Self

Making River Song’s Journal

By / September 23, 2011 / 39 Comments

The new iteration of Doctor Who is by turns silly, clunky, brilliant, heart-breaking, and delightful. I watch every episode. I like the essential hopefulness and joyfulness of it. There are piece of the stories which stay with me even after I walk away from the screen, like the story between the Doctor and River Song. They both travel in time and have met each other many times, but always in a random order. This makes reminiscing difficult because they don’t want to accidentally give away the future of the other person. To solve the problem the Doctor gives River Song a journal. It looks like this:

I love the idea of this journal. It’s tattered condition implies hundreds of adventures that River and the Doctor have together. Through it they are able to find where they are in relation to each other and then proceed to have yet another adventure. Possibly my interest in the journal is due to the fact that I love journals. I always have. I wondered if it were possible for me to buy a journal with a cover made to look like River Song’s. I googled and discovered that the BBC has released a printable PDF which one can use to cover a journal, but that there is no officially sanctioned journal for purchase. There are several etsy shops which sell handmade ones, but the prices were daunting when I’m trying to cut back on frivolous spending. I sighed and gave up. Or so I thought.

The next day I kept bumping into supplies. My on my craft desk was some dark blue tissue paper and Modge Podge (a decoupage glue) which I’d been using to re-decorate some little metal boxes. Sorting through a pile under my desk I found an unused journal which I bought some time in the past six months. I knew I had card stock, scissors, and an exacto knife. I had everything I needed. So without exactly deciding to, I began making a River Song journal.

I began with this black journal. Having it be black was important so that the dark could show through the tissue paper and make the shadows which can be seen in the recessed portions of the journal cover. I colored over the red line with a sharpie marker.

Next I printed out a copy of the PDF and sized it so that it would fit the cover of the book I had. Then I cut out the pieces as a pattern. I arranged the patterns on the book to make sure the proportions were correct before I proceeded.

I traced the pattern onto white card stock. Once I had it all traced, I glued a second piece of card stock to the back to give it the thickness I wanted.

I used a knife and scissors to cut out the pattern pieces. I deliberately made everything not quite square to resemble the PDF better. Once the pieces were cut out, I arranged them on the book. Then I glued them down using Modge Podge.

I waited for that to dry thoroughly before proceeding. Fortunately this particular glue dries quickly. Next I cut a piece of the blue tissue paper so that it was larger than the book. I applied glue to the cover in sections and carefully pressed the tissue paper down so that it got into the recessed places as well as the top of the card stock. On the binding side, the tissue lined up with the edge of the cover cardboard. Glue does not bend well and I wanted my book to be able to open. I had to be gentle and careful so that I did not tear the tissue paper. I used two layers of tissue, letting the glue dry completely between layers.

I clipped the corners of the tissue paper and then propped the book open so that I could wrap the tissue around to the inside of the book. I glued it down, making sure to slather a layer of glue across the top of the tissue so that it was protected. I also put a layer of glue all across the top of the cover, both front and back.

All that was left was the spine. I cut some pieces of card stock to fit and repeated the process of laying down tissue paper. Again I was careful not to glue anything to the binding crease so that the book would open easily.

And here is the journal completed:

It is not perfect. Intentionally so in some places. I do wish I’d figured out how to give it a more leather-like texture. The Modge Podge is smooth and shiny. You can also see the strokes of the brush I used to lay down the glue. I’m pleased with the result even though it definitely has a home made look. Perhaps as I carry it around, and use it, the shine will wear off a bit. I’m far from the only one who has committed this particular act of geekery. A little googling will find similar journals in leather, paint, knitting, fridge magnets, key chains, and all sorts of other forms.

The question I began asking myself almost as soon as I began construction was what I planned to do with the thing once it was made. I already have a journal. Several. It seemed foolish to spend so much work to make another one. Then I realized that what I loved about the idea of River Song’s journal is that it was full of amazing things all out of order. I wanted a book like that. One where my usual self-imposed writing rules don’t apply. I wanted to see what deliberately changing the structures of my creativity would cause to fall out of my brain. Once I knew that, I also knew what my rules for filling the journal needed to be.

