A Little Discovery

An insight

I had two good things happen to me yesterday, neither of which had to do with writing. One was an invitation to a focus group that resulted from a leadership class I took nine years ago, and one was a request to do moulage for the city of Albany, MO’s high school docudrama (think staged car wreck with all the resultant carnage). Both requests made me feel wanted and worthwhile, and I marveled at how much better I felt at the meeting I ran for the Human Services committee for my department at school.

Being in demand vs being lauded

All this time, I thought that what I wanted was recognition, what I called “cookies” in my mind. But I realize I feel ambivalent about cookies, because they too often result from the rewarder’s motives rather than intrinsic work. I received a National Merit Scholarship Award from AT&T in 1981, and I realized quickly the banquet was more about AT&T than about my award. Several more situations like that make me feel ambivalent about cookies.

Being in demand, however, says “We called you because you’re the local expert.” (Or perhaps the cheapest, but I know my reputation for doing moulage). I enjoy sharing my expertise and getting praise for it. I enjoy showing my talent off.

It feels especially good that I get this attention when I’m worried about mood swings coming up on the 10th anniversary of my hospitalization. It reminds me that there’s more to me than the depression.

It feels fantastic.

Anniversary of the Worst Time of my Life

Ten years ago this season

I read a Facebook Time Hop today in which, ten years ago, I wrote about the last Family and Consumer Sciences banquet at Northwest Missouri State University. It was the last banquet because my department got axed that spring for reasons that never quite made sense. Our enrollment was healthy; what was not healthy was the scorn society heaped on our existence. For we were the very unsexy formerly known as home economics. That, I think, was enough to cause our demise.

It’s also ten years since the most horrible semester I’ve had here at Northwest, because as my department’s demise brought a very clear fear of being left in the unemployment line, I also had my definitely hypomanic moment. I was hardly sleeping, putting large amounts of work into a project that wasn’t supported by the leader. My gradebook was a mess. I was going fishing at 2 in the morning by myself. I was angry — at the university, at my coworkers, at Richard. This led to a Bipolar II diagnosis and a few days in inpatient care to level out my meds. My semester ended early, but I had become passive, inert from a medication that didn’t work for me, and which incapacitated me all summer before my new psychiatrist and I realized that the tiniest dose made me into a zombie. My husband and I bought a house somewhere between the end of the semester and the internships I would not be allowed to supervise; I was one thing we moved into the house.

I’m superstitious

I have been pretty stable with the meds for the past ten years, if “stable” means having periods of moderate depression (but no suicidality) or months of hopeless crushes (but no stupid midnight dates with catfish — real catfish — at Mozingo Lake). Sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don’t, but I’m pretty stable. The gradebook is always neat in case I become unstable again.

But I’m superstitious. I have been stable for ten years, but this year’s an Anniversary. When I see the light through the curtains, I worry about my job falling apart. I smell Spring and remember growling at Richard until he let me go fishing before the sun came up. Beauty is suspect, because the greens of mania scintillate with colors brighter than life.

It’s been 10 years, and I still feel like that Spring long ago broke me. Who I am now seems diminished, and my writing was a way to transcend the mousy older woman I’d become. It hasn’t worked.

It seems like I’d have gotten used to the “New Normal” by now, but having spent 48 years in at least cyclothymic and bipolar 2 state, those highs and lows were my personality. Now I need to find the personality that remains when the highs and lows are taken away.

Editing

I edited yesterday!

I looked at the chapters so far for unknown title (formerly God’s Seeds) through ProWritingAid to acquaint myself with what I’d already written and to fix my idiosyncratic style before proceeding.

It went well. I got rid of all of those unusual dialog tags I excel at. The problem is, I don’t know where to do from there. It’s not like I’m pantsing, where I am making things up as I go along. No, I have an outline, but it’s so long since I’ve touched it I don’t know where to go with it.

I need my assistant (husband Richard) to help me sort this. But he’s sacked out on the bed.

