A Garland of Felt

On the tail of an old year, a small garland is finished.

I had hoped it’d be long enough to wrap around my tree, but just before Christmas I strung it anyway and it was the perfect size to brighten up a dreadful tan wall.

At some point in the New Year, the walls will be transformed into the color of a mid-summer poppy, because why would I paint just a bedroom, when I can paint a living room and kitchen? (And by “I”, I think we know I mean someone other than me.)

I cut hundreds of little felt circles in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I learned to anchor a stitch. I taught myself to sew. A bit. But what I really learned was how to take a moment.

It’s not that I loved making this garland. I didn’t. There was something to the repetition, of seeing the circles begin to pile up and how beautiful the colors were. And how I do love color…

At the end of 2011, this garland has reminded me that I love to be. I love working with my hands whether it’s building a deck, making little clay people, making cakes or writing a book. I thrive on monotonous work because it strengthens my mind. It builds my resolve. Creation rejuvenates me.

It teaches me that I can create beauty even if I’m the only one who sees it. It teaches me that my opinion counts and that sometimes you have to step away from one thing, and in so doing, you may find the answers for which you search.

You can’t rush cutting felt. It gets fuzzy, ugly. As soon I wanted to be done stitching the circles, the thread would get unwieldy, knotting up, loose strings waving their strands loose, unkempt, a cheerleader on prom night. Slow down, I had to remind myself. You could be writing, yes, but you’re not.

Do what you’re doing and only this.

Sometimes people ask me, how I get so much done and the answer is truly that I don’t unless I focus on one little thing at a time. I just have many little things that I rotate between.

I’ve found that some people can work every moment and pound out a book and I’m finally coming to terms with not being that writer. I don’t have that kind of book. I’m not that person.  My book is more like this garland. And it’s almost big enough for the tree. Many small steps layer one upon the other until what it becomes is bigger than the individual parts. I hope.

I don’t go in for resolutions, but this year the end coincides with the wind blowing in technicolor. I’ve been writing like a madwoman and can see the end, the real end. Next comes the stringing, scene upon scene, rewriting and making sure the colors look just right next to one another. It may not fit a huge tree, but it may just be big enough and beautiful enough if I take the time to do it right. Not fast, but right.

I have some longstanding (or more appropriately sitting) weight that needs to come off. After all, I have a shirt to look awesome in. And then there’s my first writing conference. How that’s going to work, with three kids to attend to, I don’t know. What I do know is somehow it will. I may not be able to attend all the sessions I want to, but you know what? That’s okay. I’m a mother, a writer, a crafty minx, and a wife. I’ll take what I can even if it’s not the full monte.

And then there’s my friends. All of you.

A year ago, I didn’t know I had such a void. I thought I could sustain the writing on my own. But you know what? I needed to meet all of you to push me, to encourage me, to give the keep going, and hopefully I’ve given a fraction of what I’ve received.

You are amazing.

Happy New Year. May this year see a dream or two come true.

Love.

 

 

Badass Present

There was a box under my tree wrapped in black paper with a red ribbon and an ornament tied around the bow.

Inside was a shirt…

Badass Like a Unicorn.

And I laughed.

Because you all know how I loved that shirt. But what I said was, “Where can I possibly wear it?”
And my husband replied, “The person who wears that shirt doesn’t care what anyone thinks. They wear that shirt wherever they want to.”

I thought, “Oh yes. I need to rediscover that girl. I know someone who would have worn that shirt.”

Today, I decided was the day and as I pulled it over my midsection, I realized it was too small…

But I’m not sending it back. I can’t. Maybe by the time I can fit into it, I’ll have found the girl who used to wear such things. Because she’s still in there and let’s face it. I wasn’t cut out for a role model anyway.

 

Happy Holidays and a Reprise

May you always have a dance partner who catches you.

1. I always swore I wouldn’t be one of those people who dressed my kids alike. It never occurred to me, they’d choose to do it on their own.

2. Dancing is serious business. Treat it accordingly.

In honor of the little guy with the big smile, I bring you my worst Christmas and best Boxing Day ever. Damn right.

May Santa bring you just the right words this holiday season. And if not, may you go find them your own damn self. Love.

