Self

The Value of Ordinary Stories

By / February 11, 2013 / 8 Comments

I’ve been sending out queries for Stepping Stones, my memoir/essay book where I tell the stories having to do with my transformation into a working mother, the onset of anxiety as an issue in my life, and parenting four children while managing these other things. In response to those queries I’ve been getting a lot of rejections. Most of them are form rejections, often they are addressed to “author.” I can mostly shrug at those, but other rejections are personal. The agent or editor took time to speak particularly to me about the work I submitted. Such responses are a gift of time and caring. I know this. I try to treat the gift with respect even when the accumulation begins to feel discouraging. The personal responses all say things like:

I am just not seeing how I can break this out to a trade readership.

while I think that you have a compelling voice, I don’t completely trust that this is something that I could sell into the mainstream trade market—memoirs are very tough to sell if they’re not overly sexy or high-concept.

You are a compelling writer, with a clear perspective, and a wonderful sense of humor about your circumstances. As a working mother of four (though my kids are now all grown up!), I certainly empathized with the struggle you portrayed in these pages. However, while your story resonated personally, I’m not convinced that the central conflict is compelling enough to distinguish itself in the saturated memoir genre. While the struggle to be a good mother and wife and still pay the bills on time is a difficult one, it is certainly not a unique circumstance. I’ve found that memoir readers generally gravitate towards stories of incredible trauma or tragedy, or of overcoming enormous hurdles: largely circumstances that are outside of their own frame of reference.

And most recently:

What makes your story of motherhood and anxiety and so on different from other’s story?

My answer: nothing.
The stories told in my essays are stories of an ordinary life. Yet “ordinary” is not the same as “mediocre.” There is excellence to be found in ordinary things. This excellence is worth pursuing, but people will not see it nor attempt it if they are constantly told that only spectacular efforts and events are newsworthy. The world is full of amazing people who will never be newsworthy, but without whom our society would collapse.

American society seeks spectacle. The explosions in this year’s movie must be more fantastic than the ones last year. If it bleeds it leads is a guiding principle of most news sources. We watch the Olympics to see the far reaches of human capability and be inspired by them. We read stories of severe mental illness, or horrific abuse, or tantalizing bedroom play. The subtext in all of this is that if we want to matter, we must transform ourselves into something different from the rest of society. We must do something extraordinary to leave a permanent mark on the world. When we don’t, we feel boring.

I had a neighbor once, the mother of my friend, who gave the best hugs in the whole world. She was big, warm, and soft. A hug from her was like being wrapped in a warm blanket. She listened to me. She recommended books. She functioned as an auxiliary mother. Her name was Marilyn and she is the reason that I associate the name with motherliness instead of the blonde actress. I remember Marilyn warning me once—speaking from her position in a deeply unhappy marriage, a position I only learned about years later–not to get married too early. I assured her I would wait until at least eighteen. She laughed and I realized that eighteen still sounded young to her. After Marilyn moved away with her family, I felt her absence. I’ve kept many of the books she gave me. Sometimes I hold them in my hand, running my fingers lightly over the inscriptions, and I wonder how many thoughts and opinions I have because of conversations with her. How was my life shaped by her influence? It is impossible for me to know. I can’t trace back and separate out years of conversations and interactions which altered the trajectory of my young life. Was she ordinary? Yes. Put in a crowd of people she would not stand out, yet she was excellent. She wrapped her life around helping two severely allergic children survive into adulthood. She helped teach me to read. In hundreds of quiet ways she went above and beyond what was expected of a neighbor and friend. She was not newsworthy, but her story matters. She matters.

Why do we wait for eulogies and funerals to fully appreciate the excellence in ordinary lives? We are surrounded by people who have lived tragedies and triumphs. Whatever personal trial you are currently experiencing someone has already walked that path and can help you see the way through, but you’ll only be able to find that person if she has shared her story somewhere. Sometimes these connections are made through mutual friends. Lately they are often made via the internet and support groups. These ordinary stories of excellence and survival are one of the reasons I love to read blogs. It is a major reason why I write my blog, because if one of my ordinary stories can be inspiration or hope to another person then the world is made into a better place. My struggles start being useful instead of just me thrashing around in the dark trying to get by.

