Self

Sinkholes and Structures

By / May 9, 2011 / 3 Comments

There are times when a friend asks me how I’m doing. I inhale to answer and I have no words. This is not a sign of nothing to tell, but a sign of “I don’t know where to start.” This past week is one of those times. When describing last week I previously used the metaphor of a flood, but today a sinkhole seems a more apt comparison, at least to start. I may very well jump metaphors before I finish typing. I do that sometimes. Sinkholes develop slowly and invisibly as water seeps far below the surface. The ground is eroded until it all collapses inward. I did that the second half of last week. Then I spent the weekend figuring out where all the water was coming from and how to go forward.

The core of the issue is this: I am the scheduler of our family. I was consistently scheduling everything to maximize Howard’s creative output and to maximize the growth of the children. These are good things. I like them and think they are quite worthwhile. Unfortunately I was also structuring our lives so that the only way to maintain the system was for me to consistently give up things that I wanted. I tried very hard to stop wanting things without consciously realizing I was doing it. It didn’t work and I collapsed.

As usual, Howard was there to pick up the pieces. He hugged me a lot. He listened to me ramble and fished out the important bits so that I could make sense of them later. He told me I should take a vacation. This last piece was the first step I took toward changing the structure. I’ve booked a flight to Baycon. I’ll be going by myself and it will be terribly inconvenient for everyone. The inconvenience is the point. I am allowed to want inconvenient things and get them sometimes.

Today I saw the second structural change I need. Our house was a mess. It has been a mess for months because I have not had the time to clean it nor had the energy to make the kids clean. I realized that anytime a challenge arises in our family I assume that I am part of the solution. So instead of a cross connected web where everyone was helping each other, all the threads led to me. We had a family meeting tonight to point this out. Everyone nodded and agreed with me. Then we scattered through the house with assignments to make a room clean. Thirty minutes later the chaos level was greatly reduced. I don’t expect them to turn over new leafs and be exemplary from now on, but at least we have tonight’s lesson and cleaning to point to when we need to remind them.

Also included in tonight’s meeting was a little lecture on “Thou shalt not ignore your mother when she speaks to you.” I feel like I’ve been saying it for weeks, but it might have sunk in more tonight. I hope so. I’m tired of feeling disregarded and invisible.

Further adjustments may be necessary, but I figure they’ll become apparent when we are ready for them. Honestly I am my own worst enemy in keeping these changes. It is going to take concerted effort for me to not let things slide back to the way they were. I’ve long known that the only person I can truly change is myself. Now I need to learn that it is okay to ask others to do some of the changing. It is harder for me. Doing most of the work myself is easier day to day than requiring my kids to step up. The hope is that they will someday step up without me having to goad them into it. If I can just get them helping each other I would not feel so over-burdened.

Right now I’m just glad that I can feel energetic and interested again. I wear out before the end of the day, but it is still better than all-worn-out all the time. Onward.

Tulips and Dresses

By / April 29, 2011

Yesterday was sunny. It was the only truly lovely day we’ve had in about a week and a half. During those same chilly gray days I was swamped with work and stress. But I’d sent off the book files and they’d arrived. Howard had departed for his convention. The kids were all at school. For the first time in almost a month I had a day to claim as my own. I intended to use it touring the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point. I dressed in the springiest shirt I own and bounced a little as I descended the front steps. Then my cell phone rang. It was Patch complaining that his stomach didn’t feel good. Motherhood responsibility settled back on me like a wet winter coat.

I managed to have a good day despite the rearrangement of my plans. A friend kept me company and we had a really good talk for hours on end. But I mourned the loss of being free to do whatever I chose. The sadness returned full force later in the afternoon when Patch fessed up that he had not really felt sick. I know that experimenting with deception as a method for manipulating the world is developmentally appropriate for an 8 year old. I just wish he’d picked a different day. So did he once he saw how sad I was about missing the gardens. Neither of us could give the day back to me.

This morning was gray and blustery, much too cold to enjoy walking in a garden. But the book was still done, Howard was at his convention, and the kids were all off at school. I claimed the day as mine and headed to Decades Vintage Clothing in Salt Lake City. Browsing through fabrics, colors, and styles feeds some of the same portions of my brain which enjoy flowers. The primary purpose of the trip was to find a formal dress. I searched Decades for dresses last year, but nothing was perfect. This year I wasn’t looking for perfect. I was looking for a dress I could alter. I was looking for dresses that filled me with thoughts of what they could be with only a few changes. The store was full of dresses like that. I browsed, tried on, and spun plans. Eventually I came home with three. None of them are presentable at the moment, once they are I’ll write up whole posts about how I made them so.

