16 posts tagged “writing”
I feel completely disconnected from my writing right now. Which is so unfortunate as I have so much to write about. New marriage. New job. New experiences and growth and change and joy. There is a lot of wonderful available and I should be tapping into it, but I can't. I'm trying to live instead of write, experience instead of overanalyze, and exist in the joy/worry/anger/love/humor of the moment as it happens instead of obsessing about it endlessly.
I don't know if this is a good thing. Sometimes I think it is. It's good to stop and live. It's kind of like the difference between photographing a memorable even and just watching it. I don't think it's a permanent condition. In fact, I sense it's nearly over and I have a lot churning in my head right now. I guess I just need to verbalize and rationalize to myself how I went from writing and photographing everyday to almost not at all.
I love and miss you, writing. I'll be back before you know it.
Sorry so MIA. Starting a writing business is a pain in the ass. But it's worth it, right? I've been terrified and doubtful and skeptical and fearful and about ready to just go find a job being someone's secretary for 6 months until I get fired again for missing work for my children again. I'm incorrigible you know. But at church yesterday we had the most amazing speaker. Her name is Shauna Niequist and her book is called Cold Tangerines. Go out and buy several copies. Unless you're related to me in which case I'll be giving you one for birthday or Christmas or both. She preached about Esther and fearlessness and finally read a passage from her book that touched me in a way I didn't beleive possible. Ron too. He summed it up perfectly by saying "I want to cry, vomit, and breakdance all at the same time." Here it is (in part)
Art slips past our brains straight into our bellies. It weaves itself into our thoughts and feelings and the open spaces in our souls, and it allows us to live more and say more and feel more. Great art says the things we wished someone would say out loud, the things we wish we could say out loud.
It matters, art does, so deeply. It’s one of the noblest things, because it can make us better, and one of the scariest things, because it comes from such a deep place inside of us. There’s nothing scarier than that moment when you sing the song for the very first time, for your roommate or your wife, or when you let someone see the painting, and there are a few very long silent moments when they haven’t yet said what they think of it, and in those few moments, time stops and you quit painting, you quit singing forever, in your head, because it’s so fearful and vulnerable, and then someone says, essentially, thank you and keep going, and your breath releases, and you take back everything you said in your head about never painting again, about never singing again, and at least for that moment, you feel like you did what you came to do, in a cosmic, very big sense.
I know that life is busy and hard, and that there’s crushing pressure to just settle down and get a real job and khaki pants and a haircut. But don’t. Please don’t. Please keep believing that life can be better, brighter, broader, because of the art that you make. Please keep demonstrating the courage that it takes to swim upstream in a world that prefers putting away for retirement to putting pen to paper, that chooses practicality over poetry, that values you more for going to the gym than going to the deepest places in your soul. Please keep making art for people like me, people who need the magic and imagination and honesty of great art to make the day-to-day world a little more bearable.
And if, for whatever reason, you’ve stopped — stopped believing in your voice, stopped fighting to find the time — start today. Do that. Do something creative every day, even if you work in a cubicle, even if you have a newborn, even if someone told you a long time ago that you’re not an artist, or you can’t sing, or you have nothing to say. Those people are bad people, and liars, and we hope they develop adult-onset acne really bad. Everyone has something to say. Everyone. Because everyone, every person was made by God, in the image of God. If he is a creator, and in fact he is, then we are creators, and no one, not a bad seventh grade English teacher or a harsh critic or jealous competitor, can take that away from you.
So to all the secret writers, late-night painters, would-be singers, lapsed and scared artists of every stripe, dig out your paintbrush, or your flute, or your dancing shoes. Pull out your camera or your computer or your pottery wheel. Today, tonight, after the kids are in bed or when your homework is done, or instead of one more video game or magazine, create something, anything.
Pick up a needle and thread, and stitch together something particular and honest and beautiful, because we need it. I need it.
Thank you, and keep going.
So I'm going to keep going. Because God told me too in a very clear and direct and forceful way. My bills might be late, I might have a very undecorated wedding, and I might be hungry (best. diet. ever.) but I know that I've got to keep going. This is my chance. It is my right and my responsibility.
Back to work I go.