These rejection letters are trying to tell me that I have to write a sensational story to be published. This saddens me. It sometimes sends me a few steps down the path of despair, because I don’t think I can write a sensational story. That is not the sort of writing I do. I want to write the story of Marilyn. I want to write about a summer afternoon. I want to share the beauty I see in my four kids playing a video game together. I don’t write self-help or how-to either, which is another suggestion I’ve received. No piece of advice is right for every person, no way of approaching a problem will work for everyone. I don’t feel comfortable saying “this is what you should learn and do” because often the most touching responses I receive are unexpected. The reader pulled something from my words which I’d never seen in them. My stories enter the mind of the reader and combine with everything that is already in there to spark something new. It is a form of magic and it works even when the stories are ordinary.

I’d really hoped that some publisher somewhere would see the value in ordinary stories excellently told. I’m sad because I know these publishing professionals are right, extraordinary stories sell, ordinary stories don’t. Even if some publisher does step up what I’ve written is a niche book that will only be loved by people who find beauty in the ordinary. They are a small market segment. I’ll just keep telling the stories here and turn to fiction as a path to national publication. I’m not giving up on Stepping Stones. It may someday find a home, but it has to be the right home and that may be a very long time in coming.

My Begruding Attendance at a Meeting and What I Learned from It

By / February 6, 2013 / 4 Comments

I had a dozen reasons why I should not go to the Relief Society meeting. It was a craft night. I didn’t particularly want to make either of the offered crafts. The even was right across homework time and bedtime. Kiki and Link weren’t feeling well. Gleek was on edge. If I went I’d have to talk to people. I wasn’t sure what to say. The house was a mess and the mess would no get better in my absence. Howard would be out until late. The list of reasons why I should go was shorter. I was part of the committee and should support the event. I’d agreed to help with one of the crafts. There would be some short lessons along with the crafts. The most compelling reason was a sense that I’ve become disconnected from my neighborhood friends and I ought to fix it. Also I’ve been feeling like I should be giving more to my church assignments rather than just the bare minimum I’d been allotting for months. All day long I mulled over these lists. I thought through the excuses I could give. I knew that my attendance was not essential, everything would be fine without me. The most responsible thing would be to stay home and maintain order for my family.

It was thirty minutes before the scheduled start of the Relief Society meeting and I still hadn’t called the committee chair to say I would not be coming. I don’t know why. I’d rehearsed the call in my head multiple times. I knew she’d be friendly and understanding. I had good reasons. Yet I had not called. Some part of me knew that it would be the wrong choice. I stood in my kitchen listening to the sounds of the kids playing games. I had no dinner plan and interrupting games for homework was sure to spark some rebellion. I really should have begun my preparations to leave an hour before so that all would be orderly while I was gone. Staying home made sense, but there was a ream of paper on my kitchen counter–a necessary supply for one of the crafts. Buying it had been my assignment and it had to be delivered to the event. I threw macaroni & cheese into a pot on the stove, called the kids from their games, told them I’d be gone for a bit, instructed them to do homework as soon as they ate dinner, and within the thirty minutes I was out the door.

“Thank you!” called the committee chair as she saw me enter with the ream of paper.
I smiled in return “I’m going to need to duck out early.” I said, splitting the middle between my two lists. I’d come, but I’d hurry home to take care of things there. I sat and listened to three quick lessons on building good relationships with God, with family and with friends. No words or phrasing jumped out at me, yet I had a creeping sense that I need to be better about the second two. God and I are on pretty good terms just now, but I haven’t been doing so great at reaching out to family and friends. I listened. I tried to absorb and think how I’ll need to change.