Sigh.

On Vacation

Writing time

I’ve got all the time in the world (at least this week) and a nicely set up office. It’s time to write.

Except that I feel overwhelmed by the writing task ahead of me — start writing on a book I started and did not finish. That is less daunting than starting a new one right now.

My writing partner just showed up:

This is Chloe, by the way. Our youngest cat and my shadow. At the moment, she’s laying in a sunbeam in the office. Eventually, she will climb up into my lap, making typing all but impossible. Some writing partner, eh?

Another cat came to keep me company:

This is Girlie-Girl; she’s a fourteen-year-old, and she’s about as grouchy as you can imagine. Right now, both are rather sedate, but I don’t expect that to last long. Not much writing will get done when they fight.

But I need to write

I keep putting the writing off — I’ve put it off for three months, to be honest. But I have seriously mixed feelings about my writing these days. I have gotten little traction, which makes me wonder if there’s something wrong with my writing. It’s more likely that I haven’t done advertising too well, and that my topics are unusual (or, as agents like to say, “imaginative” and “unique” just as they reject me.) But I think too much and get myself in trouble.

I think I’ll put this off a little more because lunch is happening soon and I want to rest before writing. I’ll let you know tomorrow if I’m successful.

My New Office Setup

Let me tell you about my office

(I’m sorry I haven’t been here the past couple of days; I got clobbered by some nasty bug (not COVID) and I spent a lot of quality time in bed. Now I’m up again and enjoying my vacation.)

Because we couldn’t go anywhere for Spring Break, and I wanted a writing retreat, Richard cleaned the office for me. To give you an idea of what this entails, the “office” is the designation of the smallest bedroom of this 3-bedroom 1913 kit home.

The room itself seems too small for a bedroom at all, being about 10×12 total. It could be the kid’s room — that is kid, singular; it would be hard to fit another bed in this room unless they were bunk beds. As an office, it’s an ideal room. With peaches and cream walls, bookshelves, and a classic library table for a computer desk, it’s a comfortable space.

Except that we cluttered it the way middle-class Americans do: with old technology that failed to deliver its promise; with paperwork we haven’t yet filed; with half-used legal pads bought and forgotten over the years. There’s a celebratory poster from my first novel that I need to frame. And a box of cookbooks I got from my mom when she died we haven’t shelved yet. If we ever had to move, we’d have to rent a bevy of semis.

My desk (there is still clutter to the side of me that may never go away)

A present for me

My husband cleaned the office for me, as I stated above. This meant taking most of the boxes of detritus and stuffing them in the closet. That worked for me, as I didn’t open the closet door the last time it was full of detritus. That’s what happens when one cleans out a closet: other things take its place because we’re used to shoving things in closets.

Right now, Richard is dusting down the office. (Yes, he’s the sexiest man on earth when he does housework.) It’s feeling like a real writing retreat and we have designated it as mine unless I need to lend it out to Richard.

All the room is waiting for are my posters celebrating my book publication.

And for me to write already.

Feeling the Tug of Writing

It’s about time

I didn’t write yesterday, but I really wanted to. I was tired after a day of meetings and taking care of my husband (the stomach flu, not anything dangerous). But I felt the Spring in my bones, and I felt my muse over my shoulder and I wondered if I could get back into my story that needs writing.

Stories on the docket

I have, in fact, two stories that I could write. One of them is contemporary fantasy, taking place on my fictitious collective Barn Swallows Dance, and in the realm of the Archetypes, InterSpace. Changes happen such that the Archetypes are slowly being fired from their task carrying the essence of humanity and thus humans’ lives. The Archetypes explode at their sudden lack of purpose. The only person who can stop the bloodshed, if at all, is a pregnant eighteen-year-old girl who carries the gift of influencing history randomly. To do so, she faces the dangers of a human in InterSpace.

