Running too Fast and Forgetting to Breathe

I have been using this month to begin the process of developing some structure for myself.  While I was a pretty disciplined and successful copy writer for more than a decade, I had a few regular clients and I knew their needs and schedules.  My back had its own schedule and I knew it by heart, by feel, to my core.  Everything fell apart three years ago.

Now, as I start my new life with new parameters, new brick walls to avoid, and free of anyone's deadlines but my own, well, I find myself a little unnerved. I have been reading some books on the new publishing world--on my Kindle, of course, which is only fitting. It would seem I must develop a platform; yes, I knew this already but I didn't know it, if you get my drift.  This home blog of mine, this testing ground, this home base for some internet relationships that matter to me ... well, it won't cut it for a platform. Again, I know this in my mind, but it is unlikely I will abandon it. It serves a deeper purpose for me.

I just read an article in this month's Poet & Writers' Magazine about the Internet and how it can interfere with a writer's creativity. I could cite it more carefully, but what I read was more of a jumping off point that is combined with the three books I've read in the last two weeks about marketing a book in today's world.  The message is clear in all of them; I must build a platform long before the book is even written. I must join networks of people who share my interests, who are likely readers of a memoir I would write.  I must write SHORT.

Oh. My. God. Help me.
I have to re-enter the world of Twitter. I do not LIKE Twitter. This does not mean I don't appreciate its uses; it means simply that I hate Internet/text/chat speak. So much room for misunderstanding, for lazy communication. On the other hand, I know that I am often lazy in my meandering trips to nowhere on my blog. I am lucky that some of you enjoy the ride without particularly worrying about the side trips and the fact that there may not be a particular goal. But I have to start finding things to write about on a regular basis, things I can put into 500 words, or perhaps 750.

I have to tweet, post status updates, comment, write, connect. CONNECT. CONNECT.

And I have a wonderful compendium now of ways to do this, most of which I kind of understand, despite my protests to the contrary. I just don't know which of them will help my actual writing. Which will contribute to the act of getting the thing done? My blog right here does that. Reading the blogs I do help my writing. So I know I must keep this going and I have to incorporate reading YOUR words, thinking about them and commenting on them.

I have seen some of you do a fantastic job of building substantial followings and, when I think about it, I realize how you do it. Part of it is your frequency and the variety of your work. Or the fact that you connect with people who do what you do. Linda Lou is a marvel to me! And I watched Donna take off. I read blogs which have thousands of followers and I wonder how you all can write so often and so well, about so much. (Naturally, in this frame of mind, I see only my shortcomings. This ain't about logical thinking today!)

But my goal was never about how many followers I have had. My goal was to have followers who wanted to come back, even though I am sporadic here. My goal was to find my own voice and to use it; to learn how to write what is painful or horrific, without making people want to run away screaming into the night. It's cool to see the number grow, when I publish every week, when I explore new blogs and comment. But that's not the object for me.

The article I just read talked about how the social networking can also divert us from the very thing we started networking FOR! To create a welcoming platform for the book we want to write, or have begun to write. It talked about how we have to walk AWAY from all the networking and unplug ourselves in order to produce, to give our creativity time to percolate.

Well, then I hit my brick wall this week and got the shakes and put myself into a dither.

Visions of Hell
This is a talent I have; perhaps it is an artform for me. I'm not sure.

I have about four upright hours in every day. Occasionally I have as many as six, as long as they are spread out with many long breaks. By upright I mean sitting UP. I have to lie down a lot, and I DO mean lie down. I can one day perhaps get one of the Dragonspeak programs and do more. But for now it hit me that I have a great deal of work I must do online to lay the groundwork for being able to publish this book I am also working. And I have FIVE paintings in the works. Suddenly, it all became overwhelming to me.

How do I give time to it all, every day, and still have a life with the people I love, and do my laundry, and my grocery shopping, and, well, leave my apartment? Not to mention go to the gym nearby for about four hours a week so that I can KEEP WALKING?

I began to sob, not just cry. I threw an all out hissy fit. I got scared. I am sixty years old in June and I have only JUST adjusted to this new and frail body I do not like, to the point where I can consider starting the program to perhaps make it stronger and maybe add another half hour or hour to the productivity.