I also thought through my exit strategy. I’d introduce the craft and then duck out. No one would miss me. The evening was already an obvious success. I could see that the committee chair was right,the women in our neighborhood needed nights like this. They needed an excuse to get together and visit. Around me I could hear people laughing, commiserating, and offering advice. These were the sort of conversations which don’t seem important enough to make a phone call, but which can change everything through sharing experiences and perspectives. I stood up introduced the craft and then hands were busy while hearts and minds spoke. I stepped to a corner of the table and began cutting the paper I’d brought into quarters. It needed to be cut for the project. I was doing a useful job. Three women shared the table with me, but we didn’t talk. Each of us was occupied with the projects in our hands.

The paper was cut. I’d been at the meeting for an hour. It was time to make my quiet exit. I paused by the committee chair to let her know that I was leaving. She smiled and thanked me for all my help. As I walked down the hall of the building I thought about that silent twenty minutes at the table with the other women. I’d kept hoping they would talk to each other. Then I could listen. Then I could know that everyone else was having a good experience, learning, growing, sharing. I like listening to conversations and occasionally participating. It is my preferred social mode. I thought how very different from me most of the women in my neighborhood are. Many of the things I am passionate about don’t matter to them. Other things we have in common, we could have talked about those, but didn’t. I guess I’m just not good at small talk. I pushed the door open and exited the building.

You know that is not true. It wasn’t words, more of a knowledge that planted itself in the front of my mind. And it wasn’t true. I do perfectly fine chatting with strangers. It is a skill I’ve carefully cultivated and I practice it all the time at conventions and professional events. When I exert myself I can make conversation in grocery store lines or on elevators. My feet slowed and I stopped in the cold winter air. Ahead of me was the parking lot and my car,behind me was the warm building filled with women who were connecting to each other, or wanting to connect. Some of them did not know how to start conversations. But I did. I was good at starting and maintaining conversations, and I’d stood silently for twenty minutes while a younger woman, new to the neighborhood, in need of friends, stood next to me.

I’d come to the event, but I’d held myself back from it. I was there in body, but not in spirit. I could ghost away and my absence would make no difference at all, or I could go back in and exercise all my capabilities to make the meeting be all that it could be for everyone. I stood for a quiet moment. My breath steamed in the air. Then I did what I knew I ought to have done in the first place. I turned and went back inside to really be present for the meeting.

An hour later I’d introduced myself to the new neighbor, talked and laughed with familiar faces, shared thoughts on parenting, education, and crafts. I’d meant to deliberately circulate, talk to lots of people. Instead I landed in a comfortable conversation and stayed. I could perhaps have extended myself even more than I did, but I went home knowing that I’d begun to work on those friendships and connections which I need to build.

There will be another Relief Society meeting again next month. I’d love to be able to say that I’ve learned my lesson and will attend it whole heartedly, reserving nothing. The truth is that I’ll probably have the same paired lists next month. I’ll fight the same battle again. I know that getting out and talking with people is good for me. It makes me happier, more connected. Yet I tend to stay at home by myself. I have hundreds of logical reasons for it, and truthfully I do need quiet empty spaces to recharge. I seek them out. What I forget is that my respites need to be balanced with times when I truly give my full attention to connecting with other people, as I did for the Relief Society craft meeting. Or mostly did, I can do better than I did this time. And I will.

A Letter is a Gift

By / January 29, 2013

I was twelve years old when part of my family moved away. Deidre and Alan weren’t blood related. They had different parents and lived in the house right across the street from ours, but I couldn’t remember them not being there. Deidre was a year older than me, Alan a year younger. Our games rambled from house to house on a daily basis. But then their dad got a job in Missouri, far away from California. I didn’t even get to give them a grand goodbye because their departure coincided with our family vacation. I just returned home to someone else living in that house.

