I AM HERE

Helen over at Schietree asked for pictures of where we write, so I sent her this:

When I looked at the picture, I saw something I hadn’t before. I’m constantly in motion very often leaving little trace. I drive from my house to the train well before my kids get up in the morning. I sit there, in the second seat from the end always on the top tier,  my book bag, my lunch bag and my fuzzy gloves haphazardly on the end seat. At some point in the journey to the city, some or all items will slip to the floor. On a good day, I’m not the one doing the slipping.

Before I get off the train and walk to work, all trace of me will be removed from that workspace.

I work for a large company in corporate America. This is my view from there:

Eleven stories in the sky, a view that will go unchanged long after my days there are over. The view is one of the best parts of the job, with even a view of the Sears, ahem, I mean Willis Tower (Do I really have to call it that? Does anyone call it that?).

Even here, I couldn’t get a picture without reality imposing itself in the reflection of double-paned glass.

Twelve hours a day, those are my views. I’m either bouncing along on a red vinyl seat, or staring out the window, always looking down to the north, looking at the people coming and going out of Union Station. I watch them cross the bridges and wonder what life they are leading, are they content? Do they love where they live, where they work, who they are? Sometimes I’ll stare down and follow someone as they walk until they turn a corner I can’t see past, wondering where life takes them and if they are happy. Do they take the “L”? Can they get home on a moment’s notice?

As these things do, I saw through a simple picture of my train, that I am constantly in motion. I live out of a bag: fountain pen, notebook, reading material and lunch in tow. I’m rushing somewhere even when I sit still. Motion, motion, motion. Sometimes it’s easier not to stop too long and think about what I’m missing because I’m never where I need to be, where I want to be.

Except when I finally get home. I am everywhere from the words of my husband to the colorful expression coming out of my three children’s mouths. The train is spare. My job is spare. My house is colorful. From a pumpkin orange foyer, to the green of the library, the colors surround me.

I exist here:

This is where all of me is stored so I don’t forget. That’s an old refurbished typewriter under my desk. The flamingo batik was my grandmother’s from a trip of hers to Africa. The painting is from my daughter, an anniversary gift. Favorite pictures, stationary, a book recently mailed to me just because it came up and a friend knew I needed it, the Chicago Manual of Style (otherwise known as my nemesis). Journals representing years of work on the desk where I now spend my nights typing them out, excising words and demons. A small green catapult, because who doesn’t need one of those in case of emergency? Clutter to many, treasures to me.

Sometimes I need a reminder as to where I am.

This is my red dot on the map with bold white letters, “I AM HERE.”

Hey Blondie

“It really doesn’t make any difference. I can’t take you seriously. I can’t take any blondes seriously.”

Huh.

No this was not a character in a poorly written novel. This was said. To my face. I stood staring slack-jawed unsure of what the appropriate response was. You see, she was my roommate’s best friend from back in the day. She and her husband lived in a cool old graystone (common in Chicago. For those in other areas, these are the large, two to three-story buildings usually an apartment to a floor. They are beautiful gray stone buildings and can be seen in the best and worst areas.) in an “up and coming” neighborhood. There were restaurants of every culture within walking distance. You know the type. It was the neighborhood coveted for its melting pot, soon gentrified within an inch of its life.

She was dark, curly-haired and artsy. I don’t remember what she did for a living, but it involved writing. Her husband was a set designer for a large theater in Chicago. He had painted murals on the living room walls, and waxed poetic about how he went every night to a coffee shop nearby to write.

My roommate mentioned that I wrote. It’s wasn’t a sufficient amount for Mr. Art-man. He told me I would never be a serious writer. Then his wife responded with the above verbatim quote.

And I, a person rarely at a loss for a remark, stared. She explained that it didn’t matter whether it was dyed or natural. The natural was self-explanatory but the people who wanted to be blonde knew what they were getting into so it was their own fault. On and on she went and I let it go.

Why?

Because I wanted her to like me.

How messed up is that? A challenge thrown down and I wanted, needed to prove her wrong. I had always imagined when I moved out of a small town that I’d be friends with the artsy crowd. People would sit around drinking whisky and wine, smoking bans be damned, discussing current events and blatant things like how one just didn’t take blondes seriously. The fact that someone would have the rudeness to say this to someone they didn’t know, hit me but only deep enough to make me want what I couldn’t have.

