The Project - Day 34

I read A Room of One’s Own, years and years ago. I think I kind of got it then. Maybe. But today it hit home. Finally I have a room that is all about my work and I was so giddy I actually bounced in my seat while teaching. There are still a few touches to be done and I’m sure I’ll move the piano a few more times, but I have an honest-to-goodness music studio where I can sing, teach and hopefully even record in the near future. I felt selfish for taking up so much floorspace when our house has so little space to begin with, but things had come to a crisis point. I’m teaching close to 10 students out of my home now and I need to present a professional working space. All my books and music were out back in a garage office that never worked out, bad acoustics, too cramped, etc.  Also my husband needed a workspace, especially one that could have a door closed on it, which meant NOT in the living room.

Finally with a few hours together we moved shelves, books, books and more books and in the end, I have no dining room, but I have a studio! It seems a little silly that merely moving a few items of furniture would be so empowering, but it is. All of a sudden I have space for my things, for my work. Even if the future of this work is in doubt, it is an enormous part of who I am and who I have been and it all finally has a home.

Now just don’t ask to see my kitchen or my bedroom!

The Project - Day 29 & 30

I spend several hours each week with a church choir, ostensibly functioning as a soloist and section leader, although I can only lead as far as my section will follow. Which usually is not very far. For those unfamiliar with the culture, church choirs usually consist of volunteers that sing for weekly services. Usually members are predominantly female and the median age hovers between fifty and sixty. While I am sure there are exceptions, my current group is not among them.

As with most volunteer choruses, some folks are fairly musically skilled, former music teachers or music majors while some might not even read music, but (hopefully) have a decent enough ear that they can pick up their parts during rehearsals. While there are a few all-professional church choirs in major cities, the presence of experienced singers in a church group is usually limited to a few “ringers”, usually hired as section leaders or soloists. There are a number of reasons why churches do this. It can be because the choir is light in certain voice types--or missing them entirely. Sometimes it is just to provide leadership or to have a group of singers available for special music or solos. In some situations a church likes to have soloists or section leaders as a matter of status, usually in addition to professional instrumentalists, a resident organist and other trappings of high-church high-end music making.

My job is primarily to provide support to the soprano section, sing the occasional solo and perform with the other three section leaders as a quartet from time to time. I haven’t done this kind of work in a long time for a number of reasons. First, I don’t want to “work” at church. I’d rather just find a place to worship and sing because my spirit and not my checkbook urges me. Second, having to show up every single Sunday is an absolute grind, it means no family weekends away, unless i beg for time off and then feel guilty about it. Finally, I take very seriously the role of a church musician. I was raised in a tradition where the musicians (along with members of the congregation) are “ministers” and their contribution to the service is not a performance, but a worshipful part of the service and a ministry to the congregation.

Unfortunately that checkbook strongly urges me to keep my church job at this point and so I go. Some days I experience something that approaches the fellowship of community and college music makers from my past, the kind of camaraderie that comes from a wide range of people all working toward a common goal. Other days, such as the time a jealous church member kept scooting away, insisting I smelled like Chinese food (I had just showered before coming to rehearsal and not eaten a thing) or the time a little old lady cornered me and berated me for the “sin” of singing when I was not a confirmed Catholic, make me want to count the days until I have enough other work that I can happily put myself on a sub list and make my fond farewells.

Also, I miss the Protestant tradition of “open table”. It boggles my mind that I will be singing all of Holy Week and not once will I be able to take communion. This may not sound like much to someone who is not Christian, but it deeply affects me and the connection I feel (or don’t feel) to my religion. I respect the traditions and doctrine of the Catholic church, I have no desire to take communion there, but I often wish I had a job in a church closer to my own tradition.

Beyond all this though are more troubling moral issues. When I stopped working in churches ages ago, I swore I would never again work in a church where I could not bring my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and freely worship with them. Now I take a paycheck from a church that actively denies participation of women, not to mention homosexuals. Worse than that is the cover up of victimization of children, particularly this most recent unveiling of sexual abuse of deaf children, truly an evil, if there is any proper use for that word.

While I certainly have taken paychecks from corporations I didn’t believe in before now (law firm, anyone?) I am having a particularly difficult struggle with the current allegations of coverup and collusion regarding sexual abuse in the Catholic church. I have no doubt the people I work for and with are sickened by this situation as well and feel their own outrage, yet they have positive bonds to the church that I cannot share. For now, I keep working, I keep looking for other jobs and I pray for the victims of sexual abuse, those known and those still keeping their secrets.

The Project - Day 28

JT sings
Sleep Come Free Me
and I know what he means.

Chained to consciousness, I’m trapped in the waking world
unable to dream,
barred from nocturnal inspiration.

Barring the elevation to the imagination
I object to being pinned here
awake
like a subject in a lab test
of my own devising.

This is the hour of review
for all my failures
my personal shortcomings
and relationships lost or damaged.

This dark parade of loss
I could do without.

The Project - Day 27

Instead of writing a page of creative things or stupid things or whatever, tonight I wrote invoices. Sometimes it’s about getting paid.

I knew I had grown up when I no longer felt I had to apologize for asking to be paid. I still feel bitchy about it sometimes, but really, if you do not demand to be paid for your time and experience, people will presume you do not know what you are doing. And so, back to the salt mines! Half baked inspiration will have to wait.

The Project - Day 26

Boy at Three

It seems impossible, this dangling foot
below my knees.

The increasing weight is so incremental it can almost be denied,
but that body, long and gangling,
draped over me like a lightly snoring rug
will not be refuted.

This is childhood.
This is running and jumping and stories
and lies and fighting and telling tales.
No tell-tale soft smell of milk,
but dirt and rubber and twine create
this weighty thing I hold,
this baby gone.

My imprint, still so small, it cannot grow,
the fraction of birth
consumed by this new self.
The small curved space of an arm, a kiss, a fragment of lullaby,
feeds and fades,
a cotyledon of spirit.

The Project - Day 24 & 25

I made the observation recently that I look forward to a time when I can go watch a football team compete in handmade uniforms while playing on a tennis court and a cast of 100 hard working young kids singing their hearts out get an actual theater, instead of dancing on the floor of a gymnasium in front of the bleachers.

While I know there are those who would explain to me all about the politics of sport and how it’s not either/or and that football pays for itself, etc., etc. ad nauseum, I still must preach the gospel of validity for the performing arts. The truth is, no one would ever expect a soccer team to compete without a field, a tennis team to practice without a net or a track team to run on the sidewalk around the school in lieu of a track. Still, many schools don’t think twice about students performing a play in a gymnasium or other so-called all-purpose room whose purposes clearly do not include communicating the spoken word.