1. Don’t write it in order. When I have something to write, pick a page at random and begin.
2. Date every entry.
3. Write only things that matter to me. Nothing boring. That said, sometimes small and insignificant can also be fascinating.
4. Leave the first two pages blank. Write them last.
5. Draw as many pictures as I wish. They don’t have to be good.
6. I can update, change, or alter anything that I have already put in the book. I just need to note the date of the change.
7. Writing sideways or upside down is fine.
8. Find things to clip and tape into the pages.
9. Neatness is not required.
10. I can make stuff up, write stories, or pretend to be someone else.
11. I can invite others to contribute to the pages.
12. I am the maker of all these rules. I can break them if I wish.

And so my River Journal adventure begins. I wonder where I will travel.

Analyzing Anxiety

By / September 23, 2011 / 2 Comments

I’ve been paying attention to the shapes of my thoughts lately. I’ve figured out that I am living with levels of stress and anxiety which are too high for my body to sustain on a long term basis. Combine that with recently watching a documentary showing scientific evidence of how stress can reduce both health and happiness, and I’ve felt highly motivated to figure out where all of the stress is coming from. It is not merely the result of being busy. It is possible to be busy all day long while also being relaxed and happy. I’ve done that before and it is where I am aiming to dwell again.

I noticed that many of my thoughts had the shape of perfectionism. I put great pressure on myself to stay on schedule, to get things right. Yet I don’t think I’m inherently perfectionist. I am quite willing to allow myself mistakes and errors. This morning I realized what it was. I am not allowed to let down people who are counting on me, or people whom I perceive as counting on me. The more important the person is to me, the less I am allowed to fail them. No one else is imposing these requirements on me. I do it to myself and sometimes to a ridiculous degree. I will berate myself for failing to complete something that the other person had no idea I was doing for them. If I do fail at something I generally pick up and move on fairly quickly, but it adds stress to the next round of “I must not fail.”

I’m not entirely sure how to disconnect this as a source of stress, because I want to retain being reliable and dependable as core elements of my self-definition. I’m in the process of re-defining the boundaries of my jobs so that I take less responsibility on myself. I know I tend to snatch responsibility when it would be better to let others handle it. Most of this gets expressed in my home life. This makes things murky in the areas where personal and business overlap, such as my relationship with my husband-and-business-partner. We’re working on it and finding better balances.

The best avenue of attack has been to sit myself down and ask exactly what I’m afraid of. I’ll pull out the anxieties and sort them then think step-by-step through all the possible consequences. Usually I discover that the worst case scenarios are well within my management capabilities. That works for anxiety which has basis in thought. Other times the anxiety starts as an agitation in my body to which my brain tries to attach explanations. Re-balancing my thyroid medication may resolve most of this. I’m also actively seeking out relaxation / recreational activities. I’m exercising, gardening, and spending time on projects that don’t have much purpose other than my desire to do them. Bit by bit I am teasing out the knots of stress and tension. So far so good.

Querying Through the Fog

By / September 21, 2011 / 2 Comments

I’ve been sending out Queries on Stepping Stones for several months now. I haven’t sent all that many. Sorting through online information about literary agents to find one who might be interested is both time consuming and emotionally exhausting. Once I do find one, I then have to adjust and personalize my query letter for that agent. It is hard to convince myself that this expended effort will net me anything beyond rejection letters. A couple of the rejections were personalized and said nice things, which is about the best I expect really. I know that Stepping Stones is full of flaws. I also know that it is something of a niche book; a memoir about the ordinary rather than the extraordinary. Not only that, but it is written in a personal essay format rather than the novel format which is more common for memoirs. So, I know that the project will be hard to sell, will likely have a small print run, and be a marginal earner; hard to believe that a New York agent would get excited by that prospect. Only a persistent and pounding feeling that it was important made me write it at all. Now I send it out because that is my next job. I am responsible for sending out queries. If it is supposed to sell, it will. If it doesn’t sell within a year, I’ll re-evaluate. Perhaps it is only important to me. Either way, I found a weird sense of satisfaction in sending my first paper queries yesterday. All the rest had been via email. There was something more real about putting pages into an envelope and hand writing New York addresses on them.

