“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day that says, “I will try again tomorrow” — Mary Radmacher
I saw this quotation in the livejournal of one of Howard’s friends. It really resonates with me and so I wanted to keep track of it. Sometimes trying again tomorrow is all I can do.
Each year I begin re-reading the prior year’s journal entries. The primary reason for doing this is to catch the typos before I create a printed and bound version using LJbook.com and Lulu.com. I love having the printed versions sitting on my shelf even though the online versions are much easier to search. This year I did not get started on my read through until just yesterday. I’ve been too busy and stressed. Further evidence of how crazy this past year has been is that I keep reading events from January of 2007 and thinking “That was more than a year ago? Really?” Apparently time has slipped away from me. My children all got a year older and I hardly had time to notice.
Today I took time to look at them all. More than that, I took time to listen to them and think about who they are. I really am very fortunate. I have four healthy, intelligent, beautiful children. When I think about how easily that could change, my heart wants to stop. So instead of pondering potential disasters, I will try to absorb today’s experiences.
I woke up at 4am this morning, unsure why I was awake. Then I realized that someone had called for me. I found Link sitting up in his bed. The room light was on. His reading lamp was on. The nightlight was on. Even Patches toy lantern was on. Link had been scared and turned on every light he could find. I still haven’t gotten a clear story for why Link woke up. I think he had a worrisome dream. He came with me back to my room and slept the rest of the night on the little pad we pull out from under my bed for just such occasions. We call it the kidbed. Fortunately Patches was completely undisturbed by these antics because at some hour prior to them, he had gotten out of his bed and crawled into bed with Kiki. Patches has been doing that a lot lately and I haven’t stopped him because both Kiki and Patches seem to enjoy it.
This morning Gleek threw a kicking, screaming tantrum over being awakened at the usual hour. It was unpleasant, but for once I did not give any ground at all on her expected behavior. Mostly I didn’t give ground because I let Howard handle it. Afterward there were snuggles with blankets. As usual, once the storm was over, Gleek was exceptionally cooperative for the rest of the morning. She went off to school happy.
Patches and I had a quick reading time just before preschool. He sat on my lap and followed my finger as we spoke the words of an easy reader. Mostly I say the word and he repeats it, but he’s beginning to remember words like “the”, “and”, “I”, and “a”. For those words I just point and wait for him to read it. We work with phonics too, but today there wasn’t time. At lunch Patches and I had a conversation about how sometimes ideas pop into our heads and we don’t do them because they aren’t good ideas. We then decided that letting him paint was a good idea, so we got out the paints.
Gleek and Link arrived home from school together. Today I was sitting in the front room waiting for them, so I was ready to hear about their days. So often lately I’ve been downstairs busy and done no more than shout “welcome home” before going back to work. Today I got to hear Gleek’s tale of woe. Her lima bean seed that she’s growing in a plastic bag with a moistened paper towel has developed mold and is dead. None of the other kids in her class had this problem and she is quite upset about it. Her little forehead creased and tears filled her eyes. I watched her and tried to remember what it is like when the death of a lima bean seed feels like the end of the world. Gleek recovered quickly. Within minutes she was telling me how the seeds of her friends were growing and that next time she has a seed, she won’t water it quite so much.
Kiki bounced home from school with a bag full of books. She was quite happy about this because not one of the books was for homework. She had three books on how to draw Manga. Two books borrowed from the school library in a series that she’s been reading. And the second Mistborn book, which she’d hauled to school with her that morning. She loved the first one. Now she is loving the second one as well. Next I expect her to be pestering me or her Dad to see if we can get an advance copy of the third Mistborn book which is due out this fall. Kiki unloaded her pile and then went for my ipod. Usually my ipod sits plugged into speakers in the kitchen, but Kiki has begun unplugging it and listening to it with headphones. She’s saving up for an ipod of her very own, but until then she’s content to shanghai mine. I don’t really mind. She is very good about giving it back if I want to listen to something. We’re already working to teach her proper headphone etiquette; namely she must remove the headphones from her ears to speak to others or anytime someone else tries to speak with her. She agrees with the concept, but, as with many things, application is a little harder.