It is true that theater, like church, may be presented anywhere and indeed there are often fortuitous events where an alternative environment can render a production more meaningful than in a traditional setting. Still, these rare events are no excuse for the wholesale marginalizing of educational theater to the back lot of the curriculum, not to mention the campus. Speaking pedagogically, what is the point of teaching students how to learn their lines and speak them properly, with adequate projection and meaningful expression and then set them to perform in a space where there is no chance that those lines will be heard? Why train students in technical theater, learning about painting, sound and lights and then put them in an environment where it is impossible for them     to fully realize excellence?

Beyond the basics, there is the issue of what a theater and performing spaces mean to a school community. The theater is the imaginative heart of a school. It is the gathering place, a symbol for dreams and inspiration, it is the locus of expression. This might sound far fetched, but believe me, the proof is in the face of a child who walks on a stage or sits in an audience for the first time. The value of a theater is in the spirit of an ensemble that experiences the hush when the lights dim in anticipation of their first note. Even the simple act of holding a class on the stage transforms the subject. A dedicated performing space is the only environment where this alchemy occurs.

This is not to belittle the amazing work that is done in gymnasiums, classrooms, courtyards and similar spaces all across the country. Good teachers can transform spaces to bring their students close to the theatrical environment and thank goodness for that. Still, the abilities and dedication of the teachers is not an excuse for failing to provide them with the tools necessary to bring their instruction to fruition. There is already too much burden placed on these teachers to justify programs that should require no justification. The preponderance of evidence regarding the connection between studies in the performing arts and academic achievement makes it clear that these should be academic and not optional subjects. Regardless, music and theater continue to be treated as extracurricular and dependent entirely on demand. Like an entree in the cafeteria, music and theater will be made available if there appears to be sufficient demand.

The reason this does not work when it comes to performing arts education is that supply dictates demand, not the other way around. If classes in music, art and drama are made available and promoted, through an organized and structured progression leading from kindergarten through high school, you will build a vital and popular program. If, on the other hand there is no progressive structure, no commitment to curriculum and above all, no physical space dedicated to the arts, it is impossible for a school to build a consistently excellent program, regardless of the quality of teaching or the interest level of the students.

I hope that someday all schools will understand the centrality of the performing arts to their curriculum, until then I salute the teachers who create magic on a dime, making do with gymnasium floors.

The Project - Day 21 & 22

Lately I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about what I’ve done with my life for the first forty years and what I’d like to do for the next forty. Most of my life has spent pursuing independent artistic objectives but for some time now I’ve been trying to think of a way to take what I love and translate it into something more stable, something less self-serving. This is especially true now that I have a family and I need to help support them. It isn’t that I am unable to work. I’ve worked most of my life and if nothing else, I know how to knuckle under and do what needs to be done when the rubber meets the road. At my age though, there are two things that get wearisome--milk crates that double as furniture and working from job to job just to get paid.

Most of my life has been spent working on my skills in the performing arts, often paying with my skills in the language arts. Justification has never been an issue, the intrinsic value in music, drama, words, art, these have been internalized my entire life and have guided my choices. However, now I find I need to clarify these values in a world that is losing it’s grip on valuing the cultural as anything beyond extracurricular.

I would like to teach. I would like to teach words, music, art, the things that touch the soul and are not quantifiable. I know I can teach these things and I know it is important to teach these things. I know that the art of ideas and the art of words are completely intertwined and that a life of the imagination is necessarily a life of communication. The products of the imagination only live if they are communicated. (This is perhaps an ironic argument coming from someone who writes a blog that is not intended to be read.)

So this is my increasing fascination, the intersection between art and language, particularly the performing arts. How do these disciplines relate to each other and to the culture of education? Why is it important to worry about words and art--what do they offer beyond classes in science, math, and the ubiquitous “media” that is replacing the world formerly inhabited by words and ideas?

I believe it can be boiled down to three areas of value that are uniquely shaped in the creative and literary arts. These are discipline, culture and self.

Discipline is perhaps not the first thing one thinks of when contemplating education in the creative arts, but it is in fact the foundation of any studies in this realm. We learn grammar in order to write, we learn theory in order to compose or perform, we learn the discipline of the body and mind to recreate characters on stage. More than any other subject, discipline, self-discipline is required to create and recreate art. While some strictures are superficial and external, like the form of a sonnet or a Stanislavskian exercise, with practice, the external becomes internal. While “practice makes perfect” is a cliche, it comes from the understanding that with discipline comes excellence.

Culture, while it can be studied in a history class or other environment is only experienced through the arts and writing of that culture. Reading about the Holocaust in a history book is an entirely different experience from learning music written in a Jewish ghetto or reading the poems written by the children of Terezin. You can discuss the significance of Shakespeare, but until you have been on your feet, acting the character of Mercutio, the connection is merely academic and seldom transforming.

The concept of self is slightly more involved. Initially I was thinking of self esteem, self discipline, self respect and so forth. However, one can gain self respect from learning to excel in any number of disciplines. I believe that when it comes to the arts, development of “self” goes beyond esteem or discipline. Literature, writing, music, drama, painting, these are all gateways into our internal life. We need to raise up the next generation not just with the technology and knowledge to move into the future, but also with the spirit and imagination to face the things we cannot yet imagine. Inspiration leads to inspiration, or so we hope.

Just some initial thoughts, more to come, I think.

The Project - Day 20

Clean sheets are the best beginnings.

Hotels are best, bleached into submission, voided of their histories,
they lie crisp and inviting, anonymous.

This is the best sleep, the alone sleep,
hidden rest.
Tucked between sheets where no one can hear,
no one can see.
Time sleeps alone
and is at peace.

It begins and ends like this, white and crisp
and private.

What comes rumpled in between
that is the complication,
the restless mess which opens on waking
and slumps towards consciousness.

The Project - Day 19

The cloud in my head
is gray
and it drips slowly down my spine,
an inexorable drain.

There was a time when I thought the cloud was real,
I took the gray for stone and bowed my head with the weight,
a genuflection to despair.

The moist tattoo of sorrow is perhaps a lesser burden,
but there is no less pain
in the insistent hovering,
the always perceptible closing of light
that hints at a day
unbroken.

The gift of an eclipse is the corona.
Glittering, circling,
defining blackness within its compass,
each distinct from the other.

Dark promises light.

Gray augurs nothing but gray.