I’ve been thinking about imposter syndrome lately. It is the persistent belief that one has not actually earned the recognition one has received. I think everyone experiences this to some level, the fear that everyone around us will figure out that we’re only faking and then they’ll de-mask us and ridicule. I’ve been feeling a lot of quiet and pernicious imposter syndrome lately, not so much with professional endeavors, but in friendships and relationships. “They’re just being nice because they’re nice people, not because they actually like you.” whispers the voice in my head. These voices are quiet and pervasive, like fog. I discover myself slowing down, altering my choices because of the fog. If I shine logic and rational thought onto it, the fog melts away. I just wish I could find my way back into sunlight instead of wandering around with a lantern. I think it is coming. Things are getting better as I find my rhythm in the new schedule, as we make adjustments to give me time for my creative things, and as I slowly get my thyroid medications balanced again.

Seeing the imposter syndrome inside my head naturally leads me to think back on my assessments of the quality and likely future of Stepping Stones. I was pretty narrow in my expectations during that first paragraph. Am I doing that as a disappointment management technique? Is it me being unable to accept that I have an accomplishment? Or is it an honest assessment of the book and the market? I really can’t tell and trying to figure it out only sends me in useless mental circles. Instead I need to shut out the noise and just do my job. I send out queries. I write something new. I apply faith and choose to believe that my friends and family love me. Then I keep going, headed for the light.

Weekly Course Corrections

By / September 18, 2011 / 6 Comments

I sat at one end of the chapel bench and Howard sat at the other with our children in between. We were singing the opening hymn, all of us with books open in our laps. The requirement that the kids sing along for the opening hymn was a new one for our family, but through it the kids are learning that music can bring a special spirit to us. The song concluded and the heads of three kids bent back over their drawings. Supposedly they were also listening while they drew. I’m sure Kiki listened. Gleek listened sometimes. Patch listened if the speaker was telling an interesting story. Link did not draw. He sat quietly, which did not guarantee that he was listening. Whether or not they were paying attention, we were all there together for the first time in weeks. I look down the row at them, I can see the contentment in their bodies. Church is a good place for all of us and we are glad to be there together.

I closed my eyes and asked the same silent question I ask every week. It is a prayer of sorts, almost wordless as I reach out. It comprises several things from “any messages for me?” to “What should I be focused on this week?” to “What next?” or even occasionally a petulant “what now?” I don’t remember how long it has been that I’ve been making this overt weekly request. I think it began last year when I was pounded with unexpected inspiration several weeks in a row. I finally figured it might be better to just ask instead of waiting to be shouted at. I ask, and answers always come. It is a little frightening this receiving of answers. Sometimes I want to wrap myself in a little cloak of sameness. I don’t always want answers which may ask me to change or do some other difficult thing. But lately I have been glad of the answers, they help me set a path for the week to follow. I can’t see much beyond a week right now. However if I can get the week aimed right on Sunday, I can follow through long enough to get me to the next Sunday when I can adjust, change, or continue.

So I sat with my eyes closed and asked “What new thing shall I undertake this week? What am I to do with my time and energy?” Sometimes the answers are loud and clear, almost like being spoken to. Other times it is like I have to sort them from my own thoughts and it takes most of the meeting. Today the answer was so quiet I almost missed it, rather like a hand waving gesture which indicates “carry on.” I opened my eyes and looked down the row of my people. We’ve set a good course and it is time for us to do some calm sailing.

Traditional Roles for Women

By / September 6, 2011

I’ve been thinking about the traditional roles women take. It is a familiar train of thought. This new round of consideration was triggered by a book and a show, but quickly drew me to re-examine other books and shows which address the same topic.