I asked Link about his art lessons today. He’s tired of them, they’ve turned into work. I knew this, but I’d hoped he could make it through the end of the school year, which is a natural stopping point. Unfortunately Link has begun entertaining himself by doing the opposite of what the teachers ask him to do. They tell him to draw a line down, he’ll draw it up. Since the line is still in the same place, it is possible that these minor defiances are going right under the teacher’s radar, but I’m loath to risk it. I still remember being pulled aside by an art teacher because Kiki was being rude and defiant to them. So I’m thinking of letting Link stop. Kiki stopped and then voluntarily went back a couple years later. I don’t want to kill Link’s enjoyment of art by forcing him to stay in lessons that he has stopped liking.
When I start paying attention, it is amazing the quantity of things fill the lives of my children every day. This is only a sampling. I need to keep watching so this year doesn’t vanish the way that 2007 did.
This morning Howard and I had one of our “meetings” where we talk about business stuff while one or the other of us putters in the kitchen. Today we were talking about finances and I suggested that we probably want to do some more merchandise before the end of this month. Howard responded that he wasn’t sure he was allowed to do more merchandise (other than books), considering how stressed the t-shirt mailing made me. After the conversation was over I pondered, trying to figure out exactly why I was so stressed with the last t-shirt printing and why contemplating more merchandise doesn’t make me that stressed again.
The Rule one shirt printing came at the beginning of March. Howard was leaving for a convention the next week. We were both leaving for Ad Astra two weeks after that. My Hold Horses project had just come back in the door with big image editing problems that were yet to be solved. The bonus story for Teraport Wars was barely begun and I hadn’t done any lay out work on that project for nearly two months. Biggest of all, the stress of everything else led me to make the enormous error of deciding that it was simpler for me to do all the shipping myself rather than rounding up help.
What would be different for a new merchandise project: Howard has no conventions until the second week of May. I’m not going anywhere any time soon. The Hold Horses project has been fixed. The bonus story for Teraport Wars is all scripted and drawn. It will probably colored and laid in by the end of this week. I sat down this morning and did a pile of Teraport Wars layout work. There is lots left to be done, but it feels like a couple of weeks of solid work. And I have learned my lesson about not doing big shipments all by myself.
In short, it looks like by the third week of April I will have cleared my slate of all other business tasks. This means that my business brain space is available for merchandise shipping.
“Mommy? When we get home I want to take some [polyfill] stuffing and put it on the back of the couch. Then I will pretend the couch is a mountain and climb it.”
This sentence from Gleek was spoken into the silence of a long car ride. Fortunately I was able to recall a conversation from the week before which made sense of the odd proclamation. On the prior occasion Gleek had noticed fluffy clouds sitting on a mountain top and expressed a desire to climb the mountain and get a bag full of clouds so that she could make them into pillows. The idea kept stewing in her brain until she came up with this other option.
My kids do this to me all the time. They burst forth with an exclamation, or question, or comment that is completely apropos to their train of thought, but for which I have to scramble to make sense. Like the time that Patches declared “One day I saw a fish.” The phrase “one day” can mean anything from “earlier this morning” to “years and years ago,” so that wasn’t much help. Also not particularly helpful was the fact that we were standing in the middle of the Seattle Aquarium looking at tanks of fish when Patches made his pronouncement. I could tell that this time of seeing fish had reminded him of some other time when he saw a fish. I was never able to determine what that other time was, because Patches’ train of thought had moved onward to go see the octopus.