The Project - Day 18

Today is Sunday, so let’s talk a little religion. I was raised mainline protestant, fairly low church, meaning not a lot of pomp and circumstance and occasionally someone would sling on a guitar and sing in the front of church. It was a far cry from today’s praise team style of worship that permeates all denominations, but it was casual and accessible and the church always seemed full of people.

These days I work for a Catholic Church, one of the oldest in the area, singing in the choir as a section leader and honking out the occasional solo. It’s a very traditional service with a diverse crowd in attendance and follows all the liturgical standards of the Catholic faith. While I know I will never be a Catholic (The reasons for this are another page of writing) I find myself strangely comfortable there.

What I love about the Catholic church, and its relations in Protestantism, the Lutheran and Episcopalian churches, is the liturgy. Ironic, since in my low-church upbringing, I was taught to mistrust canned liturgy. We learned that real prayers come from the heart, spontaneously, and aren’t just the same words repeated over and over each week, each year.  Although it wasn’t at all clear to me at the time, it seems pretty obvious now that I was being taught that the great liturgical traditions of the church, were rote and inauthentic expressions of faith.

Fast forward twenty years and I am surprised to find I am more comfortable in services at my Catholic gig than going to my home church contemporary worship. I don’t mean to say that this is a judgment of either liturgy, I know that people find meaning and spiritual connection in both types of worship. However, for me, I’m at a place now where I can feel more sincerity in repeating the same words every week, words that have been repeated for centuries and are repeated across the world by millions of people. I believe that words have power and that there is something to be said for the “little c” catholic aspect of a traditional liturgy. It might be true that it requires less creativity to repeat the same words every week and it might be easier to check out, especially on those mornings when the coffee has not yet hit the bloodstream. Still, the repetition of familiar words creates a resonance, a meaning that can exist outside of my own paltry attempts at meaningful intention.

My thought is this, no matter how deeply I feel worship, no matter how sincere my silent and individual prayers, I will always fall short when I stand before God. The idea that we don’t even know how to pray, not really, was always a compelling thought for me, and I have always believed that the entity of the Holy Spirit exists to fill the void between our human inadequacies and God’s divinity. So, if I know I will always be falling short of a true connection with God, then the issue then becomes to try and remove as much as possible that adds to my self-consciousness and separates me from God, rather than to find a “right” connection. The earnest nature of the contemporary “praise team” style of worship, the colloquial prayers, these make me very self-aware, not a state I associate with spiritual development. For now, being able to say with brothers and sisters across the world, “we believe” takes me out of my individual nature and into the corporate body of Christ. Credo is a corporate confession that does not allow for self and anything that releases self creates room for God.

The Project - Day 17

I really wish I had more energy. I feel like I am always tired, but I never can sleep. I know I have to be up early in the morning, but I’ve postponed writing this because I knew I’d be sitting up late, wondering why I can’t sleep. I’ve never settled well at night (Please reference story a few days back about infant phenobarb) and I have a lifetime of memories that toss and turn. When I was a kid I used to imagine myself as the little match girl or Cinderella, sleeping in some desperately cold place, all alone and then as I pulled the covers up over me, letting myself feel so grateful for this rag of warmth while I slept in the street. I have no idea why this helped me sleep, maybe imagining a less hospitable scenario helped me to appreciate what I had, I don’t know. Maybe I was just a drama queen.

Whatever the reason, to this day I prefer to be cold, which is somewhat problematic given our relocation to Florida. My reasoning is that you can always get warmer by putting on more clothes, covers, what have you, but there is an absolute limit to what you can remove in order to cool down. Unless of course you are a little match girl who freezes to death on the street. But for most normal existence, cold just requires some flannel jammies and an extra blanket or two.  I have actually slept with a cold compress on my head in extreme heat, but it isn’t quite the same thing.

I think I had a point when I started this but I seem to have lost it. Unfortunate. Looks like it is another day short of a page.

The Project - Day 16

Oh no, no, I do not want to write, oh no, no, I do not want to write! That’s to the tune of They Might Be Giants smash kids hit “I Never Go To Work”. I’m tired, I’m crabby and I can’t remember what I was going to write about.

Part of my crabbiness can be attributed to the amount of reading I’ve been doing this evening on the subject of English education. That would be education on the subject of the English language and literature, not studies on education in the country of England. I am sure there is worthwhile information here, however I’m starting to think educators are nearly as bad as lawyers when it comes to inventing new verbiage. Apparently, writing about writing requires repurposing half the language just to describe how you will study it.

I hate words like repurposing.

It’s just one of those nights when a sleeping pill might have to happen. I have a sharp pain in my abdomen and instead of taking a tylenol like a normal person, I keep pressing my gut wondering if it’s cancer. Hypochondria is not my usual gig, but when I am tired and stressed, I’ll work any angle just to keep the drama flowing. Child missing bedtime? I am a horrible mother and he’ll be scarred by a lack of appropriate bedtime habits, of course. Still no word on any of my most recent job applications? I will be on the street by fall, forced to move in with my parents. Don’t stop me now, I’m on a roll!

This is what it feels like to have to write when you don’t want to write. It is like trying on everything in your closet and it doesn’t fit or makes you look fat and you end up with a bed covered in clothes that now have to be put away and you realize the one possible thing you could have worn is in the bottom of the hamper with a big stain. It is like the time in college when a friend and I wanted to make strawberry margaritas, but we had no fresh berries, no tequila and no blender so we tried to smash frozen berries with  a hammer and mix them with peppermint schnapps. (Don’t try that, by the way, it’s disgusting.)

Okay, I’m out. That’s all I can fake for tonight.

The Project - Day 15

This was not a stellar day for motherhood. My failures were compounded by the thought that my son is now old enough to start remembering his horrible childhood and the thought makes me want to crawl under the covers for a week. I realized how much up until now I’d been relying on the amnesia of babyhood. I told myself, as long as he feels loved and cared for, the little mistakes, they’ll all vanish in the wind. While its true I think that a bedrock of love and care goes a long way, we are now entering the age of the grudge. The kid has a memory and he’s not afraid to use it against me.

His increasing verbal skills aren’t helping any either. Whereas before he might have given me a clingy hug before I left home to work, now I get a full monologue. “Mommy, I don’t want you to go. If you go and leave me here I will be so sad. May I please go to work with you? I am big enough to go to work Mommy! Please stay and give me a snuggle for five more minutes.”  I mean, really, how do you resist that? Ridiculous.

So, I’m exhausted from hours of singing and extra rehearsal tonight, a long day with a nap-striker and mentally shot from filling out job applications and sending out my resume yet again. All I wanted was my little pick me up kiss when I got home and the dude was sacked out snoring his head off, just like his father. I had to settle for lugging him into his own bed and giving him a kiss on the head. I even tried to wake him up accidentally on purpose but no go. All that fussing for mom during the day apparently wore him out for dad’s turn. Great.