Oh, and the beautiful and gracious Shauna Niequist (who actually let me hug her while sobbing afterwards) can be found here http://www.shaunaniequist.com/ and her book can be (will be and should be) purchased at Amazon.
What was the best blog post you wrote this year? What was the best post or blog you read?
I've been trying to figure this out for awhile. The easy answer is that I like all of them. It's because of my blog that I'm where I am today. I remember sending Ron the link to my blog in maybe the second email I sent him. About .07 seconds after hitting send I smacked myself on the forehead and said "What the hell were you thinking?" and expected to never hear from him again. However, he claims that it was my writings here that really intrigued him. Basically, I snagged Ron with all my $5 words and rampant sarcasm. Who knew that would even be possible?
So the diplomatic answer is that I love ALL of my blogs. It reminds me of when my sister and I would fight when we were younger. We'd inevitably accuse mom of loving daughter more than the other. She'd respond with "I love you both the same. That's like asking me to pick which leg is my favorite. I need both to walk." Linz and I, being very wry and sarcastic at the ripe ages of 12 and 8 would respond "Well I would pick my right leg. My left one has a funny scar on it."
Ahem. (Can we tell Ashley needs to get back on her meds after a holiday break from them?)
In no particular order, I like the following:
First Date Because, well duh.
09-10-01 Because I think it's a pretty decent piece of writing, if I do say so myself.
March 14, 2006 and Peace and Before and After because they are all about my mom and her aneurysm. I think most of the writing I've done in the past year is about that event and the more I write, the more it helps me make sense of what happened and how that one 15 mm piece of artery could change so many lives.
Story Time Because it's such an accurate picture of my girls and how they are with me and each other. Even though I just dropped them of at Grandma's 2 hours ago, reading this makes me miss them already.
The Official Cruise Recap/Novel Because I'm really lucky to have such badass friends, even if I only get to see them sporadically. Like once every 5 years sporadically.
On Being Alone Because it's funny how much I don't miss it. Now I have all the good parts of being alone, but with the added bonus that I've got a smart, funny, sexy person (who is not me) to share it all with and who also teaches how to broaden my cultural horizons. (By reading Wonder Woman comics and watching Smallville on DVD, but hey.... culture is culture, right?)
As far as the best blog post that I read, hands down it would be the piece Heather Armstrong wrote about her depression (here) and her husband Jon's response on how he handles it (here). I didn't think anything could top Heather's insight, but then I read Jon's. I had never given much thought as to how my depression can effect those around me, but now that I'm living with someone who has the same mental "blessings" that I do, it gave me a new appreciation for what it's like to live with me and a perspective on how I can make that easier.
I'm working on my resolutions right now, because I know you're dying to know what they are. But first I have to do a tally of how I did with 2007's resolutions. I'm keeping score and it's not pretty.
Love you bitches!
I've been thinking about my mom and her brain a lot lately. Pull up the aneurysm tag and you'll stumble across most of the story if you don't know it. We're working on getting her in with some neuropsych people to prod her recovery just a bit. She's doing so well and I'm so proud of her. I love her so much and have been missing her lately. I stumbled across this tonight. I wrote it a few months ago. It's the beginning of something, I just don't know what.....
There are defining moments in life which serve as clear markers, delineating one part of one’s life from another. Some of these are apparent and expected: Before graduation, after graduation. Before marriage, after marriage. Before kids, after kids. Some are unplanned, but normal and preparation is possible: Before divorce, after divorce. Before one career. After another. Sometimes they might come along without your knowledge, and only in retrospect do you realize their significance. Before meeting someone. After that person is in your life. But some are so completely and wholly unexpected, that you cannot possibly plan for them, nor can you hope to regain any sense of before in the after.
I have a before kids, after kids. I have a before divorce, after divorce. Now, the most defining mile marker in my life is before aneurysm, after aneurysm. And it wasn’t even in my brain. One sunny day in March, the world was spinning as it always did and my dramas were small and petty on the grand scale. The next, sunnier morning, a 15mm portion along the internal carotid artery in my mom’s brain decided it was really worn out from keeping all that blood in one place. It put it’s feet on it’s desk, clocked out, and quit doing it’s job unleashing a torrent of trauma into Mom’s subarachnoid space, and into all of our lives.