The other is fantasy romance, about a thirty-something librarian who encounters a charming neighbor who she falls for, to her friend’s surprise. When the man disappears, the librarian meets his goblin accomplice, and she embarks on a journey to rescue her man from a very possessive queen of Faerie.

So there are two stories that I could write — and a third option, which would be to come up with a new story. I don’t know that I have any knocking around my brain right now. I am inspired by the extrordinary relationships of ordinary people, the surprising things hidden in plain sight, and the unexpected consequences of seemingly ordinary things. And people, beautiful people who I can write fanciful things about.

All I need to do is write.

The Muse

Meet my muse

My muse showed up in my dream last night, pale and red-haired and willowy, and kissed me on the forehead, then darted away.

My muse, the Muse of Things Hidden in Plain Sight, reminded me of my purpose when I thought I had long lost it.

My muse appears as a friend of mine, but isn’t really, because that person would not kiss me in dreams, however chaste. I would also not want to get in trouble with my friend’s wonderful wife. I understand symbolism, however. Long red hair and mischief speak to me. Muses should be wild, unpredictable, capricious. One does not possess muses. Muses possess one instead. So, of course, he would appear like my friend, knowing it would rattle me.

The message

What is the message when my muse leans in and kisses my forehead? The first message is that Spring is here, even though we don’t feel it yet? Astronomical Spring is in 20 days (or so), and the weather has become warmer. The robins aren’t here yet, but the mourning doves are making plans for chicks. Snowdrops haven’t broken the ground yet, but my seedlings in the basement are making their way to true leaves.

The second message is that it’s time to write, and that there are reasons to write. I write about relationships — some of them romantic; others not. The muse’s kiss awakened my characters and gave me the blessing to write about them. The muse reminds me of who I am and what makes me who I am.

The end of winter

I guess I have been going through Winter. The last time I wrote significantly was November (but to be fair, I wrote a book that month.) I didn’t feel like writing; I didn’t feel inspired to write, and I didn’t know if I was a writer anymore.

For me, to be a writer is to be beautiful and mysterious, to hold within oneself multitudes, to hear strange harmonies. I think I might be there again.

Five Minutes

Growing up gifted

I hate the word “gifted”, but I don’t know what other word to use to convey the place I was when I was younger. I had some of the highest grades on standardized exams that had ever been seen in my school district. If I got a B in a class, it was because I marked questions wrong that were right, so as not to be caught daydreaming. I saw it as nothing special, and in fact all my brains did was make me a pariah.

And, of course, it also made me the teachers’ darling. I grew accustomed to the praise I got from them. In high school in particular, I started receiving honors and scholarships, and seeing my name in the paper was a secret thrill. I was a big fish in a small pond. Further, I didn’t have to do anything to get praise but be myself.

Coming down to earth

This continued through my undergraduate years — though I wasn’t winning scholarships by then, at least I was on the honor roll and the Bronze Tablet for my grades (it’s a University of Illinois thing — I was in the top 2% of my class.)

Then I became a professor in a university with many people whose abilities equalled or excelled mine. There are no rewards for doing one’s job. But those of us who became addicted to praise, like myself, are left to wonder where our value is.

Five minutes of fame

I am growing to understand that I had my five minutes of fame in high school. It demanded little of me, just an accident of birth. There are so many others like me who were just as accidentally lucky — good looks, the right Instagram post, a darling cat. Hard work may help, but it is the lucky moment that launches someone into the limelight. I think of the actors in the science fiction genre who will never become well-known stars outside of those who watch science fiction, the people who work in jobs that we assume are unskilled, all the people who are unrewarded for their excellent work.

I’ve had that praise. It’s time for me to give up the limelight.

Coming on Two Years of COVID

Two years ago next week

Two years ago, it was late February and we in the United States had just started hearing of a virus called SARS-CoV-2 that was spreading through China, then Europe. As I read the Internet accounts, part of me dreaded the inevitable pandemic; another part of me became convinced that it would stay across the ocean and peter out, as other SARS infections had. Then, when it reached the coasts of the US, I still monitored the news while assuring myself it was a big city infection that would not reach the rolling hills of Northwest Missouri.

