I haven’t even written anything this year. Not one post. I used to write every day. I’ve mentioned it before, but life has gotten in the way a lot lately. I am often tired. Part of it is due to going back to work. There is also a part of me that wrestles with things I never struggled with in the past. Mortality, politics, race, education, relationships. Many things preoccupy me, but cannot be put into writing. Not because I’m not capable of writing about them, but because it is painful and would cause pain to others.
But I feel a gaping hole where my writing used to be. Or maybe it is more of a malignant growth that I used to remove daily with my writing. And now it just grows larger and larger and I feel the weight of it more every day. I realized this so much yesterday when my son turned 11. I used to write about my kids on every birthday, but sometimes it would take me hours; I just don’t have time like that anymore, and when I do, it is at night, and I am so brain dead from work that it just doesn’t happen. So yesterday, I promised myself I would write something today. I wrote for an hour. I wrote for me, not for public consumption, but to cut out some of what had been growing unchecked.
After that, I wrote for the daydreams. I spend a lot of time in the car, listening to music, and sometimes I have things I want to write, but they are just warehoused in my head, daydreams or movies in my brain. Believe me, you can imagine a whole lot when you’re stuck in a 10×10 metal box for almost two hours a day. You have to create your own little world, or you will just lose your shit completely. So, I wrote a little of that world down. It is not the only world, but it is the one that has most recently been occupying my mind. A snippet of a photograph from a dream I had a month ago, to which I add a little bit of the story every day. Aren’t brains and books amazing? Sure, they educate and inform, but their true value is that jump to another world. It might be vastly, wildly different than our own world, or it might be so very similar, comforting, but with only the best or worst of what we have to offer. We pick and choose which worlds we travel to when we pick up a book off a shelf. For some of us, if we can’t find the world that is just right, just what we imagine it should be, we create our own.
The writing of those imaginings is much harder than just writing what I think about real things like life or politics, or what it is to be a mother/wife/daughter/sister/member of the human race. Those things are concrete. They dictate to me what I will write about them. But Fiction? Fiction requires me to dictate to the story what must be written. And that requires dumping out my mental purse for the world to see the little pieces of what I most value, of what I most desire, of what scares me most, and of what turns my mind on.
What I get off on, the real me, not the me that people see, or the one that I choose to show to others, but the one that lives in that car for two hours a day. And that, i think, is what is preventing me from writing more. I guess we all feel like we are freaks on the inside (and maybe on the outside too). It’s fear. Pure fear. Not so much of what others will think of me, but more of what I will think of myself if I see it laid out on paper. What if it is all there, and it isn’t even freaky? What if it is just uninteresting crap? A meaningless, cliched, sentimental, boring, shallow, poorly-executed pile of poo?
I’ve promised myself I’ll work on overcoming that fear. And the only way to do that is to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard.
A week ago yesterday, I turned 41. It was a Tuesday. Why does it seem like birthdays always fall on Tuesdays? It fell on Tuesday. I got up at 6 am at my mom’s house, put on my Dad’s underwear*, and went to work. My own mother forgot to wish me happy birthday before I left. (No hard feelings. I don’t remember that stuff either.)
I worked all day. Got home at 5pm or so. Started my period. (HAPPY-BIRTHDAY-TO-YOU-HAVE-CRAMPS-AND-BLOOD-AND-WANT-TO-EAT-YOUR-YOUNG-AND-CHOCOLATE-ITS-AWESOME.) Turned back around and got back in the car to go to the Japanese steakhouse, because that’s what you do when you are middle-aged and it’s your birthday. I’m not saying that it didn’t taste good, but sometimes after a long day at work, you are tired and you just want to have your cramps and wine in peace without someone throwing shrimp at you or singeing your eyebrows.
It was actually really nice, and my husband gave me a lovely necklace and my kids were good. (Okay, one was kind of a jackass, but he at least contained it until the end.) So, we came home, and the kids went to bed, and then Toddler and i decided we should watch “This is 40.” I totally didn’t get what people liked about this movie. Other than Paul Rudd is cute. That wife’s voice makes me want to jump off an overpass after about ten minutes. It didn’t really matter, because I ended my birthday by promptly falling snoringly dead asleep in the middle of the movie. Todd woke me, i wiped off the drool, thought “Huh. So this is what 41 feels like,” and went upstairs to fall asleep in my own bed in order to be able to start all over again at 6 am the next day.
