The Year of Change

I didn’t want to fall into this trap, but here I am anyway. It’s 2013, and I’m having a very hard time sticking to my decision of several months ago to not write anymore. I have given it up, I don’t do it anymore.

No more writing for me! I have given it up in favor of pursuing my lifelong dream of being a numbers person.

Okay, that hasn’t been a lifelong dream, perhaps, but it’s what I do. Fortunately, I’m good at it, and though I used to say I was a better writer than an accountant, I think I may have proven myself wrong. It could be that I’m a better accountant. Or a better something that I have not yet figured out.

I have an accountant personality, which isn’t stereotypical, despite the stereotype, but I am. Forgotten when I’ve left the room, boring. This isn’t a bad thing, because it makes it possible for me to conduct covert ops without anyone suspecting me. I may be good at that, I don’t know. I have little experience with covert ops. This is the great sadness of my life. It’s one thing to say, “I want to work with numbers when I grow up!” which I never once said when growing up, another thing altogether to say, “I want to be a writer when I grow up!” which I always said, though I never really did much about it, and “I want to be a spy when I grow up!” which would enable a lot of skills I don’t possess. Other than being stealthy. My stepmother called it being a sneaky bitch, and since she was an expert in bitchiness, she would know.

She’s dead now, along with my parents, and my grandparents, and anyone who ever expected me to Make Something of Myself Despite The Odds, so there’s no one left to impress. This is just as well, since I had plenty of years to do so and never did.

Chances aren’t looking good it’s going to happen anytime soon. And this is my biggest wish: I want to not care. I want to not care that I’m marginally good at a couple of things, like books and books. And self-pity. And depression! I’m so excellent at depression. But I’m working on it. Modern pharmaceuticals are so amazing for that. (Though they aren’t enough, it’s an ongoing project with myself, I can’t count on pharmaceuticals or my natural disposition to carry me through, I have to work at it all the time, because I do not want to be in that pit – it’s dark and scary and cold, and I like the light.)

Here’s the thing. I’m a happy person. I have a great life, the best husband (EVER!), great dogs (though one is teetering on the abyss of old age and . . . well, whatever comes next), a place to live, plenty of work, mad skills, and a multitude of amazing friends, some of whom would love me even if I had no talent at all. (Which is fortunate, since I’m not altogether convinced I do have any.) Life is good.

I lost a couple of friends this past year. Not lost, as in, they died, but as in, they decided that they didn’t want anything to do with me. Which is sad . . . for them. And for me, because of course I’m going to think it’s because I’m an awful person, but I’m really not. Or am I?

I want to be that happy person and not care about the writing. I think I can manage the being happy part, it’s pretty fun being happy, but I’m still not convinced about the writing thing. As in, can I just leave it behind and do something else more rewarding? Not that writing isn’t rewarding, emotionally, but it’s mostly for me, after all, and it’s a lot of work for something that’s just for me. I’d like to do something easier that’s just for me. I’m tired of not being very good at anything in particular. I am very good at being a dog mom, and at . . . . well, books that involve numbers. And reading. I’m pretty good at reading. And cussing when necessary.

I’m rambling, which gives further evidence of my lack of focus. If I were a writer, I would need to be able to focus. My lack of focus is why I have multiple clients – I can focus on each one for a limited amount of time. But a book – that requires sustained focus on one thing, and I don’t know if I have another one in me. Parts of books, sure. I’ve got lots of parts.

For 2013, I want to work on my job, the thing that people pay me for, and I want to help people, and I want to live a happy life. And eat lots of tacos. I have a fondness for tacos. There’s so many things I want to do, things that are fun, things that are far more rewarding than writing.

I’m okay the way I am. That’s my goal for 2013 – to be okay the way I am.

My Terrifying Experience

Perhaps my story isn’t nearly as horrible as what’s happened recently to . . . well, anyone who isn’t me, but it was horrible for me, and really, I’m not sure what else matters.

Of course, I love you all and hope that whatever’s going on is quickly resolved.