She didn’t believe us at first. When we said aneurysm, she rewarded us with a furrowed brow and a confused tilt of her head. When she finally regained cognizance about a month after the rupture, she found herself weak, drugged, and unable to speak. All she knew was she couldn’t talk, couldn’t remember, couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Surely we were exaggerating. Surely she had just had a migraine yesterday and now we were trying to scare her. Surely she was just a little wiped out from the meds they’d given her and everything would be back to normal by next week.
I don’t know what she thought because she couldn’t tell us. That lazy artery wall had leaked blood all over the part of her brain that controls speech. I could see the questions in there, the words bouncing around in her brain. Everything multiplying exponentially and crowding up in that space. The pressure of their isolation showed in her eyes. She’d spent nearly 50 years being the most outspoken and eloquent person and now….now…. Her tools, her weapons, her thoughts, her loves, her words wouldn’t come. They stayed in her head. Reluctant to leave her mouth and be seen in the light. Stubbornly denying her her voice. The brain which had served her so well, which she prized, by which she defined herself and attained every goal to which she aspired… it was now her enemy. After aneurysm.
It could have been worse. We tried to explain how lucky she was. How those initial phone calls from the doctors in Louisiana held no hope, only grim statistics and admonishment to drive the 300 miles as fast as safely possible. How we were preparing to say good-bye at worst, and preparing to care for her in a vegetative state at best. I did what I do best and googled. I found stories with worse outcomes; it wasn’t hard. Mention an aneurysm to someone and the stories told back to you are those of a relative who died. Always unexpected and always tragic. Maybe 1 in 10 will be a shared story of survival. I printed medical texts that detail in black and white those same grim statistics hammered into my brain by the doctors. 50% die before reaching the hospital. Of those who make it to the hospital 30% die within 48 hours. Of those who survive that long, the next 30% die within a month. Those lucky percentages left either die within the next year, or survive with significant deficit.
She beat all the odds. She survived the surgery. She ruptured fully while on the operating table. Had they waited even 10 minutes to operate, she would likely have died. She survived post-operative complications, never having a stroke from vasospasms. She didn’t get pneumonia. She wasn’t paralyzed. She walked within 2 weeks. She could see and hear and taste and swallow. Mom! You can swallow! Isn’t that awesome news! Her confused and frustrated expression was answer enough for that ridiculous question.
Before aneurysm: Project Controls Analyst working on a multi-million dollar project for a major energy company. Avid reader. Accomplished scholar, gifted musician, loyal friend, and doting grandmother. Active, articulate, intelligent, beautiful and amazing woman, who taught, guided, supported, and inspired. After aneurysm: You can walk! And eat! And breathe! All by yourself! Aren’t you proud? Aren’t you fulfilled? We know your before aneurysm self is still in there. We see it waking up, flitting about, screaming to get out and straining against its new bonds. We hear it in our own minds and know it will be strong one day. But for now it tires easily. Go rest and gather strength. It will come back.
The words began to find their way out. Furry and vaguely malformed, but coming to the party finally. The cloud of confusion gradually lifted. The puzzled look was permanently affixed for a few weeks. We had to retell the story a few times and learned to limit the length and detail. After awhile, we didn’t have to tell her. She knew she had crossed a line and was in the after of something.
A quote from the inimitable Heather Armstrong (of dooce.com)
"I don't think they make a capsule strong enough that it could totally stand up to the wrath of the female hormone. One minute I'm perfectly fine, sipping a cup of coffee, flipping through a magazine filled with photos of meticulously art-directed living rooms, thinking I'd very much like thosesquare acrylic tables or that pillow covered in suede. An hour later I'm having a panic attack at the thought of taking a shower, the energy it would require, how it seems so dumb that we keep having to do it over and over again, and then extrapolating that to every task in day-to-day life, making the bed or washing the dishes, it never ends. It just keeps going on and on, there is no destination, just the work of trying to get there. Maybe I'm just too sad to push that rock up the hill today.
And then I'm all, shut up. You smell. Go wash your hair.
For those who don't know, Post Secret is an ongoing community art project in which people from all over the world mail in postcards bearing a secret they've never shared before. Some are funny, some are heartbreaking, I'd really just be running down adjectives in the Thesaurus were I to try and accurately describe them all. Usually about 20 new secrets are posted every Sunday, and several books have been published.
