Disappointing Others With Our Need to Write

I’ve seldom wanted to, but I know I’ve disappointed others.  I’m disappointing some right this very minute.  Sometimes, it’s unavoidable. 

I need to write. This has been a fact of my life that’s run as an undercurrent since I was very little, and perhaps the strangest part about it is that it doesn’t hinge on whether anyone actually reads what I write. 

Here’s the thing:  It’s the way I make sense of the world.  It tells me clearly how I feel.  It’s like breathing:  Constant, sometimes refreshing, sometimes labored and difficult, but apart from very short breaks, always necessary.

But writing takes time, and quiet rooms, and reading, and reflection.  This makes me unavailable.  My response time to emails lengthens.  At times, I turn off my phone and don’t answer my front door.  I’ve been called occasionally –- and teasingly, I hope -- a “recluse,”  “antisocial,” or even “obsessed.”  (If you don’t mind terribly, I’d prefer “committed,” “dedicated,” or if you absolutely must, “literarily eccentric.”)

Pardon me if I sound just a smidge strident here.  I’m generally a “pleaser,” and often will put my own needs in second place if only to avoid confrontation.  But I’m afraid this is as close to “non-negotiable” as I get.

The etymology of the word disappointment, from the late 15^th century is, quite literally, “to fail to keep an appointment.”  And so often, this is an appointment of the heart, led on by the expectation of another that we’ll be, or say, or do more than we’re able.

That look in my son’s eyes at five or six years old comes back as clearly as if his little self is right here next to me.  “But you said…” he says softly, as his tears start welling up. 

“I know I said I would TRY, but it didn’t turn out that way. I’m sorry.”

That was a moment when I wanted to say, “Oh, okay.  Never mind.  I won’t… go to work / finish that poem / visit a friend who needs me on Saturday / take a much-needed mental health day alone / accommodate your father’s schedule….We’ll go to the movies instead...”

But I would weigh the consequences -- holding a little boy’s disappointment in one hand, and my responsibility in the other.  I could even hear a voice in my head at times, saying “Well, he’ll have to learn about disappointment someday. We can’t always get what we want.” And when the Rolling Stones’ voices followed, wailing, “But we get what we ne-eed!” I would turn away, and so would he, running his hand across his face and wiping the hot tear on his t-shirt.  And my heart would break a little.

I’d venture to say there’s not a person on the planet who hasn’t felt the clench of stomach and droop of shoulders that comes with disappointment. It’s certainly not a stranger to me.  We expect so much of each other, and of ourselves.

When I was younger, much younger, my home life was so out of control I remember thinking that when I could control it, it would be perfect.  I would be responsible only to myself, and disappoint no one.  As I said, I was much younger. 

But the slowly-dawning surprise of this life has been that it doesn’t stop, this necessity to sometimes hurt and disappoint people, even through the best intentions.  I won’t quote Abraham Lincoln here, but you really can’t please everyone.  If you try, you’ll end up pleasing no one, including yourself.

So, the door is closed, my phone is off, and I write.  And there are people who want me to do otherwise.

Our next lesson, class?  How to avoid the guilt that comes with meeting our own needs and as a result, disappointing others. 