And then I began to laugh. How come AlAnon still helps me? ONE STEP AT A TIME. One DAY. One Hour. I let it all gang up in my mind. I must do all things on every day.  I must build a network of thousands by next Tuesday? And I must start my hour and a quarter workouts THIS week THREE days a week immediately.  And I must twitter, begin a new blog, write on this blog, read ALL the blogs I've missed, develop a webpage, compile a list of existing contacts, AND read the three memoirs waiting for me--in the coming week.

There is no time. I must also complete at least twelve paintings by 2013.

In four hours a day.

Or I am a failure.

It's good to be a grown up...

Step Back and Breathe
My brothers and sisters all called me in the same twenty-four hour period after one of my mom's most infamous binges after my dad died. I had almost the same conversation with each.
Sibling: Mother is drinking. Did you know she drank like this?
Me: No shit. [sorry. In this case, the word fit. I'd been screaming about it for twenty years.] I've told you she was an alcoholic for years.
Sibling: Well. Yes, but I never knew it was this bad.
Me: silence .... then, What's your point?
Sibling: What are you going to do about it?
Me: Get the hell to AlAnon.

I went to my first meeting that Wednesday and got me an ODAT book (One Day At A Time). I sat at that meeting and listened, then went home and read all 365 days that very night. Like so many before me, I figured if I did it all at once, I'd be cured real fast. They reminded me to slow down.

And so it has been as I've been doing my research, as I have been allowing myself to actually take my dreams seriously and lay the groundwork.

Mommy, I am telling them what we had. Honestly, I am. And I am shining as hard as I can for you.

But I sure do wish you were here the way you were when I'd run so fast I'd fall; to lightly tip my chin up toward your face and say, "Jetty, Jetty. Breathe. Life is not a race. Sweetie, catch your breath and try moving one foot at a time so you don't get all tangled up and keep falling down. You'll get there in your own time." And then kiss me on my nose.

I guess maybe I'll just breathe. And write. And get there in my own time now, one word at a time, so I don't get myself all tangled up and fall down.

OOOOHHHHHHHMMMMMM.... Oh. Wait. I'm not supposed to be saying that with clenched fists, huh.

Here's to those baby steps I was writing about!

Let it Snow... Huh? Nothing at all profound today.

Yes. Well, some of you  may know that Connecticut was in the dark for all of last week. I exaggerate. Only about eighty per cent of the state was dark, and I live in one of the towns that was hardest hit. As I write this Monday night, big chunks of my town and two of the towns adjacent are still dark. This is a situation we will have to sort out--negligence and apathy. I live in what some call the "quiet corner," which has often translated into the "Backward pore folk" corner.

In the late 1970's I worked at a university library way across the mighty Amazonian Connecticut River. One must understand that, in Connecticut, if you lived on the west side of the river, my side was seen as some foreign world of nothing but woods and farmlands. No one actually said outright that we must be uncivilized, but they came close. I was in a play and invited my colleagues to come and see me. They arranged an expedition, thinking they could see some quaint old-fashioned stores and perhaps take in the buccolic scenery.

When I saw them after curtain calls, one woman said, "Well you actually have a SageandAllen's store here. And a Stop and Shop!"

"Yes, Clara, and we got us indoor plumbing just t'other day."

"Well, I thought that this was all country out here. I didn't realize you all had..." Her voice trailed as she suddenly realized just how condescending and insulting she was sounding.  "No, but you have regular stores and everything and... I'll shut up now."

Thirty years later we still are the forgotten towns when it comes to prioritizing funds or aid. We have the flagship of our university system, but people seem to think that other than that, we are a vast wasteland, except, of course, for our mall. Connecticut is the land of malls. If you do not live within twenty minutes of a large one, you are considered underprivileged. My town has three huge malls within twenty minutes. Truly, just how lucky can one woman be.

I hate malls. Sorry. I just do.