So, I woke up and kind of felt. . . a letdown. I felt old. There’s a lot more to it than suddenly turning 41 and feeling old – aging parents, bad stuff happening, marriages around me on rocky ground, a general feeling of being tired all the time, change, change, and more change, and not having DONE anything with my life – more than I can recount here. But i woke up feeling old.
(Happiest wake up feeling old song ever.)
So, I finished out my week, with this . . . oldness. . . hanging over my head. I wanted my sister to have drinks with me on Saturday. She didn’t feel like it. God, I’m so old, i can’t even get anyone to go have a drink with me on a Saturday night. So, she says, “You and Todd should go.” And todd heard her, and suddenly, he is hellbent on going to see Camper Van Beethoven that night. And i was like, okay, i guess I’ll go. And my husband, when he decides he wants something, he is damn well gonna go after it. So, he managed to procure one precious ticket, which he just about wrested from the jaws of a giant EAV possum, and we went to the Earl, thinking, well, at least you have a ticket, and if I don’t get one, you can just take a cab home. But for some reason, i got out, and I sat at the bar, and i thought it would be a good idea to hang out there while he went to the show. So, i sat there, and I only had a couple of drinks, and I talked to some guy who knew about ten people that I know, and I talked to a few folks I hadn’t seen in a long while (we used to live in the n’hood, you will remember), and then I talked to some young people from out of town on a road trip who had just been to the Clermont for the first time. One of them thought i was a Crip. This was the funniest thing i ever heard. I actually think he might have been serious. And then the show was over (never did get a ticket) and then suddenly, i was heading off to the house of a friend of my friend Terri, and then we were drinking beer in a basement and listening to records. We were all of an age, and we listened to Beastie Boys and The Pixies, and the Meat Puppets, and I had to listen to this TV on the Radio song:
No idea why i love that song so much, but it always makes me feel good to listen to it. And one of the guys there, whom I didn’t know, told me as he was leaving that he thought i was “a rocker” and maybe he was making fun of me, but I took it as a compliment.
And then there were four of us, and I’m pretty sure that Terri and Todd were completely ready to go, but me and the vinyl guy were geeking out on Bowie, and we listened to my favorite Bowie song twice in a row:
And I got home at 4 am. And then it took me like two days to recover, but it was totally worth it. I didn’t really feel old anymore. I felt tired, but not old.
So, I already had plans to go see Ty Segall with my sister on Tuesday. I have turned into a person that listens to music all day long, at home or work or in the car, but who never has the time or energy or money or babysitters to go see music live anymore. I had mentioned in passing that I loved him and wanted to see him live, and that we should go, and then she kind of twisted my arm. I don’t usually go out and see bands on school nights. It’s just too painful to stay up til 1 am, and then get up at 6 am and then . . . think . . . for a paycheck. (It’s really the getting up that’s hard – not so much the thinking.)
So, there I was, downing coffee at 8 pm on a Tuesday night, one week after my 41st birthday, in hopes of being able to stay up until 10 or 11, or whatever time these young whippersnappers go on stage these days. And then we got there, and . . . wow. It’s been a long time since i’d been to see a “current” band. I usually go see bands, and there are some young people there, but it’s mostly people in their 30s and 40s. Let’s just say that I almost cried at how good the people watching was. You know when we were 20? I am pretty sure we were stupid. We looked stupid, we acted stupid, we acted cool, we thought we were hot shit. We were not. We were stupid.
I was amazed at how they all looked so much like people i knew. People I knew in 1991. You know. When they guy I was going to see play was about five. There were people wearing shirts for bands whose albums were released before they were born. There was a guy wearing silver sequined pants. The only things different were that you couldn’t smoke inside the establishment (Terminal West, by the way, which is a GREAT venue – i thought it was nice and the sound was great, and it was a really good size. Kind of 40-Watt-sized, actually.) and that they had craft beer. In cans. Tons of craft beers in cans. And when you’re 41, it ain’t that easy to pick out what beer to order when you can’t see the cans across the bar. Also, no bottles? In my day, you drank out of bottles and chanced the glass breakage! Oh. And in my day, we just watched the damn band. I wanted to shove everyone’s iPhones down their throats, what with all the video and camera flashes. Don’t get me wrong. I love my iPhone. But it stayed in my pocket.
No, seriously. All I could think was Everyone. Was. So. Young.
