@ Home in the World

Welcome!

The Women's Colony has made my week by taking a revision of The Amazing Omar.

If you are coming here from the Colony, welcome. If you are coming from elsewhere, go see them. They are a lot of fun!

Must. Write. Something.

August. Summer is turning the bend.

We have started harvesting the zucchini and summer squashes from the garden, and we are eagerly waiting to see if the corn will amount to anything this year. The tomatoes have exploded, but they are still green, so it is hard to know how many will ripen before summer's end. If all goes well, we could have sauce to freeze and use well into the winter.

In spite of the rain - nearly constant through June -  this hasn't been a bad summer. Sure, there have been rough moments as that nagging fear about what I really am going to do next has crept in to my damp, musty, brain. But for the most part, I've put this unexpected time off to good use. My house feels a little more under control. Nowhere near perfect, of course, but a bit more liveable these days. I've been doing a lot of throwing things out and finding places for other things. There's still quite a bit of moving crap from one pile to another, but I tell myself that at least the piles are getting smaller.

Counseling has started for both boys. We're still in the storytelling, past history stage, so it is hard to know what to make of it. So far he hasn't come up with anything I'm not already doing. Tigger has been doing pretty well at summer camp, I keep hearing all these positive things from the camp counselors, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Pumpkin has been having regular playdates at the home of a former classmate (more on that in a later post).

We're contemplating going to visit our neighbors at their vacation rental in Rangeley Lake, Maine next week. Piper is not thrilled with the idea, but I need to get out of this town and see something new for a couple of days. I need a road trip. I need to feel like I've actually had a vacation this summer. Small town residents and SAHMs everywhere know what I mean.

One thing I haven't been doing much of, in case you hadn't noticed, is writing.

I seem to remember getting into this same kind of writing funk last summer when so many people I was reading were headed to Blogher, all excited about meeting their friends and furthering their opportunities. I have yet to make it to Blogher. Some years it's about the money, some years it's about the time. This year it's both.

The same questions; how serious I am about writing, how far and in what direction I should take it, is the labor and time worth it if nothing ever comes of it, pop up more frequently than I would like. The words justify and deserve pound away at me; the endless guilt about how I should really be spending my time when I'm not bringing in any money. Around and around it goes until I realize that two months have gone by and I have not written a goddamn thing.

That's just got to change.

This is about as close to the writing life as I have ever gotten, but I am far closer to pulling the plug on it than pulling the trigger.

Where the hell did my confidence go?

Did I ever have it in the first place?

You can keep my things, they've come to take me home!

You probably recgonize it, but if you don't, it's the last line from Peter Gabriel's Solisbury Hill; a song he supposedly wrote about his decision to leave Genesis.

My take on it is that it's a fairly positive tune about knowing something isn't a good fit for a long time and then finally making a change that's expected to work out better than what you had been doing. In Gabriel's case, he went on to have a very successful solo career, and the band he left also changed direction and had quite a bit of success as well. A good outcome all around!

The song was released when I was a child, but it was still very widely played in the mid 80s, when I was in high school and college. It grew to have real meaning for me when I was about to return to Boston after taking a semester off and living back in Guilford for six months. I learned a lot about myself, but Boston was, at least at the time, where I really belonged.

I've had that song in my head for a while now, and not just because it remains one of my favorite. I've always hated it when bloggers got all cryptic and mysterious about changes that were happening behind the scenes, and now I have to do that as well. At least for now.

Let's put it this way: I'm 42 years old, the older I get, the more I find myself in these "now or never" situations. Increasingly, I'm learning to say "now."

Blocked Party

It seems so lame to call it writer's block. And it seems too dramatic to call it a life block. I don't know what's up with me and blogging. I've come up with several ideas for posts in my head, but then I would sign on here, and the posts would quickly fizzle out.

And just the other day I went to send a nice newsy message to a friend who sent me her new email address and I realized...I have no news. I'm busy as hell, but nothing's really happening.