Was this the sort of thing Dorothy Parker would say at her round table? Would Scott and Ernest three-sheets to the wind be discussing Tolstoy or would Ernest be trying to goad anyone into a fight and getting Scott to take the bets?

My gray hair is coming in with a vengeance and with the dark auburn I’ve had for years now, I’ve thought about going back to blonde because it’s the color between the sheets of gray. It’d be easier.

People treat me differently auburn versus blonde. They treat me differently depending on whether my hair is long or short. Lest you think I’m as vacuous as Ms. Artsy, the reason it interests me is character. Not mine. The creation of characters.

I recently saw Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I wondered if it would be a different story if Noomi Rapace had blonde hair and I couldn’t get around the fact that it would be vastly different. Such a small, silly thing in a far from silly movie would have made it something else, something other than what it was.

How often when we’re writing do we either write to the stereotype (vigilante woman with jet black short hair, nose piercings) or so obviously against it (cheerleader blonde hiding a secret life) that it becomes its own stereotype, a sort of kamikaze metafiction? Every little decision has inherent weight. Fat or thin. Boyfriend or girlfriend. Loner or social butterfly. Smoker or nonsmoker. Blonde or brunette. Short or tall. Wears heels or flats.

Every. Little. Decision.

I saw Mr. and Ms. Artsy a few more times, and eventually won her over. She commented on how well read I was (please, sir, may I have another?) and how she misjudged me. The beauty was that by the time I had worked overtime to prove this, I no longer cared.

One thing this auburn-haired, blonde believes in is not being rude. And as this small comment popped into my mind tonight, a comment from over ten years ago, I couldn’t help but think what a great character these judgmental assholes would make.

 

Little People

My kids love the movie, Despicable Me so for Valentine’s Day I stayed up way too late to make these:

As I sat at the kitchen island with the molding clay at midnight, I wondered if I had in fact lost my mind.

I had grand visions. One was going to be a two-eyed minion. Another was to have a wig and a dress, from the scene where they go to the store (yes, it is possible I’ve seen it more than once). In the end, they ended up all one-eyed in their blue, worker’s overalls, and their gloves are missing. My patience for making something an inch tall does have a limit.

When I finished, I was happy with the way they came out, but it reminded me of writing. When I looked at the picture of the minion on the DVD cover, I thought this was going to be far easier than the Power Rangers. The minions seemed so much more simple.

That was before I started molding them. Have you ever heard someone say, “I’d write a book too if I only had the time?” Yeah, it’s kind of like that.

As I molded the yellow bodies, then the blue overalls careful not to squish the bodies, I looked and saw they had on boots. I mashed up boots that are about half the size of a dime. At this point I realized that they had goggles over the eye. Goggles? Over that one eye. So be it, goggles constructed, straps placed around back and an hour and a half in and still no gloves.

When you write, you have no idea what goes into it until you do it. You can read a million books and still have no clue.

When I finished, my husband was tickled by how they came out. I think he liked them more than the kids because he saw the work that went in to make something an inch tall. I didn’t enjoy making them any more than I like writing much of the time.

But man, do I enjoy having written.

And I loved these minions. But what I really loved was when my youngest grabbed the fat one (in the center in the picture) in his chubby hand, and carried him with him everywhere he went for the rest of the night.

That must be what if feels like when someone likes what you have written.

I hope so.

Because that would be totally worth it.

Inner Shelf Life – S, T and Part of U

My husband sent me this link to Shelf-Conscious and my head exploded. Did you know that people used to shelve their books spine-in and then draw a picture to represent the book on the exposed pages opposite the spine? Click on the link to see what I mean.

The article goes through some favorite writers who can’t stand to have books around them purging as they go, and those whose books are a vision in all of their spine-y glory.

Oh, yeah, book geeks rejoice.

After forwarding this link to Sarah, my favorite librarian, we decided to pick a random shelf and see what it says about us.

The alphabetizing shows that I am married. Prior to meeting my husband, my shelves were by category. He is an unrepentant alphabetizer. I knew that he would be lost without it, so our compromise was that they would be alphabetized but there would also be large categories. There are two Hunter Thompson books here, but the majority are in non-fiction, separate section.