Then I ran into this guy, and i was like, oh, awesome, you are old too, and he was like, “you’re never too old for rock and roll!” and i loved him. Also, he was like ten years older than me. And he was right. Because as soon as the music started, I was super happy, and it was loud, and it could have been 2013 or 1993 or 1963. I wasn’t tired any longer, and people were stage diving and it was so fun to watch, even though they just seemed a little . . . weak. I mean, it just seemed very safe compared to ye olden days. It bordered on polite. Someone through a beer at a guy in the band and Ty was like, “Please don’t throw things at us; we aren’t a punk band.” And he was so polite. Mom me took over a little, because i really don’t want my babies being thrown around over concrete floors, and these kids, the ones around me, who were born when I was like 20? They have moms too, and I might have gone to college with them. But then I decided that hey, my sister was there, and she’s a nurse, so we were all fine.
It was something like this, but a lot less people.
And then I let go and i rocked out. I did that awesome thing where you watch live music and you just get lost, and sometimes it’s so loud that it almost affects your vision for a few seconds. I had forgotten that if you hold an empty beer can to your chest while the music is loud that the drum and bass will make it vibrate in your hand. And I smiled. I couldn’t wipe that damn smile off my face if I had tried.
And after a while, it ended. And I was sad. But also happy.
And I did not feel old. I remembered what it was like to leave a show all sweaty and feel the cool air outside, and feel complete and total release. I remembered that I can sleep when I’m dead. Or at least the next night. I felt like I should go see more bands I love. I felt like maybe I should learn to play guitar. I felt inspired to write again, because I’m happier when I write.
When you grow up, your heart doesn’t die. It just gets really tired.
And then I was thinking tonight, I am old. I am tired. But I should write. Because I did fall asleep on the couch on my birthday. And I did rock out last night. And Saturday night. And I don’t get enough sleep. But I need to seek out the things that make me happy. I need to love them and nurture them, even if I feel too tired. You know. To keep my heart from dying.
And so that I will remember, when I’m 60, that this is what it is like to be me now. That this is my 41.
Wow. I am really flattered by the number of people who liked and shared my last post. (Most especially the strangers, because they didn’t have to share out of pity, friendship, love, or familial obligation.) I almost didn’t click “Publish” on that post; i felt it was rambling, inflammatory, too revealing of my political leanings. It is nice to know that others feel similarly about politics these days; I sometimes feel that I am on an island, politically. I do wish more people I know who are firmly on the right or the left read it and shared it. It seems that the people it most struck a chord with are the ones that mirror me politically, and are stuck in the middle, wondering why things can’t be different. I wonder if it just didn’t ring true to the others. I also think that perhaps those who did share it did it less because they support civility and more because they relate to what it feels like to be a political paradox.
A few other things to mention, that have come to my attentions since I published it yesterday:
My Mom was not offended by the “asshole” comment. She’s pretty thick-skinned, I guess. She spends enough time around my Dad and I that I guess she needs to be. It really wasn’t about my mom, or the friend who made the comment, in the first place, but more about the unintended consequences of being rude on Facebook for God and everyone and their Mama to see.
A commenter pointed out that there is a children’s book, The Crayon Box That Talked, which promotes diversity using the Crayola analogy. I had never read it, but thought i would mention it. There are no new ideas, I guess.
Again, thanks to those who shared on Facebook and who weighed in there, and to those new folks who left me comments. I used to blog every day, and I fell off the wagon through a combination of fear of speaking out about things, a busy life, and wrestling with some things in life that, if written about on my blog, might cause pain to those I love. Hell, writing about them might cause pain to me! So, I fell out of the habit, and lost my mojo, or at least my fearlessness. I think I might be getting it back a little. It is true that time helps heal things. But the response to this post has helped with my confidence, too – It is hard to pen these posts and then send them off into the ether, with no response, not even an echo. So, a big thank you to those who responded to this one. It did not go unnoticed, and is much appreciated.
Real life is so so so so in the way of my other life: The one in my head, that I imagine living, and that I actually do live every once in a while. The one where I ride bikes with my sister, walk on the beach, read a lot, and laugh til my stomach hurts. I got to live it for a few days last week, with the girls, on Tybee. Pics of that to come, maybe later today, maybe tomorrow. I have told myself I will get back to writing on my blog daily, but sometimes I have big ideas, and then don’t have the time to put them down on the page. I used to fill those spaces with the little gems – pictures of the kids, the dog, a link to something I love. Now those things invariable get tweeted or Facebook-posted. I am going to try to make sure they go on the blog again, because they are also part of who I am, and I’d like to see them categorized and archived. I miss them being in “my place.”
