Three Types of Stories

When I go home to New York and meet up with friends, we tell stories. One story segues to the next, covering husbands and kids and jobs or lack thereof. We laugh and we commiserate. Usually if the fates allow, we do this without husbands or kids, just us, the same crew that has known each other since elementary school, or at the latest high school. We gather at a local bar, a small town bar, and the beer flows. My friends are all beer drinkers. Must have been something in the water back home.

One story leads to the next, we laugh and we outdo.

“Oh you think that’s bad? Let me tell you what Johnny did upon entering the pool!” On and on it goes and the longer we’re there, the more serious the stories, the more in depth the emotion, until it’s late and we remember we’re sitting here with people who know us better than we know ourselves. That’s when the good stories happen. The superficial funny is out of the way, and the real questions come up, the real opinions rise to the surface. We are an opinionated bunch, but only when it’s just us.

I think sometimes when writing doesn’t work, it’s because we’re writing down those initial stories. They’re the stories you’d lay out when you’re remembering your friendships, those with people you haven’t seen in some time. They’re clever, and inventive, and trying to outdo the next one, not out of competitiveness but out of a desire to relate. I think we are all looking to connect and relate with those people who get us, as we are, no holds barred. Those stories are the refresher course, and while charming as a bar story, they just aren’t good enough to outlast a few retellings.

I think sometimes when writing doesn’t work, it’s because we’re going for the second level stories. Those are the stories where we talk about an argument we had or a way we dealt with a kid, where we didn’t do the right thing, and we knew it. These stories are honest, but yet we know we’re surrounded by people who have been there and know us well enough to give us the benefit of the doubt. We’re out on a limb, but we’re well aware the people listening have the Fireman’s Trampoline and are walking to and fro waiting to catch us if we lose our grasp.

Then there is the third type of story.

This is when you go to the edge of the cliff sweating adrenaline because you’re afraid of heights.  You look down and see choppy water thirty feet below, and your friends’ heads bobbing in the water. You have vertigo, your knees are made of playdoh, and you more fall forward than outright jump.

These stories are the ones you tell because you have to get it out. You may be having an affair and are going to leave your husband. You may have had one too many blackouts and think you need to stop drinking. You may have fallen in love with a woman. You may not like your kids very much. You may have quit your job, lost your house, and have no plans whatsoever to remedy the situation. These are the stories that are difficult to tell, and the ones that your friends sit around all eyes on you. No one is thinking about what to tell next. Your story is the focal point and you’re not sure how your friends will react. Some will be supportive, some will disapprove, some will play the devil’s advocate. Someone will buy the next round.

When we write, we need to get to the third story. You’ll know it because it hurts to tell and it really is that good. It’s the one that says we’re not alone, the one that is begging humanity for a connection. I think the third type of story is the reason we write, at least some of us, and the reason we need to. I know when I’m reading a book when the author is telling the third story. I forget where I am, or how tired I am, and just read and read because I have to know how it ends.

The first and second story are practice. The third story is what counts. Don’t worry about an agent, or a publisher, or what your mom will think. Just get the third story down.

Write it till it hurts.

 

Plan B for Bully

My son got punched in the eye. This happened twice this week by two different boys.

We went to my niece’s graduation party. It was at a park, held in the afternoon on a cold but sunny day. The pavilion was in a wind tunnel so the huddled masses fled to the outskirts, sitting in chairs (if you were the sort to plan ahead) or on the pavement (if you were from my immediate family) where the concrete was warmed from the sun and toasted our buns. We must have looked an odd group gathering just on the edges, segregated by family tree.

A park was a small path’s distance away, so the older nieces and nephews took charge of the youngers. This was the first year that I was confident enough to let my youngest go with his cousins, without me. I want my kids to grow up with freedom like I had, yet, and yet…

My husband and I sat tucked close together, enjoying the sun-strip flocking. People sat single file, so aside from an occasional chat, you weren’t forced into it. Trust me, that’s a better situation all around. We sat close, me drinking a can of beer which was set in a plastic cup for discretion, kickin’ it old school.

I went to check on the kids, my two older ones had left for the large handicapped portapotty, and sure enough, the youngest had to go. We dashed across the field with just enough time to do a quick cleanup before setting my youngest’s tush down on the seat. We could hear the older two, in the adjacent portapotty, doing God knows what, but laughing hysterically about it. I didn’t want them to know I was in the next one. They were doing something they shouldn’t by their laughter, but sometimes you just don’t stop the laughter.