But back to me.

I was in my office yesterday, which is what I do when I’m at work (I’m in there RIGHT NOW!) and I had Pandora on, because who can work without music? For some reason it was on shuffle, so it was playing random music from my playlists. This is fine with me. I don’t need to be stuck on one type of music all day. One minute it was playing show tunes, then The Offspring, then Queen, then Christmas music, then Tom Petty. I was doing my thing, it was doing its thing, and then . . .

(This would have been a great Halloween story, that’s how scary this is . . .)

I heard some sort of musical attempt that sent a sliver of icy hot pain right through my skull. Sort of like the feeling you get when someone that you’ve mortally offended stabs you in the eye with a pickax.

I don’t know if that’s happened to you, but I sincerely hope not.

I clicked over to Pandora to see what sort of evil had happened, and the current window was showing something by some guy named Justin Bieber. What kind of name is that? And is he the anti-Christ?

There was no time for thinking, I had to stop it, so I searched feverishly for the thumbs down, though I’m not sure there are enough thumbs down for this, and so damaged was my brain already that I could barely find the pause button.

By the time I got it stopped my hands were shaking, and I’d broken out in a cold sweat. Up till this point, I had avoided hearing anything of Justin Bieber’s music and my life was pretty damn good. But now – now I have this image in my head of a sound that should be banned.

Before going to bed last night I took a lot of narcotics so I wouldn’t have nightmares.

I’m certainly not any kind of musical expert. Right now, for example, Train’s playing. In some circles, this would get me mocked. I like to play the 1812 Overture just because I like loud booming cannons. I like to imagine Foo Fighters doing a rendition of The Nutcracker. I have no musical ability myself at all.

But this . . . this is the sort of thing that could lead to me being more selective about what’s going on around me. Or it could teach me to be ready for any adversity, and give me the opportunity to hone my already cat-like reflexes until I could turn it off within a second.

I’ll have to think about which way to go on that. My reflexes could certainly use some upgrading. Last night I was driving and the gangnam song came on and my reflexes whipped into shape and I froze, in absolute terror.

Once the zombie apocalypse comes I’m dead meat.

Better Than Trees

We traveled first to the Redwoods, because it's on the way to Southern California. At least from here, and that's the only way we can travel -- from here.

While there I saw this:

This is a TREE. I know, without my handy explanation you'd have no clue. It's a big freakin' tree. Here's the sign that was next to the tree:

It's not just any tree. It's an IMMORTAL TREE. At least so far. People have tried to cut it down (loggers, who apparently do that sort of thing), it's been struck by lightning, survived a forest fire, and a flood. 

And I thought of a friend of mine who has had a particularly rough year. I have had those myself, and am nothing if not sympathetic. Sometimes everything, or a lot of things, can seem to conspire against us, as if there's someone in a back room pulling levers and laughing maniacally whenever something goes wrong for us. And maybe it's not levers, but pushing buttons. Whatever. I too have had bad years (or decades). 

And I thought:

1) This tree has withstood fire, floods, crazed loggers (or rational loggers, I don't know), lightning, and it's still here. It's still standing, and while it has some scars, it's still here.

2) My friend, who is way smarter than a tree, and has a much more engaging personality, and is much more fun to hang out with, is still here. For that matter, so am I. Even I am smarter than a tree. 

3) I'm not saying it takes smarts to outwit a tree, but let's be honest: it helps. Trees are not known for their intellectual abilities. This particular tree is known for still being there, no matter what life has thrown at it. It still stands, maybe because it doesn't know any better than to just continue doing what it's doing. Which is being a tree.

4) I'm using a numbering method just because I want to. 

5) Sometimes we continue being even with all the fires, floods, hurricanes, loggers, politicians, whatever. And we're better than trees! Even big ones like this:

(See where the ax is? That's where someone tried to chop it down. And the fish? Flood up to there.)