Part of the reason is summer. Things are even less structured than they normally are. Our hours are weird, we've been catch as catch can with pickup and drop off arrangements and meals. We've taken random days off to spend the day with one child, sometimes for good reasons like a Red Sox game, sometimes for bad reasons like illness or grounding. Then there is the every weekend contest between doing something as a family or getting the chores done. Increasingly, I've felt that even when we're all together in the same house, we are not all together.

My answer to this is a road trip of some kind. Of course the voice in my head is screaming "Are you crazy, do you really want to be in the car for three hours or more listening to the boys kill annoy the crap out of each other?"  And the part of me that truly hates getting into a rut in life responds, "Yes. Yes I do." 

Weatherwise, this summer has not been the greatest. We have alternated between so hot and humid that you don't want to be outdoors and flash flood-inducing rain. Neither really inspires confidence about going camping, which is the other crazy idea that comes up from time to time.

Camping for Piper and I has always been a Fall thing - usually late September after normal vacation time has ended. I'm not sure I would want to camp in the summer - particularly August, but a trip to Maine might be just the thing we need. Of all the vacations we taken and all the places we've been, Rangeley Lake was the most relaxing, mind clearing experience I think I've ever had. Of course, that was before we had kids. Would I ever be able to recharge on a family vacation?

I'm supposed to be heading to Orlando for a meeting on Monday. You would think I'd be looking forward to a change of scenery, but not really. Now that I work I don't really want to be away from the kids. I'll be back Wednesday afternoon, but it still feels like too long.

Hey! Check this out.

I went to high school with these guys. Most of them, anyway.

Someone sent me that article a while ago. At the time I had a little fun looking up their website, tracking down the ad they did (I had not seen it before, have you?), and downloading the songs (added bonus: I actually like this kind of music). Then I promptly forgot about the whole thing. Well, except for the music, which is kinda fun. 

A couple of days ago, through a weird quirk of memory I realized I have to pass this stuff on.

Have to.

Ever have a completely random memory pop into your head from seemingly nowhere? No? Odd, it happens to me all the time.

Anyway, I remembered that once upon an, oh so very long time ago, I had one of those completely pie-in-the-sky conversations with one of these guys about what we wanted to do after high school. Of course, he wanted to be a musician and I wanted to be a writer, so I half-jokingly promised that if he ever made it big, I would write about it.

Funny how life works sometimes.

Coyote Ugly

When I was a child, I had a recurring nightmare of being in a car and realizing that, though it was moving, no one was driving. Occasionally, I'd be driving, only to find that the steering wheel was actually a toy letter wheel and that the car was out of control. Only as an adult did I come to really understand the meaning of that dream.

Tigger has a somewhat irrational fear of coyotes and "woofs." Wild things he imagines lurking in our back yard at night, plotting to get in. His dreams often involve coyotes, they seem to represent whatever perceived menace exists in his real life. I'm not sure how these creatures came to be his chosen boogieman, I know that he's heard a lot about them around the neighborhood. The neighbor with the dog encountered one in the woods on her morning walk. Another neighbor exclaiming "Lisse, did you know there was a COYOTE in your FRONT YARD this morning? He was HUGE!"  Piper and I suspect that it was really the dog of yet a third neighbor, having escaped his yard.

Coyotes seem out of place here in Massachusetts. I associate them with the with the West, Native American folklore, and wild, desperate places. They returned here a number of years ago, their presence heralded by the disappearance of several domestic cats. I'd heard the talk, but they still seemed like mythical creatures to me, because I had never seen one. Until last night.

The shadow appeared crossing the opposite lanes of the highway, eyeshine glowing green. It had an odd gait, like its legs were too big for its body. Brought up short by the guard rail, he quickly slithered underneath it and passed in front of my car.

"Look boys, a coyote! A real coyote!"

The boys were excited. It resembled a woollier verson of my brother's German Shepard but was clearly wild, rather than groomed like a dog. It was huge. We watched the animal dash across the rest of the highway and disappear into the marsh.