Anyway, my power came on late Saturday, thank goodness. My apartment complex is located in an area that has at least five other large complexes within about 3/4 of a mile, square. It is the most densely populated area in the town, yet we waited six days for the power. I could not get out of the complex for two days. For all six of those days, one of the streets had no exit at all, except by winding through our complex. There are still trees HANGING across roads. Poles partly fallen. Big branches blocking roads. One of my friends could not get out of her street until Friday. Fortunately she and her husband are campers and had a gas stove as well.

In this day and age we expect our electric companies to be able to get us back on the grid in short order, but our company is far behind the times. And if I had had to listen to the president say that the company exists to serve its customers, I was ready to throw a shoe at my tv. It exists to serve its stockholders. The president got a three million dollar bonus--for cutting 20% of our crews, I guess. And not paying bills. And having antiquated lines and transformers.

I am grateful to the Canadian crews who came, some of whom are still here--from Vancouver, Montreal, Quebec. We have crews from Kentucky, Massachusetts, the Carolinas, Tennessee. I don't know what other states sent us help--I think they said it was TWENTY states. I am so grateful to them all.

Last week was a lost week in some ways. In others? I now know my neighbors. We watched out for one another, making sure things were okay for each other. I had FIVE friends show up at my door, panicked because they could not reach me, worried I had fallen. I stayed six days with one of them and not ONCE did she complain. She gave me her room, so I did not have to use the stairs. I made dinner and brunch for a crew of our friends on night and one morning.  We played games. I read five books.

Friendships were deepened. Acquaintanceships were solidified.

I am home and never have been more grateful to be here. The management team had generators here by Friday morning, because it was to be cold Friday and Saturday nights. We did not know when we would be on the grid again. I know they all worked well into the evening all week, making sure all the tenants were okay. They listened patiently to tenants SCREAM at them to fix things... as if they could. They showed up every day, working in jackets, sometimes wearing gloves to work in the mornings. Their generators gave them power to work, but not for heat. I stopped in every day, as did two other of the FIVE HUNDRED tenants, to let them know we knew it was not their doing, to acknowledge that it must be a hard time for them, too. They were without power in their homes, too. Two women had to bring their children with them each day.

It has been a hard time, but not without its blessings.

I missed my connections in the blogging world. I missed my connections to friends who live far from me. I missed my studio and my beautiful paintings and photographs on my walls. Just things. But ALL my things are gifts. Every piece of pottery, every picture, every little doodad... gifts from friends, from my sister, my parents, or handed down bits of family history. I have bought very little--the couches, two chairs, two tables. I have antique oak chairs that were my great grandfather's, and my great great grandfather--the traveling quack-- I have his desk. A bit of cut glass from my sister's best friend's grandmother. A dish from my mother's mother.

I missed my things because they live with stories, with the richness of family ties. I see the people, not just the thing.

I am rich beyond measure. I am home.

I won't revise this. I don't particularly care about the quality of writing today. I write simply because I am filled with gratitude today. Never have I felt so keenly the joy of being home. Never have I been more aware of how UNalone I am in this world. I am poor when it comes to income, but that's all. It's NOTHING in the light of the last ten days.

I am home. And tonight I will curl up on my couch, writing and working on my book. And tomorrow I will begin the painting I had just taped down when the power went out. And I will look online for images of snow on fall leaves... it was beautiful. To see yellow and flame maple leaves on snow... a once in a lifetime sight. Thank you Carl for the quick pic you sent!

Thank you all for reading what I write, and thank you to some in particular, who have reminded me that even in this "virtual" world, I am not alone. And I am not forgotten. Neither are all of you, as will be evident as I periodically blog hop to catch up on your lives.

I am such a lucky woman.

Working on Part 2

I'm here. I've been painting, getting the house ready to go back onto the market. (Oh joy, oh rapture.) AND I have been working on Part 2. I think I have to break it into two parts. It would seem that I am rambling.

Wait. Control your surprise. I went off on a Portugal tangent. Then I meandered into some other thing about traveling alone and how freeing it is. Clearly I was a tad too free as I wrote. I found some pictures I took.

What I need to say is that nothing is wrong. Not even remotely. Just busy being my butterfly-attention-span Jetty.