It was a lovely day, partly for the dresses, but mostly because it was completely mine.

Full Stop

By / April 27, 2011 / 2 Comments

It was 11:30 yesterday morning when I clicked the final button to upload Emperor Pius Dei to the printer’s FTP site. My computer threw up a progress bar which told me it would take 23 hours to complete. A full day of uploading time, and nothing more for me to do but wait. I had dozens of other projects waiting on me. I had plenty of things to do. Instead I stopped.

Stopping was not a conscious choice on my part. At first I jittered about trying to get things done, but it was all scattered and fractured. The deadline fear which kept me moving at top speed for the past week had vanished. The only thing I could do was watch an extremely slow progress bar. I actually did that for awhile. Or rather my eyes watched the bar, my brain went larking through fields of thought without bringing a thing back. When I attempted to gather thoughts, they slid away from me and vanished.

Usually when I achieve that level of mental burn out, I give up and watch television episodes for awhile. Except my preferred method is streaming through Netflix, which uses the same internet connection through which I was trying to upload. I ended up buying a very fluffy book for my kindle instead. It was the literary equivalent of a sugar wafer cookie, filled with sweetness, sameness, artificial flavors, and prone to give me a headache if I get too much. I switched over to Enchanted April, which I discovered free in the kindle store. It is a story about women in gray and rainy Britain who escape for a month to a castle with warm breezes and wisteria in bloom. While there they discover things about themselves which they can take home to make their lives happier. The thought of lounging in a chair near blooming wisteria sounds lovely to me. It sounded lovely two decades ago when I first saw the movie based upon the book. That lovely thought led me to plant wisteria along my back wall. It has not bloomed yet this year. The weather has been too cold. When it does bloom, I need to remember to lounge next to it in a chair. Then I could close my eyes and pretend I’m in a castle. I’ve barely started the book, but I look forward to the escape it represents.

This morning my computer tells me that the upload will take another two hours. Fortunately my brain is in better gear today. It began composing a blog post. Or rather it began throwing ideas at me. This is the topic, and this should go in, also this, and this, and that. So now that the kids are off at school I need to sit down and assemble the loose notes into a coherent train of thought. Perhaps by the time I’m done the upload will also be done. Then Howard and I will go out for a celebratory lunch date.

The Price of Family Vacation

By / April 14, 2011 / 2 Comments

There is an unsettled feel to the beginning of a vacation. We walked in the door of the condo and two kids went pelting up the stairs to shout exclamations about the bedrooms. The other two paced around the downstairs as if measuring the bounds of the kitchen and sitting area. I didn’t sit still either. I followed the exclamations, traveling up stairs and down, finding places for our suitcases, assessing risks, and making up new rules on the spot.
“No climbing the railing of the balcony.”
“Don’t jump from bed to bed.”
“Bar stools are not for spinning in circles.”
“This space is only borrowed, we need to not damage it.”

The kids settled more quickly than I did. They contented themselves with running across the wide lawn beyond our back patio, dabbling in the little stream, and swinging vigorously on the chair swing which hung from a high branch on a very large tree. I stood at the back door to watch them. We found this location and reserved it, trusting pictures and reviews on the internet to be true. It was as advertised and the first stressful question of the trip was answered. So many more remained. Where would we eat dinner? Would everyone behave at the restaurant? Would this vacation provide moments of laughter and family bonding, or would we be embroiled in a two day festival of squabble? A cry of dismay and pain from the swing seemed to indicate the latter.

I dashed down the gentle hill to help Patch wipe his knee, just tears no lasting injury. Kiki declared that she missed our cat and wanted to be home. Link announced his boredom. Howard was grouchy and hungry. Then the restaurant was further away than we expected and packed to the seams. I carried the tension of it all in my jaw and back, frequently forcing myself to relax both.

In a turnabout, the service at the diner was incredibly good. Patch declared that it was the best meal he’d ever eaten. Kiki and Howard threw jokes back and forth. Then Patch made us all all laugh by choosing to eat fresh cut lemons instead of ice cream for dessert. He’d taste, shiver, grin, and then do it again. A walk around the condo grounds led us to a park with hammocks, a stream, and a pond. The pond had several large frogs. Good things had begun to emerge from among the unsettled questions.