"So," I asked as we drove on, "where do you think he was going?"

"To meet his friends and go howl at the moon," suggested Tigger.

"Why do you think they howl at the moon?"

"To scare people away," suggested Tigger.

"What if it's to call other groups?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah."

"What do you think they were calling about?"

"I don't know."

"Well," I said, "think about it. Make up a story"

"Ooh, yeah! When we do Writing Workshop (in his class) I can write a story about coyotes."

Yes, that's it, I thought. Write it down. Get out what ever ugliness these creatures represent. Cast your demons on paper and set them free.

But of course, I said none of that to Tigger as he went on with his story.

And as he talked we made our way home, following the rising full moon.

OMG, I Won!

Look, I won. How cool is that?

Low Notes

I've never been much of an opera fan, but listening to the excerpts of Luciano Pavarotti during the numerous NPR tributes to him, gave me the chills. I don't think you have to be an opera fan to appreciate that kind of power and emotion.

But all that singing drowned out the news that Madeline L'Engle also died Thursday. She was a favorite author of mine and one of the few I have met. She came to do a reading/signing at our tiny little local bookstore several years ago at the request of someone who spent summers here, but knew her in Manhattan. I remember cutting an evening class I was taking at the time to attend the event. It was a magical October evening, the room was compeletely packed, and I was impressed at how encouraging she was of the children in the audience, many of whom expressed a desire to be a writer.  How lucky I would have been to meet her at age 10.

As a teenager, It took me a couple of readings to get the full message of A Wrinkle in Time, but as the oldest and perhaps least secure child with an unbreakable father-daughter bond (even in death), I saw a lot of myself in Meg. I also got my first memorable glimpse of a working mother in Mrs. Murray, conducting experiments in an at-home lab and cooking over a bunsen burner.

But I came to really know L'Engle as an adult through her Crosswicks Journal series, named after her home in Connecticut. In them, she shared her experiences trying to get published, her experiences raising a family while trying to write, and minding a general store with her husband Hugh Franklin, her life after losing her mother, and then her husband, and reflections on her relationship with God.

It is not mentioned in the New York Times tribute and barely in the Washington Post, but she is often referred to as a Christian mystic; someone who has experienced God. It was L'Engle's writings that persuaded me to try the Anglican/Episcopal Church when I was looking for somewhere more welcoming of my humanity than the Catholic Church. 

Her relationship with God was not without its struggles, and although I have read many, many of her spiritual explorations, it is this quote from the first Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet that sticks in my mind and best defines my own journey:

"...I really and truly believe in God with all kinds of doubts."

Thank you Madeline, for being so gracious, for sharing your struggles as a writer, mother, and believer.

___________________________________

An older, but more complex discussion of Madeline L'Engle can be found at Half Changed World.

Blog Ambition

I have not abandoned my blog.

I know what it looks like, but I swear I haven't.

I sort of lost momemtum once I realized that I would not be able to go to Blogher. It was very disappointing because I was in the throes of the  "where is this blog going?" question and I was hoping for some rejuvenation (I also wanted to meet some of the other Soccer Moms).  Originally, that question was put to me by Piper when I was talking about some of the recognition I had gotten lately, and how the whole social networking works online and some the bloggers I read who had been mentioned in the mainstream media or had gotten a book deal of some kind.

"You want to make it big doing this, don't you?" asked Piper (incredulously).

I didn't really know what to say to that. What does that even mean in the blog world? Ad revenue? Recogniton? A publisher? I don't know. There are thousands and thousands of blogs out there, and quite a few adoption blogs, too. So where is this going?

I started out doing this for myself, and because friends said "you should write this down somewhere" when I told some of my stories (probably for the umpteenth time). I liked the idea of being able to see my words "in print." Would I just love to see my name on a byline in the MSM? Hell yeah, but I haven't even figured out what kind of writer I really am.

