Our dog suffers so on the Fourth of July, that it drains all the fun out of fireworks for me. A friend’s post on Facebook, too, made me reflect on how combat veterans with PTSD likely experience this holiday.

I have vivid memories of being a child running with a sparkler over the summer grass on our farm, and I remember, in my twenties, sitting on a lakeshore and watching a display that I have never forgotten (in fact, with a friend who was a Viet Nam veteran), but there’s such a difference between watching an hour-long, beautiful, choreographed display of fireworks, and what goes on each Fourth in my neighborhood, in unincorporated Edmonds. Booms and smoke and flashes for several days, and not just on the holiday itself. Being jolted awake at 1 a.m. by a huge blast last night — by the blast and by the dog going crazy — did not make me feel patriotic.

This morning, a lovely parade in our neighborhood, little kids on their bicycles, a whole menagerie of pets, flags, music; grilled chicken and potato salad this afternoon, watermelon — these are the parts of the holiday that can still make me happy.

Meanwhile, I’m rereading Louise DeSalvo’s amazing book, Writing as a Way of Healing, and this morning I came across this advice about integrating our creative work with life itself:

“…we must think about the world, ourselves and others, and the subject of our work. We must relate what we are learning in our work to our lives. We must be willing to use these insights to change our behavior if necessary.” (100)

It strikes me that this is all about consciousness. It’s so easy for me to let my journal-writing be a kind of holding at bay of what I’m feeling — which is exhausting — rather than an embrace of what I am feeling. So these are the questions I can begin with , again and and again: What do you know? What have you learned? How has that shaped who you are? Are you letting what you know shape who you are becoming?

Or, to borrow from Nietzche, Do I have the courage to become who I am?

 

 

 

I am a failure at meeting big goals.

This year I tried to game the system — my personal system, I mean. I signed up for on-line goal setting challenges. I read books about setting goals. I wrote down all of my goals. I opened an Evernote account and wrote all of my goals there. I downloaded Evernote onto my phone.

Finish current novel. Return to previous “new” novel and finish that, too — by July! Put together a new poetry manuscript. Submit 50 sets of poems for publication. Submit all short stories. Lose ten (more) pounds. Declutter house. Submit novel to ten contests. Attend PNWA conference in July. Send novel to 30 new agents.

After setting it up, I never opened my Evernote file again. I did not finish the work I had planned for either of the novels. I did not submit any poems or stories. I entered one novel contest and didn’t even get a reply, let alone a place. (Scratch “attend conference” off list.)

Not long ago I confided in my friend Priscilla Long that it isn’t working. What do you want? She asked me. I want to make progress, I said. Specifically? she prodded. Okay, I hemmed and hawed a little, then answered, I want to write for four to six hours a day.

You can’t work for four or six hours, Priscilla said. You can only work for fifteen minutes. 

Oh, I said.

It’s so irritating to realize (at my advanced age!), that this lesson, which I have already learned and more than once, must be circled back to and learned again.

It’s the wisdom of small steps. It’s the wisdom of accumulated effort. I don’t know if it’s true for everyone, or if Priscilla, having gone through this with me numerous times before, just knows that it’s true for me. But I have to start with fifteen minutes. I have to turn over my quarter-hour glass, or set my phone timer, or go to  http://e.ggtimer.com/ and set that. Then, I focus. I can focus, intensely, for fifteen minutes. Frequently (usually) I end up working for fifteen minutes 2 or 3 times in a row. Frequently (usually) I end up working for a few hours. But it starts with fifteen minutes.

I am a genius at meeting very small goals.