Quick Update

All is well... sort of. A friend needed help. She was not well and her son truly needed help with a research paper--his first ten page paper. The kids' teacher gave them NO guidance. None. No steps through the process of thesis statement, outline, note cards, bibliography. Nothing. She also gave them just three weeks. The HONORS class had had such a paper the first semester, BUT with complete step by step guidance.

Anyway, my nephew--she's like a sister, and they are MY kids. She says they are hers, but I beg to differ... where was I? Oh. Right. He has this due Wednesday and he was on vacation all last week, so five out of seven days I was with him, trying to help, working together. I have NEVER met a fifteen-year-old boy or girl who was willing to sit with someone 5-7 hours for three days of the kid's vacation to get something done. We laughed. We swore. We stomped our feet. Well. No. HE stomped his feet for himself, then did a stomp or three for me because I could not feel my feet.

I slept on a foldout couch and sat upright for hours at a time. In between these bouts of being there, I've collapsed in a heap.

I do not regret one minute of the time. He learned a lot and so did I.  The quality of his thinking was amazing to me, but it was very hard for him to figure out how to do this thing ... and I DON'T blame him a bit. I taught him about garbage drafts. When I wrote for Stanford on deadline and had writer's block, I would quickly read through every bit of my information and then simply write everything that came into my head. Then I would sleep on it and the next day, oddly enough, I'd find the article in there. It worked for him and we both were kind of excited. He has pretty serious ADHD, so without being given the structure I think it was harder for him. PLUS he had to read Jubilee over vacation for his Honors history class. He will have another five page paper next week about how the book has contributed to a deeper understanding of their study of slavery and the Civil war. THAT essay excites him. The fact that it excites him made me happy.

ANYWAY, the kid was on overload and so was Mom. And we all won in this gig.

I mean it that I won, too. There was writing involved--coaching a kid who has this notion that he is stupid into writing a paper that was creative in its rhythm and approach, but followed every single "rule" for the school's comparative literature essays.

So I am not in any way, shape, or form stopping writing. Not on the radar. I admit that writing about my seven weeks in a hospital is far more of a challenge than I ever thought it would be, but we find those challenges in memoir for a reason. I've done my "garbage draft." It holds no meaning beyond just putting it all down, so it is not ready for me to post. I have to find value beyond spilling my guts for something like that.

My kid is the best, and we both had absolutely not the slightest desire to be stuck indoors doing this thing on a beautiful, warm weekend. So we shared our disgust. To give a clue to how burnt out I was by yesterday, around four... he was writing an essay about three legends and what makes a legend. He chose the legend of the basilisk BECAUSE it was not straightforward, was cross-cultural, and had legends that evolved over several centuries. Too much information for him to sort through without help. It was the longest section and I typed while he dictated. Well, first I started writing Basilica... I got past that, and then started writing baskilica... Finally, when we were doing proofreading and I was making notes for him to go to his dad's to input (Adam's computer was busted, he is not used to a little laptop Mac, so he needed his dad's computer next door).  When we got laughing about my problem with Basilisk, by 4:30, on that last page, I was marking a correction and started to actually write "Basket case" instead of Basilisk. Adam and I got laughing so hard, I choked and he spit out his Arizona tea.

At that point we decided he would input all the changes to that point, delete the last three paragraphs I had tried to "help" with, and finish the last page after supper. Worked like a charm. He came up with a creative, insightful, well-thought out ending.

By the way. Lest anyone think that I feel all noble? It's nothing like that. As I said, we are family, with ups and downs, but tutoring is not a down with Adam. Just exhausting is all.

As for Adam? I have been his tutor for five years, off and on. We have it down to our own little rituals together. We've gone through days of finals prep. Hours of math, science, history, Spanish, you name it. We know one another as few aunts and nephews often know one another--I am the luckier for it. Time with him may sometimes be hard on my back, but it is NEVER too hard on my psyche. He is a joy. And a total pain in the hoo-ha. My guess is he would say pretty much the same of me.

***
I am going to bed now for a day and a half. I shall return. No need to believe for one second I'd give up writing here, or on my memoir, or on anything else that strikes my little head.
Sleep. Bed. And, please do not picture me as a street addict, my pain medications. Adam finished his paper. His mom got the rest she HAD to have, so she can have the medical stuff done she needs to do this week. So now I will watch Animal Planet and reruns of "So You Think You Can Dance," because I am, like, an intellectual. I wanna see puppies get saved, and kids do things I was never able to do.

I'll decide about the evening when it gets here.