And this is where I start to get angry, because it touches on one of the few regrets I really have in my life - not having my *&*(^* together when it came time to choose a college and a major; not getting good advice from the HS councilor or my mother; not being allowed to apply to Emerson where I might I have gotten the writing training I was looking for when I became an English major; having my "advisor" in college (a nun), upon being told that I was choosing an English major because I didn't know what else to do, say "well that's a stupid reason," but not give me any other guidance for exploring my options.

Quick aside: That kind of bullying and belittling is a major reason I am not raising my children Catholic or sending them to Catholic schools. Somehow the Irish Catholics of my parents' and their parents' generations felt this was an acceptable way to treat others, especially children. It is a major reason I'm not all that close to my family and I don't want my kids to go through that. It's also a big reason for the work I do to support the public schools.  /end rant

Wow, when I get really mad, the words come quickly. Ahem.

For reasons closely related to the stuff I was just ranting about up there, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I have any ambitions at all for this blog, or myself, for that matter. Embarrassed, because next I will hear that (remarkably familiar) voice in my head that says "Who do you think you are?" Or worse, just flat out laughter. Yeah, I'm the kid who took that "pride is a sin" lesson to heart, the one who elevated being humble to a crippling art form. The one who adopted self-deprecation as a defense mechanism around the age of 10. Poke fun at yourself before someone points out your flaws, that way you own them and they can't be used against you.

And I know this has hurt me in the past. Want a promotion? For god's sakes don't tell anybody, they might laugh you out of the building. And if you go for that promotion and don't get it? Well, then, you have to leave the company, because now everyone knows that you are a (alltogethernow) FAILURE. Gad, my 20s were hell.

One day, Piper, after listening to a hysterical fretting session that started with concern about our brand new two-year old acting like a two-year old in front of my mother who already thought I was going to fail as a mom because I wasn't tough enough, said just about the most important thing that anyone has ever said to me. "You are not a failure. Since I've known you, you have accomplished almost everything you set out to do."

I had to stop right there, in that Moscow hotel room three Metro stops from Red Square - a place I had wanted to see since high school, look at the child we had just successfully adopted, think about the rest of my life, and realize that Piper was right.

All of this is a bit ridiculous now. I know I'm a good writer, even though I agonize over every word. I can put together an excellent argument when I want to and I do have ideas, not so much for this blog, but for other writing projects. I just need a little guidance. Some of these projects may get put on hold or progress more slowly because of the new ID job I just accepted, but at least I will not have to worry about justifying the money spent on web hosting, a new camera, design help, or hey, a conference fee.

I haven't abandoned blogging, and I'm not going to because I love it. I love the stories; mine and many others. I love the multimedia, multiple project, moving in lots of directions at once aspect of the blogosphere. This whole thing didn't even exist when I first knew I wanted to be a writer in the 5th grade. But I've always been a late bloomer. Time and technology are my friends.

I'm 40 years old and I'm a writer. Dammit.

Five Minutes of Fury

Well, I didn't get to Blogher, or the Police concert at Fenway this weekend, but I did experience my first hailstorm. A thunderstorm literally blew through here, looking quite a bit like a hurricane and was gone five minutes later, leaving marble-sized hail to melt in the returning sunshine. How I got to be this age without ever seeing hail before is a mystery.

I am still stressing, not sleeping well over my work life. But I have also been battling a not quite cold that had left me without energy and focus. I really hate sinus stuff. There's a lot of staring at a blank screen and not having any thoughts come.  I've read some, which put a dent in the pile.  I spent most of this weekend with my nose in one book or the other. I don't think I've really done that since before I had kids, and in some ways it felt good to get completely lost in another world again.

It's a weird feeling trying to get motivated again. Like being hungry but utterly bored with everything in the fridge.

My keyboard is going. That makes it even more frustrating to sit down and write something. In other news, my Pumpkin thinks he's Curious George - climbing trees, eating honey sandwiches, speaking with unintelligible squeakiness.

Off to buy some more bananas.