Beyond my son’s blooming ability to mentally stockpile my actual deficiencies, he’s now started to add his own creations with the aid of his not inconsiderable imagination. While “mommy, you got mad and you YELLED at me!” makes me die a little inside, I wasn’t sure quite what to do when he assured both his teachers at school and his father that the paper cut on his hand was where “mommy cut me with a knife and a fork.” Um, WHAT? Yes, I regularly slice into my child’s hand, why do you ask? My only thought is that perhaps we had a discussion about safely using utensils (the boy tends to treat them like construction toys) and somehow this became attached to a particularly visible boo-boo? No clue really. I just tried not to giggle and said “I don’t think so, usually I just eat my food with a knife and fork, not your hand.” At this he looked at me very seriously and shook his head as if despairing of my mendacity. “You DID mama, you cut me with a knife.” I’m just praying that CPS doesn’t show up at my door. If nothing else, they could indict me for massive amounts of undone laundry.

I’m looking for the humor in all this but the truth is, it does concern me. My son is getting older and I want to have energy for him, to be organized, for him to be proud of his mama. My memory-free grace period is running out and the clock on his future memoirs has already started to tick. I have made some appointments with various health professionals this month and next in an effort to approach the physical deficiencies at hand. I’m hoping that part of this writing project will develop into some kind of focus and discipline for the mental and spiritual side of the equation. We’ll see.

The Project - Day 14

They say it takes two weeks of continuous behavior to make a habit, but I don’t feel like I’m there yet. Maybe missing the other night means my habit-o-meter has reset to zero? Nonetheless, I plod along.

Today I was looking around, trying to be aware of things that piqued my interest that might be good fodder for the daily write. I know there were at least three subjects that got me going, although now I can only remember one. Perhaps it is time to go back to carrying the notebook of ideas with me, if I can’t keep a thought in my head for a mere 10 hours. I’ll blame motherhood, it’s so convenient.

There may have been some very deep, penetrating thoughts in there somewhere. . . oh wait, I just remembered part of one. To be honest though, I don’t much feel like riffing on Theresa of Avila right now, so I’ll go with the shallow topic knocking around my head.

There has been a lot of fuss in the press and the blogosphere about Disney’s upcoming Rapunzel film and it’s re-titling to “Tangled”, supposedly in an effort to be more inclusive of the young male audience. Apparently The Princess and the Frog did not crank out as much money as your average Pixar flick and they are now trying to de-princessify Rapunzel in hopes of having wider appeal. I didn’t think this was a big deal but apparently it’s an OUTRAGE. Even NPR has weighed in, which I would find funny if the author’s championing of iCarly didn’t make it so very sad. Beyond this totally offensive title change, it is revealed that there is to be a dashing character called “Flynn Ryder” who will be the male protagonist with much buckle and swash.

Confused as to why this is drama? Me too. While I would like to live in a universe where there is no gender stereotyping, that universe is currently in the science fiction section. I sold children’s books for over 13 years and I can promise you that while a girl will pick up a book with a boy or a girl on the cover without too much thought, but only one boy in a hundred will want to buy a book with just a girl on the cover. Disney is not in the business of remaking gender stereotypes, it is in the business of selling movie tickets. There is no sacred cow being slaughtered here, they’re just adjusting a picture to try and get a bigger audience, something that many other producers do with no comment made at all. This may be a good idea, it may not, I don’t really know.

What I do know is that the hue and cry over “desecrating” the original story (found in the comments to several blogs and in internet forums) is complete hokum, as is the idea that adhering to the “original” is a better idea for attracting boys to the movie (or girls for that matter). Yes, by all means, stick to the original. Let’s have Rapunzel get knocked up in the tower before she is cast out into the desert by the vengeful witch. Nothing says “Disney” like an unwed mother giving birth on the side of the road.

The Princess and the Frog strayed considerably from the original story as well and it was charming, funny and positive. Any boys who skipped it due to the title missed out on a great adventure where money doesn’t buy happiness and hard work can’t buy love. If a few more kids could have gotten that message by a changed title, I would have considered it well worth it. Get over it, people, this is not a big deal.

The Project - Day 13

Yes, okay, I skipped yesterday. I could fudge, I could try to write two pages today and pass one off as yesterday’s news, but the truth is I was tired as hell and I woke up at 3 a.m. drooling on my keyboard. It briefly crossed my mind to wake up and fight the good fight but then I remembered that was crazy and instead put my computer away and replaced it with my pillow.

I wonder if I’ll ever become one of those “other people”. Will I ever adjust my priorities so that I wake up early every morning, take my sprightly constitutional about the park, give my home a quick once over with my all natural lavender scented organic cleaning products and then write a journal entry over a cup of fair-trade french pressed coffee? I’d like to think that in 16 years when I’ve sent the boy off to college I might have a shot at this scenario, but I’m thinking I’ll still be staying up too late, sleeping in too long and settling for crappy coffee. I’ll never make it in assisted living, pissing people off by being on the computer too late and wanting breakfast at 10. I need to start taking better care of myself so that I can tend to my own cranky needs for as long as I am alive. Between my husband and I, I doubt there is a retirement facility that could (or would) hold us.

I was a night person even as a baby. Apparently I was so bad at confusing night time and day time my mother was on the verge of brain death from sleep deprivation. The pediatrician gave her phenobarbital to spread on my gums. I’m not kidding. It was the 70s after all. And thus, my dependency on sleep aids began. Of course most of the time I don’t like to take anything, but when I do, I actually sleep with some regularity and I find myself wondering, why the hell don’t I do this all the time? What is that? Why do we resist taking drugs for what we feel are inconsequential things? Okay, some of us resist. My husband loves taking drugs, but then he used to make them, so I suppose he can be excluded.

Seriously, why when something is helpful, do I try to find a reason why I shouldn’t take it or can’t use it or it isn’t important? I’m not just talking about drugs here. I’m getting better about it, but when a friend says “can I help you?” why is the first response “no thanks, I’m fine”? I suppose it’s partly protestant stoicism, that ingrained desire to never owe anyone or anything, to be entirely self-sufficient. Probably being a woman plays into it as well, don’t be a bother, put others first, really, suffering is just part of having a uterus, dear. Right? Hopefully this mindset is dying out with the current generation but it’s still got root in my brain, this idea that if I’m suffering on some level, that validates me as a woman and mother.