They were out before us, and the toddler and I followed so he could show me all of his climbing abilities. “Look Mommy! Look!” over and over, and I did not taking my eyes off of him. Up and down, over around, over again and on and on until my brother-in-law’s wife made a beeline for me. She and I have had our difficulties in the past but we each adore the other’s children and treat them like our own. She got an inch from my face.

“That little kid just hit J. in the face, a couple of times! I went to J. to make sure he’s okay, and I don’t know what happened, but I thought you should know.”  J. was riding on one of those four-person, bouncy, see-saw things. He sat holding his left eye, not crying but sat with a stunned expression. My fourteen year old nephew sat on one of the horses staring at him (oh, yes, that’d be the nephew I love but who was supposed to be watching the youngers) and one other boy. The boy was a year younger and from the other side of the family. He sat defiant, arms folded, staring down my son. My son appeared to be holding in a cry, but too confused to even do that.

“That one? What’s his name?”

“In gray. Name’s T.”

I marched over to my son and asked if he was okay. He was quiet and the thing about his expression was that he looked defeated. He looked as if something had just happened and nothing could be done about it. I looked at his eye and there was a small scratch and some swelling. “I don’t know what happened. He just came over and poked me in the eye.”

Mama bear was in the house.

I turned to the other boy. “You do not hit people. Do you understand me?” The boy scowled at me and turned away. Nope, sorry, I’m not that mom.

“T. Look. At. Me.” He slowly turned his head, his confidence deflated. “You do not hit anyone and you certainly do not hit my son. Am I making myself clear?” He looked at the ground and nodded. I went back to J. who was still putting pressure on his eye with the heel of his palm.

“Let me see it again. Let’s go get some ice for it, maybe we can keep it from swelling.” J. nodded and we walked off to the pavilion. I got some ice, wrapped it in a napkin and sat down with J.

“Mommy, I really don’t know what happened.”

“J., no one is allowed to hit you. Ever. If that ever happens again, you find me.” At this he started laughing.

“Well, I was pretty lucky. I didn’t know you were right there!”

Yesterday we were out front playing. The three kids took a walk down to Mrs. Pond, as the drainage pond at the end of our street is affectionately called and came back as my three kids and an extra boy on a scooter. The boy is a sweet kid, but he is a handful. He was the oops baby, has parents who love him, but perhaps have given up a bit. He runs wild. He’s my son’s age, yet has already had detention twice (kindergarten, mind you), and the mom got two calls in one week because he hit two kids on the bus. One was a fifth grader. She says he’s acting out for attention. True. She says he and his older brother are always smacking each other around. I say nothing, but am tempted to say that might not be something that is agreeing with him.

The boys are playing, and as is the case when he stops by, within minutes I’m yelling in my mom voice to stop, they are being too rough, no, they are not allowed to try to squash the flowers/trees/plantings in my neighbor’s yard. I yell at them both, but my son isn’t doing it. It just isn’t good form around here to yell at someone else’s kid. It becomes a problem when their parent is standing and watching and saying nothing.

The mom relayed a story to me about the week prior, when her son was playing with some water and dirt. Her next door neighbor, a nice but strict-seeming man (who has a son so he’s not unfamiliar with boys energy levels), was driving down the road after just getting his car washed. Her son threw mud and rocks at the car. He stopped the car, got out, and went ballistic. I said to her, well, that was probably good, no? Did it at least scare him a little? Her response was no, her son wasn’t disturbed by anything. He’s six years old.

So the two boys were playing in my yard, her son under a small kid parachute, my kid on top of him tickling him. You could hear them both laughing so we didn’t watch too closely.

The next we know, her son is on his scooter and zooming across the street to their house.

“Where are you going?” She shouts as I’m watching for cars as the whole neighborhood has learned to do. This kid has been in and out of traffic since he could walk.

“I’m done!”

I look over and J. is sitting on the ground with his hand on his face, the same expression I had seen but three days earlier. I head over to him, she tries to catch up with her son.

“What happened?”

“He hit me. Not once, but he kept hitting me.”

“What? Why? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“We were playing and then he came out from under the parachute and he started hitting me. And not like jokey either. He was doing it mean. Really mean.”