I saw a Netflix ad for Mad Men, which is a tv show about advertising executives in 1960’s era New York City. I watched some episodes. They were a beautifully rendered and stylish portrait of how traditional roles, when combined with selfishness, can make everyone miserable. The show may go other places in the remainder of it’s seasons, but I doubt it. In contrast is the movie The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio, where a woman embraces her traditional roles and turns them into a source of power and joy despite the fact that her marriage is far from ideal. I never want her life, but admire her courage and grace in putting up with some things so that she could have others which mattered more to her. The movie Mona Lisa Smile addresses the question of women’s roles directly. Asking the characters and the audience to witness the various possible choices. In the book How to Be An American Housewife, the primary character’s Japanese background sheds new light on why relationships are formed, what formats they should take, and how traditions should be expressed. All of these stories take place at least in part, during the post-war era of the 50s and 60s. I guess that is the go-to era for examining “traditional roles,” probably because most of what became considered traditional was popularized and drummed into social memory by the advent of media advertising. Advertising tells everyone who they should be and what they should want. We all succumb to it at least somewhat.

I am fascinated by these shows and book, because I can endlessly compare aspects of my life to them. Where I mirror the choices of a character, I have to decide whether that makes me pathetic or noble. Am I giving myself away, negating myself for the benefit of others, or am I laying the necessary ground work for all of us to build something beautiful? When I step forward and chase one of my own dreams, am I being a positive role model or merely being selfish? I come up with different answers on different days. Largely my actions are not dictated by these ruminations. I make my choices based on logic and inspiration. However I believe that the ruminations inform my choices. No one should be forced into a life-path through ignorance of other options. I try to make my choices eyes open. I am trapped by the social nets in which I live, just like everyone else. I have obligations which I dislike. I can cut the offending sections of net, but I run the risk of weakening the whole unless I am also willing to make new connections in other places. These new connections may be just as limiting to me, but I chose them and that makes all the difference.

Anxiety and Answers

By / October 7, 2011

I managed to describe the events of my Hugo experience without once using the words “panic attack.” This was because I don’t like those words. Placing those words on my experience felt like I was stealing them from someone else with more severe symptoms who needed them more. That was not the only reason. My mind was also twisting and turning to avoid applying those words to me. I knew it was a panic attack even when I was having it. Yet I kept trying to redefine it into something else. As panic attacks go it was a mild one. I could breathe, function, and think. On a scale of one to ten with 1 being the mildest, I’d guess what I experienced was in the two-to-three range. Afterward I waffled between feeling like I was doomed forever and saying things like “It wasn’t so bad for a panic attack. I know lots of people who have had much worse.” This was the murky space between normality and abnormality which I approach obliquely in a different post. In the end I had to concede that the mildness of my attack doesn’t change the fact that I was on the panic attack scale. If I am measuring anything in my life on the panic attack scale, it is time for me to discuss it with a medical professional.

Fortuitously I already had a scheduled check up appointment with my doctor. It would have been much harder if I’d had to make a special appointment, because the very act of making the phone call would have forced me to acknowledge something out of the ordinary. Instead all I had to do was mumble “I’ve been feeling anxious lately” in the middle of the check up. My doctor, being a very smart man, let me get dressed before we sat down to discuss anxiety in detail. Sitting in drapes to talk about how anxious one has been feeling lately is not on my fun-to-do list. We talked causes and treatments. Then we checked to see the results of the thyroid test done a month prior. This was a turning point. My levels were too high. The medicine, which I’ve been taking to treat hypothyroidism, has apparently tipped me over into hyperthyroidism. Anxiety is the primary symptom of hyperthyroidism. Probable cause and likely solution both presented with one simple blood test.