Wherever this martyred independence comes from, it needs to die. It benefits nothing to pretend I have it all together, when the only thing together here is the zipper on my pants, if I’m lucky. So pass me the sleeping pill, for in the morning I have to drop off my child at preschool (without guilt) and call the service about help with cleaning my house and mowing my yard!

The Project - Day 12

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The Project - Day 11

I thought I wasn’t going to have anything to write about tonight. I thought I’d be typing out the lyrics to Row, Row, Row your boat for an entire page. And then someone pissed me off. Someone REALLY pissed me off. If you have loved ones in your life, spouse, children, you know what I’m talking about. When someone is not good to the people you love, the desire to be not good right back is overwhelming. Just in case it is unclear, when I say “not good right back” I mean the desire to say exactly what I think in all it’s unadulterated cruelty and in any way possible deliver a world of pain to those who would manipulate or hurt the people I love.

The problem with this of course is that it solves nothing. I know it won’t even make me feel better. Not much anyway. Selfish people are usually too self centered to know when you’re insulting them, so it tends to dull the satisfaction of a well-aimed barb. Usually I deal with difficult people in my life by trying to understand what life circumstances led them to such a personality deficit. I try to find sympathy for the emptiness in their lives that leads them to their poor behavior so that I can get past an angry response. I try to recognize that whatever is going on, when someone is abusive, manipulative or just plain not nice, that it isn’t about me, it’s about them.

Yeah, that is not so much working for me at the moment. The priest at my church gig asks every week if we are going to forgive the people that have harmed us, that have hurt the ones we love and that bring damage to our lives. Every week I respond with everyone else, “Yes, father.” I’m just glad I don’t have to give that affirmative for at least another week, because I’m hanging on to this one for a bit.

I’m also glad my son is too young to understand that sometimes people who claim to love you can also treat you like crap. I’m not looking forward to the day when I have to explain that sometimes our “loved ones” behave in extremely unloving ways. On the bright side, I am supremely glad he has the excellent example of his father in his life. My husband is an object lesson in exceeding the limitations of both nature and nurture.  He’s far from perfect and he has his struggles, but he is my hero every time he makes a kind or thoughtful choice.

So yes, I’m mad. . .

Row, row, row your boat . . .

As in acting, it seems in writing, “angry” is not a terribly creative choice?  Not sure. If I could be more specific in sharing my feelings right now, I could come up with some extremely creative vocabulary that would aptly capture my mood of the moment.

The Project - Day 10

I’m in the process of trying to create a new resume, again, and it has to fall someplace between cleaning out old files and scrubbing grout with a toothbrush on my list of favorite things to do. I hate the whole balancing act between “this is what I’ve done” and “this is what I can do” and showing your fabulous experience and skills and yet not overstating them at the same time. I feel like the whole thing is so fake, no matter how honest I am, I always feel like I’m overstating the truth.

I remarked to someone this year that rather than writing a resume or bio, I longed to just write “I don’t suck and I know what I’m doing. Give me a job already.” I suppose it might be different if my life had a more normal trajectory. Go to school, get job in related field, take advanced degree, get better job, etc. It’s a little hard to put down on paper how you spent 20 years trying to pursue a career with only a 5% success rate, so in the meantime you learned how to do everything short of working a psychic hotline to earn money. The upside? I have tremendous confidence in my ability to work, build skills and learn new things. The downside is that my resume looks like it belongs to a schizophrenic chimpanzee. And by this I mean no disrespect to schizophrenics or chimpanzees.

Most people transition at some point when they are going for a creative career and it is time to turn practical. My transition was to get married and pregnant, which was awesome for my life, but has turned out to be employment suicide. I feel fortunate that the people who know me and love me constantly remind me that I am (mostly) not a moron and that I have many useful skills, because if I saw myself as an extension of my resume I think I’d never make it out of the bathroom in the morning. I know reinvention is possible and I’m ready for it. As hard as it is to say, okay, I had a so-called dream, I went for it the best way I knew how for over 15 years, it didn’t work out, I’m ready to see what else is out there. I have a family now, I have a child, I have responsibilities to something bigger than my ego or my talent or whatever and it’s time to get creative in a way that will pay bills and put groceries on the table.

Actually that really hurts. That really, really hurts. Because when they say you will regret what you didn’t try, they are right. I will always second guess, always wonder if I could have made a different choice and made a better success of myself at this point in my life. Not that I would trade my current life with husband and child for a successful career, but I do hope that my kid doesn’t grow up and think mom just shit her life away for 15 years until he was born. I look back at the choices I made and I don’t regret any of them and I don’t see where I might have made different decisions, but I’m sure those moments were there and I didn’t even recognize them. Maybe in another 15 years I’ll have some clarity or at least perspective.

So, it’s time to reinvent. Time to imagine something new to be when I grow up. Time to focus on what is needed and not what is wanted and that is okay. I think. Just give me a minute. I need some time to figure out how to put it in a resume, how to say it wasn’t just that I flitted from job to job, always looking for the opportunity with the most return on the least commitment. Rather I would say, I had a lot of big ideas and some oversized dreams and I made some very brave and yes, maybe stupid choices, but I took risks and learned new things. The resume that lists my jobs is nothing, it tells you nothing about me. The resume of my heart, of my life, of the path I’ve been on for the last twenty years, this is what you need to know about me and what I must learn to communicate.

The Project - Day 9

I’m hoping this is kind of like trying to build an exercise habit (something else I need to return to) and the second stage of total crap is really just a stage before a breakthrough to greater ease and momentum. I’m also hoping I don’t wake up drooling on my keyboard at 3am this time around.

I’m a bit in awe of people who do this for real, all the time. One of the most powerful voices in my head is the one that says “You’re serious with this shit? You are boring yourself even thinking these thoughts, much less putting them to print.” How does the serious blogger or journal writer get to the place where they think, okay, I have something to say that’s worthy of regular expression? Or is it just compulsion, or discipline? I think the only prayer for me to every keep this up would be under the compulsion category.

I remember my sister saying once that she knew when she hadn’t been running enough because when she hadn’t hit the pavement in a while she got cranky and out of sorts. I do sometimes feel like my brain has become an overloaded sponge that needs squeezing and at those times, writing is my release valve. I suppose it is a related impulse, although I imagine compulsion only ever expands to skill when paired with discipline. I’ve had moments of what might be called discipline--I went through a write a poem a day phase for one reasonably long stretch--but in general I am a lazy pain in the ass. I hang on to my thoughts for time on end and then suddenly when it’s time to again wring out the brain sponge I want pithy thoughts and trenchant analysis on demand.

Is it too much to ask? To be able to translate my fascinating personality to the written world? (Apparently fatigue also sets the sarcasm meter way out of whack as well.)