We were on the way inside, and I told him that I didn’t think they were really a good match. Nobody had the right to hit him…the same thing I said before. He nodded, but it broke my heart. I sent him in, and was picking up all the toys, when my neighbor and her son came back.

“We have to get this out.” She said. I called J. back from inside the house, and he stood there like a kid waiting to get in trouble.

“J. said that E. hit him.”

“I didn’t hit him. I smacked him across the face a couple of times.” There was the defiance. Oh man. My patience for other people’s children was really being stretched. “I told him to get up and he didn’t.”

His mom talked to him in calm tones. I talked to J.

“Mommy, I didn’t hear him. I didn’t. I swear.”

She smiled and said, okay boys, shake hands, which they did and they did it hard so began laughing with each other. We said goodnight.

I told my husband, when I thought J. was out of hearing range, that if this kept up we were going to sign J. up for Kung Fu. I had been tossing the idea around anyway. I think martial arts is great discipline, and a great art for children. I told him that if it happened again, I may have to institute Plan B. Hit the kid back. My husband, laughed knowing I was kidding. My son responded, “Okay, but Mommy? Make sure you just use the code words, Plan B, that way they won’t know what’s coming.” Whoops. Wrong parenting lesson right there.

As I was laying in bed with the youngest, my older son on the bunk over our heads, I told him I was proud of him for not hitting back. I told him he should never, ever be afraid to tell me, even if he didn’t think he did the right thing. Even if he had heard him say “Get off.”, he could tell me. I told him we’d reach out to some of the kids in his class that he liked so much and we’d have them over to play. He immediately began making his list.

I also told him that E. and he were not allowed to play any kind of fighting/light sabers game. And that if it happened again, he wouldn’t be allowed to come over. My son said he didn’t really want to play with him anyway right now. The look on his face was too mean.

“I’m really proud of you that you didn’t hit him back though. That had to be hard when somebody smacks you in the face. You’re turning into a real man, buddy.”

“Mommy, if you hit a bully back, you become the bully.” I sat silent. Stunned.

“Where’d you learn that?”

“Assembly at school. It’s pretty important.”

“As are you, buddy.”

From the mouths of babes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who Needs Brutal Honesty Anyway

They say you shouldn’t have your first reader be someone with whom you share a bed. Who are they? Well, you know. Them.

I’m making the rounds this week, and this time I’m over at Laura’s? To share or not to share, that is the question. And what’s the crap about brutal honesty anyway…

A Love Note to Lorrie Moore

I have read thousands of books. The reason I point this out is I wonder how I have done that and just now gotten around to Lorrie Moore.

She does what all great writers do. She has a plot, fills in the description, adds the tension, some mystery, and a book is born.

Now I have no interest in being a critic, or a book reviewer. I could do that but there are far smarter and more astute individuals out there to applaud and in equal measure tear apart a book for good or sometimes for naught. Instead, I’d like to share some sentences, and there are some on every single page that worked for me. Now there are some sentences that I would have loved to include but above all I believe in protecting the plot and all of its surprises. So instead these are small sentences that left me asking myself about why I haven’t read her sooner.

My brain was on fire with Chaucer, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir. Twice a week a young professor named Thad, dressed in jeans and a tie, stood before a lecture hall of stunned farm kids like me and spoke thrillingly of Henry James’s masturbation of the comma. I was riveted. I had never before seen a man wear jeans with a tie.

Page two, and I’m chuckling. Four sentences and she has summed up the personality of the narrator while making the reader laugh. At least this reader did. Four sentences and not once did she describe the narrator, what she looked like, how she dressed, nothing. But you knew didn’t you? Don’t you have an image of her?

I’d thought I had glimpsed on the way up the girl I imagined she once was, her face still and thoughtful, her hair in the sun ablaze with light–how a girl like that became a lonely woman with a yarny shmatte on her head, became this, whatever it was. After a childhood of hungering to be an adult, my hunger had passed. Unexpected fates had begun to catch my notice. These middle-aged women seemed very tired to me, as if hope had been wrung out of them and replaced with a deathly, walking sort of sleep.

By the time I got to the end, I had to read that description again. I remember the first time as a young woman that I had grown up enough to see outside of my own life. I remember seeing some of my friend’s moms and how very tired they were. I hadn’t the words then, and here they were on the page, the only difference being that it now described myself and my friends. We were the middle-aged women.