This is the way of vacations on the first day. I could not know yet whether I had pulled us all out of our lives to build bonds or damage them. Either is possible. I knew when I put the trip on the calendar that parts of it would be hard. I knew that there would be tears and frustrations. These are the price which must be paid in order to earn the memories. The tears and homesickness, the moments of despair over work sitting idle at home, the hours of laying awake late at night to count the various costs of the trip. These are the price.

Then morning dawns with the smell of husband-cooked bacon. The sky is a brilliant blue over red rock formations. Kiki follows her siblings with a camera as they hunt for frogs at the edge of the pond. Patch eats lemons. All of my kids look in awe at the wonders of weathered stone stretching in arches across the blue sky above. Patch declares that he wants to come back every spring break and all the kids murmur assent. My camera is filled with pictures of my children being unconsciously beautiful or deliberately silly. I stare up at the towering rocks with the wind chill in my face, knowing life is good. We discover upon returning to the condo that it is familiar instead of strange. These are the prizes and they are wonderous.

I will never be sorry for this vacation, despite the scrambling I did last week to prepare for it and the scrambling I’ll do next week to make up for the missed work time. The prize is worth the price.

Social Media and Me

By / April 9, 2011

A couple of years ago my extended family and I all discovered facebook more-or-less simultaneously. For me it was a natural extension of my online existence. I’d already had a blog for years. For most of them it was a somewhat scary adventure into the wilds of the internet. I quickly found ways to be comfortable and was updating my facebook status regularly.

Then I got an email from my sister. “Are you doing okay?” she asked “You seem stressed.” Well, I was stressed. I was also pretty happy with my life. The trouble was that all my complaints were facebook sized and all my happy things were blog sized. My sister didn’t read my blog, so she got a rather narrow slice of what my life was really like and I looked rather unhappy.

I set out to fix the imbalance. I decided that I would deliberately use facebook as a place for small happy things. That worked pretty well, and life felt a little more balanced. Enter twitter, with it’s immediacy and propensity for clever conversations. My family stayed firmly entrenched in facebook. They were comfortable. I linked my twitter feed to my facebook feed so I could post in a single place. My family was confused. The dialect of twitter is different from that of facebook. They didn’t get half of what I was saying. I unlinked the feeds so that I could participate in the communities differently. (Actually a technological glitch unlinked them for me, but I decided it was best to leave them that way.)

Then came the day when I wanted to rant about my broken lawnmower. I was furious, unreasonably so. I wrote a blog entry, which I didn’t post because I knew it made me look unreasonable. I composed a facebook note, which I deleted for the same reason. I did not tweet it either. I was trying to not annoy people with my whining on the internet. The feelings pounded around inside my head until I finally went to a writer’s forum to which I belong and posted in the “venting” thread. The whole point of the thread is to provide a place for people to be grouchy or upset over random life things. Within an hour, two people had posted sympathetic responses. I felt validated, and my angry feelings dissipated almost entirely. I was able to move along in finding rational solutions.

Only later did I think that, maybe, I should have given my family the opportunity to share in my lawnmower frustrations. Keeping facebook cheerful is over all a good thing, but if it is unremittingly cheerful, then it is just as false as when it was the repository of all things whiny. Somehow, I need to find a balance between letting people share in both the downs and ups, without being all-whiny or all-chipper. This social media thing is not so easy as it looks even when one manages to avoid the major faux pas. (so far. fingers crossed. Do not want the internet to fall on my head ever.)

Examining My Emotions about Writing as Related to My Book Project

By / April 2, 2011

I am part of a group of writers who meet every couple of weeks. Rather than spending our time together critiquing, we socialize. Writing gets discussed often, because it is in our minds, but we spend most of our time talking whatever is going on in our lives. This is particularly nice since we all share a social context and have similar viewpoints about the world. We write different things, and have different backgrounds, so the comparisons are endlessly interesting. Tonight we spent half our time together talking about houses. Later the conversation drifted to a place where I started talking about my feelings about my work in progress as well as feelings about writing in general. I’ve been vaguely aware for weeks that my writing time had some suppressed emotion attached, but honestly I was too busy to pay much attention. I did notice that at times I was avoiding writing. What I was really avoiding was the suppressed emotions attached to writing. This evening’s conversation helped me pull the cover off of my pit of emotions and for the first time I can see what is really in there. At the end of the evening, when the location we meet at closed, one friend said “Are you okay? I feel like we’re leaving you in a sad and scared place.” She’s right. Usually we’re able to find some resolution to emotional topics before the end of the evening. I assured her I was fine, but it wasn’t until I got in my car to drive home that I realized why. I needed to leave that pit of emotions open, I needed to spend some time down in the middle of it. I have to be in the middle of it if I want to clean it out.