Did I tell you all how I got my nickname? When I was about three or four, I could run around UNDER the dining room table, as well as tearing in circles through the dining room, into the kitchen, around the fridge and washing machine, into the living room, PAST the 9000 foot long couch, sharp left through the arch, back into the dining room, quick tour of the den, back under the table, and do the circle in the opposite direction.

There was a cereal called Sugar Jets, and in the commercial a little girl would put her arms out and run around going, "I'm jet-propelled!"  I thought that sounded nice, so that is what I would shout while I did this.

I was a charming child. Easy on my mom. My dad watched me one day, and I was beginning my fourth or fifth tour of duty, from out of the sky came the long arms of GOD and I swooped up to the ceiling, squealing. My father brought me down to his Old Spice chest and said, "Slow down, Jetty, slow down.  The world will keep spinning fast even if you don't."

And that was that. I was Jet and Jetty from then on...

SIDEBAR...

Part 2 of Runaways to Redbank still doesn't say much, if anything about Red Bank. I simply TOLD everyone I was headed to Red Bank when I left home--either from PA or CT.

It's more about West Long Branch, where there was a wonderful, long boardwalk that had a row of those marvelous old places--a diner, arcade, fudge and candy type store, and gee-gaw place.  All of the places were boarded up the last time I went there. I had lost my brother by then and was feeling rather lost.

Here is a picture and a poem I wrote back then.

I'm not going to include the poem!

It DOES express something of what women over fifty often feel, when the beauty men found so irresistible has nearly disappeared, blurred by wrinkles, weight, and, in my case, the debilitating spinal disease that had taken hole.   But, you know what? I just don't feel all that BAD.

I love this picture, though, with my clogs all alone there. I was free, unencumbered, and just beginning to find my eye, to realize that I HAD an eye for art.  I had so little confidence seven years ago.

So. Dave. Does this answer your question for now? I love to ramble, but there are limits.  I have mentioned to a couple of friends a comment made by you and someone else, picturing me or some other woman onstage, telling my tales. The woman who followed your comment imagined that I must use my hands when I speak.

Two days ago I was telling my best friend some ridiculous story and forgot, when I got to the climax, that I was holding my coffee cup... I'll leave it at that. I DO use my  hands. When I was in high school, I was in the drama club.

AGAIN with the control your shock.  I played Katrin in Mother Courage and Her Children by Brecht! Our new, very young drama adviser had seen that we had done only plays like "Corliss Archer Goes to the Prom," "The Mouse that Roared," and "Mousetrap." He told us that the play WAS a real stretch, but he wanted the seniors to have a real acting experience. I tried for Mother Courage, but got the mute who dies. He said, "Trust me. Challenging as I know it will be for you to shut up, you will steal the show."

I learned to tell a story without words from him. I never did learn to shut up, though. I'll be back!

Back to the Land of the LIving

I feel, as the month draws to a close, that I can breathe freely again. This will be short. I simply wanted to end the month on a high note.

I have begun three more paintings of my own. I have a good amount of work from Stanford to keep me going for the next month or two. I try not to look past that, because one just never knows. I have work. It's work that I find rewarding. Maybe it's wise NOT to look past that point for now!

I will be submitting my short story called "The Secret Life of Mindy Walters" for a contest. Those who are too young to understand the reference won't be put off by the title one bit, and that working title makes me laugh. The challenge was to write a story of fewer than 3000 words or so, that show some aspect of modern life. Mine was 24/7 accessibility of moms. Mindy has taken off to go on the family vacation three days before her husband and daughter will join her. She has DESERTED them for her daughter's last two days of school, even. It begins with the cell phone call from the husband, with the texting from the daughter coming, too. She has a running conversation in her head about driving straight north to Canada instead of "turning right" to go to the Island.

The story may stink, but I sure am having fun writing it... my defense of all modern moms who seem to have bought into our culture's decision that we must be accessible, available, ON THE READY every hour of every day.

How I loved being wholly dispensable.