She wore glasses, and behind them I could see her eyebrows were shaved into a think line–the stubble showing both above and below. The think line was lengthened at the end with an eyebrow pencil, which looked about as natural as if she had just taped the pencils themselves over her eyes. I had always been told never to pluck above the brow, only below but never above, and never, ever shave them, and seeing her standing there, in the muck of her mistake, I finally knew why people had said all that stuff about plucking. I stood to greet her. She looked puffy and medicated.

One small detail and a woman is captured in her entirety. Oh, Ms. Moore, how I love you so. Not a mention of her eye color, her hair color, just the detail of her eyebrows. I read this and knew it was time to go back over every description in my own work and fix it. It gave me hope that it can be fixed, and yet astounded me that one writer’s mind can get there, to that one little detail that carries so much weight.

His hands were pushed inside the green sweater sleeves of each opposite arm, like those of a girl trying to stay warm, but his hair–its mix of old road snow and smoke–gave him the steely look of the wise elder. The contradiction–the hair, the girlish hand-up-the-sleeves–was unusual to my eye, and if you studied it, perhaps some conclusions could be reached about the nature of his character, but I didn’t then appraise it with any purpose, and the look of him just seemed to produce a slightly odd and comic swirl of hybridity.

“I didn’t then appraise it with any purpose”. How very clever. The detail of the sleeves, the hair, the wise elder, all to be undone with a nonchalance because it’s done in first person. Did I mention that? Perhaps not for fear my head would explode, but she wrote this entire novel in first person, and I was constantly forgetting that fact until she wanted me to remember. Lorrie Moore is a master craftsman. Don’t let the simplicity of the language fool you.

In Dellacrosse, I had always known whom people were referring to. I also didn’t really know what people meant when they said of themselves that they were “different people then.” It seemed a piece of emotional sci-fi that a small town would not have allowed.

I’m a girl from a small town, and the last sentence captured something about living near Chicago that I have never been able to capture. Fifteen words and an entire town is captured. It’s the “I call bullshit” rule, no? She says it more elegantly but either way, it’s as true as a sentence can be.

These are small bits, that don’t impact the major or minor plots. You’ll just have to trust me that if she does small this well, her big is a feat. She writes truth with such a deft touch, all the while not getting caught up in her lyrical prowess, one she most certainly possesses.  I got the impression many times that she had to scale back to stay true to her first person narrator which allowed her to knock down every domino at the end.

I get why people say they don’t read literary fiction. I do. What I’m sharing here is the reason that I read literary fiction. I want the detail. I want that one precise moment that describes a character without ever giving in to the obvious. I’m like a leech bleeding a patient, reading a paragraph once, then stopping to start it over knowing I must have missed something, if not important, than something whose beauty shouldn’t be glossed over. Literary fiction doesn’t have to mean stuffy or unrelatable or pretentious. It just means that the details will be covered. It means you may have to reread something you missed. This book had page turning sections, it had mystery, it had plot. Don’t write it off just because. You’ll be sorry you did.

Thank you Ms. Moore for writing this and bringing me those luscious details. Thank you for pointing out for me where I can improve my own writing. This is my way to do an MFA. I’m adding you to my syllabus.

Twisting the Kaleidoscope

I’ve wandered and roamed, meandered and rambled.

See all the colors, the fractured shards of light?

Let’s go to Vegas and Twist the Kaleidoscope. Who’s up for talking dirty?

Follow me…

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

I walk fast.

I don’t have the stroll gene. The only time I strolled were my two pregnancies, and that was technically a waddle. Carrying a ten pound infant will do that to a girl.

I’m a commuter. My line is pulls into Union Station and inevitably there will an Amtrak disembarking and the station will fill up with people with those rolling suitcases. I wish I were a better person, but I go nuts weaving around these people clogging the arteries of the underground. They stop dead to consult each other, to consult an itinerary.

Today as I drove to the train it was a deluge. We got 5 inches of rain and the roads were a mess. At one point, I heard the sound of deep rain pounding off of my hubcaps. I don’t know what car could handle that type of rain, but I slowed knowing a Honda Civic is not that car. I looked at the depth of the water on the tires in front of me and it had to be two inches up the tires. I slowed down. I didn’t miss the train only because the stop before me was flooded. We were delayed. Normally, I get into the station at 7:30 a.m., to my desk at 7:35 a.m. Today I got there at 7:55 a.m., with a meeting at 8:00 a.m. I made it. This is the state of my life right now.