 

Ornamental Writing Advice

Sometimes we get too close to see the whole story. So we need to take a step back…

…and we can see the beauty. But sometimes we step too far away…

…and the detail is lost. The work becomes haphazard. So we need to look to the characters, what they want…

…and who’s preventing them from getting it.

It can’t be a caricature though. You need to zoom in to get perspective about what is real…

and what is just shiny and pretty.

You must ground it in history…

and surround it with hope…

…while not losing sight of the fact that it takes hard work over and over and over again.

And sometimes just a little bit of magic…

Love.

Fortunate

I sat in traffic waiting to make the left to get on the highway. A tall man with matted hair stood under the underpass in a long gray t-shirt and dingy jeans, next to a pylon with his back to the cars. He blended in to the gray day, the cold. I don’t know that anyone else saw him.

He pushed his foot downward into a small trench before the steep slope of concrete jutted up vertically to meet the highway overhead. There’s a small flat section at the top. When I lived in Chicago and took the Blue Line into work, I’d stare out the window looking for the people who lived there, or slept there sometimes barely living at all, trying to stay warm through one more night. It became a habit, a mild obsession to look for these people. Often I wouldn’t see them, just there remnants, a tattered blanket, a square of tarp, some discarded bottles, and old torn sleeping bag if the person was fortunate.

Fortunate.

What a loaded word in this world, a world in which fortune has come to mean so much to so many, a bank account that can pay a mortgage, a new car, a crib for a baby, clothes, food. Sometimes it means that the rich made the right investment, or didn’t lose too badly when others lost more. Good fortune.

Today I saw this man as he tested the ditch and then gingerly stepped down and behind the pylon where I couldn’t see him. He didn’t have a piece of cardboard with a markered-note about being hungry, being out of work, being out of luck, being out of it, the grand it we all aspire to.

He didn’t have a bag, or a blanket. He didn’t have anything at all. I turned off the radio, the Christmas music obscene as I looked for where he had gone, waiting my turn to inch ahead where I’d have a better view. I was now out from under the overpass and moved to the left turn lane. I had a complete view of the area behind where he had gone, but he wasn’t there. Cars began beeping as I craned my neck looking to the far left where he had been.

I hadn’t taken my eyes off of the spot. He wasn’t moving quickly so I know he didn’t dart out. The only blind-spot I had was two feet toward the far side, and he would have had to be sitting in the ditch. It had rained and snowed so it was bound to be muddy. There was a good chance a man between forty and sixty was sitting in a muddy ditch while all of us in our cars were out and about buying things we most likely didn’t need for people who most likely didn’t need them.

Maybe he was just taking a break and had nowhere else to take it where he wouldn’t be bothered. Maybe the holidays were just too much for him and a muddy ditch in thirty degree weather was better than any alternative he could come up with.

Maybe he had no alternative.

I only bought a few small things that day. It seemed surreal that the holidays have the highest suicide rate and here I was out shopping. Everything seemed silly, extravagant, absurd. Because it is.

I thought of the disappointment that there wouldn’t be the perfect things under the tree. Then I drove over to a music store and picked up an edition of Adele’s “21″ for Easy Piano. I also picked up a guitar book listing all of the chords by picture.

I saw a Tom Petty songbook and picked it up. “Freefallin’” was there. I left with the three books and while my husband was out shopping with the kids I sat in my quiet house and for the first time in years I sat down to the piano and plunked out the keys until the melodies sounded decent because music matters. Writing matters. All people matter regardless of what the politicians would have us believe.

People having a warm, safe place to be matters.

In this holiday season, that is my wish. I wish that people get a warm safe place, a momentary break from whatever demons chase them down trying to crack them in half. Whether the demons are from broken dreams, mental illness, booze, drug addiction or a combination, I wish them a moment of respite, a moment when the see that they are worthwhile and that they know they are not forgotten. Even if just for a moment.

Lyra-1, Demon Slide-0

I found myself trying to wedge my size ten and a half feet on a foam peg covered in plastic climbing upwards, seven feet up in the air. The handholds were solid nylon but unaccustomed to the weight, they pulled toward me making my climb a ninety degree angle rather than the child-friendly seventy-five degrees. My foot slipped, stretching my inner thigh more than it was used to and I looked down to gain my footing remembering at once due to the vertigo that I was, in fact, afraid of heights.