I should be feeling relieved. My increased anxiety is not new and alarming, but just a new iteration of an old problem. What I feel instead is tired and sad. I am again at the mercy of my body chemistry. I know this is true of all biological beings, but I like to pretend that I am the master of my self. I don’t like having that particular illusion stripped away. My thyroid balance has been stable for years, and part of me scrambles to figure out why that has changed. There are some very scary answers to that question. There are also much more likely answers which are quite simple, starting with the fact that I’m getting older and that biological systems are never static forever. There are reasons that part of thyroid treatment is a yearly blood test. If I’d called about the results prior to WorldCon, I could have known about the issue in advance. On the other hand it is rather nice to know that my racing heart and shaky hands are not the result of fretting, but that the fretting is my brain trying to explain the racing heart and shaky hands. The next few months will be a long slow process of tinkering with dosages and taking blood tests. Whee. I’ll also be putting exercise firmly back into the schedule because it is the one thing I can do which will improve my general health no matter what other funny things my body and brain may be up to.

Talismans

By / August 30, 2011 / 3 Comments

On the first or second day of WorldCon an gentleman stopped by our booth to talk to Sal and Caryn. He was wearing a silver chain mail shirt. I’m not just talking about the color silver. The shirt was made of actual silver, which he had purchased in blocks, spun by hand, wound into links and the fashioned into a mail shirt. The man was Loren Damewood, and he is a master of knotwork and chain mail. I’m also told that he is marvelously patient teacher who will sit with children by the hour and teach them crafting. As he spoke with us Loren was weaving with cotton cord and a needle. When he was done he reached for my hand and slipped what he’d made onto my wrist.

He assured me that it was just a piece of string and that I owed him nothing for it. I know for a fact that it is more than string. I’ve certainly never been able to make string dance so prettily. Having the bracelet made me happy. I wore it several times during the convention. On Sunday morning I put it on very deliberately because I knew it had happiness in it and I was in need of happy things. I thought it made me happy because it was a representation of amazing skill turned to kindness, but it was more than that. Only when I arrived home did I realize what else caused me to have such an immediate positive reaction.

These are the hammock swings I purchased earlier this summer. Since I bought them I have discovered that they are the perfect place for me to let go of my stresses. I’ll sit in one, put my feet in the other, close my eyes and drift. Sometimes I drift off to sleep. Other times I just feel the sun on my skin, the breeze in my hair, and listen to birds rustling nearby. My hammock swings are a place of peace. Several times during WorldCon I longed for them. The bracelet Loren gave me is made of exactly the same cotton cord which holds up my swings. These are the chords I often wrap my fingers around while resting. Loren gave me a tangible reminder of something from which I draw strength. He gave me a talisman.

It is not my first talisman.

I bought this pendant last winter and wore it daily for most of January and February. With it I carried brightness and flowers with me even though the world outside was gray and cold. When I was tired I could touch the smooth surface and remember the bright blue skies of spring. I did not call the pendant a talisman when I bought it, but it is. I purchased it very deliberately to remind me of things that I needed to keep in my mind.

Realizing that I have talismans helps me understand one of Gleek’s quirk’s better. She accumulates small things. The most visible manifestation of this is necklaces. She started with one, but it expanded to two, three, four until she had a tangle of chains and strings around her neck. I could see the untidiness of this particular fashion choice, but it came nowhere near the list of things worth arguing about. Also I think I sensed that she needed them. I knew that some had specific meanings for her, particularly the bag of worry dolls.

Here are Gleek’s talismans. The stripped bag is full of tiny Guatemalan worry dolls. She got them from her grandmother. At least one of the necklaces is a mood ring. The leather pouch contains the instructions for it. I think if you untangle all those other chains, you find that there are four or five necklaces. They’re all sturdy, which is necessary considering that Gleek doesn’t slow down for jewelry. She has worn them constantly for several years. When she took the pouch and worry dolls off at her cousin’s house to jump on a trampoline, then accidentally left them behind, it was a catastrophe of epic proportions. She fretted and made multiple phone calls until the necklaces were found and promises to mail them were extracted. Gleek needed her talismans.

I photographed them today while she was at school. She took them off several days ago (again because of a trampoline) and has not missed them. This is the best possible sign that the new school and new life patterns are exactly what Gleek needs.