We wrote letters of course. I kept mine in tied in a bundle the way I’d seen in historical movies. At first I heard of their cross country trip, then their new house, then… the letters slowed down. I wrote two letters, then three. I wanted to get letters back. It was fun to have mail. It wasn’t fair that I sent letters and got silence in return. So I decided to be clever. I wrote a letter and tore it in half. At the bottom I wrote a note stating that I’d send them the other half when I got a letter in return. I walked that half a letter to the local mailbox and sent it on its way.

I did get a letter in return, a letter filled with fury. Later Deidre’s mom told me that it was a second draft, kinder than the first, for which I was grateful considering what the letter contained. Deidre was not amused by my trick. She regaled me with the fact that the moment they arrived in Missouri, their father had abandoned them, that they didn’t know where he was or if he would ever come back. Their life was uncertain and she was generally angry with the whole world about it. There I was in my secure house with my intact family, demanding a return when they really had nothing left to give and didn’t know how to tell what had happened. I will never forget the sinking feeling I had in my stomach on reading her letter. Guilt filled my heart.

Ever since that day I have treated every letter I write as a gift. I send it off with no strings attached, no expectation or requirement of a letter in return. I give the gift because I want to and if the other person decides to gift me with a letter in return, that is cause for happiness. Deidre forgave me, and in later years apologized, because it wasn’t really me that she was so angry with. We continued to write letters for years afterward with me sending about four letters for each one I received.

Through the years I’ve written lots of letters to people I care about who are not letter writers. They mention that they enjoy the letters when I next see them, so I know that my gifts are well received. I find my happiness in the act of writing, in thinking about the person to whom I’m addressing the letter, in the short trip to the mailbox. And on the days when my mailbox has a letter for me, I rejoice for the gift I’ve been given of another person’s time and attention.

*Names have been changed

Reaching Forty

By / January 27, 2013 / 2 Comments

I am now forty. It is a nice round number and I must say that it is nice to no longer be 39. With my age at 39 there are people who suspect I’m actually older and fudging my age. Now I can say forty and they won’t doubt me. Other than being able to declare forty, not much feels different. Today was pretty normal because we put all the celebratory events on different days. I’m not done with fun events yet. I’ve got a couple more things next week, which is possibly why I’m content to let this day mostly be just a day.

It does introduce difficulty when the birthday phone calls come and I have little to report. The things which make me happy this week are not things that can be wrapped. They are quiet things and to explain why they are enough would take a long and heartfelt conversation, not exactly the fare for a birthday chat. So I pull little details like going out to Bombay House for dinner, or my trip to Antelope Island yesterday, or the Dancing with the Stars concert performance I’ll be attending this coming Friday. These things all make me happy, but most of my happiness comes from elsewhere. I did not enter this birthday season feeling a strong need for affirmation and recognition. I arrived here filled up instead of drained, and so I don’t need much. There are years where I need a lot.

It is fortunate that this was a low-need year, because today featured science fair project stress, growing-up angst, the question of what to do with freezer-burned salmon which is no longer suitable for sashimi, quarrels over magnet toys, a bloody nose, and rampant moodiness from several family members. It also included a salmon dinner which tasted marvelous, a fantastic lesson from our home teacher, children being enthralled with science documentaries, and me outlining a detailed plan for all the many appointments and events coming this week. (A plan is a happy thing. I like having plans.) I have many things I am anticipating in the next three weeks, which is a lovely ward against the unending cold, gray, snow.

I am forty and the day I arrived at forty was full of the normal sorts of happiness and frustration that I find in most of my days. I’m okay with that.