There will be a test after.  Multiple choice.  Unfortunately, none of them perfect.

~~~~~

On Jealousy, Envy, and the Color of the Other’s Grass

Although it’s getting close to Valentine’s Day, this is not about romantic jealousy -- although I could, of course, write at length about my history with the green-eyed monster.  Another day, perhaps.

This burst of thought was actually brought on by watching my Twitter timeline roll merrily by, and the hundreds of writers I follow.  I read their cheerful postings of brilliant blog entries, novels available on Amazon, kudos from their fellow writers, and the ubiquitous hastag of #amwriting, with a mixture of emotions. 

The first, I’m glad to say, is respect for their work.  Then, there’s a general feeling of pride in the writing process.  But creeping in hard on the heels of those noble reactions are jealousy, envy, and wishing I were living in what I perceive to be their much more disciplined and verdant pastures.  (Random observation: Isn’t it interesting that jealousy is characterized as “green,” which is also the color of the other person’s grass?)

I don’t suffer from writer’s block.  Far from it, actually.  At any given time, my brain is buzzing with at least ten things I’d like to write about, not to mention the unfinished novel that has left all the characters in truly dire straits and in desperate need of rescue.

Lately, I’m afraid it’s as simple as writer’s laziness.  I can hear my childish voice saying:” I want to play…”

What I should do is:

1) Write this blog entry

2) Write another chapter of “Grace’s Heart” and save those poor people

3) Get further on the transcription of my two grandmothers’ journals before the fragile little books  disintegrate

4) If “none of the above,” then at least give a much-needed vacuum to the living room.

What I want to do is:

1) Watch another endlessly “Quite Interesting” and gloriously funny episode of Stephen Fry’s “QI” television series

2) Play a game of “Risk” on pogo.com, and subsequently take over the world

3) Click every link that Twitter has to offer, which always leads me on a lovely, labyrinthine path through quirky news items, New Yorker cartoons, and YouTube videos

4) If “none of the above,” then get my car washed, stop off at the store to buy the Fritos I’ve promised to bring to the Super Bowl Party we’re attending later, and breathe in one of the sparkling, icy mornings I love so much.  

We have a phrase in this family, and I would be told right now that I’m “shoulding all over myself.”  The words “I should write” run through my head more often than I care to admit.  The truth of the matter is that “I love to write” is a sentiment that's always there.

So, I forgive myself the desire to loll aimlessly on a Sunday.  I try to remember that I give fifty hours a week to commuting and working, a few hours more than that to sleeping, and from the rest must be found time for a dear husband and busy family, chats on the phone or in emails with precious friends, a little learning and growing, a lot of laughing, a scratch behind the ear and change of water bowl for the cats, and the various minutiae of daily life.

And yes, also to taking over the world in a game of “Risk,” and breathing in the beauty of an Idaho morning…

…and writing.

~~~~~

A Confession About Reading

I find myself feeling a bit stuffy in my middle years, puffing up about the way some in the current generation seem to study great literature by the light of YouTube, while texting, watching DVDs and googling.

I tell myself, despairing somewhat, that as a child, I read Little Women and was given the gift by Miss Alcott of creating the March family out of imagination -- and that now, whatever visions a girl might have of Jo have been supplanted by Winona Ryder.  If you ask someone today if they’ve read Atonement, they might cheerfully tell you, yes, they saw the movie. 

But before I get too righteous in my indignation, out with the confession.  And an unflinching look at my own high school study habits. 

When I was in my formative years, the literary hue and cry was about Cliffs Notes.   Just in case you’ve not seen them, these are small yellow-and-black booklets which summarize and condense the plot, characters, and spirit of books -- many of them classics -- into bite-sized, manageable ideas.  I’m ashamed to say that my fellow students and I used them liberally when English class report deadlines loomed. 

It was possible to read Hawthorne’s 750-page The Scarlet Letter in an evening, through the 128-page, large-type, easy-to-digest summary of the chapters.  This allowed us that extra night on the weekend to drink at the beach with friends, or to take the drive up the Pacific Coast Highway with eight-track tapes blaring, or perhaps to spend an afternoon doing next to nothing and moaning about it.

Then, Sunday night would bring the frantic scanning of the trusty Cliffs Notes booklet, with its eloquent opinions already formed, its syntax in perfect order, and its insight into the motivations and symbolism of Hester Prynne’s shame already canned, sterile, and ready to put to the page.  I never plagiarized, mind you, but my thoughts were decidedly bent in the same direction as the person who wrote that little summary.  

So you can see, I really have nothing to be judgmental about.  I suppose I could grasp at straws and say that the visual nature of films, television and video clips tend to shortcut all imagination, even down to hair color and tone of voice –- whereas the Notes still allowed us to create the characters in our minds, but really, I don’t have a leg to stand on.  I’ll simply put myself in the town square, as Hester did, and wear the truth on my frock.