Today’s gem is an interview with Diana Gabaldon, via Authors Road. (Embedding disabled, so you will have to follow the link if you want to see it. Note: it’s 30 minutes! Poor Todd had to listen over my shoulder this morning. Also, this video is really only for those interested in the writing craft, Diana Gabaldon novels, or raven sculptures. (That last one is really just myself and Vanessa.)) She is one of my favorite writers, mostly because she created a crazy series that defies categorization, but also because she reminds me a bit of myself.
My favorite part of the interview, other than the awesome parts about how she actually writes? The fact that she loved Trixie Belden books as a girl. I <3 Trixie Belden.
“Don’t you wish that the Bob-Whites could just go on and on as we are now, just the same age as we are now?”
Trixie Belden, The Mystery of the Missing Heiress
Wow. I should really write about Trixie Belden one day.
I am thankful that I happened to come across a blog post i wrote two years ago on the Winter Solstice. I am thankful that I spent that lovely evening with my dog, Quint. I am thankful that I wrote about it, so I can remember what it was like to sit in the cold on the lake with him and watch stars. I am thankful I still remember what his ears felt like.
This year has been rough and a lot sad, and it has made me even more sad that I haven’t written as much as I normally do. This is part two of looking on the bright side, so that two years from now, I will maybe look back and remember the good things, not the sad ones.
I am thankful for this little guy, and that he likes baseball.
That I had the pleasure of seeing Harmony at baseball games, and know the strangeness of old friends having kids play sports together. Always surreal.
Thankful for the wonderful people who always step up to the plate and coach my kids' teams. This guy cracked us up by coming out to pitch the last inning of a v. close final game dressed as Braveheart. I am thankful for the weird and the absurd in people.
Thankful for Yankees in rural Georgia. They make me laugh.
And for quiet, woodsy solitude at sunset.
And that I had time to play hair with friends. I miss those simple time-wasters.
And good Chardonnay. Don't get the good stuff nearly often enough.
For a sunny cool day spent shopping with friends.
A day spent trying on hats.
and being reminded of my long-gone hat collection and how much joy it brought me. (i am a freak!)
And girls drinking in trucks.
Thankful that I rarely forget to take in the view.
And for time spent in front of outdoor fireplaces. (I will have one, one day. I will!) And for the sweet gift of the MacQueen tartan scarf my Daddy gave me. I love it.
And thankful that I have more girlfriends at 39 than i ever did as a young girl.
Thankful that Mom finally made it to Alaska and loved it as much as she thought she would.
Thankful for the beautiful day I spent with friends in Athens.
And that my husband still takes me to the game every other year.
Even though I bark in the Auburn section, and I am usually bad luck for Todd's Tigers.
Thankful for my sweet, artistic girl, and the chalk drawings she does in the garage.
Sad that they are not permanent, but that Todd and I managed to capture her precious misspellings. Thankful she lists the things she loves - the cuirur green, sparkely shoes, her dog. - Perhaps she is a bit like her mother sometimes.
I'm thankful for decorative gourd season, mutherfuckers!
I am thankful that I know what it means to have a daughter.
And for a most peaceful thanksgiving with my parents. Also, for a husband who has the patience to show my mother how to put books on her iPad. He is worth his weight in gold.
And that we still do EAV Santa.
Thankful for my husband's brothers' wife and fiancee. I am lucky we have no drama. And that we all talk when the boys are stoic and quiet.
Thankful for my sweet niece, Luci. Lucky to have a niece and a nephew.
Did I mention Tills? She is my heart.
And thankful to know what it is to have a large family. My in-laws are so devoid of drama. They are so very normal. It is nice to have something to balance out the crazy.
I am so thankful for happy engagements.
And that my children will know the love of cousins.
For the wonderful Johnson men. It is a comfort to know that they are such a wonderful example for my son.
And that I still love my husband and he still (I think?) loves me.
Thankful for Ned and Vanessa and their sweet girl Scarlett, and for the wonderful afternoon we spent tailgating for Iron Bowl. I love that our kids experience that tradition every year.
And there you have it. One huge shotgun blast of thankfulness. My life is good. Really good.