Forty Year Old Eyes

By / January 15, 2013

I’ve been looking forward to turning forty. I planned to reach my birthday and proclaim my age in defiance of cultural custom where women either dread their fortieth birthday or lie about their ages, or both. But lately my eyes have been harder to focus. What used to happen in an unnoticeable instant now takes an extra minute. It is like the lag on a slow internet connection. I have also been getting some headaches. So I trundled myself off to an eye doctor thinking that perhaps my glasses needed updating. I’ve had them for eight years. They’re due. I got there and described my troubles.
“How old are you?” asked the doctor
“Forty in two weeks.”
“Ah. The forties are not good to eyes.” He then described how I could expect things to get worse, advised that maybe I could look under my glasses when trying to focus close, and said that when it gets to the point that I’m holding books at arms length it’ll be time for bifocals. He also told me that once a person starts noticing vision differences, things deteriorate pretty quickly.
Why was I looking forward to forty again?

It is silly to be upset by a predictable body shift. I knew that eyes change as they get older. I knew that people have to get reading glasses and bifocals. Yet I am upset and I’m trying to untangle why. Perhaps it is the dissonance. Bifocals, having to hold books at a distance, and large print editions are all things I associate with being old. But I don’t feel old. Forty isn’t old. Yet forty is when these vision changes tend to begin.

The doctor ushered me out to the showroom area saying “If you’re interested in frames, these lovely ladies will be happy to help you.” The lovely ladies in question were completely absorbed by their computers, except for the one who was leaning against the wall and chatting with one of the computer ladies. I shuffled my way down the rows of frames, not really seeing them. Picking out something to wear on my face every day for the next several years felt too daunting. I dutifully looked at each frame in each row while the lovely ladies continued to ignore me. When I reached the last row I knew I was too occupied with the thoughts in my head to be able to decide on glasses, so I walked off into the larger store. Yes, I went to an optometrist inside a big box store. Eight years ago they were fine. This time the service was underwhelming. The only problem was that I’d walked off without paying for the exam, a fact I remembered later when I got home. Which meant I had to go back out into the cold and drive back to the store to pay. It was a forgetful/distracted act of the sort which usually causes me to spout profuse apologies. I couldn’t find the energy to apologize when they’d neglected to provide any sort of customer service at all. I do take a strange satisfaction in the fact that I arrived to pay just after they’d clocked out. So I did cause them some inconvenience, though I’m not sure if that is matched by me having to spend an additional 15 minutes driving in a sub-freezing vehicle.

While I was at the big box store I returned an item and went to go pick up one other thing that Howard asked me to get. I was also supposed to pick up a treat for the kids. Except I couldn’t remember what Howard asked me to get. I called him for help remembering. Then I paid and left only to remember that I was supposed to get a treat too. So I went back into the store and purchased the treats in a separate transaction. Yesterday was not a good day for focused attention to detail.

The next day things look brighter. They usually do. Which is why one of the optical purchases I’ll be making will be a pair of non-metaphorical sunglasses. I’m tired of having to squint will driving in the snow which continues to cover every available outdoor surface. As for growing older, I suspect I’m having the forty year old version of the upset Gleek had a couple of weeks ago when she curled into my lap and cried because she doesn’t want to grow up. All of my kids have had a similar cry right around the time that they turn twelve. I’m having my moment of “getting old” angst. This means it is time for me to get on with living my life so that forty is a good place to be.

Not Quite the end of a Very Long Week

By / January 10, 2013

There is an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6 called Life Serial. In it the villains place a device on Buffy which messes with time. She’s walking into class then blinks and class is over. She takes a few steps toward her next class and then she’s missed that one too. My whole day has felt like that. I look up from my computer and realize that 90 minutes have passed and I still haven’t done the thing I sat down to do. In my case I don’t have a device or villains to blame, just lack of sleep. It feels weak to claim that. I’ve managed on less. I used to do it on a regular basis when my kids were still waking me up in the middle of the night every single night. Of course Patch did wake me up this week because he was sick. And then I never napped to make up for it, because this was the first work week of a new year, the first full week back at school, the last week of the term for my two teenagers, and so many things were more pressing than sleep. Which landed me in today when my brain just stopped functioning properly.