I’m always dodging people trying to get to my destination, in order to wade through, turn around and do the reverse for the commute home. I write my book, I write my blog, I read my friends, and rush through all of it sometimes wishing I could slow down.

I need to slow down. I’m burnt.

I dodged the tourist on the return trip home, reading before falling asleep for the half an hour I squeeze in that allows me to stay up until midnight to get some more writing done. My train was late getting home, then the drive to my house was plagued by lights out at intersections and the police navigating the mess of commuters. I got home late. This is the part that upsets me as it’s my only time of the day with the kids. I resent every second my commute keeps me from them.

I heard my husband saying, “Mom, I can’t understand you. What’s the matter? You have to stop crying so I can understand you.” And the world became calm and silent. She was on the way to our house for dinner like she does every week, and got a phone call on the way that her baby sister passed away. She’s miles away, had been trying to get in touch with her for weeks but all the numbers she had were wrong. She got to our house, and was devastated. She never got to say good-bye. She never got to say, I love you.  I kept repeating that her sister knew, that life happens, but my words weren’t enough. I was at a loss.

I thought about how I rush through life, always so busy, and wondered how many people I have lost touch with.  How many people do I need to tell I love you, just in case? How many people do I need to forgive, if nothing else, so that I can have peace, even if they don’t know they’ve done wrong?

I feel like it’s time for a housecleaning. Clear the clutter, reshuffle the priorities. Make it better. Make me better. Be better. There are too many balls that I juggle, that my husband juggles, and I need to get us to the point that the why makes sense. I see the strain lately on my husband’s face. It’s there when I get home, but gone after he’s spent some time in a chair reading a book, music playing low in the background.

Life is too short to be spending my worry on people with roller luggage. Hell, how hard is it to wait a minute for them to get oriented? Okay, it’s hard but maybe it goes to my overall being. I need to slow down, if not physically then in my racing mind. I need to find my inner hippie chick. I know she’s in there somewhere.

I need to throw out the catalogues for clothes I’m not going to buy because I’m not that size. I’ve got to go through my closet, and my files.I’ve got to come up with a new system for managing everything I have going on, because I’m blessed to have people that would like my time, I need to be better at doing it. I need to drop the guilt of life, and just do what I need to do, more importantly what I can do, and what doesn’t get done, doesn’t get done.

I’ve got to clear a space for the writing because it is that important. Less so than my family, moreso than everything else. I have to lose the guilt. What a drain of good productive energy.

Do any of you know this feeling?  The feeling to renew? To stop talking and just do, just be?

Buzz Cuts, Nail Paint and The Deep End

The Jedi got a buzz cut.

I have to admit. I dragged my feet. He has always been particular about his hair.  I assure you, he doesn’t get it from me. Ever since he was two, his hair had to be combed straight down. If it stuck up in any manner, he’d freak. He did inherit from me some unruly cowlicks. When his hair is cut too short, it sticks up.

Last Saturday, he mentioned the buzz cut again. I remembered the nail polish.

I was painting his sister’s nails, when he and the toddler said they wanted theirs done too. He had school the next day, and I said that I would be happy to paint his nails but it was possible some of the boys in his class would make fun of him. He thought about it and changed his mind. The toddler still wanted his done, so I painted those blue and green and he went to the sitter’s with his “nail paint” on, happy as he could be. Upon getting there one of older boys saw it and started laughing saying, “Nail polish is for girrrrllllsss.”

The toddler looked at his nail paint, looked at the boy and said, “Um, nope.” Then he went about his day not the least bit concerned. That polish had to wear off on its own, as he wouldn’t let me near it. He loved it.

It really bothered me, that in my effort to protect my older son, I somehow validated that what they were saying would be true, that they would be in the right to make fun of him. Great lesson there, mother of the year.

So, when the buzz cut came up, my thoughts first ran to this blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy and I thought I don’t want him to look like a skinhead. Then I remembered the nail polish, looked at my husband who said, “Let’s go,” and off they went to the barbershop, the same place that cut my husband’s hair, and his dad’s hair back in the day. They have a swirly pole.

The Jedi returned beaming and for days every sentence went like this:

“Are you sweating? Because feel this! I don’t even sweat anymore with the buzz cut.”