Seriously though, I am hoping that through this stab at the discipline beyond the compulsion I will find something. Some what, I don’t know. In an ideal world, this will lead to clarity perhaps? A friend of mine once told me that I “processed by speaking”, meaning that if I could talk about a problem long enough I could figure out how to solve it. I suppose now I am trying to process by writing, not just to solve a problem, but to identify the problem. Not that there is a problem. I don’t think so. Maybe. Do I have a problem?

More to the point I want questions. I know usually people are looking for answers, but I’m not there yet. I want the questions I need that will help focus me in the new direction my life is taking. I need questions that define what of me is changing and what will always remain the same. Answers are endings, I’m looking for some new beginnings.

That’s it for today I think. I still find myself more than a little boring, but I still seem to be sticking around, so I must also be slightly attached to myself.

The Project - Day 8

Seriously??? After this day I’ve had, I think I’m going to casually write a page of some sort of mental exhalation? This is where the “project” starts to suck. I am so tired, part of the result of taking what is usually my day with my son and turning it into short playdate with son and friend, errands, teach, shop for cars (no, not kidding), a little cleaning and a rehearsal that ran overtime capped by a 3 year old who thinks staying up until mom gets home at 10 is just a-ok. While a whole day with the boy is no doubt exhausting, it is usually just one thing and the fun from being with him makes up for the crazy and the tired. Car salesmen are hardly a worthwhile substitute for my little dude.

At least he had a good day at preschool while I dragged my tail all over creation. I know that what I do is important, that we need the money from my teaching, that I’m able to do things my husband can’t while he’s at work that will help our family, etc. Still, some part of me wishes for that time when I could just be home with my boy all day and plan out our activities, following our own little routine. I need to remember that made me nuts after a while and that I need my own work, financially and emotionally. It just seems like there ought to be a balance between being supermom all the time and frantically scrambling for work, always feeling sub-par on the home front.

Damn, that was original. Not.

See, I’m exhausted and even so, my mental judges are so alive and kicking that they can kick me when I’m down. Or that would be me, kicking myself when I’m down? I suppose on some level that’s impressive.

(this is where I fell asleep with my face on my computer last night. I think we’ll have to call this one “good enough”.)

The Project - Day 7

I’ve started today’s page three times and erased it. I think that might be against the rules. My original idea was that I would just write a page, whatever brain vomit manifested and in the words of a dear friend, “leave it lay where Jesus flung it.” Today however, i appear to be plagued with dissatisfaction. It doesn’t matter if I’m the only one reading this, it bothers me to read crap. Apparently it doesn’t bother me enough to stop me from writing crap, but there you go, the ego will out.

One of my favorite books in the entire world is Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, which is about writing, but really about being brave and being creative and being blocked and having a sense of humor about both the crappy and the wonderful things in life. I think one of the best chapters is about the radio station that plays in your head, that would be KFKD or K-F***ed. This is the station that plays the soundtrack of failure and self-doubt, this is the musak that plays in the never ending waiting room where your muse goes to die. It has been playing full blast in my brain for most of the day.

It is astonishing to me that I am forty--no, not just that I’m forty, okay, well that does astonish me a bit as well--but rather that I am forty and still so very far from any form of sh*t-togetherness and still so susceptible to self-consciousness and doubt. I worked long and hard today on numerous projects. (Note: none of them had anything to do with cleaning the house. Pity.) Still, the only thing that made me feel very successful was smacking down a few car salesmen I had caught out in a lie. Really, this has to be near the nadir of accomplishment. These poor souls already have what is likely one of the worst jobs to have right now and I’m busting chops because they are lying to me. Really, shouldn’t I consider, as Br’er Snake would tell me, the nature of the creature? As snakes bite, so do car salesmen lie, expecting otherwise is a deficiency in the observer.

Why is it so easy to feel good about the things that do not matter? It’s like the taste of a Cheeto, satisfying at the outset, but only to be enjoyed in small amounts and ultimately, a bit sick-making. What I need is the taste of some fine cheese on a small point of artisan toast, garnished with fresh thyme and a twist of kumquat jelly.

Now I’m hungry. What was I talking about? Oh, yes, how most days I have the poise and confidence of a 13 year old.

I’d like to keep writing about that but I don’t really know what to say. Perhaps I can be forgiven for coming up a few lines short today. Or maybe I make like a 13 year old and increase my margins and font size?

The Project - Day 6

I don’t want to make this project too mommy-centric as part of the point is to explore other things, however it’s been a damn good day in mommy land.

My son has been using the potty on and off for over a year and I can honestly say I never thought I could be so emotionally invested in another person’s bodily functions. We chose the “he’ll do it when he’s ready” approach, subscribing to the philosophy that toilet training is a personal victory and important milestone towards independence. I envisioned a grand “Potty Party” when we would definitively know that he was “done” and a celebratory bonfire disposing of the last of the pull ups. Of course the reality has been an endless dance on that line between pressure and encouragement--the first true test of parenting a child with a will of their own, I think.

This is one of those things an adult child cannot even comprehend. I try to think of my mother obsessing over whether or not I had a BM that day and my mind reels. Perhaps this is why parents can never really let go. If at one point a large portion of your day is consumed with another person’s bowel and bladder voiding, I imagine it is difficult to say, hand that person car keys or send them off to college. Surely he’ll still need me to read him stories on the potty?

Even when he was a baby, I obsessed over his diapers, ready to call the pediatrician to make sure all the proper output was in evidence. I continually rebalanced his diet with fruits, vegetables and dairy to improve “regularity”. I remember writing a website entry when we once had five spectacular poopy diapers in one day. It was part disbelief, part amused wonderment at the continual surprises of motherhood. My son’s poopy diaper has been the last vestige of his babyhood, the one thing I must do to care for him that he cannot do for himself.

And now that is coming to an end. Now that he can take himself to the potty and knows what to do, I’ve been demoted to minor and occasional assistant and will soon be shut out completely, I am sure. Already he is understanding “privacy” and I’m sure his days of wanting mommy to sit with him and read while he does his business will soon be over. I can only imagine the level of horror he will feel at 16, should he ever come across his mother’s scribblings about wiping his bum and his infant constipation. That is as it should be, of course.

I’m sure we’ll welcome the money spent on diapers back to our general budget and I am  so proud of my son for taking this enormous step towards his independence. On the other hand, this is just one of many major steps away from his mommy. I can perhaps be forgiven for having a brief urge to put that diaper back on him.