The printer ran out of toner. This is a normal complication in a work day. Except in the holiday rush I forgot to place an order for toner cartridges. I had to go to an office supply store. Thus instead of spending five minutes printing postage, putting out packages for the mailman, and taking a nap; I drove to the store and back, returned to see the mail truck driving away from my house, printed the postage, drove the packages down to the post office, and then got back just in time to begin the after school pick ups. With extra trips out to conference with Link’s English teacher because the term ends tomorrow and there is last minute work to do tonight. The whole package thing wouldn’t have been today’s problem at all if I’d had my act together any time in the last four days when I knew those packages had to be sent before today. But the last four days had their own urgencies, their own lists of things which must be done today to prevent future crisis.

My whole week has been like that Google app Martin Van Buren commercial. The one where the kid shows up to breakfast saying “It is dress like a president day. I’m supposed to be Martin Van Buren.” So the mom slaps together an amazing costume in ten minutes. I have rescued and salvaged so many things this week. Little things which never had a chance to turn into big things. Little things which probably I should not have rescued, but I was in super-rescue mode and didn’t pause to think whether the little thing needed my time and attention. I could have let a lot more slide. I could have rearranged sleep higher on the priority list. Instead I find myself at the end of Thursday, wishing it was Friday, knowing I had a super productive week, but feeling like I failed.

At least today I’m thinking about dinner before it is already 6 pm. That’s a first for this week.

The End Game of Motherhood

By / January 3, 2013 / 4 Comments

The endgame of motherhood is to make yourself obsolete. This is how you know you’ve succeeded, when they launch into their own lives and no longer need you. It is a hard thing. It is why I find myself crying on a sunny morning in a bright new year feeling sadness because we’ve just concluded the final holiday season when all the kids live at home. Kiki will come home for Christmas next year. I know she will. But it will be different. I don’t know about the year after that. Too many changes loom in the next few years for me to be able to predict what life will look like. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to go back and redo anything I’ve done in the past seventeen years. No major regrets haunt me. I just wish this holiday could have lasted longer, that I could have savored it more, or stored it up for later. If only moments could be preserved like home canned food. I try with blog entries and photo books, but the memory of a moment is not the same as the moment itself. All of the moments for this holiday are gone.

The future is bright and full of possibility. I’m excited to see where Kiki will fly. I’m excited to launch the other kids into their futures too. But I now know–in a way that I did not before–that I will cry. Again and again I will cry. Because it feels like I am departing the heart of my life and I don’t want to. I’m going to miss this. Life will be different and I will find new ways to enjoy it. But just now I can’t imagine it being any better, because this part has been the best bit. I finally understand all those fervent exhortations to “Enjoy them now. They’ll be grown before you know it.” It was usually spoken by some stranger to me when my toddler and baby were climbing precariously in a shopping cart. I thought the advice givers were wrong. They were and they weren’t. For some mothers the best bit is when the kids are little, that is the heart’s home that they miss. I don’t miss the baby and toddler years, though I enjoyed them while I was in them. Right now is what I will miss. I’m going to miss four at home, two teens two kids, all of them running in different directions, squabbling over the cat, and the incessant sound of video games. This is my heart’s home and just now it feels like I will spend the rest of my life missing home.

I have eight months left. No wonder I have no desire to travel anywhere. I just want to be at home while home is still here. There is time afterward to figure out which new dreams will flow into the spaces that are opening up in my life. New happiness will come. Old dreams will become possible again in ways that they aren’t when I have primary care of developing human beings. I will find laughter and adventure. Things will be good, but they will be different and I can’t quite picture how it will be. So today I cry a little. Then I wipe my eyes and proceed with the day. No sense wasting what I have by grieving for what has not even happened yet. Once the kids come home, they hug me and all is well for now.

Halfway Out of the Dark

By / January 3, 2013 / 2 Comments

“I don’t want to put the Christmas tree away.” Kiki said on January first. She wasn’t the only child to express this sentiment. It was not mere chore avoidance, the kids honestly felt wistful and sad about putting away the trappings of the holiday season. I felt the same myself, but we proceeded, because the New Year was already marching on us and we had to become ready for it.