“Mommy, I just noticed something.” He runs to the front door. “I’m faster now with the buzz cut.” And on and on.

“Mommy, you should really get a buzz cut.”

“Actually, I had my hair just a tad longer than that.”

“You did??”

“I have a picture of it somewhere,” I said and then remembered the only picture I have of it has me and an ex, and that’s not being pulled out anytime soon. “I had it about an inch long and it was dyed really blonde. Whitish.”

“Did you love it?”

“Totally.”

Mr. Buzz Cut started swim lessons this week. His hair is as fuzzy as a sunflower stem. The week prior all we’ve heard about is how he can’t wait to go to lessons and show them how he can swim. We correct him, “No, you can’t. They’re going to teach you.”

“Yeah, I figured it out. I’ll show them.”

“No really. You can’t swim.”

Now the reason for our firmness in his inability is because he has always thought he could swim. He jumps into pools, and when you drag him out as he’s spitting up water, choking, gagging, he’ll tell you to let go. He’s got it this time. He remains unfazed in the face of reality. He thinks he was just about to unleash his swimming prowess but you pulled him out just before that moment. He gets angry about it, but you’re too busy with your heart palpitations to argue. This year, we finally got him a spot for swim lessons.

Two instructors. Four kids. Nice ratio, right? Except, one student kept letting go of the side of the pool and going under. My husband heard our son’s name called repeatedly, telling him to not go further into the deep end, etc. It is day two.

My husband pulled the instructor aside and asked him today if our son was doing okay. He wanted to know if the instructor wanted him to be more active in keeping our son attached to the side of the pool.  The young man said, “Actually he’s doing great. It’s so much easier having a kid like that than when they’re scared or super shy.” Phew. He’s still in lessons and on day two, he can float on his back for 15 seconds, and hold his breath under water for the same. At the rate he’s going, he’ll probably be swimming by the end of the week.

The last day of school for the kids was this past Monday. Sunday night I painted my daughter’s nails, and then her tiny cohort, The Toddler’s. The Jedi wanted his done, and I said sure. He picked blue and green, and at the end just wanted each nail a different shade ranging from his sister’s light pinks, to the greens, to the blues. She didn’t want to put the pinks on him, and gave me the look, but I nodded the go-ahead.

The next morning before leaving for school he asked my husband to take it off. He didn’t like the pinks. He told me later I should paint them clear next time. He liked the shine.

So cut your hair, paint your nails, and jump in a pool because who knows. Maybe one of these times, you will be able to swim.

Oh. And write like you’re a little boy who has a buzz cut.

 

 

 

Snapshots and The Pursuit of Happiness

She was 18. A royal blue shiny dress, the top sequined. A dance and wine coolers. Truth or dare. Dare. The truth is to precious to share. Flat bed trucks, a four-wheeler race, a dry sauna. She stood on one side of a door, heart beating, clothes in hand. Spanish being spoken. Rob Base, Bell Biv DeVoe, VanHalen, TLC. Rumors. An overheard phone call, a woman with a child in Florida.

She was 19. Short lycra/spandex skirts with half tops. Bartending. Sharing a grapefruit by a kitchen sink at midnight. A six year age gap. A diamond necklace. A basement apartment in a parent’s house. Luther Vandross, Peabo Bryson, Sade. A family Christmas. Racism. Tequila. Salems. Drinking. Begging. Fighting. Losing. Lies. Love. A reduction to black. To Japanese. To white. Rumors of a diamond ring. Her running away. His drinking. Her begging. His drinking. Her drinking. Phones thrown across rooms.

She was 21. Foosball. A challenge. Throwing up beside a car. Dracula. My Secret Garden. Weight lifting. Karate. A watch on a nightstand. Short brown hair out the back door, new brown hair in the front door. A friend’s laugh. Southern Comfort. Bud Light. Nine years apart in age. Moving to Chicago in a Blizzard. Champagne on a rooftop overlooking Wrigley Field. Too big. Running. Drinking replacing eating. A move into a coach house. Cockroaches. James Taylor. Improv. Rehearsing. Singing. Never to her. A woman’s message on a machine. Home at 4 a.m. Drinking. Moving out.