We may not live as long (most certainly not), but we're at least as strong as trees, even when it seems like life has it in for us, when it's all so overwhelming and . . . icky. My friend is strong, and way better than a tree. I can't put a sign up next to her saying everything she's withstood, but that's because she keeps moving and isn't a tree. 

But I saw this tree, and I thought of her, and I thought of all of us who are at least as strong as a tree, and how we keep going no matter what life throws at us. Sometimes things happen that we just have to get through, like a flood, and we do, we just keep going and we get through it, and then things get better. Sometimes there's a flood and a fire and a dozen other things all at once, but they stop, they're all finite, and we go on.

We're better than trees too, because we're more fun at parties.

Not me, personally, but some people. 

How To Be A Writer.5

Inspiration

Don’t mind me. I’m just sitting here waiting for inspiration to strike so I can get on with it. I’m also waiting for a chocolate cake to materialize in front of me. There’s about as much chance of that happening so I might as well.

While I’m at it, the waiting part, I shall also be waiting patiently for some magical weight loss, and maybe some cookies.

Occasionally I am struck by inspiration, but it’s usually at an inconvenient time. Inspiration that strikes when I’m driving isn’t all that useful, because if I stop the car and start writing I won’t get to my destination, which means I’ll probably be late for something. If I’m working on a spreadsheet and inspiration tells me to write a short story about numbers, chances are I’ll make myself continue on the spreadsheet, because that’s what we call paying work, and it keeps a roof over my head.

Inspiration is tricky. I have heard people say they’re waiting for it, as if it’s a train that’ll roll into the station at exactly 4:05 pm, unless it’s running late, in which case we’ll get impatient and curse the damn thing for not being there when we want it.

Maybe it is, for some people. Maybe they can only write when inspired. For me, inspiration is a nuisance, because it often comes when I’m traveling, or when I’m doing something else, and by the time I can get a piece of paper and a pen, or a pencil, or my iPad, or my phone, if I’m that desperate, or my laptop, it’s already started to fade away, like a vampire on a sunny morning.

Sorry about the vampire reference, but now that they’re not the hottest thing around I like to mention them.

Or are they? I don’t know. I’ve been too busy trying to find my inspiration to have a clue.

Inspiration, if you’re counting on it to get anything done, and by anything done I mean, “get the book done,” is not the most effective method of doing the work. It involves a lot of waiting and little actual work. I have a habit of waiting for inspiration to strike, and while waiting I eat donuts.

I am now 450 pounds and have no words to report.

That’s not entirely true. I have a few words, and not that many pounds. And I can never find a donut when I want one anyway.

But if I were to wait for inspiration, that is what could happen. Most of my life I waited for inspiration, which explains my dismal output. Between the waiting and the fear of failure and my own expectations it’s a wonder I’ve done anything at all.

Here’s how to find inspiration: sit your butt down and write. Write instead of thinking about it. Write instead of waiting for inspiration. Write instead of reading about it. (Easy for me to say, from this perspective.)

Waiting for inspiration is about as useful as waiting for your fairy godmother to sprinkle glitter on you and make you pretty. And by you, I mean me, of course. Write without inspiration, and the inspiration may sneak in the back when you’re not looking. It may come in the dead of night, a slight whisper that you can barely hear. It may not come at all, because it doesn’t like to be controlled, and it doesn’t like to be summoned. So act like you don’t care about it. Do your writing without it, and perhaps inspiration will start trying to get your attention, like that boy in high school who didn’t like you at all until you started ignoring him, and then he became a pretty good stalker.

Not that you want inspiration stalking you, though it would be a better stalker than the boy from high school. Don’t count on it, don’t let it rule your work, and don’t let it know that you care.

Of course you care, but act like you don’t.

Write without it, and let inspiration know you can take it or leave it, because you’ve got your own life to lead.

Just write.

Taking Care of Yourself

When all around you are running around with their psyches in disarray and the world is in danger of imploding, what do you do?

If you’re anything like me, and I sincerely hope you’re not, you assume that it’s not only about you, but that it’s somehow your fault, and even if it’s not your fault, that it’s your job to fix it.