There have been years where Christmas was scoured from the house on Boxing Day, mere hours after the holiday was complete. Other years it was allowed to linger until New Year’s Day only on principle but my fingers were itching to put it away. This year we all left the holiday reluctantly, wishing for another week of setting our own schedules, another week of brightness in the dark. I pulled out the boxes and began putting things away, hoping that the actions would help us all re-set our brains into a non-holiday mode.

“Hey kids,” I said drawing four sets of eyes to focus on me. We were at the dinner table, which I find is a good place to make announcements since they’re all seated in the same room and relatively quiet. “School starts tomorrow, so after you eat I need to to pull out your backpacks and go through them to make sure that you’re ready.” This is the sort of announcement which often triggers a scrambling panic as one child or another remembers that there was this homework assignment they were supposed to do. Instead, four sets of eyes blinked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. What is this school thing, and how does one prepare for it? They’d packed away their school thoughts so thoroughly that they didn’t even know where to start finding them.

I sympathize. We used to get up how early? 5:30? Really? How did I do that? I rolled out of bed to the blaring alarm and had to carefully remember which steps came next: put on robe, wake Kiki, make breakfast. In October, November, early December these steps were habit. Now the habit feels rusty, as if it belonged to someone else and I’m trying to fill her shoes. I didn’t think the holidays were particularly transformative, but somehow they feel like a watershed, a turning point, instead of a pause. It is as if everything before belonged to a different era. “It’s weird, Mom,” said Kiki “but I kind of feel like I ought to be starting college, not going back to the last semester of high school.” I don’t think it is weird. Or if it is, then I suffer a similar weirdness. I want to move onward because there are things coming which I hope to reach. Yet I don’t want to leave the holiday break because the ground is cold and dark between where I am and those things I want to reach.

“Christmas, halfway out of the dark” proclaims Doctor Who A Christmas Carol. It is a ridiculous show which defies logic and delights me year after year. I think part of the reason it works for me is because of that phrase. It acknowledges that winter is a long dark journey. We celebrate in the middle by stringing up extra lights and singing special songs, but then the lights are put away and I have half of the dark journey left to go. It is the harder part because I am traveling away from the bright holiday season instead of toward it. I’m headed for spring, but it is hard to believe in spring when the world is frozen solid and I have to remember the steps to getting up at 5:30 am.

The decorations are tucked into the closet under the stairs and the tree is stashed away for the year. I am left with a front room which feels bare and in dire need of a new coat of paint. In the next few weeks I intend to supply that paint. It is one of the January projects I will use to give myself focus. Things I can focus on and accomplish in the short term as I step day by day into a time when the sun gets up before I do.

“I think we should have a two-month-long festival of lights.” Howard said while looking out the window at the first grayness of dawn. He did not want to put away the holiday brightness either. But we did. And the kids went to school, landing us on a Thursday which should have first-day-back-to-work enthusiasm. Except Thursday is when I usually begin winding up a work week. It is the day for finishing off and reassigning, not for beginning. So I light a candle despite the daylight which finally showed up outside the windows. Then I begin to feel my way through the day, with many pauses while I try to remember what should come next. Task by task, step by step, slowly traveling out of the dark.

Making Books

By / January 2, 2013

My blogging has been brief the last few days because I’ve been putting the last of the 2012 entries into my blog book for that year. Any time I’m placing blog entries into one of these books I spend some of that time wondering why on earth I’m so very wordy. The book for 2012 is 496 pages long, which is a full 96 pages more than the 2011 book. I wrote more this year. The project is packaged up and off at Lulu.com for printing. While I was in my Lulu account I paused to count. I’ve created 22 books through their website. These are the family photo books, blog books, and a couple of other personal projects. Add in the ten books I’ve produced through offset printing and I’ve created 32 books in the past eight years. It is amazing what accumulates when I’m not looking.

