Save Twilight

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“It would grieve me if despite all the liberties I allow myself, this took on the air of a collection. I never wanted butterflies pinned to a board; I’m looking for a poetic ecology, to observe myself and at times recognize myself in different worlds, in things that only the poems haven’t forgotten and have saved for me like faithful old photographs. To accept no other order than that of affinities, no other chronology than that of the heart, no other schedule than that of unplanned encounters, the true ones.”

—Julio Cortázar

Meandery

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Is meandery a word? Well, meandering. That’s my mind lately. I’ve been on a no-holds-barred quest since about mid-December to figure out how to work. And, like Tolkien’s wanderers, I’m not lost.

So, what do I mean by figuring out how to work? I know how to work, of course. My first paying job came at age ten when I went with my brother to the strawberry fields where my aunt Rayma was a field boss. (In truth, I ate more berries than I picked, but after a few summers, I could make $5 a day!) I started babysitting at age twelve, usually for my younger cousins. ($5 a night!)

And, unpaid work. I mucked barns and helped with hay. I weeded gardens and dusted furniture, folded clothes and made beds. Caring for a horse is work.

Homework.

And of course adult life was (was?) all about work — restaurants for me, to start with, then other jobs — typing class notes for $1 a page, tutoring, working as a bank teller. Eventually, teaching, which I was involved with for twenty-five years, and still am involved with, to one extent or another.

Rearing children is work. Keeping laundry caught up and a house clean is work. (I admit to being rather inept in all of these.)

And then…writing.

I have been fitting writing into the interstices for years — for decades! I’ve written in the very early morning, in spiral bound notebooks; I’ve written in my car (only when the car is stopped!); I’ve written during soccer practice and in between classes and beside hospital beds. I have written in many, many coffeeshops.

What I’m grappling with now, where my meandering is leading me now — is how to put writing on the front burner and really work at writing.

I think I can credit Author Magazine for introducing me to this quote:

“Have the courage to become who you are.”

                    -Nietzsche

That is what my meandering mind is working on now.

 

 

Photo of labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral:  ©Jill K H Geoffrion, Ph.D., www.jillgeoffrion.com

 

 

Learning to Work

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This is the first blogpost of some ramblings about where my thoughts are lately. Read at your peril.

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great pic from the Bookshelf Porn blog (click on the link to visit)

Some years ago I bumped into a former colleague from Everett Community College, and asked her how early retirement was going. It had been two years since she left, and she admitted, smiling, that it had taken her two years just to figure out “how” to be retired.

Her smile baffled me. Wry? Chagrined? Embarrassed? No, it seemed genuine. But I can still remember thinking to myself, That won’t be me. If I get to retire from teaching–ever–I will make hay while the sun shines! I will write, and I’ll never look back.

But here I am, a little more than two years into this thing, and still learning how to be the writer I have dreamed all my life of being.

I tried to explain this yesterday to my poetry-group friends. I am aware that from the outside it looks as if I’m a successful writer. I have books! I blog! I send out poems and they are published! I finished a novel rewrite last year, and I’m so pleased to discover that I’m more than 100 pages into my new novel manuscript (abandoned in spring of 2014).

Putting it that way makes it sound so great.

Even so, I don’t feel as though I’ve learned how to really work as a writer. I scribble in my journal. I write down my goals and I think about them. I read inspirational books. Eventually I actually read a few pages of poetry or of a chapter.

mom 2015And everything calls me away. I have lunch with an old friend. I go to the gym. I visit my mom. I read a novel. I clean my house (!). I sort through boxes and throw papers away. I take my 16 year old to Barnes & Noble for a study date. I join a church committee. I register for a conference. I read several blogs about setting goals. I read another novel. I watch 3 episodes of Dr. Who (only in the evening, mind you). I decide to find a new blog theme!

None of this is bad, of course, and some of it is utterly necessary. But, getting back to my former colleague, what do I want to be doing with my time? What was it I meant to be doing with my time? Now that I’ve spent those two years floundering around and finding myself, what am I going to do with myself? 

Your Inner Anthropologist

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Imagine that an anthropologist is studying your life.

Based on the evidence, what will he or she infer is most important to you?

1. Subject is devoted to Spider Solitaire. (That would be me.)

2. Whenever the cellphone beeps or pings or kaboodles, subject picks it up as if it were  a fussy baby and soothes it.

3. Subject watches television for several hours every evening.

4. Subject devotes substantial amount of income to espresso drinks.

And so on.

Not that any of this is necessarily bad (and maybe “creates beautiful family dinners,” or “knits sweaters” is what your anthropologist discovers), if these activities are what you wish to spend your life on. As Annie Dillard says, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.”

But here’s the real question for anyone reading this blogpost: Would your anthropologist infer that you are a writer, based on the evidence?

This idea doesn’t apply only to writing. A few years ago when I read Jeff Olson’s The Slight Edge, I realized that despite my flaky youngest daughter’s difficult behavior, if she was actually a priority for me (and she is), then I needed to find a way to have at least one positive interaction with her every day. Once I made that a priority, we began to make a little progress.

I asked a boyfriend of one of my older daughters what was most important to him. He got all glowy (it was kind of inspiring!) and went riffing off.

Anything outdoors!

Snowboarding!

Hiking!

He made his ideal life sound like it could be profiled in Outdoor magazine.

However, anytime I see this young man, he’s staring at his cellphone (one arm wrapped around my daughter) while watching television. Or (no arm around my daughter) he’s playing a video game. As far as I can tell, he spends most of his income on games and tee-shirts.

Bless him for highlighting a lesson for me. And of course it isn’t just him — we all spend inordinate amounts of our time doing what is not important to us.

If writing is important to you, you should write.