If you ARE like me, I hope you’ve invested in some good therapy, because we can drive ourselves nuts with this sort of thing.

I grew up convinced that I was not enough. I wasn’t good enough, or pretty enough, or smart enough, and I grew up knowing that if I wanted people to like me, I’d sure as hell better have something to offer, like fixing their problems, or being helpful, or giving them something. I managed to learn early on that giving people things wasn’t helpful and made me go broke fast, so if I give you something, it’s because I want you to have it. And I do like giving gifts, I really do.

And I discovered that I can’t fix anyone else’s problems. I tried, but it wasn’t productive. When my ex-husband, Stew, was severely mentally ill I first tried to fix his problems, but that didn’t work, because I’m an accountant by trade, and he had no problems with numbers. Instead, I gave him the support he needed to work on his own stuff. Besides, I had my own stuff to work on at the same time.

If you know someone who has a mental illness or is going through something really tough for them, you can’t fix it, no matter how much you want to. What you can do is support them as they navigate through their own minefield. Sometimes this means you have to erect your own defenses to protect yourself. It’s so easy, when you’re close to someone, to let their worldview become a part of your worldview. It’s not productive if their world is dark and scary, because you don’t want to be there.

You really don’t. There are so many other worldviews out there, so we should try to avoid the scary ones.

I could make a political joke here, but I’m not going to. Such restraint!

One of my carryovers from my dissatisfying childhood is my reassuring nature. “No problem,” I’m used to telling people, even if it IS a problem. “It’s okay,” I’ll say, in an attempt to prop up their fragile ego, when it really isn’t okay. “Yes, by all means, stomp all over me and leave me for dead, I’ll forgive you because I’m so damn empathetic and I know you’re in pain,” is something I might have said if I felt like using that many words all at once. But it’s not okay. It’s a hard one, for me, because I want to please people, I want them to like me. (Newsflash: Some people will not ever like me, no matter what. One of my sisters has told me she’s not interested enough in me to buy my book, which is basically about ME, not even to just have it and say, “My sister wrote this.” I didn’t really understand this concept because if any members of my family write a book, I’m buying it, and I’m promoting it to everyone I know. But this is life – some people will like us, and some won’t, and it doesn’t matter if we lie down in the middle of the freeway and let them run over us – in fact, that might make them like us less.)

And make no mistake, I do go out of my way for people all the time. But now, when I do, it’s because it is okay, it isn’t a problem, and I do want to do it. And I do this for people who appreciate it, usually.

With Stew, I had to learn it wasn’t okay for someone else, anyone else, to act as if I were their personal verbal punching bag, and that it’s my responsibility to myself to say, “That’s not going to happen.” He needed someone to tell him when what he was doing wasn’t okay, that his illness did not give him license to behave anyway he liked. He needed that far more than someone putting up with his occasional bad behavior, because he could no longer recognize what was okay, and what wasn’t. When you’re ill, whether it’s depression or something like schizo-affective disorder, your perceptions are off, and when that happens, you (and by you, I mean I) need someone to tell you what’s okay, and what isn’t.

Occasionally I slip up. But then I recover. It’s an ongoing process, this self-improvement thing.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone who needs help is to let them figure it out on their own. The best thing you can do for yourself is stand your ground. Where you draw that line is up to you, as long as you realize there is a line.

I could have said this in just a few words, but I like words: “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

The Color of Light

I tried capturing it in jars, first a Hellman’s mayonnaise, not only rinsed out, but scoured, cleaned within an inch of its life. Outside was the crisp light of early fall, the trees not yet turning but on the verge. The sky bright with free floating dreams, the kind that rarely float close enough to catch. I stood underneath the pear tree where the light was subdued, and I held up my jar, as high as I could reach, and the light flowed in. It filled my jar, stopping just short of the top, a clear bright color with the promise of cool nights and fire.

When I put the lid on the light tried to escape, pushing back against the lid while I pushed down, and just a bit of it got out, not much, but more than I’d like. I wanted the jar full, so it could last all winter, and not run out halfway through January.

