We went down to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the culmination of a week’s long band camp. My daughter was away from all four of her parents for a solid week and she came back (in her words) “a better person”.
Okay, yeah, she said that. To be twelve and to feel all the passion that a day holds is a remarkable thing. But that’s really her story. And if you know anything, you know this is all about me.
As we walked along the quads to kill time before the grand finale band concert, I got the same feeling I do at any campus, albeit this is a truly lovely campus. I get a feeling of home.
Home. How strange. I recall the first day I was dropped off at my dorm, seventeen years old and I could not wait for my parents to leave. I was never the homesick sort. I couldn’t wait to meet the people on the floor, see everything college had to offer, well, yeah and find the person with the fake ID.
Now over twenty years later, and here we were walking around and all I could think was how can I make this a part of my life. Not my day but my life. By the time the concert was over, our one oboeist holding her own among the thirty clarinets and an equal number of flutes, I had concocted a master plan to send my husband back to school for his doctorate so that I could eventually get free university housing and write.
We’d be broke in a rundown university town apartment, but we’d be surrounded by people talking and reading and writing. I would be so good with that. I thought I could pick up a local job bartending to subsidize our income until it occurred to me that the last time I bartended I was twenty years younger and I didn’t look like a soccer mom. I may not be the first pick for the job.
My dreams get so flip-floppity. The only consistent is to make time to write and to move wherever we need to in order to do that. We’re six years away from being able to move wherever we want and my fear is that I’ll lose the dream between now and then and be too focused on the fear of poverty to take the chance.
Do other people worry about that or take the plunge? My dad worked at least four jobs while I was growing up, all because he didn’t want my mom to work. My husband’s parents did the best they could but there were times that they didn’t have enough money for food. That’s a feeling that never leaves you. I remember when I was out of work for a year, and my husband, never one to complain just stopped speaking. It’s what introverts do when they freak out. I swore then I would never ever put him through that as I have an ability to make money, and the silence just about did me in.
Then I saw the campus and my brain starting whirring and I had him accepted into a doctoral program in literature, a program he begun twelve years ago until life got in the way. I want us broke and happy and artsy-fartsy in the best possible way, yet a part of me knows it isn’t the way that will work for us.
Yet, it’s a dream that won’t quite die, despite the fact that he doesn’t know if his brain has what it had back when he was in the program.
Or, maybe I should just focus on making lots of money and starting my own writing commune where we all play to our strengths. Really, that’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had…
I’ll be out of touch for a bit researching our commune. I’ll keep you posted my writerly folk.
Love.
I know three librarian-soccer moms who bartend on the side—it’s doable.
I have thirteen years until an empty nest and twenty-one years until retirement with full medical. It’s gonna take a lot more than a single book deal to make me let go of that kind of safety net, however much it chafes sometimes.
But . . . come over and help my SIL and I open a yarn shop. It’ll finance the commune.
Okay, so I can bartend and we have a yarn shop on the side. Now we need some “interns” to run the show while we’re all writing. This is coming together nicely.
We both live in college towns—interns are thick on the ground.
Though, we could write in the bar and the yarn shop.
Don’t give up on the dreamtime. You know the deeper reasons why you need to work, and these are noble. Nothing wrong with having six years between you and a greater freedom – you are gathering material and momentum and I’ve considered the soccer mum option more than once. Xcat
I love this, Cat, gathering material and momentum. Onward, my dear friend.
Patience, Lyra. Your time will come. That’s obvious.
As usual, MSB said exactly what I wanted to say only better.
My almost four-year old was having a temper tantrum last night when he was supposed to be in bed, he was instead bracing himself in the door jamb demanding his toenails be painted right then.
The moral of the story? He comes by his rage honestly and patience does not run in the family. The other moral? One should try to remember the level of patience the person standing behind you has in reserve. Amateur move, little man.
Well most importantly, isn’t it hard when people start seeing you as “the soccer mom?” I still remember when a young person first said that to me — I wanted to scream: My kids don’t play soccer!!!!!! But that’s not the point, now is it.
I’m pretty sure no place seems safer, or warmer or more welcoming, than a college campus.
I would tell you to keep the dream, but I don’t need to. You have the dream now, and you’ll have it later, too. It’s that kind of dream.
Ah, the starving artist question.
A few years ago I was perpetually broke and had lots of debt. I couldn’t write at all. It was a Maslow thing. I was just always consumed with the slippery slope.
But things changed; I figured out (accidentally, mostly), how to keep the lights on. It’s a little Faustian, actually, from an artistic perspective, but, fuck it. I’m working a reasonable amount, can take the occasional vacation (which I’m on now, thank you very much), and have take part in regular writing binges. It’s a pastiche life, and probably always will be.
The dream is the thing though. As long as you have that–it’s all good.
The starving artist. This has always bugged me, and I know it’s because I (like your husband) went long stretches without food as a kid. These days I can’t write, can’t even function, if the fridge isn’t full ….. and I do mean “full.” I might hate the mall and Costco and Target, but I have a love affair with the grocery store.
As Suzy said, the dream is almost more important than the eventual outcome. Mine are a lot like yours, changing all the time, but I’ve come to believe that we need to imagine a vast sea of possibility in order to function, in writing and in life. The end of dreaming is the end of something vital and intensely human. We’ve all seen people who cease to dream. It’s a living death.
I love the image of your dream and it’s something similar to what I dream about, too. I loved college so much, and I miss that part of life. Of course, there is a reason I didn’t go on to get my master’s and a doctorate in literature and try to teach — and I think I’m okay with that.
The story of your husband going silent with the stress — fascinating. I could see you writing a really great essay about that.
i’ve done A LOT of looking at the stars while considering my anxiety over money and whether or not it really has to do with money or simply my fear of not having ENOUGH. Enough of whatever…love, health, family, talent, spirit, abundance.
(right now, pandora’s play Jeff Buckley’s version of leonard cohen’s hallelujah…great back drop for me at this moment, considering career, money, abundance…)
i’ve concluded that whatever can be lost can be found again. whatever is gone forever we can live without. our fears and anxieties come from the same place as our joy, desires, and happiness. from the inside. what’s on the outside acts mostly as a mirror to reflect whatever we are feeling–not cause it.
may all of our dreams come true. Hallelujah!
Hi lovelies! I’ve been off the grid for a few weeks up in Maine with my family and believe me, Lyra, I did a whole lot of soul-searching too, as I always seem to do there. It is a constant tug of wanting to live that sort of fearless bohemian life I did for so many years (and I do have a good deal of gypsy blood in me, which helps) but knowing that where we are is such a good place for my family–my children especially.
(PS–Is my traveling brain playing tricks on me, or did you change jobs recently?)
Whenever I travel, I get infected with the maybe this would be a better place for me bug. It’s more of commentary on my satisfaction with my life than it is about any place. I ricochet between being utterly and desperately homesick for Chicago to wanting to try something completely new (again).
Two years out of work taught me many lessons. 1. Having no money isn’t the end of the world. 2. Having no money is a pain in the ass with kids.
Whatever we do next will have to wait, but I know that writing and being part of a bookish, writing, creating world is high on my list of priorities when we finally do break out of this life.
God, I loved this post. I know it was about you, but it was about me, too.
I had that poor artist dream most of my life, but never followed it. Now, I’m an empty-nester (in theory), and still not quite willing to take the plunge. First, I have to unload this huge house, preferably without taking a huge financial loss. And then there’s the whole concept of needing health coverage. Damn those concepts of reality and practicality.
Can I bring my dog and four cats to the commune? Hey, I’ll tend the vegetable garden and cook! (Cleaning is out though.) Am I in?