I didn’t read The Scarlet Letter in its entirety in high school, but I did in college.   And I’ve re-read it since.  It changes as my view of the world changes -- as it will for the ones now watching Demi Moore and Gary Oldman play out the story in Roland Joffe’s 1995 version of what he thinks the story means.

What I know, above all else, is that great books endure.  They sit patiently on the shelf until we’re ready to take in what they have to offer.   

They have all the time in the world.

~~~~~

To Read or to Write: That Is the Question.

It’s Saturday. Husband is at work. Yes, there’s an undecorated Christmas tree in the living room. No, I haven’t determined the quantities of ingredients to buy at Costco tomorrow to make Christmas cookies for friends and family.

But I woke with a feeling of abundance, the prospect of a day at home, cats curled around me against the cold outside.  A full day to write.  Bliss.

But first…just a peek at Twitter.  (Just to see what’s going on, mind you.)  First one blog, then another calls out to me.  Fellow writers, putting their struggles and how they overcome them into words –- beautifully, succinctly.  It’s my struggle too.

I tell myself this is research.  It is, isn’t it?

Then, a link to a new survey on authors…then to a talk on TED.  They’re talking about writing.  (I need to know what they have to say!)  I listen to one, then another.

A link from a tweet, to an exerpt from a Book-On-Tape.  My commute to work is an hour there, an hour back, and if I spend that time listening to books come alive through my car speakers, it flies by.  (I’m nearly done with “Mansfield Park,” after all.)

As a writer, I need experience.  I need to hear new voices, to learn of places I’ve never been, to explore other professions, to feel the hot wind on my face in a Sahara desert, or the biting cold of a dogsled in Alaska.  All of that is on the internet.  (All of that and more.)

On YouTube, you can take the Eurostar from Paris to London.  The countryside speeds by, and if you concentrate, you can feel the vibration, the clack-clack of the rails, as if you were there.  You can fly from Seattle to Reykjavik, and then on to London.  It’s almost as if you’re pulling your bag across the tile floors of the airport in Iceland as you change planes...

Ah, you get the picture.  Choices.

So how do I write today?  I’ll portion out my day -- half in learning, half in writing.  I’ll do my best to give each my full attention, the way I used to when I had a full-time job and a small child.  I’ll try not to wish I was doing one when I’m doing the other.

In short, focus on the now, and when I move on to the next thing, focus on that.

Focusing…Here’s hoping…  ¸¸.•*¨* ☆

~~~~~

To Remind Myself Of What I Already Know

“Try to pick the pen up off the table.”

The unlucky one is the first to raise her hand. The one who is certain that this time, no matter how many seminar exercises have shown her up before…THIS time, she’s got it nailed…

Triumphant, she leaps up and goes to the front of the room.  In one swift move, she picks up the pen and holds it at eye level for the coach to see.  Some heads tilt in the watching crowd.  They’re waiting, wary.

The leader’s voice, in its smoothness, betrays the fact that this was his expected result.   He speaks gently, as if to a child.  “No. You picked up the pen.  I said to TRY to pick up the pen.”

Her smile evaporates, and the critic inside her speaks reprovingly.  She sighs, and smiles, and fights the urge to say aloud the words that should have materialized just seconds before she raised her hand. 

“Try not.  Do... or do not.  There is no try.”

And then the critic says, shaking its little critical head,  Well, you can at least be glad you didn’t quote Yoda out loud…

Again, the coach says, this time, with just a trace of slightly sadistic glee,  “Try to pick the pen up off the table.”

The ensuing pantomime is inevitably comical.  The pen seems to be glued, fused to the table.  No matter how hard she tries, it will not budge. 

Some of the laughter from the audience, it must be said, is due to relief that they hadn’t been foolish enough to raise their hands.  But a person trying and failing to do something, repeatedly, no matter how hard they struggle, hits home.

After a time, the coach has mercy on the pupil.  He says softly, “Now. Pick up the pen.”

As the pen rises again, the sigh from all involved is audible.

Success.  Thanks, Yoda…

~~~~~