The stacking shows that we ran out of room, and wait. What is Michael Chabon doing in there? That’s a book of essays. Wrong letter, wrong category. That is an example of my chaos on my husband’s at-one-time organized life.

On the far left stacked above is The Sonora Review, David Foster Wallace Tribute Issue. That should be in the literary journal section. Above that, a book of essays writers writing about other writers. Say that three times fast. I don’t know whose that is. I never thought I’d be able to say that, and yet after all this time our lives and our tastes have merged in some places.

I see Tristram Shandy, one of my husband’s all time favorites and a book that I have begun a handful of times and never been able to get into, or understand. He wanted to name our first son Tristram because of that book. Like the book, I have trouble saying it. The “str” sound in the middle of a name is too much for my mouth.

There’s Amy Tan, and Donna Tartt, two books I adore. Hunter Thompson, a man whose voice is like none I have ever read. On to Thoreau, now you know the poets are not mine, and then we have Tolkien. I had just finished reading Harry Potter when I began Tolkien and read them one after the other, loving every minute. I recall wondering why no one mentioned Harry Potter was a retelling of The Lord of the Rings. Why is that rarely said?

Tolstoy and Turgenev, some of the best short story writers on the planet. And in a bit of synchronicity A Confederacy of Dunces is on the same shelf as my husband’s favorite, although he does love Confederacy. Our second son, came within a hair’s breadth of being named Ignatius after that main character. In my opinion, there has never been a greater comic character in literary fiction.

Oh boy, but now we get my heart, Colm Toibin. The Master…this book may very well have changed my life if I can pull off what I’m trying to pull off with my novel. Brooklyn and his latest which I have yet to read, The Empty Family. I see these and my heart beats faster. The promise of an unread book by a favorite author, oh yes.

I have a horrible recollection about specifics in books. But I do have a sensory overload of the way a book made me feel. I’m that way with friends too, come to think of it. I may need to be reminded of a story that you told me, but I will never forget the look on your face, the sound of your voice, whether I am outraged for you, or in love with the person who loves you for you.

Tolkien- A complete fantastical world.

Updike-A small world, bitterness.

Tolstoy and Turgenev- Looking through a keyhole into a study where two people are having a conversation. Nothing is ever as it appears.

Toibin- Small decisions effecting the lives of families. A writer with astute care.

Thompson- Raw and crisp.

Anne Tyler’s The Accidental Tourist- Sadness

And The Confederacy of Dunces-Sadness turned into humor in the best way possible. Over-the-top situations and the human condition as just that, human.

There’s a few that are mine that I haven’t read. Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, one I’ve tried numerous times to no avail, and oddly, Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, a book for a college class in which I argued so much with the professor he ended up having me teach a section. Still haven’t read that book.

There’s an old book in the far right stack, The History of King Arthur and Arthurian Romances by Chretien De Troyes in its proper place. I recall nothing other than those were for a class.

And lucky for me, there are three at the end I never noticed before, the advantage of being married to a fellow book lover. Letting Loose the Hounds- Udall, Before You Sleep- Ullmann, and The Palm-Wine Drunkard- Tutuola. As for those I think what I usually do, I must read those.

Oh, yes, and the big fat one in the center, War and Peace. Never read it and doubt I’ll ever have that much to prove again.

After all, in the time I read that, I could have read all of the books on these shelves I have yet to read.

Twice.

 

The Giving Keys

Pay it forward.

Anyone who has been listening to me for any length of time knows I love this idea. I came across this website today, The Giving Keys.

A woman had an idea. She stamped a key with a word and strung it on a chain. It’s a word that’s important to you. You pick the word. Then when you meet someone who needs it more than you do, you give the necklace to them. Sometimes the most simple idea can make an impact.

Love.

She met a homeless couple on the street in Hollywood, and talked them into being her business partners. She taught them to stamp the keys and now from what I understand they run the business. The money for the necklaces goes to keeping them off the street (Cera just got a job at the zoo, and Rob just got his GED and went to the community college as of August 2011). Any extra money goes to the shelters that helped them out.

This is it. It is overwhelming to think about how many areas are a disaster. I get that. But sometimes it’s as simple as helping one person. And that person helps one person. And so on. And so on.

And so on.

Sometimes we just need to see the trees. The forest will take care of itself.

And if you get a key necklace in the mail, you know what to do.