Hugo Bright and Dark

By / August 30, 2011 / 1 Comment

I have a story to tell about the night of the Hugo Awards. It is not the story I wanted to tell. In fact it fell so far off of my pre-planned story possibility tree that it has taken me more than a week to sort out the beginning from the end. Going in to the Hugos I knew Howard was unlikely to win and that the demons of self-doubt would begin their assault upon him the moment the announcement was made. I figured the one variable in the situation that I could manage was myself. Whatever else happened, I would be with Howard, holding his hand, supporting him. So I made myself a beautiful dress, bought new shoes, put up my hair, and marched nervously into the evening. Then I fell right into a trap I had made for myself.

I spent the four days prior to the award evening being outwardly social. I enjoyed it very much, but it drained my reserves. I spent the four nights prior shorting myself on sleep. I stayed up late visiting with amazing people. Then stayed up even later as my brain spun trying to process it all. I put away all of the home and mother thoughts, which often provide me with a sense of perspective on life events as they pass. I did not take breaks during the days. I intended to, but without realizing it, I shifted my breaks out of existence so that the people on my team would have them. Then there was the dress itself, my beautiful dress. I loved making it. I felt beautiful wearing it. It was snug around my ribcage, but not uncomfortable. It swished around my legs. I’d deliberately chosen the colors to stand out and attract attention. It was so different from the formal wear I’d worn to the Montreal Hugo Awards, when I was dismissed from attention by two women who proceeded to exclude me from the conversation while they dissected the styles and clothing around them. I was going to stand up and own the dress I’d made, hoping it had the effect I desired. Before I even arrived at the convention I spent weeks in stressed preparation. The moment I left the convention I had to scramble to get kids into school. The entire time at the convention, I was outside my usual context and away from my usual means of decompression. There were no plants or grass anywhere I went. I could not have picked a more toxic mess of stresses (both good and bad) had I taken time to plan it out.

So the story I wanted was me in my lovely dress, holding Howard’s hand no matter what happened. Instead I found myself half way through the Hugo ceremony, just after the announcement that Girl Genius had won again, oppressed by the heat of the room and unable to sit still. I leaned over to Howard and he told me to go find some place cooler. I stepped out into a quiet hallway where it became all-too-apparent that heat was not the real issue. I had outrun my strength and over tapped my reserves. I spent the rest of the ceremony pacing in a dark corner, hoping to be seen by no one, unable to leave because I wanted to hear the results, unable to re-enter the hall because I did not feel fit to be seen. Have I mentioned the crying? I did that too. I didn’t want anyone to see, for fear they would think that I was crying over losing the award. I wasn’t. My tears were guilt because I had abandoned my post by Howard’s side. Standing in a corner, with my face to the wall, wearing a dress like sunlight, was the moment when I most felt the spiritual radio shadow of the casino hotels. I prayed frantically for peace, but my emotional state banished the peace I sought.

Howard found me when the ceremony was over, or I found him. He hugged me tight and told me it was all okay. Afterward, he said that my tears were oddly useful, because it have him a sharp and clear perspective about what really mattered to him. The demons of self doubt found him armored against them. It was not how I wanted to be helpful, but at least I can hold to the fact that I did not drag Howard down. We left the quiet corridor together and walked out with brave faces. When we met up with some friends, Howard sent me back to our hotel with them. He got me to go by looking me in the eyes and assuring me that he would be better off for the rest of the evening if I left. He was right. All I could do beside him was to throw him off balance. So I truncated all the planned branches of story tree which had me wearing my dress far into the night. I returned to my room, hung up the dress, and slept.