The primary blue mocked me as I slid to the bottom of the ladder feeling each thump of foam plink along my belly. Two blue eyes and a shock of white hair peered down at me with all of the seriousness in the world.

“Grab my hand Mommy! I got you!” His skinny three-year old arm reached precariously over from the top of the slide.

“Honey you go ahead, I’ll meet you at the bottom.”

“No, Mommy, you can do it! You can!”

Right.

“Okay, move back. Further. No, further. Okay. Stay right there.” I climbed up again, my legs shaking after an hour of climbing under and over, squeezing and pushing past inflatables designed for someone a half my height, not to mention my girth.

“Good job, Mommy!” His enthusiasm was my only guide. I was sweating moving my feet sideways to get as much of my foot on the peg as possible. Did I mention I have enormous feet? I climbed and climbed knowing I’d need momentum to thrust my butt up the final bit as there were no nylon straps at the tippy top. I shoved my hip into the side, wedging myself as I jammed my foot into the inflatable. I thrust myself upwards landing face first next to my young son in the downward crucifix position.

It was met with thunderous applause from the little blond not to mention his joyous laughter. He patted me on the back. I couldn’t help but laugh as I struggled to right myself and not topple over backwards. I could only think what an amazing man he was to become if he didn’t lose his enthusiasm for successes other than his own.

We slid down the poofy slide and I stood the next one out. He made due with the growing number of kids and his new best friend, the red girl. She was four and a half and his self-designated best friend.

When we arrived I noticed the moms were done-up, hair and makeup in place. Oh nuts. Here I was unshowered, planning on getting home in time for a run after wearing him out at the bounce house. I underestimated how much climbing and crawling I’d be doing to make sure he didn’t get stuck on his first round in the bigger things, along with how together many stay-at-home moms are. You could feel it, as a few stood together talking, standing in the right places to see where there children were off to. They were a club of sorts, a very together club.

Winded and sweating I stood when a woman approached me. It turned out she was the red girl’s mom. I assumed she was also one of these moms and was thrilled to find she wasn’t. We started chatting as we followed our kids to and fro, keeping an eye out as we kept up the conversation in the way that moms across the world know. We touched on things big and small, stopping mid-sentence as one or the other jogged off realizing she had lost her child for a moment and then picking up the best we could enjoying a bit of camaraderie.

It was such a treat to meet someone to talk to in snippets, and I thought, yes, this is why my son is following her daughter around. She is kind like her mother and he senses it. I mentioned writing which I never do in real life, no less to someone I just met, and found someone who was so excited by the idea, the idea that you’re a working mom and you want something different and you try to do that in the time you have. Did I mention how generous she was?

We parted ways exchanging phone numbers at the end, my son relieved that he might get to see his new friend again. As karma would have it, she has a son exactly my older son’s age.

We left to a meltdown in the car from a kid whose older brother woke him too early, and the idea of lunch freaked him out.

“Not lu-u-un-ch-ch!” came the cries from the backseat as I told him we weren’t having lunch, that was absurd, we were having a snickity-snackity. The cries stopped, he calmed saying all he was hungry for was a yogurt. A yogurt, some chocolate pudding and a few graham crackers later,  he fell asleep, all right in his little world.

I made a pot of coffee and for the first time in ages poured it into a mug. I’ve been drinking out of travel cups for so long between commuting and small, spilly children that I forgot how lovely coffee looks when it hits that perfect shade of coffee-sugar-milk. I put it in a big round white mug that has “Paris Review” in New Times Roman, black lettering on the side. The cup felt lucky. The day felt lucky.

Then I wrote for an hour. Because I’ve got things to do, places to be, people to see. And the damn book isn’t going to write itself.

There are days when you get to the top of the slide and there’s a mug of coffee waiting at the bottom.

I wish you that day, today.

Sweatshirts

The morning of my wedding day, we met up with about 10 of our friends at a favorite running path and ran the nine mile loop. Ten was no small turnout as there were only fifty people invited to the wedding. It was exhilarating. Two of my friends ran my slow pace with me and we finished smiling, a great way to start the day with a clear head and stress energy gone.