What else? There are major construction vehicles outside my home digging up the road to put in the remaining sewer lines. They decided, SIX years after finishing the sewer lines, that the twelve existing homes without sewer lines were not "dead." The town said we were a dead neighborhood. I asked whether that meant we no longer had to pay taxes, but they did not laugh. Turns out they'd put one of those places for MY home already. I live on a corner. So they are stopping at the house next door. When I asked, "So we've had the option all along to hook up?"

He said, "Well, I don't know. We may not have put the line deep enough for you to ever use, even though, technically you could. But because it's there, we'd have to charge you about ten thousand if you wanted us to extend the line to the the low part of your house. Isn't that funny?"

I said, "No, not really. This town gets me coming and going, huh."

He went, "Oh, yeah. You're the lady who just wanted to teach art, huh? Man. You probably don't think much of this town, huh."

"Not so much, no."

Fortunately, so far the septic tanks work. And we do have the lateral hook up... Maybe we could connect if it came to that. Perhaps this is one of those lessons in life again about NOT looking for trouble. I don't have to have anything done for now at all, and that's a good thing. I think I'll call the septic folks in the morning though, and have the two tanks pumped.

Uh-oh. There goes my cell phone...

Neighbors of the New Millenium

I had an experience that saddened me beyond words. I was torpedoed at a zoning board meeting. The board did not foresee the outrage of my neighbors on the cul de sac. I would put their children at risk, having up to EIGHT cars potentially leaving my home all at once during school hours. I am changing the tenor of the neighborhood, trying to sneak in a big business like running art workshops up to three days a week in my home.

Yes, indeed, I am a subversive. We moved in and added to the house, nineteen years ago, putting in a family room right below the in-law apartment, so that my sister could use more of the house as her own. It was permitted, mind you. EVERYTHING we do has its proper permits attached, well, because I try to follow the law. That's why I went through the zoning board, posted my big yellow signs for THREE weeks, not two. Made sure I was in the yard often enough so neighbors could ask me questions. People smiled and waved, as always.

And signed a petition behind my back. Wrote letters about how some young man lived TWO Years below the main part of the house, renting or something illegally. I pointed out that this was my son. He didn't pay rent.

Anyway, the commission had to deny me my dream. I cannot work outside the home like other people. I have legs that collapse with shooting pains that go up into my head--spinal cord injury from the past. Surgery kept me walking, but there was collateral long-run damage.

No one cared. Not even the four neighbors who knew it was my son, who knew why we had an in-family apartment, who knew I left for a year and a half to get over my daughter's death (and came back 12 years ago), who knew about my back and disability. Not the neighbor who told the zoning board that my forsythia hedge should be torn down, but I need to leave the lilacs for her, because I let her cut them every year. She told them I have a way with flowers. But I shouldn't have workshops. I was destroying the neighborhood, they said.

It seems to me, this paranoia, never talk in person mentality has done the destroying already. I bring bread to my neighbors, and let them cut my flowers. I give my candy at Halloween. Compliment the moms on their babies. But I am the bohemian hippy I guess... the spinster on the corner. I don't know. I know only that I cannot teach my workshops.

I never meant to instill fear in my neighbors. Nor turn the area into a commerce zone. The board calmed the neighbors down several times. Four of the commission never looked up except when I spoke. And they smiled at me, but the damage was done.

I think I'll work on flowers in the back yard this year, away from the joggers and the smiling faces that mask fears that only they can describe. For now? For today and perhaps tomorrow, too, I mourn the myth that I believed about my little corner of paradise. I am angry. I am hurt. I am sad, however, beyond belief.

The forsythia were torn down today, something we were going to do this year anyway. topsoil arrives tomorrow. We may spray on some lawn, as they do around the neighborhood. Don't know. But the terrible hazard of yellow on the corner is gone. One less thing to be hurled at my head, by neighbors who were never taught to simply talk when they think there might be a problem. Modern life in suburbia. I would like to leave here, go to my central Pa, to the farmlands there, and the areas where people are allowed to make a living from their home--and have cars in their driveway to boot.

And I will rise. I always do. I have a studio now and I will use it. I'll share it with my friends, a few at a time. We wouldn't want the neighbors to talk!