The Project - Day 5

I am writing much too late now as my husband kept me up looking up new car information. Since I have an obsessive personality, my mind is now racing on the subject of curtain side airbags, warranties and the relative merits of various braking systems. My husband, as usual, stirs the pot, then snores away.

It should be made clear that in no way are we in any position to buy a new car at the moment. However, if the planets align and the heavens open, the circumstances might arise where a car could come into our possession. I’m not holding my breath. They say don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but I intend a full molar inspection should this come about.

We could really use a second car, but only if it comes down from on high from a good fairy. Or at least an occasionally cranky but benevolent fairy. And the fairy has requested we submit our proposals in writing, or at least in internet links. So, off to the online shopping tools I go, boldly pressing “build my car” as though a phalanx of elves are standing by, prepared to go into action depending on what buttons I push. It’s fun. But I remember from the last time we went through this process (with our own money) it quickly descends into the polar opposite of fun.

Buying a car has to be one of the few accurate predictors of hell here on earth. I can only imagine it is worse now, given the state of the economy and the car industry. I find myself wondering whether my entrails will be eaten live before me or if the dealer will merely offer to take my firstborn in trade for the extra undercarriage coating package. I know internet pricing takes some of the edge off the hardships of negotiation, but the extra burden of car shopping with my husband negates that advantage and then some.

In simple terms, my husband feels guilt about car shopping. This might be one of those Jewish things that I don’t fully understand, but based on further observation, this might be a phenomenon unique to my spouse. When we were car shopping the last time it took considerable force on my part to convince my husband that just because the nice Mazda dealer allowed us to drive their pretty car, twice, did not mean that we “owed” him. Or perhaps that we owed him a polite thank you or maybe a handy ballpoint pen, but not a down payment on a car.

We’ve established that this time around I will do all the advance work, research and initial test driving, narrowing down to 1-2 options which he will then peruse, test drive and quickly decide on a purchase. My gender may predispose me to bad deals in the showroom but the reality is, I’m a much better bitch and I have no problem saying “no” to a salesman. However, I’m still thinking about how we can ease my other half through the final process of test drive and comparison without thinking he has to pick out china with the sales person.

I’m thinking maybe a small gift is in order? If DH thinks that the salesman is owed for his time, this time I’m bringing a case of Twinkies.  A twinkie per test drive, does that sound right? Or should I go the cupcake route

The Project - Day 4

Yesterday I was thinking about what led to the major shift in my life, going from the life of a quasi-itinerant occasional musician living la vie Boheme to an ostensibly responsible married gal with a child, and just how did I get there. The truth is, right before I met my husband, I was stuck. Physically, mentally, spiritually I was trapped in an enormous sinkhole and couldn’t see any way to get out. I had walked away from a stagnant relationship, I was not happy with my work, etc. I’m sure it was a fairly textbook late-30’s single woman with no defined career pre-midlife crisis, but it felt original to me.

I decided to do a number of things to change up what I was doing and one of those things was to sign up for online dating. It had been at least a year since I had done this and honestly I thought I was finished with it. But, I was single, I wanted a reason to get out of the house and I wanted to have a little fun. I purposely signed up on a website that was not exactly known for expanded compatibility testing or meaningful relationships. It wasn’t www.bootycall.com, but it might have been close. There would be no expectations, just an experiment in short-term social bonding.

This went pretty well for a while, I had a couple of interesting dates, then I traded profiles with this guy who had two pictures of himself, one with two poodles, the other in front of an airplane. I thought, either he’s interesting, or he’s got a friend who really knows how to stage online dating photos. We connected, he turned out to be a big fan of Sondheim which made me immediately think “GAY”, but hey, I do not discriminate and he was willing to buy, so off we went. I was ridiculously late to our first date but for some reason he stayed and we had a lovely evening. Two weeks later he told me he was serious and would I come with him to a wedding and then to meet his family.

My first instinct was to run screaming out the door for a number of reasons that most people would find legitimate. But then I stopped, and I spent a long weekend thinking about my previous relationships. The truth was, I had been following my gut for nearly 36 years and what had it gotten me? Nothing. It seemed the only word I knew was “no” and the only direction I knew was backward. Was it my gut directing me or my fear? So I made a very conscious decision at the end of February 2005. Wherever I had said “no” before, I was now going to say “yes” and see where it took me. Instead of judging a situation and heading for the exit before it got messy, I was going to stick around, see what happened and try to put in some honest work on a relationship for a change. I had no idea that this choice would lead where it did, but it turned out to be one of the most important points in my life. My choices thus far had gotten me stuck, it would take new choices to get me unstuck.

Now it is five years later, and I’m finding myself stuck again. Circumstances are dictating that I close the door on some long-cherished dreams and strike out in new directions. While my gut tells me not to waste years of training, education and energy, I realize my gut is occasionally a stupid bitch and needs to be ignored. After all, if I’d paid attention to it five years ago, I wouldn’t be here, next to a guy who snores loud enough to wake the dead, down the hall from a little guy who is fast becoming a champion snorer in his own right. I can’t imagine life without either of them and it all started with turning “no” into “yes” and “why?” into “why not?” 

So life, career, home, I say to you YES and WHY NOT?

The Project - Day 3

February 27, 2010

The Project - Day 3

A old friend of mine has been going humorously public with her life as a single woman just past the threshold of forty. She’s one of those women other people can’t believe is single. She’s gorgeous, smart, successful, creative, you’d look at her and think, good lord, how stupid are men these days that they let this one roam about untagged? Unfortunately being smart, successful and creative is sometimes a liability, especially when your age group includes men who are looking for looking for arm candy to build their ego as they slink into their next stage of life. Or maybe it isn’t an age group thing, considering my husband came home from teaching and reported a conversation between the girls in his class talking about how smart boys liked dumb girls so they could feel smarter. The girls were saying they actually liked having stupid boyfriends, one even confessed “my boyfriend is too dumb to even figure out that I’m way smarter than he is!” Perhaps this is the new frontier? Himbos for the clever girls? I suppose it’s an option, but having gone the “sweet and stupid” route a couple times, I ended up marrying “smart as heck but a pain in my ass”, so I guess that makes my preference clear.

It has brought up a lot of memories, reading my friend’s posts about the trials and tribulations of online dating in the new millennium. I vividly remember my days of “dating practice”. My roommate came up with this name for our online dating adventures, since this was our practice for being social, going out, getting a dinner or a drink so that when the time came for “real” dating, we would feel like old pros. I’m not sure it really worked out that way. I had a few horrific dates, some rather blah ones, a couple of horrific relationships and then the guy I married.  That might seem like zero to 60 and in a way it was. We met online in January, first date a few weeks later, in April I met his family, in June we moved in together, July he met my family and proposed and by November we were married. This should be all the more amazing when you consider I can take up to 20 minutes deciding on a flavor of ice cream. It is nearly impossible for me to pull the trigger on any decision and yet I got engaged in approximately two seconds.