The Problem With Younger Women

(My youngest son, age three, has spent his entire life trying to keep up with kids two to three years older at the sitter. Last month, a new child showed up, a girl who turned three last month, C.

For the first time in his life, he has someone who follows him around and plays anything and everything he wants. He has to tell her when he is going to the bathroom lest she follow him there, a fact that he loves. He is greeted everyday by a girl who lights up the moment he enters the room, and he is tickled that she cannot yet fully pronounce his name.

He is now the big kid as you will see by our conversation last week.)

“Hey M., did you have fun playing with C. today?”

“Yeah, you know. She’s my girlfriend”, he says shrugging his shoulders.

“Oh wow. That’s cool. Are you guys going to get married?”

“No”, he rolls his eyes at me. “She’s too young.”

The End

Three years and three months.

Seven notebooks.

Uncountable pen refills.

One thousand nine hundred and ten hours on a train. Approximately.

And tonight on the way home as I pulled into my stop, I wrote these words…

GAH!

I wrote a NOVEL!!! Do you see the dance? Do you hear the Linus and Lucy theme song?? Do you?? DO YOU?!?

I am excited and…satisfied. Anyone who knows me knows that satisfaction for me is hard won. I rest in a state of motion, my mind whirring around ruminating incessantly. It doesn’t stop.

So for this one brief moment in time, my mind rests.

Okay. Rest time’s over. Holy cow, how am I ever going to type and edit this mother…

First, I’m going to drink this beer. Cheers.

Love.

Joy

When was the last time you experienced that kind of joy? Today? A week ago? A month? Years…

What happens to us that we lose the ability to find joy in the small?

I look at this picture of a boy who is now almost seven, and it breaks my heart that one day he’ll be left with the canned smile of school pictures, a moment in time that says more about the culture he lives in, his shirt, his haircut, than it does about him.

This picture reminds me that we still have that kid inside each of us.

Today do something to reach that kid.

Pursue your happiness. Life is too short not to try.

Ninja Mom

One thing I don’t do on the weekends is write. In order to write, I don’t need silence, I write on the train for goodness’ sake, but I do need to be able to check out. I sleep in on the weekends until my kids wake up sometime around seven and then set them up with cartoons while I empty the dishwasher, make the coffee and get them some juice and a cereal bar, otherwise known as breakfast number one.

Before I’m finished getting my first cup of coffee made, my youngest is clamoring for real breakfast and at that point the day has begun. I’ve started running again, so after the breakfast dishes are cleaned up, I run on the treadmill for two miles and then spend twice as long doing exercises to strengthen my back. I’ve been enjoying it, as far as I ever enjoy exercise ,because it’s slow going, and the kids can hang out in the basement and play while I stretch and strengthen my hips, hamstrings, hip flexors and core. It’s mindless, but a treat as I feel good taking care of myself.

A couple of loads of laundry have been washed and dried while I exercise, and  I shower. Then it’s time to fold clothes and put them away, while putting another load in. For a family of five the laundry never stops. Before I know what’s hit me, it’s lunchtime.

And so it goes.

The reason I mention the humdrum-ity, is because it makes me think of all of you out there writing in these wondrous hours. I’m a morning writer. The morning holds so much promise before the day has cracked in with its demands and destroyed it. Anything is possible.

I think that if I’m going to be a “real” writer, I’m going to have to get up at five on the weekends just like any other day and write before the kids get up. I think that if I had a book deal that is exactly what I’d have to do to get edits done, work on the next book and on and on.

But the fact is that I don’t have a book deal. What I have is a family that is neglected due to have a mom that works full-time and commutes 3-4 hours a day. I have a husband that makes dinner every night, and lunch for the kids to bring to school. I have kids that spend more time with their sitter than they do with their mom.

Balance for me means that writing is not the top priority. It means on the weekends I am completely available to my kids so when we have a flukey forty degree February day, I can walk down the street while they ride their bikes. It means that I spend an inordinate amount of time straightening up an unfinished basement to make it fun to play in so that I can exercise.

Why do I need to exercise? I could tell you the line about how I need to lose weight, which is true, but far more honest is that I live for the look on my kids faces when I pick them up by their ankles and flip them upside down. I live for their expression when they want to play “karate” and my hand blocks their punch before they’ve even see me move. I love that my physicality surprises them and I haven’t been able to play like that in awhile.