I remember thinking I don’t ever need to run another marathon, but I should run a ten miler every weekend because I like who that makes me. It takes five miles to stop thinking and the remaining ones to zone out and realize the stuff I was thinking about for the first five was just clutter.

The two friends who ran with me that day? One has become a serial marathoner in addition to a Pilates instructor and a yogini. The other? She was already a marathoner (that’s how we met) and she just finished her first Ironwoman. For those of you not in the know, that means she swam 2.4 miles, then biked 112 and then finished with a nice little run of 26.2 miles. In one day. It took her sixteen hours. If you’re thinking “Holy sh…” you have the right idea.

As for me, I am sitting here typing this in my husband’s sweatshirt as I’m having trouble finding things that fit me in my own wardrobe. Yes. I know.

Every year around this time, I see things that didn’t turn out the way I had planned in the last 12 months. I had big plans of getting back to running, and being in the best shape of my life when I turned forty. The novel would be done. I’d be on to big and better things as far as my job went, but at the very least I’d be spending more time at home and less commuting. If this was baseball, my batting average would be horrific.

In the past the key to things changing was running. I’m not sure why other than the catalyst had to be physical. It had to be something where I could push myself to the brink of exhaustion throwing my brain into auto-pilot. I can binge like that with food pushing into the same arena, but I assure you that’s partially what got me into this mess.

So, when things got bleak, I’d start running again. When I was single and without kids, I’d get up at 5:30 a.m. and get in a short run a few days a week, followed up by two longer ones on the weekend. The more I’d run, the less I’d eat and drink because I could feel the effects of taking poor care of myself in a direct way. Win/win.

I had my first son, and ran a marathon when he was a year and a half by running after putting him down at night, usually around 8:00 p.m. or so. I hated everything about that, running in the dark at night but it was cheap and my only option. I did that knowing it would be just for an 18 week training as I saw the strain on the kids when my weekend runs would get too long which is inevitable.

Now here I am and I just don’t want to do it. Having three kids, working full-time, commuting almost as much time as I’m actually at my job, the idea of squeezing out time to run, time that I could be writing or sleeping, or hell, watching junk on television, it just doesn’t appeal to me.

Yet, neither does wearing my husband’s sweatshirts.

I have this week off of work and between moments of sheer joy doing laundry (not even being ironic), getting the kids’ homework done right after they get home from school, climbing on jungle gyms, bouncing in huge bounce houses, going grocery shopping with nowhere else to be so that I can bring my son’s small plastic grocery cart and let him do it all, naptime for writing or making little circles of felt, all of those moments are countered by my brain ticking off the moments knowing it’s coming to an end.

I know, I know, count my blessings, yadda, yadda, enjoy every moment. Trust me, I am.

So, I promised myself I’d run this week, my son can play while I do it, and I’ve squeezed it in once. It just doesn’t seem to matter. If I can’t do it consistently, it seems foolish, more than that, idiotic to take time away from the one week when my smallest son has me all to himself to run on a treadmill when I know I can’t keep it up when I go back to work.

Whoa. There were too many words in that one sentence. I’m leaving it because my edit brain is also on vacation. Maybe the editor is off doing an Ironwoman with my runner brain.

I wish them well.

As for me, I have a full calendar this week of changing sheets, more laundry, doing dishes, some writing, another bounce house, some shopping, making some ornaments, and a cookie baking extravaganza.

Because I suppose you just can’t do everything at once.

Man, I’m sick of these sweatshirts.

 

Soundless Space

Important to remember that between each song on an album, there’s a soundless space; in each great novel, you gotta take a break to turn the page.

Silence.

Is it the most underrated sound?

Have you ever listened to music that didn’t know the value of a well-placed breath? Where it crescendos and crescendos and keeps going?

I’ve been thinking much about silence lately, how little there is of it. My husband and I did some Christmas shopping today and stopped by a mall. I detest shopping on the best of days, but Christmas shopping is the worst. The mall was full of desperate people standing in line to see Santa, kids pushed beyond any feasible limit, their watery eyes puffy, their cheeks splotchy messes of red. Angry parents telling scared children to smile. Oh my.

I get claustrophobic when I walk behind people I can’t get around, and it only adds to the chaos when there is piped in Christmas music in the main mall competing for attention with the insanely loud pop coming out of the retail stores. The lines for sale items at 60% off! were long and people were crazy.