Friends who hopefully troll the online ads want to know the secret, how did I go from personal ads to happily ever after, and I’m not sure how to tell them the truth. The truth is, there is no happily ever after. Marriage is ridiculously hard work, especially when you’ve spent most of your life being a selfish single bitch who never had to concern herself with a damn thing other than her own whims. Forget that upturned toilet seat, just having to share your space with another individual is enough to make your skin crawl at times. Of course, I am an introvert with a capital “I” so this perhaps does not describe every late bloomer, but for me, the first year of marriage was a massive adjustment.

Is it worth it? I think so. I love my husband, I love my son, and while there are sacrifices I selfishly wish I didn’t have to make, there are certainly no regrets. More later. I’ve hit my page and the ball and chain is wondering why I’m not in bed.

The Project - Day 2

February 26, 2010

The Project - Day 2

Most people love Advent and so do I, but mostly what I love are all the pagan trappings that have been hooked on to Christianity like a shiny ornament. I love all things Jul, the tree, the mistletoe, wassail, solstice music by Paul Winter and Golden Bough and all the delicious food that attends the season. However, I have a private chuckle at slogans like “He’s the Reason for the Season” since I believe that no, He’s not. The reason for the season is the death and rebirth of the year, which is why we celebrate His birth at this time. I love the Nativity, but I feel it is part of the entire “rebirth” cycle that happens at the turning of the year.

Lent is when I feel like a Christian. While there are certainly pagan traditions in abundance surrounding Easter and the days leading to it, I’ve never connected with them in the same way I do the traditions of Advent. For me, Lent is like faith, extremely personal and the traditions are my own, or at least the ones I have chosen in my adulthood.

When I think of Lenten seasons past, I think of my years with my college choir and their monumental spring concert, I think of Wednesday nights at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine with Madeline L’Engle presiding, I think of receiving ashes at Grand Central Station, I think of solitary walks through the Cloisters Museum, scribbling in my notebook and taking pictures of the view. I remember my first year in Colorado, snowed in past all reason and finally escaping for a solitary vacation, completely alone with my thoughts.

It stands to reason, I suppose, that my Lenten observance has suffered some in the years since I married and had a child. Lent was a time when I celebrated my alone-ness, when I turned to good use what was often a burdensome solitude. Now I am blessed with my own family and solitude is an infrequent burden. Also, as my husband is Jewish we try to spend Passover with his family, which has frequently meant I miss out on Holy Week. Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some Pesach, but I miss the solemnity of that transition from reflection to joy that for me means Spring, rebirth and second chances.

Many people observe Lent by fasting, physically or psychologically. They give up meat, chocolate, gossip or in more contemporary currency, facebook or the internet. I’ve never totally connected with this tradition, as most of the people I know who observe it discard their Lenten fasts about as quickly as their New Year’s Resolutions. I just never saw the point. Lately though I’ve been thinking about fasting, in a spiritual sense. Fasting is a mortification of the body that is supposed to bring us closer to God. Put another way, I believe Lent is when we seek to find that thing which is separating us from God and to remove it from our lives as best we can. (Following this logic, I could never give up chocolate, for I am sure it brings me closer to God!)

I thought about giving up Facebook, or texting or some other kind of fast on my addiction to technology, but none of that felt like an authentic barrier to my relationship with God, or that part of myself that is still and quiet enough to connect with whatever power that exists when I pray. The problem is not in the technology but in myself. Then, the other day when I was thinking about how I feel like I have given up my artistic self, it came to me. If Lent is about giving up those things that separate from God, from the creative force, then I needed to give up what was blocking me from creating.

So this year, for the first time, I am attempting to observe Lent by fasting, or abstinence. This year I am abstaining from excuses. I am abstaining from fear. I am abstaining from lowered expectations. I am abstaining from all things that separate me from my own creative force and therefore the original Creative Force in whose image I am made. May God give me the strength to prevail.

The Project - Day 1

February 25, 2010

The Project - Day 1

I saw a movie clip today comparing how much time students spent facebooking versus how much time they spent writing for school and it hit a little close to home. I used to write a lot, poems, stories, journal entries, reviews, whatever fit my fixation of the moment. Many of these writings are lost, but others are mouldering away in boxes, mostly cribbed into small steno pads that I used to take with me everywhere. Often these were the same pads I used for rehearsals or studying music on the subway, so you might find a stab at a sonnet side by side with an IPA transcription of Dich teure Halle. I’m not sure when these efforts started to fade. It might have begun as early as my departure from New York, as so much of my writing time was found on subways, subway platforms, city buses and impoverished afternoons in parks or museums. I am not saying that cars are not conduits to creativity, but they are not exactly the proper venue for sweating out iambic pentameter.

It could be that going back to school contributed to my written decline. Nothing stifles creativity like academia, or so the romantic vision of the creative artist would suggest. However, I know the nail in the coffin was the 7 lb. 14 oz. bundle of joy I received three years ago. I became a chronicler of his infancy, working on an elaborate website, combining the creative forces of motherhood and words--I would be a mommy blogger, or at least a mommy chronicler or something. Then the day came when he learned to move from one place to another and my life as I knew it ended. Happily, with joy, but definitively ended. Clearly I was not cut out to be a mommy blogger who somehow juggles the laundry and her freelance job and children dressed in organic cotton, all while sharing clever bon mots on the subject of poo and discount codes for cloth diaper covers. I therefore abandoned hope of being elevated to the electronic status of supermom and contented myself with making occasional stabs at the laundry.

At least this is the narrative I constructed in my head. Creative woman, slowly dies at the hands of her precious darling child, smiling all the while, “really, it was worth it. . .” Cue curtain.

I suppose it could be true, but it isn’t. I didn’t stop writing. I write constantly. I write emails, I write facebook statuses, I write comments on other people’s facebook statuses (statii?) I write long, keening letters to people who inspire me or piss me off. I occasionally write comments on people’s blogs or I write website copy or small recountings of our day for affectionate relatives. I write all the time. I just do it in such a manner that I am in no way accountable to my artistic self and that allows me to maintain my own self image as a creative martyr to domesticity. I’d almost admire the skill it takes if it weren’t so completely shallow and pathetic.

So this is the plan. Every day I will write a page of something, just to write. If it embarrassingly ungrammatical, irksomely self-indulgent or just plain sucks, so be it.