I don't check the website regularly, but it appeals strongly to several parts of me. The voyeur in me enjoys the glimpse into other peoples thoughts; the schadenfreude takes a perverted comfort in the knowledge that other people might have worse problems; the artist in me is inspired by the craft evident in many of the creations; and another part of me wonders if I might not create one of my own.
Not that I have any big dark secrets or confessions. I'm usually pretty bad about keeping secrets, my own especially and am more inclined to reveal too much than too little. It's the writer in me (or so I'm told) that wants to share everything in excruciating detail. But I know there are some thoughts rattling around that I might not dare utter. Would it be liberating to get them out? To send them anonymously into the world and know they might give hope to someone else with the same thoughts? Or would it be a burden? Would I regret voicing those thoughts, and worry that my anonymity was an illusion? Would I make someone feel worse? Would I be thought selfish or horrible?
As much as I feel the compulsion to overshare on a regular basis, I think some things should remain unsaid. I'm glad there is a forum for those who need it, to express what is driving them, or plaguing them, or even amusing them. But for me, I think that if I'm going to put something out there, then I might as well do it where I can control or at least gauge the reaction. As a writer, I'm learning that I can create things both wonderous and terrible, though I can't always accurately predict which will be the reception. So anything that needs to be said by me will be said here; but meanwhile, check out the books and website of Post Secret. If nothing else, it will give you something to think about...
Edited because mobile blogging completely effs up the formatting, which entirely defeated the purpose.
I was so excited when I heard about the Cringe Book Project (http://www.cringebook.com/) and I had the perfect piece to submit. Well, more than one actually. Alas, the deadline passed before I could dig through the mountains of all of my old writing to find this little gem. Although I did stumble across a Dilantin-fueled critique of the Federal Reserve that I still don't understand to this day.
Anyway, I used to write a lot of poetry. I thought it was good. I worshipped William Carlos Williams. So I was not only angsty, but also pretentious. What a great combo I tell ya. I found this when I moved and just could not resist inflicting ----- er, I mean sharing. I'll even attach a little snapshot at the bottom, when I get a chance. Because a lot of the fun pretention is in the precise arrangement of the words on the page. When I said pretentious, I meant it.
Oh, and I my angst was pretty justifiable. This was written about three months after my Grampsy passed away. My grandfather on my mom's side, he was an amazing person and more like a father to me than I've ever seen anyone be to a child. It's almost embarassing to think that my grief for such an honorable person was channeled into trite BS such as follows. Oh well. I know present you with..... "Morte" (don't laugh) (okay, you can laugh. i know i am...)
Laying here
(beneath the blood)
it's all rose tinted.
Not bad. While the clots
blot the plethora
of calamitous blemishes.
But, it's inevitable
the tide
filling my eyes (with salt)
the water comes later
then the abyss.
The abyss ---
where every tree looks inviting
And reasoning is reduced to
"Why drag such majesty to the
of my adumbrated contrition.
DEPTHS (A plauge, really.)
So I let the little things kill me
(four seasons, Spanish, the sky)
And any manner of music
But now, everything just (floats)
in the air as well as the water.
Existence is such an excruciating punishment
(for a nice girl like me)
Maybe one day
one year
one March
spring
whatever.
Maybe it will stop.
Maybe the tide will recede and I can return
to my blood vision
until my body
absorbs it and again
I am human.
Ha.
But maybe (probably)
it will continue until no one is left.
(but myself)
The world will crumble around me before my suffering is over and death shall be my life.
Forevermore.
Yeah, I went there. I busted out old school Poe-style on your ass, man. How you like me now?
(Also, I'd like to thank my mom for all the extensive therapy that took place shortly after this was written. Otherwise I might still be littering the world with non-rhyming, oddly spaced and paragraphed poetry. You should all thank her too.)
Yeah, so technically today is my one year anniversary of blogging, but it really shouldn't count as such. I signed up, wrote one medication fueled atrocity of a post, then set it aside until January of 2007. Because of course my most important new year's resolution (and almost the only one that I kept) was to write more.