I tried a pickle jar, scrubbing the jar first with a scouring paid, and though I couldn’t fit my whole hand in I used two fingers, wanting to make sure the color of the light wouldn’t be contaminated by any extra pickle flavor. I stood next to the house on the first cold crisp day of winter when the air was brisk enough to turn my nose red. Instead of holding the jar up I swept it next to me, scooping up the light. In the jar the light looked white, though it was as clear as the sky. I was stronger this time, and sneakier, and before the light knew what was happening the lid was on tight. It wasn’t as much light as I had in the mayonnaise jar, but in the summer I don’t need as much of the winter light, so it should last me.

By spring we had moved, and the light I wanted to capture wasn’t available at our new place. I had early fall, and the first day of winter, but I wanted the spring of where we used to live, not the flat spring of where we were living. The spring air where we used to live was full of promises, the dreams drifting down close enough to touch before they spun away again, light as gossamer, as fragile as a soap bubble. But where we were now, there were no dreams floating by, just a flat blankness of space, with no color to the light at all. It was as if the color was gone, replaced with fallen dreams that crumbled to grey ash in the harsh spring days.

I didn’t try to save any of it. I wanted no reminders of that spring, and I scuttled through the days with my eyes half-closed. Sometimes, but only rarely, I would open the Hellman’s jar a tiny bit, just to get an idea of fall or winter. This would last an hour or two before fading away again.

And that summer was the summer I left home, packing up my jars and my memories, and heading out of town, walking down the two-lane highway away from everyone I had ever known. When I couldn’t walk anymore I stopped, and I sat on a boulder twice the size of me, and I put my two jars next to me, their colors out-of-place in the heat of the summer. These were cool clear colors, not the dry desert colors of where I was now, and I resolved to return to those colors.

The next day they found me though, pulling up alongside me in the wood paneled station wagon, calling to me. “Annie, come get in the car.”

I kept walking, foolishly hoping they would think I was someone else.

The car stopped then, and my father, a short man with a smile of regret and an air of having been done wrong, got out of the car. This was what I had feared the most, that he would find me and take me back. But I stopped, and turned, and looked at him.

What I saw on his face was not happiness, but it wasn’t sadness either. “Annie, you have to come home now.”

“I can’t see the color of the air there,” I told him, knowing he wouldn’t understand. She would, if she would get out of the car, but she wouldn’t.

“Foolishness.” He scratched his chin, overgrown with a few days’ of stubble, and he stood with his legs slightly apart, ready to run after me if I should take to running. Just in case. It had happened before, me deciding to run, but I’d learned that no matter how hard I tried, he’d always catch up to me, grab my arm, and pull me back towards him so hard I’d probably fall, and he wouldn’t catch me.

“Air doesn’t have a color. Just get in the car.”

My mother peered out the side window at me, her brow furrowed. She never understood why I ran off, though she knew what I meant about the color of the air. Sweat glistened on her upper lip, and on her forehead, and I walked to the car, thinking of how beautiful she was even as she was determined to return me to my prison.

Towards the end of summer I took an empty jar, this one having held salsa, and I scrubbed it clean with the scrub brush my mother kept for the potatoes, and when I’d done that I scrubbed the label off, and then I scrubbed off all the glue. I wanted it perfect, one perfect jar for the end of summer light.

I walked out at twilight, past the end of the street where there was nothing but desert, and I held my jar high, willing in the still desert air. The twilight air had more color to it than the daytime air, and the briefest glimmer of hope that sparkled like a worn bit of metal that has just the slightest bit of life left to it.

Once the lid was on, keeping in the twilight air so it couldn’t get out, I took it home, and I placed it on the shelf next to the fall and the first day of winter, and they glimmered together, far off dreams and the present, telling me to hold on, that spring would come again, and that next time perhaps I could capture it. Next time perhaps I would want to capture it, the spring of a new start, the dampness of spring soil waiting for seeds.

