Teddy Bears Go Bump

My mother died almost two weeks ago. She was elderly, very frail with late-stage Alzheimer's, and, at the end, very sick with pneumonia. I have been telling people (who nod in affirmation) that it was "her time." And it was. At any rate, "her time," is a nice, tidy summation that cleverly avoids the deep tangle of emotions that the death of a mother stirs up. I have wondered, though, if she--or anyone else staring so intently at the great divide--would have agreed with the idea it being of "her time." I like to think her spirit argued back, telling me--if I could have either listened or heard--where to shove my notion of other people's "time". But in truth I don't know what conversation she was having with life, with death.

She spent the last five years in a home for assisted living. During her stay she collected a handful of stuffed animals (one, her final favorite, which she clasped by the tail to the very end, before the hospital and The End took over, went with her to the grave--a good dog and a good friend.) The rest though--what to do? This is not an easy question for a woman who still deeply regrets the unilateral action the teenage me took one day, getting rid of all my childhood dolls and stuffed animals in one swoop. Oh, to turn back the clock, and box my 17 year-old ears! The loss still hurts.

I decided that those animals that survived the washing machine could stay. One, alas, was beyond even that, but the others took the dive quite cheerfully and came through intact. Right now they are thumping around in the dryer.

A thumping dryer has always been a comforting sound to me. After the huge difficulty of death and funeral, I feel my spirits lifting a bit. My mother's lungs failed, but mine, for the moment, still work. A selfish thought, maybe, but life never apologizes for itself.

Me and Jimmy Stewart

I recently read an essay in The New Yorker (January 14, 2008) about Otto Preminger, written by David Denby. He discusses Preminger's movies, focusing, in this instance, on "Anatomy of a Murder", which I have probably seen on TV in the long ago dim past but don't remember. Anyway, Jimmy Stewart, ". . . in one of his wonderful melancholy 'late' performances . . ." plays a former county prosecutor, who, apparently, hangs around with his buddies, not doing a whole lot of lawyering. The line Denby writes that stood out for me is, "The movie is leisurely, detailed, realistic, intensely companionable; you get a sense of how people exist at the margins of a profession without losing their dignity." [emphasis mine.]

I immediately identified with this description. At the margins of the profession, is, in fact, where I exist in the writing world. (I suspect lots of us do.) Realizing this, I actually felt good. I have been angsting for some time about not being a "successful" writer, but in truth I am always more comfortable at the edges of things. (A much better position from which to observe the goings on, for example, and from which, if necessary, to escape.) I had thought that getting published would deliver me to the center of SUCCESS, but a.) that hasn't happened, and b.) I'm not a center kind of person. So the trick for me, now, is the dignity part of Denby's sentence. I feel I have sometimes lost dignity in my floundering and in my wailing about floundering, but now I sense there is another way to engage with the writing life I actually have. This is tricky ground for me--I'm always up for a good angsty sob--but it's better to proceed into a country of a small but burnished pride than to stay in the ruined landscape where I've been, right?

Easy Come, Easy Go

I had another unexpected separation from my computer. Much fixing and patching and realigning of said device went on, all done by people other than me. I can do nothing.

I did spend some of the time away de-stressing. (An unexpected consequence.) While an Internet connection brings pleasure, it also brings the pain that comes from reading how splendidly other writers are doing, while you are not. (Sorry. The grumbling is innate, I can't help it . . . ) It also ties your body to an inanimate object for hours at a time. The physical body needs to be free--at the least it needs to be taken out for regular walks--but I think we tend to forget that while staring into the electronic glow.

In honor of that, I'm going to go out for a walk right now. It is almost mid-day. Not the best time of day for me to walk (I prefer early or late) but it is the opportunity I have at this moment, so I will take it.

Sh-h-h-h! It's A Secret

I grew up in a family with lots of secrets. Most people do. The secret I am thinking about today, though, is my father's job. No one in my family knew what he did. This is because he had a government job in an agency that was all about secrets. This was a long time ago; he retired in the mid-seventies and died in the early nineties. It is old history, but I think your family tends to remain new history, no matter how many years have passed.

I've been realizing that probably one reason I find it so difficult to "be" in the world with my writing, to show it off, to do appearances, to be all razzle-dazzle online, is that I had no example of a parent "being" in the world with his or her work. My mother was a homemaker--a mother staying home was common back then. I saw everyday what she did--though I only became both impressed and grateful after I'd spent many years as an adult. Her work in the house, however, was necessarily in-bound, not out in the world. She also painted pictures, and I think she really could have painted professionally. But, with a few small exceptions, she was too self-conscious and uncertain to be able to show her oils and watercolors to anyone besides family and friends.