Next I am going to list what I found in my emotional pit. Please note that at the moment I’m feeling quite analytical and not at all upset. It is very fascinating to me that all these contradictory emotions can dwell simultaneously inside my head.
The List:

I know that my book is important. I don’t know why or to whom.

I know that there are things for me to accomplish which require me to finish my book first.

These two bits of knowledge are daunting.

I am afraid that my slowness in getting the project done will cause the project to miss some opportunity, that the importance of the project has an expiration date. Which I will miss. Because I put other things in my life before writing.

I worry about how long it is taking me to revise the project and how emotionally draining the revision is. I know I am far from done with revising. If the book does get published, that means even more work, not less. It is hard to want more work.

The subject matter of my book has very personal elements. I worry about having it publicly criticized and rejected. I fear I will not be able to maintain objectivity about those rejections and criticisms.

I’m afraid that the book will be too successful. I know best selling authors and their lives are crazy. Being paid well would be nice, but the level of stress which comes with that money is hard to want.

I’m afraid that the book will bomb. That it will never earn money nor fulfill its purpose.

I am sad that I don’t have more spaces in my life to devote to writing. At the same time I know that the lack of those spaces is primarily my fault. I choose how to spend my time. If I choose other things, then writing does not happen.

I am afraid to really throw myself into writing. Often time is not lacking, nor is energy, but I save the energy for other things instead of giving it to writing.

I feel like the project is good, but that I am failing in my responsibility to get it done.

I feel like the project is stupid and I am wasting the time that I spend on it.

I know that I will have the inspirations I need for this book when they are needed. This gives me strength and calmness to keep writing when the words feel stupid.

I wonder why this project matters beyond my personal desire to complete what I started. I sometimes wish I didn’t have the feeling it was important so that I could set it aside without guilt.

I want to be done with this stage of the project so I can start learning what comes next. I want to be to the point where I can be submitting.

There are probably more things. As I think of them, I’ll add them to the list. For right now, I’m going to bed.

Today, I Cooked Quiche

By / March 28, 2011

I made quiche for dinner today. It was not fantastic quiche, but indicates something about today. I had space in my brain to set out and cook a food because I felt like eating it, rather than scrambling to throw something foodish in front of the kids because they were complaining. I used my rolling pin. I got flour all over the counter. Then when I was done making a mess, I cleaned it all up. It is not that the day was luxuriously empty. I had a list of things to do that kept me busy most of the day. It is just that my mind was remarkably free of stress and anxiety about the busy things. I like that. Hopefully I’ll be able to have a pattern of days like this one. For now, I’m going to go eat the last piece of quiche.

My conversations with God

By / March 27, 2011 / 2 Comments

When I watch Fiddler on the Roof, Tevya’s conversation’s with God feel very familiar to me. I too speak with God on a daily basis. Sometimes that speaking is in formalized prayer. Other times it is merely me rolling my eyes heavenward and asking silently “Really? Why today?” There is no indication that Tevya ever gets answers to his prayers, in fact the opposite is implied. Tevya is left to create his own answers as he tries to balance tradition with a fast changing world. I do get answers. Not all the time, not always clearly, but over the years God and I have developed a rich communication. Mostly those answers come as knowledge/concepts which my mind then turns into words. They are subtle and in earlier years I often confused them with my own desires. I still do sometimes, particularly when seeking answers on an emotional issue. Most of the time I receive these inspirations in direct answer to my prayers or requests. Occasionally I’ll be struck with one when I’m not seeking answers. My usual response to out-of-the-blue inspiration is to answer with the eye roll “Really? Why now?”

Yes I am aware that these answers could be coming from my own mind. I could be creating a comforting fiction of God. Except without fail those answers are right. They are right in ways that are impossible for me to predict. They are right for reasons which sometimes don’t become apparent until years after I have followed the instructions. Yes again, I could be justifying decisions after the fact by simply gathering evidence in support of them. I choose to believe that these answers come from a loving God who is as present in my life as I am willing to let Him be. That last bit is key. I can shut Him out. I can do the spiritual equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and singing loudly so that I will not hear Him. It is very tempting, because all too often the answers and inspirations I receive are quite difficult to follow through upon. So I grow a little shell for my heart. I hold up all the good things I am doing as a shield. “See God? I am going to church and teaching my children. I am doing regular service and reading my scriptures. It’s all pretty hard, so I should just keep working at it for awhile, right?” I stay busy with the good things I am doing so that I won’t have to do any more, rather like dodging a phone call from a friend because I think she’ll want me to volunteer for a bake sale.