At this point I imagine some of my friends, who were at the event, friends who read this blog, and probably my parents as well are all feeling some distress themselves. They didn’t know, they wish they could have helped, am I okay now? This is part of why I did not want to tell the story. Somehow in my head there is this illusion that an award ceremony like the Hugos should be a lovely event full of happy winners and gracious losers. To be so honored is marvelous, and I wish to always speak gratefully about it because it is the collective good will of the fans which carried us there. Yet the emotional mix of all that hope, anticipation, and disappointment of so many people fills the air. I pick up on it, and apparently it can overwhelm me. This makes me sad, because I have so few opportunities in my life to dress up in a place full of fascinating people who love so many of the same things that I love. I want my stories of the Hugo Awards to be straightforward, unambiguous. I want them to be filled with honor, gratitude, joy, beauty, and support. Dark corners and tears don’t have much to do with that. But the effort to bury the dark corner also took with it some of the bright moments of the evening. In fact it also dragged into obscurity many of the bright moments of the entire event. In order to rescue them, I had to tell this story.

We had dinner right before the pre-Hugo reception. Sal arranged it for us. Howard and I showed up wearing our evening wear. Caryn showed up with a bundle of silk roses that someone had given to her. The tones of the roses matched my clothing perfectly, so she pulled several out and wound them into my hair. I still have them. I suppose I should have given them back, but seeing them makes me remember that moment when the evening was still bright. Howard and I walked from dinner to the shuttle. When we stepped outside, the breeze caught at my skirt and the drapes from my shoulders blowing them behind me. I caught a glimpse of the effect in the building windows as a I walked past. I wish I had that photo. Instead we have serious faced ones of us standing very statically. I wish there were photographic record of the smiles during that evening. I smiled often. I was delighted to see all my friends, each in their evening wear of choice. I loved seeing how the clothes expressed the person wearing them. I wish I’d had more time to sit back and people watch.

During the ceremony I got to watch Chris Garcia win the Hugo for best Fanzine. I will treasure that moment always. I know Chris as only a passing acquaintance, but he was so incredibly happy that it radiated across the whole audience. I cried tears of joy with him, though previously the outcome of that particular category hadn’t much mattered to me. Late the ceremony, I listened to Robert Silverberg’s brilliant deadpan speech as he deliberately taunted his friend Connie Willis who was up for an award. My friend Mary Robinette Kowal won in the short story category, which makes me very happy. I loved that everyone from Writing Excuses was there. Travis Walton, our colorist, came. I wish he’d been able to take home a rocket, because his beautiful colors make Schlock look good. I’m very glad that I finally got to see Phil and Kaja accept a Hugo. In Montreal they weren’t there. I wasn’t there in Australia. They were wonderful and charming as always. Many, many people complimented my dress and my hair.

All these bright things were contained in that evening, but they were obscured from memory because I wanted to be able to tell a different story about my experiences that evening. I’ve also spent time pondering how this story, which is so divergent from what I intended, affects story trees into my future. I already know that I need to wear my dress again, probably several times. I need to disconnect the dress from the dark spots in the evening. I need to run my conventions differently, and with less surrounding stress. I need to bring things with me that ground me and provide perspective. Most of all I need to review the bright memories, savor the lovely things. Then the dark spots fade in importance and I can go forward.

Inspiration, radio signal, shadow, and Worldcon

By / August 28, 2011 / 3 Comments

Inspiration and spiritual guidance are like a radio signal. I can fine-tune myself so that I can hear them more clearly. I can adjust my location to get a louder signal. Many of the lessons at church are instructions on how to tune in to those signals and interpret them. I’ve grown to rely on spiritual guidance and connection. It is like a soft radio playing in the background of my day. Then when I experience moments of doubt, I can send a query “Am I on course?” and get a quick response “Yes. Keep going.” Some days I am making hourly or minutely queries. The communication keeps me grounded and I can find peace despite the chaos. I’ve had people express amazement at the quantity of stuff I manage on a daily basis. This is the reason I can. I am never alone and I regularly tap into resources of strength outside myself.