While I was doing layout, I noticed that Lulu had an option for pocket sized books. I’ve always been a bit dissatisfied with the trade paperback size of Cobble Stones. It is a sampler book meant for gifting or as something small to be taken along. A smaller book with the dimensions of a mass market paperback would be better suited to the material. So I spent a few hours and re-packaged Cobble Stones into a pocket sized format. While I was at it, I added 2011 to the title so that it will match the Cobble Stones 2012 book when I release it later this year. This project was one of those moments when I realized that I’ve accumulated some significant skill in producing books. A similar moment occurred when I assembled a cover for my blog book in only a few hours. Last year’s cover took hours and hundreds of pictures while I figured out how the format needed to work. This time (Thanks to a nicely placed snow bank and some fortuitous late afternoon sunlight hitting that bank of snow) I think I’ve got the cover shot I need in a single photo session. Next year may require more effort, but I’m trying to just believe that I’ve learned and grown as a maker of books.

I’ve got four book projects in process right now. The Body Politic is the next Schlock book and my role there is pure graphic design and art direction. Howard does the heavy lifting on creation. For Cobble Stones 2012 I may already have a cover, but the editing has only begun. I need to finish selecting and arranging essays. After that will be critiques, revision, and copy editing before the book is ready to print. Putting together the book Strength of Wild Horses will be fairly simply for me, but before I can get to that fun part, I have to face the Kickstarter process to secure funding for the book. Also in the beginning stages is the 2012 Family Photo Book. I’ve collected the stories, but I have to select pictures, scan pictures, and then take time to lay out everything into pages. It is a massive project every year, but one which I always enjoy. Even better is when I see the kids sitting down to read the stack of photo books from previous years, re-living the family stories from their earlier childhoods.

Bit by bit all of these projects will become books. After that there will be new book projects. Because I like making books and intend to keep doing it for as long as I like it.

Contemplating a Year of Growth

By / December 31, 2012

The first day of a new calendar is a good day for looking forward. It is often a day when I put up the wall calendar and survey all the landmarks ahead. Sometimes it was a day of calculation as I tried to estimate when our lives will be busy and when they will be calm. Even when I am not scanning and planning, I often find myself focusing my intentions for the new year, feeling what is to come. I’m convinced that such focused attention at the beginning of a year, has a long term effect on what comes after. There have been years where I shook the old year off and vowed that the coming year would be different in specific ways. And it was, because my intention shaped my goals and my goals shaped the year.

This year I’m thinking a lot about something I read in Naomi Remen’s book My Grandfather’s Blessings. She wrote an essay about her grandfather and how he often frustrated her because when asked to plan anything, even so small a thing as a lunch appointment, he would answer with “God willing.” The implication was that all our lives are in God’s hands and who knows what would happen between now and next Wednesday to change the possibilities around going to lunch. I’m not so resigned or so faithful that I can put all my life into God’s hands. I have a calendar. I’ve written lots of appointments on it. In ink. Yet the longer I live the more I see that I can not predict and plan everything, even if I would like to. I can not prevent all the things that scare me. I can not guarantee that I’ll gain my desires. So many things that I care about deeply are not in my control. I spent a long time trying to steer my life through sheer force of will. I got very tired. Now I think I am more ready to say “God willing” so long as I combine it with concrete goals. I can write words and trust that I will find good uses for those words whether it is sale to a publisher or healing my own heart. I can teach my children and pray that they will find their own good paths. I can love my husband and trust that he is strong.

I have hopes for this new year. I would like to have a quieter year with less travel and disruption. Yet, as much as I would like peace and calmness, I feel like there is growing to be done and growing is often a difficult process. I want that growth, because I can see how much better things are now than they were. I’m willing to go through some more difficult things if I can say the same at the end of this year. So instead of declaring what kind of a year I want it to be, instead of trying to enforce calmness and peace, I will instead try to accept each challenge and joy as it comes. 2013 will be a good year, God willing.