The color of the air glimmering on my shelves, telling me to hold on, that new colors were on their way.

How To Be A Writer.4

Writing Through the Pain

Everyone has experienced pain and heartbreak. Knowing this doesn’t help when it’s happening to you, of course, since we’re not part of a collective. We’re each sort of on our own here, and unfortunately we can’t ease another’s pain just because we’ve been through it. If we could, we would, but everyone has to go through their own pain. This part of being a person really sort of sucks.

I’ve heard people say it makes you stronger, pain and heartbreak, but I don’t know about that. Maybe we were that strong all along and just didn’t know it. People also say that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, and that I will disagree with. I don’t know if there is a God, and if there is a God, handing out just as much pain as you can handle and no more, why are so many people having more pain than they can handle?

Perhaps that last sentence isn’t entirely clear, but I’ve seen many people with more pain than they can handle all the time. Suicides are up, depression and anxiety are up, people are having a hard time coping.

It’s the world right now, and as it ever was. And as it will be.

So how are we supposed to write when the pain is so present that it controls our mind? When we can only think of what we’ve lost, or how everything sucks so bad that there doesn’t seem to be any point to writing anything at all? When we’re so busy asking ourselves why we should continue, how we can write past that to keep going?

For some of us, writing is our passion. It’s what we do. It’s how we define ourselves. (When I’m not defining myself by the size of my jeans, or how much money I made this year, anyway.) We aren’t what we write, but we write because we have to. And sometimes what we need to write isn’t what we choose to write, nor is it anything we want to put our name on.

I have had to write obituaries after watching a body carted out of the house, after watching the loved one die. Stew and my mom both left me behind, dying right in front of me, and then I had to sit down and write the obits. One might think I could have done that before they died; it wasn’t as if their deaths were unexpected, and it’s not as if we couldn’t see it coming, but I couldn’t set it down on paper, or computer, before then. I just couldn’t.

So I sat in front of my laptop and I looked at the blank screen, still not wanting to believe that they had died, and hoping the whole thing was a nightmare.

I’d type out the name and the date. I’d put down key words. I’d think of who they had been, and the joy they’d given while they had been alive. Every word that came out was strained, and every word that made it onto paper was insufficient. But sometimes, if you can get those words out, no matter how insufficient and difficult, you then have something to work with, something you can rewrite and refine. You can have others read it, and comment. And when it’s done you’ll feel like you’ve scaled a mountain. Most likely because you have.

There is no easy way. Not that I’ve found, but if I do find one, I’ll let you know.

It’s not always death; there are many ways for us to be immersed in pain, so many ways for chaos to make itself an omnipotent presence in our lives. And still we have our stories to tell, still we need to force those words out of us and onto paper, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Sometimes it helps if we just write down what we’re feeling, why the chaos is there, and tell yourself, if no one else, about the pain.

This doesn’t mean you’re writing a masterpiece. It may mean you’re writing something you’ll discard later, or you may save it so you can remember, next time, what it was like. It does mean you’re giving voice to the chaos in your mind, whether it’s whispering or screaming (mine likes to talk in a high falsetto, as if it’s mocking me, which it is). For writers, this is a first step in letting it go. Or if not letting it go, because does it ever go all the way away? at least giving it less power over you. That’s what chaos seeks: power. And when it’s inside of you, mixed in with the pain, it has enormous power, and this power is being used for evil instead of good. When you put the words on paper, little bits of evil fall out with the words, and you can brush these little bits onto the floor and then sweep them up and throw them away.

Or have your housekeeper do it.

Keep writing out the pain until you can’t find any more words for it, or until you fall asleep, or until you get hungry, or until you get so sick of it you just want to move on and do something else. You may still have pain, but it will get better.

You may not be able to write past the pain, so you may have to write through it. Don’t let it get the best of you, because we want that part, and chaos has no use for it. Save the best for us, your readers, and let chaos take its pain and crawl into a corner and die, for all we care.

We have no use for it, and neither do you.