a glance here, a sigh there. Sometimes a raised eyebrow or an irritated shake of the head. There is a collective intelligence you have as a couple based on years of experience and daily life: each individual knows their role, and it’s easy and expedient to remain in the groove of it, to silently follow the familiar path you’ve created. 

But sometimes in marriage, as in life, it’s important to stand back and take stock of where that path has led you. Perhaps it’s to a place as lovely and tranquil as our resort in Florida; but perhaps it’s a prickly thicket of weeds. 

Perhaps it’s a little of both.

Part of the appeal of our trips to Disney World are all the memories we have there. For nearly every place we go throughout the 17 miles of “world” we found ourselves recalling a moment from the past. “Remember when we took Brian and his friend James on the speedboat ride at night to watch the fireworks?” "Remember when we came with the Birkby’s, and Cara was dressed up as Snow White for the Princess Breakfast?” “Remember when we would come here and spend the weekend while Brian was in college?” “Remember how Brian loved to swim in the pool after dark?”

We remember it all. Fondly.

But we aren’t the same people we were in those days. We’ve suffered losses, our health isn’t always good, we get tired much easier than we once did. We worry a little about keeping up with Connor on all those trips we hope to have with him here in the future. We worry a little bit about what life will be like for us in the years ahead, knowing how easy it can be to drift apart, to huddle silently in separate corners of misery.

Katrina Kenison writes about this very thing in her book, Magical Journey. “To grow without growing apart,” she says, "to allow the one you love to be different today than he or she was yesterday and to love him or her anyway, even as you struggle to figure out what has changed: Perhaps this is the challenge that must ultimately be surmounted in every long-term relationship if it’s to remain fresh and resilient, rather than growing stale and stiff with age, too brittle to bend and stretch with time. 

As we age and mature into marriage, we define and redefine “love” so many times. What was considered love in the early days - the intimate pleasure taken in all those “firsts” as a couple; the excitement of building a home and a shared future - all that changes as the “first time experiences become few and far between, as the future begins to look a little grim with worries about health and finances and long-term care. 

“I know my husband and I love each other,” Kenison goes on to say. “But it seems we’re both coming to see that love alone isn’t enough to keep a commitment alive; we need imagination, too. And enough courage and creativity to create a new form for our marriage, a marriage that’s growing old and being forced to adapt, just as we are.”

And there’s the heart of the matter. “Love” - however you define it - isn’t always enough. Yes, it takes imagination to find new ways of relating to one another. Yes, it takes courage to veer off those tried and true pathways, even if they are flat and devoid of scenery. It also takes time and energy, and all too often I spend so many of my resources in those areas on other things that aren’t nearly as important.

Already this morning I awoke feeling threatened by the overwhelming “to-do” list that runs like ticker tape through my brain. Make doctor’s appointments; straighten out a mixup with my mom’s medications; cut the dog’s hair; water the plants; steam clean the wood floor in the kitchen; have the windows washed; return all those shorts I bought that didn’t fit; go grocery shopping; take shirts to the cleaners; write reviews for those books I read; clean the stove in the kitchen...You all know the kinds of lists I’m talking about. They’re all things it seems necessary to get clear of before I can focus on the things that are my true heart’s desire.

The past few days reminded me of how much my husband and my marriage really are my heart’s desire, and how (despite a long daily list of chores, tasks, and modern-day dilemmas) finding ways to make that relationship a priority is what will make my heart sing with true happiness.

The Sunday Salon: Righting My Relationship to Reading

It’s been one of those months, dear friends, a month of rather disappointing reading. Three books in a row failed to grab my deepest attention. I set one aside, but finished the other two, albeit without great enthusiasm. 

And then, as happens in books and in life, things began to look up. In my post the other day was a brand new hardcover, sent out of the blue from Simon & Schuster. (I’m still on their list from the days of having a dedicated book-review blog, and every so often get  a happy surprise in my mailbox.) This one was Eight Hundred Grapes, a new novel by Laura Dave. I admit - I’d never heard of the novel or the author, but it was billed as a book about family relationships and wine: two topics I’m always interested in. I poured myself a glass of Alexander Valley Cabernet, and settled in.