For the end of the year when the country is in such an economic mess, the whole scene was surreal straight out of an indie movie where the retail clerk goes home and offs herself after one too many explanations of why the ad in the paper didn’t mean what it said it meant.

The quote above is something my husband sent me in an e-mail, my biggest supporter when the inside of my brain becomes the equivalent of mall space. It got me to thinking about times that silence is stronger than sound, when silence becomes the sound.

1. The split second after a child hurts himself and you see the mouth open and no sound come out. You run as though through rubber cement to get there before the wail. No sound is as powerful.
2. Have you ever said “I love you” and gotten no response? The silence is a physical presence of pain.
3. When you first dive under water and your ears become completely submerged into the vacuum. In a moment, you’ll hear muffled sounds coming from above and below the water, but initially the silence is complete.
4. Your children are playing. You sit down to read a book and realize there is silence in your house. Run! Nothing good is going on if kids are silent. At least not my kids…
5. “Does this make me look big?” (crickets chirping)
6. “Do you like this new hair color?” (generally speaking if you have to ask…the news isn’t good)
7. If I’m laughing really, really hard, no sound comes out. Tears run down my face, but not a peep other than gasps of breath. I remember being a kid and the joy it would bring me when I could make my dad laugh that hard.
8. Singing Ava Maria in church and having your voice crack. After the collective congregational gasp, there is a silence heard through the organ.
9. When you say “I’m sorry” and it’s met with nothing.
10. When you say, “I love you” and it’s met with a slight smile and a nod. And you know, it didn’t need to be said because it just is.
11. Barring an out-and-out thriller, the silence between chapters makes you appreciate the words.
12. Sitting with a friend who as you’re pouring your heart out, says nothing. Silence is perfect.

 

Guilt Is a Choice

Guilt is a choice. Guilt is a choice. Guilt is a choice. (This is Bobbi’s philosophy, our soon-to-be published blogger)

I’ve been saying this over and over again, trying to make it ring true. And it does. As a mantra. But how do you internalize it?

Have you ever had a character that all of the detail was right…

He could not have been more than five feet four inches. His arms were apelike, strong and longer than expected. He shuffled a few stacks of books, then reached up to Walter relieving him of his bags and firmly tossing them in the small space he had made. Bertram Root bore a striking resemblance to a bullfrog.

“Thank you.” Bert nodded once, then before Walt could say anything further, he was gone, once again reappearing as eyes and a forehead behind a towering, wobbly pile of books.*

…and yet after you’ve gotten further you see that the character is all wrong? What do you do when the character is you?

Is it a martyr complex that causes guilt? It is easier to be miserable than to cause misery. However, that leaves nowhere to place the resentment. Resentment does ugly things. When you suck it up and do as others want because they bowl you over with demands, or passively wear you down, you harbor resentment. I don’t know why I’m writing this in second-person, I harbor resentment.

I let it go and let it go and do as is expected because if I don’t, it becomes a bigger deal. However, this eventually explodes outward. It isn’t pretty.

I had planned a trip with my best friend. I happened to talk to my sister, and normally I avoid mentioning things like that, things in my life, because they are met with a “Oo-oh, that’s nice.” The voice an octive too high, the vowels carried out a moment too long. Now I could tell you that I’m paranoid, but after forty years what I can say truthfully is that she feels bad and she wants me to feel bad.

For the first time in my life, I responded, “Why do you do that? Why do you have to try to make me feel guilty that I’m going away with somebody and it isn’t you? You didn’t ask me.”

I was aggressive, and upset, and tired. So tired. An hour later still on the phone with my sister sobbing that she didn’t know where this was coming from and me comparing her to our mother…things did not go well. We have never fought like that. Some of what was said was irreparable. As soon as I called her on it, as soon as I was honest, she shut down and feigned innocence. And I became the ass.

The problem was it was too late. I had spent my entire life protecting her, being her buffer and here she was telling me all of the things she had done for me. Even in the heat of battle, I listened and didn’t deal the final blow. I said things that were all true, but I left out the things that would allow me to be “right”, would allow me to “win”.

We had different stories from the same book.