The casinos at Reno are in a spiritual radio shadow. I did not realize it when I first arrived. I only knew that I did not like them. I thought it was the noise, the lights, or the air of quiet desperation which rolled off of some of the gamblers. The absence of a noise is hard to notice, particularly if it is a quiet noise, even more particularly if I am distracted by dozens of new noises. So I did not notice at first. The convention was full of bright, wonderful, good things. Unfortunately I failed to give myself adequate breaks from these wonderful new things. I took care to make sure all of my people took breaks, but I neglected to take any myself. Usually when I do that, I get a message on the guidance circuit. “Slow down Sandra. Take a break.” But I was in radio shadow, a barrier between me and the signal. So I ran myself past my strength, then when I was beyond my capabilities I tried to tap into my spiritual resources. They were not there. I was left to my own strength and I was not strong enough. Fortunately I had surrounded myself with good people and they took care of me. Mostly what they did was make me go to bed. Sleep is restorative of many things.

Upon opening my email box the next morning, I found an email from a friend who does not usually email me. It said all the comforting responses that I’d been reaching for the night before. Signal was bounced off of my friend so that I could receive it while still in shadow. It helped me get through the last day of convention until I could get into my car and drive to a place where I had signal again. The experience was unpleasant in the middle, but is enlightening in retrospect. If I had been aware of the radio shadow, I could have taken steps to boost my reception. Most of those steps would also have provided me with the rest breaks in my days which would have helped prevent me from getting over-stressed in the first place. These are important things for me to know as I attend conventions in the future. Also, I’ll think twice before attending a five day event in a casino hotel again.

Today I went back to church for the first time since coming home from the convention. If a casino is in shadow, then church is like standing on a hill top in clear view of the transmitter. Light and strength poured into me. It washed over my memories of the convention, clearing away the remaining fatigue and worry so that the treasures from the event shine clear and clean. Going to WorldCon was the right thing for us to do, even though it put us in radio shadow for a time, even though it stressed us all, even though we had to drive all night to get the kids back home in time for school. I have a wealth of treasures from the convention which I could not otherwise have gained. The prize is worth the price, but this does not prevent me from planning ahead so that perhaps next time I can arrange to pay less.

The Line Between Normality and Abnormality is Wide and Murky

By / August 25, 2011 / 8 Comments

I have been pondering how to measure psychological normality. This may be a simple process to those who address such questions professionally, but I rather doubt it. The human mind is a complex thing and I suspect that there is not so much a line between normality and pathology as there is a large murky area which may be one or the other. When my daughter needs to take a small object to school so that she feels secure, this is normal. When she fills three quarters of her backpack with small objects and is insistent that she needs all of them, there is a larger emotional issue which needs to be addressed. For a long time I’ve had a functional definition for a disorder. Something becomes a disorder when it interferes with the things the person wants to accomplish. It is a good and solid definition, except for the fact that the human mind is wired to adapt and it will gradually change its perception of normality. Then I’m left wondering how we all came to consider as normal my daughter hauling seven pounds of erasers, small toys, pencils, pencil sharpeners, and trinkets to school. Once we identified the issue as a problem and found the root causes, my daughter was much happier and life was better. These days she skips off to school, her backpack empty of everything except school work.

Our own lives are always normal to us, except where they compare with recent history. My life feels normal to me, which is why I am bemused when someone tells me that reading my blog helps them feel like their life is more manageable, because they have less to handle than I do. I am then left to ponder, have I inched my way out into some abnormality without recognizing I have done so? If I have, why did I do it? Does it need fixed? Is my life structure a problem? On nights when I lay awake with my mind spinning and my heart racing I think that perhaps yes it is. On days when I get everything done and the sun is shining I think that perhaps it is not.

Standing in the middle of my life, it is hard to see past all my things to tell if the whole thing is running out of kilter or straight on course. An outside perspective is necessary. I rely heavily on prayer and inspiration for my outside perspectives. I get daily, sometimes hourly, feedback about whether to stay the course or shift things. I also depend upon several perceptive friends. I talk until my voice is hoarse and they see things which are invisible to me. I am extremely fortunate. Perceptive friends keep turning up in my life just when I most need them. They function in many of the ways that a good psychologist or therapist can function. Sometimes I get to be the perceptive friend for someone else. I always feel honored when this is the case. The truth is that we all need rescue sometime, often when we can’t even tell that we’re drowning.