She was 26. Jeans from a thrift store. Long brown hair. Notes left in pockets. Camping. Fires. Bud light. Hidden from view. Invisible but alive. A parade. A token. A gold ring too small. Silence. Soul searching. Silence. Leaving. Staying. Melissa Etheridge, Sarah McLachlan, The Indigo Girls. Bars and pool. Drinking. Winning. Losing. Always losing. A teacher. A website. A travesty. Dancing. A first house. A joint bank account. The friend. The lover. The destruction. A beer can being thrown. A deck being built. A house being bought out. Running away. Tears.

She was 32. Running. An e-mail. Books. Eye contact. The bluest eyes. Honesty. Two sets of eyes, one big, one small. The Grateful Dead. Bob Dylan. Dave Matthews. A banjo. A red guitar. A proposal with a mouthful of pizza. The first yes. The only yes. A second house. Microbrews. Babies. Marathons. Kauai. Talking. Always talking. Life. Love. Peace.

And the pursuit of happiness. Who has a snapshot?

Personal Editing, Neil Gaiman and John Mayer

Personal editing.

There is so much in the ether, tossed this way and that, about how you present yourself. It is undoubtedly important. But I wonder, how much does it truly matter?

Neil Gaiman has a fantastic blog. He manages to walk a line between personal and professional.  He lets you know where he’ll be, what he has coming out, behind the scenes looks at his latest projects (the episode he wrote of Doctor Who was amazing), but he also includes bits of himself. He decided he wanted to lose some weight after a doctor’s visit, and started running on the treadmill to an audio of Bleak House. Did I mention how much I love this man? He has bits about his wife Amanda Palmer, and the fact that they got married at Michael Chabon’s. Yet, he manages to not go too far.  Somehow he is personal, honest, yet he doesn’t show all of the magic. The more I know about him, from his blog, the more I want to read him.

There is a flip side. There are certain authors that after reading them perhaps in an interview, perhaps in a blog, it doesn’t matter to me how good they are, how much they have honed their craft. I won’t be buying their book because quite frankly, something they said left a bad taste in my mouth. Now, for obvious reasons, I am not planning on talking about authors. However, I have no doubt that my low opinion of John Mayer will have no affect on his life whatsoever.

John Mayer. He is a gifted guitarist. If Eric Clapton says so, it must be true. There is something, some unnameable thing about him that I got.

Then the man opened his mouth to Playboy. Being a person who inserts her foot into her mouth on a frequent enough basis, I try to play devil’s advocate.  It’s my default mode, most likely because of my short fuse, and a lack of an edit button when necessary. But how do you possibly defend someone who discusses bedroom habits of celebrities he’s dated? The racist comments? Overall douchebaggery? He ruined his music for me.

Most that I’ve read says that the stats are still out on how blogging effects your readers. You’re more likely to get other writers than the readers you one day may hope to acquire. However, you have to get to the point that you have readers.

Being someone who is fairly open about her life, I wonder if someone was on the fence about representing me and came across my blog, would that effect their decision? Would they read a fluffy post and think I don’t take it seriously? Would they read a post about my temper and think they couldn’t possibly work with someone so difficult? Would they read a post on a night that I was just going through the motions and think, God, she’s awful.

It’s strange for me to think about because the whole point of this blog has been two-fold. First I wanted to hone my writing skills and I thought essays were a way that wouldn’t take away from the novel. Second, and most importantly, I wanted to meet other writers. I wanted to meet people who would see me for the whole thing that I am, the vulgar, the loving, the supportive, the judgmental, the feisty woman who is a mother, has a full-time job, and wonders where her breaking point truly is. I wanted to be around other people who had the same concerns and other people who got it, who love writing because it forces them to reckon with everything they’ve ever thought, everything they’ve ever believed, just to get the story right. To make it honest. People who understood that getting a story to ring true is possibly the most difficult task of all whether it’s a poem, a memoir, a short story, a novel, or anything in between.

I also hoped that if someone happened upon my writings, they may just enjoy a story or two, and it might be a story they needed to hear at a given time. I believe that happens.

I lucked out.  I met the people who are my writing community. We touch base outside of the blogosphere, and have covered more personal topics than I ever imagined I would share with someone whom I don’t know the sound of their voice.

So, having so many different blogs among you, how hard do you filter what you write? Do you have a blog persona just in case someone should happen by? Or like me, are you all or nothing, what you see is what you get?

A Photograph of a Door in Mexico

Tonight I bought a photograph of a door.