This is where church meetings come in. One of those good things I use as a shield is church attendance. Except if I really want to avoid conversation with God, the last place I should go is His house. So I go there. I listen. I sing. Then my hard shell cracks open and inspiration pours in. It is like finally talking to that friend and discovering that, yes she wants me to volunteer for a bake sale, but she’s also wondering if she can come help me clean my house, plant flowers in my garden, and maybe repaint a little. I’ll have to help with all of those things too, of course. It will be work, but in the end I will be the biggest beneficiary. When the messages are clear, I adjust my life to make space for the work.

Thus I find myself posting about inspiration on the internet, which is notorious for swooping down upon people in very unpleasant ways. I also find myself tinkering with my weekly schedule because apparently getting my essay book done is still important. While I’m tinkering with the schedule Family Dinner needs to go back on it. In addition, I should keep up that time partitioning plan, because it is a really good thing. So I roll up my sleeves and start in on the work, realizing once again that perhaps I should listen to this particular friend more often. Even while He is handing out assignments, He is also doling out large measures of hope and energy. When I add His things into my life, the impossible is accomplished.

2010 One Cobble Book

By / March 22, 2011

This is my happy thing for the day. It is my 2010 One Cobble book containing all the entries from last year. I picked the cover photo because of this post. It seemed an appropriate visual metaphor for a year that was over full of good things. The cover is not what I am most pleased about. My heart is made glad by the pages. They are full of my words arranged on the pages with pretty flowers. I did every bit of the work except designing the flowers.

Now I need to get back to work writing words I can sell.

Tangled

By / March 20, 2011 / 1 Comment

The week just past felt tired and tangled. I can’t say precisely why it was so. Perhaps it had so much potential energy. Many events were poised to collapse into various forms of emotional crisis. People were on the edge of sick. The meeting with the school counselor might have been difficult. Business emails had the potential to create friction or unpleasantness. Then, of course, was the creeping sense of failure at all the things I feel I ought to be doing, but don’t have time to actually accomplish.

We’re on the final sprint toward book completion. Howard finished writing the bonus story for Emperor Pius Dei. I ran test prints for cover colors. I also pounded through the layout to make sure that the images were properly cropped and placed. After spending months in limbo, we’re dashing toward finishing the project. This is good since we’re up against a hard deadline. In April there will be no time to spare. Howard will be hard pressed just to keep up with the buffer while attending multiple conventions. I like the sense of motion. It is much better than limbo.

In the midst of the emotional potential energy and the Schlock book forward momentum, some piece of my brain decided that I urgently needed to complete the layout for my 2010 One Cobble book. Each year I take all my blog entries and dump them into a pdf file so Lulu can print it into a book. This year I decided not to use the done-in-an-hour method of years past. I used my book layout tools to make something pretty. It took 16 hours of work, 8 of which I did last week. My back and shoulders are gnarled little knots from all the focused computer mousing time. I got it done. The file is submitted and I expect the book to arrive next week. It felt really good to complete a project over which I had total control of all aspects.

So many pieces of my life are dependent upon the work and reactions of others. This is a necessary and important part of life, yet sometimes instead of feeling supported by my web of communities, I feel tangled in them. I want the Schlock book done, but must wait for our colorist to finish with files. I want to settle my kids’ schedules for the next school year, but have to wait for school personnel and appointments. Sometimes the urge to just cut myself free is strong. I want to hide.

On Friday night I had a scheduled social event. My feelings about going were mixed. I missed the friends I had not seen in over a month. I also knew that my kids were not in particularly settled emotional states. Kiki was in the midst of her oil painting project. It was going well, but still had the potential to go poorly. Link had been grouchy all week. Patch was sick, Gleek full of energy, and Howard had a prior commitment. The obvious and responsible choice was to stay at home. I was needed to provide stability and calmness. Also I thought I needed introverted time so that I could untangle my thoughts and emotions. But then Kiki and Link told me I should go. I went and discovered that sometimes, even for an introvert, a social event can be invigorating. Some friends fill me up instead of draining me. When I left the house I’d been dreading Saturday. By the time I came home, I was looking forward to it.

The answer to my tangle was not to cut myself free, it was to find kindred spirits who were part of my web. It was my own struggling causing the tangles. I was part of a web, not caught in a snare. I had a similar experience on Saturday. I still need more days where I have nothing scheduled, but so many of the things I’m scheduled for are wonderful things. Now if I could just get the Schlock book and my revision done I think I might be so light of heart I would float down the street.