My father could not take his work out into the world at all, except within the realm of the agency he worked for. And while he loved and believed in his job, I think this hurt him. He was reticent to begin with--I sometimes say he was a silent man in a silent job. But it must be painful to never receive recognition, even in your own family, for what you do.

My surprise New Year's gift to myself is the sudden understanding that I have taken my father's invisibility and made it my own. My father was not a secret agent--he was an engineer--but it turns out that I am, even though I am writing this blog. I constantly think of taking it down. After all, what if somebody reads it?!?!?!

Fusty To You, Too

I was telling someone yesterday evening what "fusty" means. Basically, moldy. Or musty. I was thinking of mulch, or crumbling brown leaves in the fall, that type of thing. Fruit trees worn down by summer's heat and summer's fecund task, leaning into the coming fall chill.

However, just to be sure I took another look in the dictionary and discovered fusty also means, "rigidly old-fashioned or reactionary" (Merriam-Webster). That meaning took me by surprise. I don't consider myself old-fashioned, though at this point in my life I do lean more toward old than young. (Sadly, I have never been fashionable.) As for being reactionary, that's something I generally try to avoid, though I do have my crankypants moments. Maybe I should have read the dictionary more closely before I chose the name of my blog?

Mostly, regarding the word, "fusty," I loved the way it sounded. Still do. It intrigues me how some words just plain tickle me, regardless of their meaning, because of the sound. I sometimes try to divorce all meaning from a word, and just listen to it. When I am successful, it can be a refreshing moment.

I know very little about opera, but lately have enjoyed listening to it on occasion. I like the fact that it is (usually) sung in another language. That way, very little "dictionary" meaning is attached to the words and I'm left with the sound and, of course, the enormous emotion behind it. Satisfying!

Surprise!

What if you want more than anything to be an artist, and shape your entire life around that goal, only to find out, years later, that you are indeed an artist but not of the type you expected?

For instance, what if you feel a great soulfulness inside you, but discover after years of honing your soulish talent that you are really a different kind of writer (or painter or dancer or singer or musician, etc.) altogether and that your gift isn't really about soulfulness at all?

It could be any quality, really, that you feel in your heart and long to give shape to and express--humor, intellect, impishness. It means everything to you, and then you find out you can't do that but you can do something else, which, unfortunately, you don't really want to do.

What then?

I know someone who had this experience. Or something close to it.

It may have happened to me, too, except I'm not quite sure. Or I am sure but don't want to be.

This is not the good kind of surprise. Unless it turns out that it is.

It Might Be One Giant With A Big Fat Foot

I am in one of those difficult places a writer sometimes falls in to. I have lost belief in myself. Not as a writer, so much, but as a person who is part of the vibrant "ya writer" community. I have been reading other blogs by ya authors. Some of them really stand out and are quite popular, with many, many comments from readers. I have realized that these authors have achieved a bloggy success not because they are good writers--though they are--and not because their blogs are visually pleasing--though they are--but because through their blogs they present an attractive personae and exude a friendly, personal warmth.

I do not exude warmth. Long ago, when I was a teenager, my father asked me, "Why are you so cold?" Well, there were circumstances, of course, and I could have whipped out a long list of reasons why, if anyone had been interested, but that question--that entire conversation--is long over. Anyway, I am not a warm person. Or let us say that I am warm on the inside, where I can experience my feelings in private, but cool on the outside. I have long understood this about myself--it is not a pity point but merely true.

The difficulty for me is that writing, or being a writer, is no longer a safe place for a person like me. What counts is not so much my books--though writing a good book would not hurt--but my ability to be in the world, to present myself both in person and online in a way that attracts readers and that sells both my books and my presence. I am not so good at that.

I am more like Godzilla, blundering about the ya world--if not quite destroying things at least leaving trails of cold, unpalatable seaweed in my wake. I am sorry that Godzilla got punished for going landward, that he got zapped in the end; I wish he still lurked at the bottom of the sea, a dark, bulky mess of internal conflict, maybe, but a creature happy in his obscurity, surrounded only by other wet, fishy blobs also in need of darkness. Just being himself.