During my spring break (I teach at a university), I watched my emails to see how the university would react to the looming threat, all the while panicking at the virus creeping ever closer, a quickly advancing threat which left in its wake so many people making inexorable slides toward death, kept alive on ventilators until their bodies gave out.

Then, halfway through Spring Break, while universities hustled to continue education online as a brave new experiment, my university sent emails warning us we might follow in their footsteps. Then, a day later, we were told we had a week and a half to move all our instruction online, and that students would not come back to campus from break.

Isolation

The state’s shelter in place order fell into place, and I panicked. I hyperventilated while trying to clean our chaotic kitchen, and I worried I was having a relapse of my bipolar from all the stress. I called my psychiatrist’s nurse, and she told me many people were having the same symptoms.

So many changes bombarded us: the working from home (which didn’t affect me as I was already working from home), the precautions of shopping, the prohibition on social activities. My life shrunk to the walls and window of my living room. My husband masked up and braved the grocery stores with their six-foot distancing.

I decided that, instead of spending all my time in a panic, I would learn to make sourdough bread with a starter I captured myself. The starter made a fine whole-wheat sourdough, and I bought 50 lbs of white whole-wheat flour because the stores were out of it.

We picked up our restaurant meals curbside, and it was not quite the same eating a steak out of styrofoam go containers.

Closer to normalcy

After a while, the shelter-in-place orders expired and my college started meeting again (with distancing guidelines). The restaurants opened up, and the stores started getting more food in stock. The mask ordinances evaporated, although my university required them and most of my colleagues and friends continued to wear them in public, as I did. Slowly, even these restrictions faded. Until this week my university has made mask-wearing suggested rather than required.

I don’t know if I’m ready to go maskless yet, given that I have been masking for so long. But when I’m free of a mask, there will be things I can do, like wear makeup and be heard in class without yelling.

A life post-COVID

I don’t know what a life post-COVID looks like. I know that, over the past couple of years, we in the US hadn’t suffered as much as other countries with crowding, with less advanced medical systems, with fewer preventative measures. But we suffered, if mostly in our day-to-day routines. And we are not done with the pandemics — another round of COVID may be in our future, or another microorganism we didn’t count on. It’s inevitable with access to other countries and terrains, where we don’t have natural immunity. Maybe I will never lose my mask, or only have it off for short periods of time. Maybe we’ll have another shelter-in-place. But what I don’t think we’ll have is a post-COVID celebration, because we’ve lived with it so long that it seems normal.

Brought to You by the Color Blue

A lazy Saturday

I have spent the morning looking at gardening plans — or what passes for plans for me. I have seeds growing in the basement, most of these herbs in the mint family. Orange thyme, lavender sage, winter savory, Korean giant hyssop, orange balm. Why grow what I can buy at the store? The Thai eggplant looks like it’s growing good and the cardoon looks like it’s going to take out its neighbors. One tray, however, looks like it’s going to fail on me, so no sweet violets or mitsuba.

Once upon a time, someone pointed out to me that there are very few truly blue flowers. Many are periwinkle, others are blue-violet. Some mauves are mistaken for blue. There are blue flowers, like a pure cornflower. Is this flower a pure blue? I’d say grey-blue.

Am I blue?

I feel like I should get a lot more done today than thinking about my garden. I can do nothing concrete about my garden right now; it’s too cold to break ground or plant or amend soil. I can’t even plant more seed — I’ve planted all I can until it’s basil season, during which I will plant impossible amounts of two different basils and wonder what I will do with all of it.

What I really want to do is drink affrogato and watch Instagram reels. A relaxing Saturday.

And what would that hurt? Not a thing.

Maybe the blues aren’t such a bad thing.