Okay, not really. But i have not really been able to write ever since losing the Q-man and my cousin this past summer. (Apologies to those who are offended for lumping them together, but in my heart, they are both gaping holes. Do not judge my pain.)
I am not usually one to avoid difficult subjects, or as my sister and I call it, “ostrich” (the action of sticking one’s head in the sand), but I keep finding reasons not to write about the things that have been on my mind this year. I will be glad to see this year go – it has been painful in so many ways, and it seems that every time I turn around, i see someone near me affected negatively by some circumstance or accident, or unforeseen crappy event. I think maybe part of that is that the events of this year for my family were so negative that I have on my dark lenses when I look at anything going on around me. I hate that.
I am usually one to try and not get bogged down in negativity. I come from a family of . . shall we say, ‘realists.” We are not a positive people. We save for a rainy day. We look at things with a critical eye. But i am aware of it, and I try, day in and day out, to be thankful for the things that i have and that are going well. But it is and always will be a struggle for me to do that. I have to work at it.
If you think i am irreverent or i make too many jokes when things go awry, you are seeing me fight my basest instinct to get bogged down in the shit.
Maybe that is why i haven’t written about losing my best friend this year. Yes, he’s a dog, and yes, I loved him so very much, and when I think of him, all i can think of is . . I am not ready to write about it yet. I am hopeful that I will get there. Or about what it means to live with the thought that someone you love was brutally murdered, and most likely knew what was happening the whole time.
I will never write about that.
I will continue to push that one down. It seems to get almost more unreal, yet never goes away. I think of it almost every day, in that quiet time when the kids are in bed and i am doing dishes. Every night.
I don’t write about these things because I don’t want to get lost in them. I want to look on the positive side. I want to be positive. Sometimes? There isn’t a positive side. So i ostrich.
And so I don’t write, because i have almost always sat down at Dogwood Girl in the mornings to write about the things that were foremost in my head. It was my therapy. I wrote them down, just as if I had cut my skull down the hairline, pried it apart, and pulled out the malignancy in my brain. But the issues weren’t so heavy before. These thoughts and images are inoperable.
I will get to the dog. I will write about him. The other? It is terminal. Not in the sense that I will die from it, but in the sense that I will die with it. [wipes tear from cheek.]
p.s. Wow. I started to write about what I’ve been up to since Halloween. And this came out. I guess the writing is good therapy after all. If you are still reading my blog, thank you. I know I haven’t been funny, or sentimental, or nostalgic – all the things that people say they like most about reading my blog. I want to be her, Dogwood Girl, again. She is still here. I promise.
Well, I’m trying to do NaNoWriMo again this year. I did it last year, too. While training for a half-marathon. So, you would think that this year would be easier, since I am benched (AGAIN) due to the Halloween Ankle Twisting episode of 2009. (Just thinking ahead. Let’s be honest. It will probably be an annual event.) No, it is not easier this year. We are still trying to finish up renovations to the basement: we still have doors to paint and hang, shades to purchase and hang, some lighting issues to resolve, and I have to put away all my highly valuable packrat stuff. Yes, I need that funeral home fan from the 1940s, my t-ball hat from 1978 (Go Birmingham PeeWees!), and every letter written by every member of my family for the last 120 years. I need them! Deep down in my soul!
But I am going to do it again anyway, because last year? I wrote FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS. They came right out of my head and went into the computer and now i have them. I haven’t quite gone back and shaped and coaxed them into something useful yet, but it is the most writing I have produced in my life. It was AMAZING.
So, yeah, i am already behind. I only have a thousand words down, and I should be up to about 5000 by end of day, but you know what? I have a thousand more words down than I would if I had not attempted at all. And that’s saying something.
Anyone else doing it? Not too late to jump on the bandwagon. I’m looking at you, JB. If not, you are doing Script Frenzy with me in April. I mean, how hard can writing a script be? If Judd Apatow can do it, I can do it. Right?
Much to say, and just not gutsy enough to say it, so i haven’t been posting. I have been writing, keeping it to myself. Not bottling it up, but not letting it see light, either. Part of me thinks I am a big pussy for not just writing things out in the name of honesty and forthrightness. The other part of me knows that it might cause irreparable damage.
Or maybe the damage is already done. Am I selfish for wanting to purge all of this heartache? Would it be healthy for me? Or would it just be me seeking vindication, revenge. Even if I was doing it for the right reasons, is it possible that those involved would see it that way? No. I don’t think it’s possible.