I want to be the mom I always thought I’d be. Comparatively, the writing is a hobby. I’ll get this book done eventually. What I won’t get is another chance at being around for these little people. I don’t want them to look back at their childhood and remember me saying, “In a minute…”, a minute that never comes. I have to do it enough as it is just to keep us in clean underwear.

And I’ve decided I’m okay with that. For now I have to be (and if you’ve been reading my thoughts for any period of time you know that my opinion will probably change by tomorrow. I take peace in whatever brief moments I can). So I write Monday through Friday as much as I can in the time I have.

In the scheme of things, I have a far better shot of my kids seeing me as a rockstar, ninja mom than I do of being a rockstar writer.

At least not before I can squeeze into my Badass Like A Unicorn t-shirt…

 

It’s All About The Pronunciation

By far I was the biggest reader in my family. My mom would pick up a Women’s World Daily magazine, or Family Circle, and would thumb through it while watching All My Children. My dad read Consumer Report’s and always had the book Firefox on a stack of magazines by his bed, but I never saw him reading it.

I don’t recall my sister ever reading anything. She was all music, blasting Blue Oyster Cult through our paper-thin shared wall. I thought until too late an age that the song was “The Revenge of Lyra Gemini” which was awesome and not so unlikely seeing as she was fifteen at the time, which would have made me nine. She and I had completely different tastes in music, but you’d have to understand the small farm house we grew up in to know why I know all the words to that album, along with Kiss and AC/DC. It was a very small house.

When I was younger I read everything I could get my hands on. The advantage of having a family that didn’t read was that no one worried themselves with what I was reading. So, I went from the stuff that they knew (Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary) into Danielle Steele, then VC Andrews and on to Stephen King. By the time I was in ninth grade, I had serially read each author, every book they had in print at the time, one after the other. One author at a time until I could predict what would happen next, then I’d move on to my next obsession. The perfectionist (read: OCD) traits were there back then.

Because of the age that I read the books, I had an enormous vocabulary. The problem was I didn’t know how to pronounce anything. I’d say it in my head and it’d stick that way even years later when I knew better. I wasn’t about to go to my parents for fear they’d lose the pride they felt in telling everyone they knew that I was “such a reader”, when they found out what I was reading. No way I was going to risk losing my window for a bit of pronunciation.

I think it works to my detriment as I’ll have the just right word to say, and avoid it because it’s one of “my” words. I can’t think of any off the top right now, but I know when I go to say them. I know I’ve never said them right and come across as, well, an idiot.

That being said, there are certain words that drive me nuts when they’ve taken on a new pronunciation. “Niche” is one such word, said nitch. I was watching a home design show, and the designer kept saying niche, pronouncing it “neesh”. I swore she was out to drive me insane because she must have said it a hundred times in the episode and soon after I heard it on the news as neesh. Eesh.

My husband who has an incredible vocabulary and what I see as an unbelievable grasp of language, stands behind the idea that language is fluid and changing. It is alive.

I’m more stubborn. If I know something should be a certain way, I grasp onto it with both hands until it weeps in agony begging for some room to breathe.

Today when my son was practicing piano, he asked for a blanket as he’s getting over the flu. I wrapped it over his head and said, “There we are, the world’s first Jedi pianist” (pronounced PEE’a-nist).

He began laughing, a full-out belly laugh and said, “Why did you call me a penis??” barely managing to get the words out. He’s six. I tried to maintain a straight face as I stumbled saying “No, a pianist, pianist” which only drew more laughter. He had never heard the word.

I turned to see my husband gasping for air in the kitchen, head down on his arms as he leaned on the counter. So much for a united front. The man’s face was purple and he couldn’t contain it anymore, he guffawed.

At this point my daughter came out of the bathroom, met by the hysterics of the men in the house as I tried to make it better and my son yelled out, “Mommy called me a penis!” Her eyes wide, unsure whether she could laugh or not, whether I had taken full leave of my senses.

“Pianist”, I mumbled.

But no one heard through the laughter.

When I was driving home from work yesterday, NPR was discussing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto #3. They referred to him as a pianist (pee-ANN’-nist).

I rolled my eyes. I corrected them in my car saying it over and over again.

Now I know better.