I'm so incredibly grateful that i found Vox. I love the sense of community here, and I love that even when I'm feeling very very lazy and uninspired, I can come here, read other wonderful writers, and maybe even be prompted up off my ass into writing something. Vox has brought me friendships, has helped me become a better writer, and indirectly helped me find (and snag!) the absolute love of my life. (Sorry. I'll hand out barf bags now...)
And what better way to celebrate my blogovoxoversary than to do a lazy ass retrospective clipshow of all my favorite pieces. Shall I do a top 10? I think I just might. And in reverse chronological order (oldest to newest) the winners are.....
10. Communication Problems Because it is the most accurate way I have ever communicated my inability to communicate. I'm working on it though. :)
9. March 14, 2006 Because I wrote it for my Mom and reading it takes me back to the day we almost lost her. Some bad days should be quickly forgotten, some should be gradually explained away, but some - like this one - should always be remembered if for no other reason than to remind you to be grateful.
8. Not Again Because I thought I would feel like this forever and I thought I was the only one. Turns out I won't and I'm not. I love a good happy ending.
7. You Never Know, It Could Very Well Be True Because it's fun to brainwash the girls. Especially when they do it themselves, saving me the hassle.
6. Peace Because it reminds me that prayer works and that life is unexpected with its ups as well as it's downs. Plus the cows are just too darn cute.
5. Story Time Because it's funny when it becomes glaringly obvious that your children are just little replicas of yourself.
4. The Good Doctor Because nothing is more fun than public humiliation. And because I've finally found something way hotter than binary code.
3. Three Cheers for Adderall Because these are three of my very favorite scrapbook pages and I'm proud of them, dangit!
2. Foot in Mouth: Standard Edition Because it's good to remember that even when I think I sound like a complete asshole, someone somewhere is laughing about it. I bring joy to people. This is a good thing.
1. I Highly Recommend Because feeling like this is miraculous, and so far constant. I can't imagine that I'll ever stop feeling like this, but I'll at least always have this to remind me. Just in case.
Show us where you write most often.
Ok, first you'll have to go in through that left pupil. It's bigger than the right one, so you shouldn't have too much trouble. Take a left at the rattling closet door of compartmentalization, straight through past the doldrums of math knowledge, a right just after the favorite childhood memories (they're shiny and golden). You'll go for a long ways, past all the vocabulary words I don't use. Then there's a funny little windy part that follows my train of thought (though it's usually derailed) (watch for casualties) and then, just past there, that little gray corner with all the file boxes? Where the words are spilled everywhere and there's no where to even sit? The place that fills up everyday and looks like it's never been cleaned? Right there. That's where I write. Even while I eat, breathe, work, talk, sleep, laugh, cry, I'm in there writing. I can't always get it out (though I've heard maybe knitting needles would work), it's all in there....
My psychiatrist once said that I am very good at compartmentalization. Apparently this is a good thing. If something is bothering me, I find a little corner of my brain that's being unused (usually the part reserved for balancing the checkbook, or taking medications on time). I grab the bothersome thing and I wrap it up in duct tape, shove it as far back as it will go, then slam the door, clamp the locks shut and slowly stroll away, whistling and acting nonchalant and pretending the dusty door isn't rattling at it's hinges. This is healthy. My doctor told me so. I thought it was denial, but compartmentalization sounds so much better, doesn't it?
There's been so much going on lately, that I would normally work through in writing, but sometimes it just feels like too much, so I can't even try. I just wedge myself against that door and ramble on about nothing, hoping that maybe some noise - any noise - will make it go away. Not everything locked in there is bad; a few things are really wonderful things that I am locking away lest I pick at them and worry them and rob them of their shiny goodness. Some of the things are really monstrously bad when locked away, and I should really let them wander about and acknowledge them, robbing them of their ferocity. Some have been locked up so long, are so withered and decrepit. They have their own cozy spot there and have taken up permanent residence. Sometimes they get exacerbated and want to come out and party, but my locks are strong. Besides, they'd rather dig a hole out the back way and pop up when I least expect it.
In short, I might very soon replace my diatribes on color wheels with writing of actual substance. There are a lot of things swirling about right now, but soon they'll land and I promise to tell you aaaaaallllllllllllllllllllll about it.