But starting the conversation, all I wanted was to not have her pull the guilt trip. By me speaking up and being honest, I felt guiltier than I ever have. I hurt her. Deeply. And she’s not like me. There’s no getting it out in the open. We swept it under the rug and forevermore it shall stay.

That is why I have honest relationships with my friends.

I tried it one other time with my parents. I can’t write about it, but suffice to say it was twenty times worse. They all but called me insane, and if it wasn’t for my husband sitting right next to me as I sobbed into the phone, telling them enough, I had had enough, I’d be committed right now. I wish I were being hyperbolic.

I’ve always been fortunate to have a witness, so after all is said and done and I have nothing left, I can say, “Is it true? Is what they say true?” It’s important when dealing with nutso-madness to have a witness.

Now, this is not a pity party. I don’t mention this because I want sympathy or support. Honestly. These weren’t recent things that happened.

What I’m really wondering is…how do you make guilt a choice? It’s like when I hear people say that they really, really like themselves. Okay. I admitted that. I just don’t get it. And I want to. I want to be them. There it is.

It’s not that I’m full of complete self-loathing, but where do you get that kind of confidence if it wasn’t instilled into you as a child? How do you recreate your life so that you believe it deep down?

How do you truly not let others affect you so intimately? I can pretend that no one gets to me. Hell, I make a living doing that. And my younger self spent much time not letting on how badly it wasn’t working.

I want for it to be real. I want guilt to be a choice. I want other people’s issues to be their own and for them not to poke holes in my little bubble.

I want to really like myself, to see myself the way my friends see me, my husband sees me, my kids (most of the time…) see me.

Where do you start?

 

* From my WIP.

Lyra’s Top Eleven On How Business Can Inform Writing

I’ve been in business for fifteen years. Today it occurred to me that if ever I get someone interested in a book, I have some hard-earned skills that could help me as a writer playing nice with others.

So I bring to you without further ado,

 

Lyra’s Top Eleven Tips On How Business Can Inform Writing

1. When in doubt, keep your mouth shut. Don’t argue with someone who is trying to help you even if you disagree. Save your commentary for your friends, offline, or your spouse, partner, plaything (provided this is not the same person listed above…). Then find something they said that was right. There is always a bit of truth when we get defensive.
2. Never get into a pissing contest. Someone always gets wet.
3. You don’t have to like someone personally for them to have value. You do have to be professional and courteous. If you act like an idiot, not only will you stoop to a level that is below you, but the people above you may be watching. Just don’t. See tip number one.
4. Mind the way you treat assistants. I was an assistant, along with a bartender, a babysitter, a garden center worker, a fast food slinger…the list goes on. When I overhear people mistreat their assistants or other people they consider to be below them, I remember that. Because I can keep my mouth shut when I need to, people may not realize the power that I have. It brings me great joy to bring these people down a notch. Or twelve.
5. Sometimes you only get one chance (subtitle: Don’t Be A Douchebag). Everyone has a bad day, yes. Sometimes bad days coincide. Know when to walk away, call back later, return the e-mail after a coffee break. I will forgive anger about a situation every time. I will never forgive a personal attack or if someone tries to go around me. Businesses are smaller than you think. Once you’ve earned respect, people tell you things. Once you’ve lost my respect, you aren’t getting it back. Despite what people may say, I think more people are like me than not. Don’t be a douchebag. If you are, apologize. And mean it.
6. Sometimes the person you will learn the most from is the toughest on you. Suck it up, pull up your big girl panties and learn how to take it.
7. Tough does not mean toxic. Eliminate toxic people by not engaging with them. It unnerves people when they are hostile and get no response.
8. There is no job that is not your job. If it needs to be done, do it. Help people and they will remember. They may not say a word, but they will know and the word will spread. Be someone who people want to work for them, or someone who people want to work for.
9. Entitlement has no place. You are owed nothing. Whether it takes a week or ten years to write a book, it has to be good and no one is making you do it. If it isn’t good, you haven’t worked on it long enough.
10. “No, it can’t be done” has no place. I make things happen on a monthly basis that people tell me can’t happen. The only response to “Can you do this?” is “Maybe.” It’s only a maybe because you haven’t figured out how to make it a “Yes”.
11. Be kind. You never know when you’ll run into the same person at a different place.