I call these experiences “trains out of nowhere” because it is very much like standing still as a train barrels past. Sometimes I can figure out where the train came from and where it is going. Other times all I get is a glimpse of the train. It is a reminder that each of my kids has a whole world inside their heads. Their ideas and thoughts are in motion constantly and their experience of an event will be very different from mine because even though we are standing next to each other physically, we are worlds apart in our brains.
One of the things that fascinated me at Ad Astra was watching the dynamics of conversations. I had plenty of chances because the whole weekend was filled with them, whether they were the formalized conversations of a panel discussion, or the informal conversations that occurred spontaneously in the hallways. I was paying particular attention to how conversations are born, grow, break-up, or die because I have not always been good at it. I still remember being at a convention in April of 2005 and fleeing to my room in tears because I didn’t know how to talk to strangers when Howard was not around. I’ve learned a lot since then. I’m still not an expert, but I want to sort some of my thoughts and see if I can make sense of it all.
One thing that I’ve learned about people is that everyone has stories to tell, even if they don’t think that they’re interesting. All you have to do is find the right opener and people start to spill stories. Each story usually contains several further openers. I grab them and mentally hold on to them in case the conversation should flag later and I need a new direction. I’ve had lots of conversations with amazing people who didn’t think they were very special. They felt ordinary, but they’d done things I have not, and it was delightful to listen as they spoke about it.
Conversations are very much like living things. They have to be nurtured and they can be killed by unskilled handling. A key element in being a good conversationalist is know what not to say. I’m not just talking about faux pas, but also about simple thoughts and possible threads for conversation. My rule of thumb is to divide my thoughts by the number of people participating in the conversation. If there are two people, then I only going to get to say half of the things I think of to say. If there are three, then I only going to get to say about one thought out of three. Like any rule of thumb, this is very flexible. In a conversation between five people, two may dominate the conversation for awhile, but as the topic drifts the other three may have more to say.
Dominance in conversation is a topic unto itself. There are some people who will take control of almost any conversation that they enter. This can be either enjoyable or frustrating depending on if you enjoy listening to the dominant person. Several times during the weekend I noticed guests of honor holding “court.” This would generally be a larger conversation of 5-10 people, but the famous person did most of the talking. This kind of conversation occurs when most of the participants are in awe of one particular participant. Then everyone seems content to just listen to whatever that one person has to say. I pointed out the phenomenon to Howard, he nodded and said that he “holds court” sometimes too. Howard is very much an entertainer in conversations. He stands right up and fills the conversation with stories and anecdotes, virtually guaranteeing that the conversation won’t flag. My conversational style is different. I have my own share of stories and anecdotes, but I almost prefer getting other people to talk so that I can just listen. Listening is far less exhausting than talking. This tendency of mine is part of the reason I was so socially dependent on Howard for so many years. If I was with him I was guaranteed to have someone who would keep conversations from devolving into awkward silence. I’m pleased to say that I was not dependent on Howard for conversational help at Ad Astra. I talked to lots of people and enjoyed doing it.
As is typical in almost any social situation, there were conversations that did not interest me, or that I was otherwise interested in ducking out of. There is an art to gracefully ending or leaving a conversation, particularly if there are only two people involved. I’m not sure I have this one down yet, but I’m starting to see how it works. I’m also starting to see how to introduce people to each other and help them strike up a conversation. These are extremely useful hostessing skills. We expect to be doing book release parties for years to come and I’m going to need lots of hostessing skills to make that work well.
The convention is done. Hold on to Your Horses is done, and this time I know it is done right. Howard has no conventions for a whole month, so we’re going to have time to knock out the Teraport Wars. For the first time since New Years I feel like I don’t have to run flat out to get everything done. I’m aware that this is a respite. May will be busy. Past May there will be many other busy months. But today I got outside and found the flowers that were hiding in my weedbed. It is good.