I’m so glad I did. This one pulled me right in, this story of a young woman on the verge of marriage who learns a very unsettling secret about her fiancé. In her despair and confusion, she rushes from her life in Los Angeles straight home to her family’s beloved vineyard in Sonoma County for some comfort. But things at home are uncomfortably unsettled too: her parents are selling the vineyard, her mother has a new love interest, her twin brothers are feuding. As in the best family sagas, things work out in the end, perhaps not as you would imagine, but satisfactorily (or so it seems). Laura Dave’s writing is breezy and bright, with just the right edge of humor and introspection.

Eight Hundred Grapes helped me get my reading mojo back in gear, so I’m relieved. I don’t know about you, but when my relationship with my reading isn’t going well, I feel unsettled and unhappy, almost like I do when I’m at odds with my husband about something. 

Since finishing Eight Hundred Grapes, I started reading Celeste Ng’s, Everything I Never Told You, (released in paperback this week). This is a masterful novel, and although the two novels share a similar theme (the effect of lack of communication and secrets within a family), Ng’s writing style is more refined and thoughtful. Every single sentence is carefully crafted to reveal great amounts of pertinent information and thought; yet the book reads easily and and smoothly. I find myself re-reading paragraphs, the first time to get the story line, and the second time to look for hidden meaning. Besides, I want to make this slender novel last as long as possible because I’m enjoying it so much. 

How about you? How’s your relationship with reading this month?

Committing to the Way

If my parents had stayed married, today would have been their 67th wedding anniversary.

Back in 1990, when my father decided to call it quits on his marriage of 42 years, he also put a hard stop to any further celebration of anniversaries. For a number of years after he left, I would bring my mother a single red rose on May 22, just to let her know that I remembered, that I cared, that I grieved with her for the milestones they would not celebrate together.

On May 22, 1998, on what would have been their 50th anniversary, she accepted the rose, gave me a hug, and said, “Let’s stop remembering this day."

Obviously, that’s easier said than done, because here I am, still remembering it. 

Today, she and I went out shopping as we do a couple of times every week. She likes to go out to one of the “big box” stores like Target or Meijers, stores where she can walk around in a safe environment and pick up some items she needs or wants. It is de rigueur that she have a shopping cart to use for balance and support while walking, so our shopping expeditions are limited to stores that have these carts. I know -  she needs to use a walker, but she is adamantly against them.

“Why don’t they have something like a shopping basket for old people to use when they walk?” she asked me not long ago.

“But MOM,” I said, trying not sound like an exasperated 13-year old, “they do! It’s called a WALKER.” 

“Oh, those things,” she replied dismissively. “I’m not going to use one of THOSE!"

So. Target and Meijer’s it is. And Kohl’s! Thank you Kohl’s for having shopping carts.

Anyway, today neither one of us mentioned The Anniversary. We haven’t mentioned it in years, and although I’m quite sure she’s as aware of the date as I am, she never brings it up. We’ve simply decided “not to remember it” any longer. And so we don’t.

On my mantel I have three wedding pictures: One of my husband and myself, another of my son and daughter-in-law, and the third a sepia toned photo of my parents on their wedding day. My mother has dark, wavy hair that lies gracefully across her shoulder. She wears a brightly printed dress (no big wedding for these two - my dad had only $90 to his name on their wedding day, so they were married in the minister’s living room.) My dad is dark and exotic looking, with his olive skin tone, deep set eyes, and black hair. My mother looks directly into the camera lens in that photo, and she looks deeply sure of herself, relaxed, and happy.

But my dad is looking slightly off to the right, as if he’s not quite committed to the whole thing. I look at that photo a lot, and I wonder - was he a little bit unsure, even then, this handsome, dark eyed 20 year old, fresh off the boat from the Pacific Theater in WWII. Was he even then thinking about what might otherwise have been?

The poet Wendell Berry says this about Marriage: “Because the condition of marriage is worldly and its meaning communal, no party to it can be solely in charge. What you alone think it ought to be, it is not going to be. Where you alone think you want it to go, it is not going to go. It is going where the two of you  - and marriage, time, life, history, and the world - will take it. You do not know the road; you have only committed your life to a Way."

My parents committed themselves to a Way, back on May 22, 1948. The “Way” in that time was so much different from the “Way” it is now. People got married and it was expected they would STAY married. There was no trial period, no “shacking up” ahead of time to see how things went. Couples often married young (my parents were 20 and 21) because marriage was the only acceptable way for a young man and woman to co-habitate in those days. 