We started off the day with a run. The little guy in the stroller, the two older ones running, then walking, then running some more. We went the short block, then dropped off the two older kids and The Toddler and I ran a bit more. This was day two of short runs and no leg pain, which means my back may finally be healing.

It’s the strangest thing. The last run I really did was a marathon, slowly, painfully, before finding out that my disk was awry. Many moons later and I’m overjoyed to run a little over a mile. It’s all about the perspective.

We headed out to a kite festival. It wasn’t windy enough to get the big kites in the air, the professional ones, but plenty windy for the kites that the kids made at the craft table. It doesn’t take too much to get paper with long flowing crepe paper tails to soar, if by soar I mean a couple of feet above their heads. They soared.

The sun beat down, and not being a sun family, or rather a family whose mother sprays them down with sunscreen before the last layer has had a chance to dry, we ate an ice cream in the shade and headed over to walk along the river running through Naperville, Illinois. We walked through a covered bridge and lo and behold, there sat a small art fair.

There is something about the simple white tents, just a few items on display, their best work, a cardboard box peeking out from a covered table with backup goods. I know they are just hoping to pull out the cardboard box because they’ve run low on their wares. A woman sits at the back of the tent in a tiny opening picking her cuticles. How difficult it must be to watch people assess and comment on her work as if she is invisible. She wishes she was invisible. Even worse were the artisans watching as people looked at their work as they passed not interested enough to look up close. It would be the equivalent of waiting to sign your book and having everyone pass you by for the person at the next table. It hurt to watch.

My husband and I love any kind of fair.  My kids hate them.  They have no patience for walking along at a snail’s pace, peering into this and that. I go into as many as my kids will allow before complete meltdowns. I especially love the photography booths.

Being a family of five, the upside to us walking into a tiny fair tent is that we fill it up.  People are drawn to a filled booth. The disadvantage is having kids in a tiny booth. Wiggly, dirty, sunscreen, mulch-covered, is-that-ice-cream-under-the mulch, type of children. Alas.

I had to go in this booth. The pictures were beautiful. There were the token flower shots, always pretty, but not really something that calls to you, that tells a story. My daughter loved these, as I did when I was her age and still do from a pretty point of view. However I turned around and saw this narrow street. The photographs were made to look like paintings, yet they were photographs. The colors, reds, yellows, blues, the brightest of blues, none made to match in a Disney-type world but rather the colors from discounted paints, glorious and stunning, and shabby and the street told the story.

Not a single person in view, yet there were people who were just out of the shot, who had just left for work, just gotten home, a mother and child playing out back. Surely there was a back. I stared at this picture uncertain why it told a story when so many others didn’t, the same way I wonder when I’m reading a book that is amazing, a book that is so similar to other books and yet you can picture the character’s red Converse, the ones the author never mentions her wearing. She wears them. Yes she does.

Chaos was beginning around me. I heard my older son negotiating with my husband. He swore he would not touch a thing if he would be allowed to go with his sister into the glass booth. There was a glass maker putting on a display and after seeing that, my six year old was mesmerized by the glass booths. Off the two older ones went, us knowing it was foolish, yet wanting just a moment so we could both look a these photographs. I told my husband we needed this street. He turned and said, “Look at that door.”

And there she was.

The door, a sun-washed amber, in a royal blue house, the royal blue was the multi-layered colors of a favorite pair of old jeans. The inside edge of the door was turquoise and an inch of barn-red wood framed the outer edge of the door. There was a small wooden sign, askew of center that read “Welcome”. The textures captured me, arrested me.

I spoke to the photographer. He was visiting Mexico. For this particular shot he took fourteen pictures changing only the camera’s settings on each take. The camera didn’t move. Then he overlaid the pictures to create one, the one that tells the story.

We bought the door photograph.

It is relatively easy to take a photo, never easier really with the digital cameras now available. But the artist takes fourteen and finds a way to make his vision come to life.

We write out the first draft. But the artist edits, and rewrites, each time taking out a word and replacing it with something better that brings that story more detail, more life, more, more, more.

Don’t give up on your story. Realize you’re just looking at the first shot, the shot you took with a point-and-shoot. Now is the time to write harder, work harder, make the door come to life.  Make the reader feel who has just walked out that door and what kind of shoes they wear without you ever having to write it.

Because you are that good. You just have to keep going when a normal person would stop.