I walked out of the panel room and down the crowded corridor. Up ahead I could see a small child thrashing and screaming on the floor. The mother was sitting on the floor next to her son, not picking him up or talking to him. The crowd veered around, eyes averted, to give the unpleasant scene more space. Some of the people passing by were trying to be kind, to not add to the embarrassment. Others may have been passing judgment. The massed effect was to isolate this mother and her screaming son in a bubble of “I will pretend to not see you.” I recognized the mother, we had been panelists in a discussion about blogging the night before. During the course of that panel she had mentioned her son as autistic. That one piece of information gave the scene a whole different cast for me. This was not an uncaring mother ignoring her misbehaving child. This was a struggling mother who had tried everything to help her over-stimulated child, but simply had to wait until he’d screamed himself tired enough to be rational again. I’ve been there before. I’ve been the mother sitting on the floor, or actively chasing the child who is a public nuisance. It does not take an autistic child to put one in that situation, none of mine are autistic, but parents of autistic children end up there much more often.
I stopped and crouched down to ask if there was any way I could help. As I suspected, there really wasn’t anything I could do for the little boy. The touch or words of a strange woman would have added to his distress rather than soothing it. But my stopping did help. It let that mother know that not all the eyes that passed were judging her as a terrible mother. I saw the tear that she wiped away so quickly. I stayed only for a minute. The little boy was winding down the tantrum even as I stopped. The mother soon needed to turn all of her attention back to him, and I needed to move along for my next event. I did not get to see that mother or her son during the rest of the convention. I hope it went well for them.
Many times I have been very grateful for a passing sympathetic comment given to me in similar circumstances. I am indebted to the many people who have helped me contain or control my children in public spaces. I am indebted to the many kind people whose words let me know that I was not an awful parent and that I was not alone in my struggles. I’m glad I had the chance to pass that gift along to someone else.
Saturday night at the convention was in full swing. A klingon in full regalia was discussing Harry Potter with slave princess Leia. A procession of corseted figures had just gone past, headed for the dance. The bar was full of authors and aspiring authors solving the problems of the world over drinks. Downstairs the filk had just begun. The conversation in which I’d been taking part had just broken up as some people headed off for bed. Howard had been shanghaied into a Shadowrun LARP. I took a moment to step away from the bustle and just watch. I retreated to an otherwise unoccupied balcony that gave me a view of convention central.
I stood, unnoticed, and watched the bustle below. I became aware of a subtle unease inside myself. Below me were dozens of people very different from myself. They were publicly doing things that I choose not to do. Near me was a table with flyers, some of which explained or defended alternative lifestyles. I live in a community where 80% of the population shares my religion and moral code. It was definitely a “not in Kansas anymore” moment. I had several of those throughout the convention. Usually they hit me when I had a moment alone to think.
I only stayed aside from the bustle for a short while. It is good to acknowledge the subtle discomfort, but it does not drive my actions. I’m gad that it does not. I had many fascinating conversations with people who made me feel subtly uncomfortable. I learned a lot about different ways of thinking and the motivations behind the choices that are different from my own. Sometimes the discussions made the discomfort disappear, sometimes it did not. In quiet times later I was able to analyze and try to sort my reactions.
In contrast, there were many people with whom I was instantly, and completely, comfortable. That is always a joy to discover. It is very happy to go to a new place and to find friends waiting for you there. Interestingly, physical appearance was not a particularly good predictor for whether or not I would feel comfortable.
At one point during the convention I had a conversation with someone who was describing a friend as “very religious.” I listened to the description and it sounded perfectly normal to me. Where I live it is very common for people to attend church every Sunday, to pray over every meal, to pray daily as a family, to pray before bed, to read scriptures daily, and to live a moral code which includes behavioral and dietary guidelines. Being at Ad Astra and listening to people there, I realized that to most of them my life would seam zealously religious. The comparison was fascinating to me and it gave me a chance to glimpse my life from another viewpoint.