For my parents, the Way seemed clear cut and straightforward. They were, for the most part, happy couple. They each had their prescribed roles, they fulfilled them to the best of their abilities. They were the quintessential “Baby Boomers”: my Dad owned a small successful small business, my Mother kept a nice home, they had a smart, well-behaved, pretty daughter, a nice home in suburbs, and a new car every couple of years. 

The proverbial ALL - at least as far as the requirements of the 1960’s and 1970’s went.

Still, something was missing - the “something” that pushed my 60 year old Father into the arms of another woman almost 20 years his junior. I can speculate: He married too young in the first place; he didn’t get to sow enough wild oats; my mother was too “tame” for him; he wanted a more glamorous lifestyle. His life must have been a disappointment to him - and of course I have included myself in the list of things that must have fallen short on his list of accomplishments. I have often felt myself to be lacking in some important something that would impel my father to keep the family intact. 

Then I come back to those words of Wendell Berry’s: What you alone think it ought to be, it is not going to be. Where you alone think you want it to go, it is not going to go. It is going where the two of you  - and marriage, time, life, history, and the world - will take it. You do not know the road; you have only committed your life to a Way."

I’m not an athlete, but these words make me think of marriage as something like a Marathon race. Once you’ve committed yourself, once you’ve signed up for it, laced up your shoes, slapped your number on your chest, and bellied up to the starting line, you’re committed  to The Way: to the course, the track, the lane - whatever stretches out in front of you. You put one foot in front of the other, you huff and puff, get red in the face, you spurt and sputter. You keep pounding the pavement.

And when you break the ribbon at the finish line, whether you are first or one hundred and first, you rejoice because you made it. You may be exhausted and breathless, but you’re there all the same. 

When I was growing up, my parents seemed to have the perfect marriage. My Dad was always warm, loving, kind, and thoughtful toward my mother and me. Nevertheless, something inside him was deeply enough hurt that he was able to forsake his commitment to the way of marriage and family. 

Even after all this time, I still wish he could have stayed the course and finished the race he started 67 years ago today.

Write On Wednesday: Who Needs It Most

“There are people out there - unique human beings with uncommon desires - each of whom deserves ten minutes of beautiful music. That’s why we’re musicians. You never know who is listening. It might be someone who really needs the music you play. Maybe the person who needs it most is you.” Robin Meloy Goldsby, Piano Girl

Last night I was in a grumpy mood. I was fed up with bureaucracy and modern day annoyances. I got a nail in my tire and had to buy a new one. I got a notice in the mail about a new fee arbitrarily imposed that I would have to pay.

It was an “I think I’ll move to Australia" kind of day.

Then last night I went to a concert. It was my friend’s high school end-of-the year Pops concert, a night when the choirs appear on stage in matching t-shirts and jeans, when (some incredibly talented) soloists took the mike in the style of The Voice and belted out songs of their own choosing. There was a live band. There were strobe lights. There was purple haze.

And all of a sudden I wasn’t grumpy anymore. Who could be, in the face of so much music  being so thoroughly enjoyed?

Goodness knows, we all need a little bit of beauty in our daily lives. Music is one of the ways I’ve always gotten my daily dose: sitting down at the piano and playing whatever takes my fancy for 10 minutes or 2 hours, depending on what the day will allow. Sometimes it’s the same way with writing. I might be in bad mood, I might think there isn’t an ounce of creativity in my head, I might be as certain sure as anything that I have absolutely nothing to say. 

And then I pick up a pen. 

The words come from somewhere, every single time. Words I need to write, words that need to be said. Sometimes I share them here, sometimes I let them stay buried in the pages of my journal, but I always feel differently when I’m done. 

Perhaps we should think of art as a public service. Even in small doses, it is a powerful thing - to hear beautiful music, read words that resonate in your soul, stare into the depths of a masterful painting. It can turn your day around, perhaps even turn your life around. Art heals by "activating the medicines of creative imagination.” Current studies confirm that "art has the power to evoke strong transformative responses in the observers’ psyche by changing their emotions, attitudes, and behaviors."

The medicines of creative imagination  - we can all use those, probably more than some of the expensive prescription drugs we turn to in times of anxiety and stress. You never know who most needs to hear your music, read your words, or envision your art. It might be your partner, your child, your friend. It might be a total stranger.

It might be you.