Boo!

When I started this blog I worried I wouldn't be able to post regularly, given my deeply entrenched tendency to drift (not always the good kind of drifting, as in the previous post.) My fear has justified itself, at least for the past couple of months. I have been round and about, but paying attention to other things--at least, I think I have. Who knows where the mind goes when you're not looking?

Thursday morning I went with my husband into downtown Washington, D.C. to see the cherry blossoms that line the Tidal Basin by the Jefferson Memorial. It was raining lightly, intermittently, the sky a soft, lovely gray, the water in the Tidal Basin the same oyster color, a few shades darker. Against that, the blossoms, just out, glowed a warm, pale pink. Because of the rain, the crowds had not yet descended, so only a small number of people were there and we had some privacy.

We also visited the new WWII memorial, plunked down in the middle of the Mall, which I had never seen before. It is ginormous and somewhat imperial, as the criticism has stated. But, to my surprise, I found it enormously satisfying. I'm not sure why. There were a good number of people about, but I was still able to feel alone--the good kind of alone--and think about the soldiers who were gone. A sad but peaceful moment.

I like all the memorials that I've seen in D.C. over the years, though I favor some over others. All are commemorations to the dead, famous and not. I often wonder if these same dead, now only spirit, lurk nearby. If they do, do they envy the living or feel sorry for them? I can't help but suspect envy. D.C., all dressed up in its spring finery, is gorgeous. I'd want to come back for that, too.

Lights! Camera!

Scre-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-h!

That's the sound of me scre-e-e-e-e-e-ching back into my blog, having discovered that Cynthia Leitich Smith mentioned it in her world-famous ya and children's literature blog, cynsations . (Yay, Cyn! Thanks!) So wait a minute as I throw on some makeup (slap, smack, puff) put on something decent to wear (tug, swish, oof) comb my hair (snapple gapple pop) and stretch my lips into a giant pink grin. :-)

Okay, whew, I'm ready!

Been gone awhile. Been adrift. Not the bad, lost-on-the-stormy-sea-on-a-dark-night kind of drifting, but more of a gliding-slowly-across-a-motionless-lake-on-a-still-day kind. I've started writing a new book. It might prove to be a total stinker, suitable only for tossing into the trashcan, but for now I'm having fun with it. Moreover, finding words again after a long time of lost belief feels wonderful.

I attribute my reawakening, in no small part, to the tippy-end of the lake I mentioned in an earlier post. I walk there almost every day at lunch, on the days I work my paycheck job, and it refreshes me. It is not a beautiful lake--it is small and scrubby and littered at the edges--and yet, it is a beautiful lake! The water changes color with the sky and with the wind, but it also changes its intention. One day it is tame, even dull--just another ruined piece of suburbia--another day it is a dangerous current, a swirl tugging you down, a harsh wilderness. There are almost always a few Canadian geese floating around--small boats in the distance--and sometimes a couple of mallards, which are my favorite. Swimmers and bobbers, they seem impervious to being tugged down. Or, they go down but pop right back up, a trick I've never quite mastered.

Blub Blub Blub

I walked past the tippy-end of a lake a few days ago. The lake is located in a nearby state park, the tippy-end nestling beside (rather, to the side and just below) a non-park road and neighborhood. It is a man-made lake and so has that not-quite-legitimate feel to it, and appears ragged and torn, littered at the edges by too many people using the small patch of nature left to them by the developers, yet I was nonetheless glad to pass by and see still-bare trees lost in deep reflection of themselves.

It was a quick walk (on my lunch break at work) and I didn't have time to do more than pause before turning back, but I was reminded of how much I miss water. Moving water, like creeks and rivers, but also still ponds and lakes, their stillness reflecting back so nicely what surrounds them. I used to seek such environments out, but have become rather stuck of late in a barren suburbia.

It is a kind of narcissism, I suppose, to stare at reflections in water, as I used to do so intently. Not at my own reflection so much (it is hard to stand tall enough or lean out far enough over water to see yourself, especially if you are somewhat short) but the reflection of nature--of the natural world we live in. This is what we are, a reflection seems to say: deep and beautiful, full of secrets and meaning.

I have been pushing depth away for a while now. It is there, lurking, but I have been distracted by shallow surfaces, the way they shine and beguile. I have, however, begun to feel things tugging at me again. A good sign, I think, though one that signals struggles to come. Diving deep is hard work, plus there is the fear you might drown. And you might.

Cool Breeze

My mother's death has thrown me off course more than I thought it would. Alzheimer's has been described as a long goodbye--which it is, only worse. Experienced as I had become with that long goodbye, I assumed the final goodbye would be something of a breeze. Yes, I felt deep sorrow during her dying and afterward, through the funeral, but then I whizzed into a period of really not feeling very much of anything at all about her. Very breezy indeed.

Now, though, the weight of her loss has followed me home. It tugs at me, rather like a dark shadow always hovering anxiously at my back--when I turn to see it, I can't, but I feel it; I know it is there. I spent most of my life in the dark shadow known as depression. This is different, somehow. Not a generalized despair but a specific sadness. As if it is not just I who am grieving, but also my mother. As if she is as surprised at her death as I am.

I was similarly astounded when my father died, some years ago. It is a big shock, to find that death has inserted itself between you and your parent. Not fair! we usually say--those of us, at any rate, who had good (if complicated) parents. But I know that soon enough death will also insert itself between me and life. A common enough realization, but rarely a comforting one. I suspect a cool breeze will soon spring up to distract me from that truth, too.

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.