One of the most obvious manifestations of this differentness came up in discussions of children. I always got a reaction when I mentioned that I have four(!) kids. In Utah families with 5 or 6 kids are common. A family with four is considered average. At Ad Astra I did not talk parenting with a single person who had more than three kids. By the end of the convention I began to feel than mentioning the number my kids was either bragging or a confession of lunacy. No one person ever implied this, it was just an aggregation of all the reactions all weekend long.
All of it together made me realize that living outside of Utah would be a challenge for me. Here, I am very comfortable. My choices about life and parenting are right in the center of normal. If I were to live somewhere else, I would stick out, be different. That position is inherently difficult. I would have to be strong to remain who I am when it is different from others. The thought makes me question my motives for choosing to live where I am comfortable. Not that I’m going to move any time soon. Our roots here are deep. Going somewhere else would be a major upheaval for us all.
The experience brings home to me that I need to be alert and aware of the people who live near me who are not part of the local cultural majority. They are outside the norm either by religion, or language, racial heritage, or lifestyle. As part of the majority I have a responsibility to see them and accept them for who they are. I have a responsibility to not treat them like they are invisible or irrelevant. I have a responsibility to reach out and find our similarities rather than our differences. I felt vaguely different at Ad Astra, but I never once felt alienated, because people were far more interested in finding points of connection than in defending their choices. I need to do that for the cultural minorities in my community.
Thoughts and experiences such as I sort in this blog entry are a major reason why I love going to conventions. While sorting these thoughts, I’ve come to the conclusion that it does no harm for me to live in a place where I am in the cultural majority, so long as I do not hide there. I need to keep going to places and meeting people that are outside my comfort zone. That is good for me, so long as I do not participate in activities that are outside my moral code. Conventions like Ad Astra are ideal for this.
Next to the elevator in the hotel there was a sign that said in large letters “Upon discovery of fire” followed by smaller print detailing evacuation plans. Howard pointed out the sign and declared his desire to tape a new message underneath the bold inscription so that the sign would read: “Upon discovery of fire, invent civilization.”
I spent all weekend talking to people who are very focused on writing fiction. There were lots of discussions of writers block, and daily word counts, and sneaking time to write. Usually this kind of discussion is both inspiring and guilt inducing. I come out of a convention weekend full of ideas and ready to tackle new stories. That did not happen this time. I do not have time to schedule writing into my life right now. If a free moment and inspiration strike at the same time, then I will write, but otherwise I will not. This is okay because there will be a time in my future when I can schedule writing time. Just because I am not writing now, does not mean I will never write again. Failing to write is not a tragedy so long as I choose something more important to me. The writing will be waiting for me when I emerge from this busy time in my life.
The “Education Benefits of Video Games” panel veered into the territory of good parenting. There was a thought I did not get the chance to express in the panel, but it is a good thought which I don’t want to forget: If my children never choose to do something that makes me uncomfortable, then I have failed as a parent because they have not learned to think for themselves.
I got to attend parts of two book launches during the course of the convention. Both launches featured convention games where attendees ran around finding clues to solve puzzles and win prizes at the launch party. I’d never seen that done before and it was a neat way to do it. It probably works best when the book launch is part of a convention, although I suppose it might be possible to run the game online before a non-convention launch. I don’t think it is something I will ever do though. I am too over-stressed with book shipping, and party arranging, to put the effort into running a game as well. Both of the Ad Astra book launches were in a presentation/book signing format. Ours have been more of a party/open house format. I suspect we’ll mostly stick to the latter because it requires fewer functioning braincells and those are in short supply when I’m exhausted from a shipping event. I do think we’ll try to have party prizes of some sort though. That was neat.
In the dealer’s room, there was one artist who had simply gorgeous painted sculptures of fantasy creatures. The phoenix and the dragons particularly caught my eye. I talked to her for a minute or two about her process. She’s just graduated from school and is making ends meet with the income from her art. I hope she continues to be able to do so. Her work is simply beautiful, you should go look at it. www.creaturesfromel.ca