on being a writer: write

“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.”  EB White

This topic, “write”,  emerges halfway through the 13-week plan I created for the start of my 2015 writing life.  Since this is Chapter 5, I am only a bit behind!  During weeks one and two, the workload at my practice was considerably light, and I had the energy to write every night when I came home from work.  I also wrote about my writing in on a google doc of running dates.  For 8 days.  Then the writing about the writing stopped.  And soon after, my work schedule increased and my daily writing frequency dipped in the other direction. 

This lull in my written output is typical when my business life gets busy. I treat patients almost back-to-back patients for 8-10 hours a day, keep up with the necessary documentation, communications and office needs, and return home at night close to depletion.   I need the evenings to relax and process before I go to sleep.  My words have been spent, albeit wisely, in other efforts during the day.  This can initiate several weeks of silence at the blog before I have a little break and I have the emotional energy to write once again. 

In the past I have accepted this rhythm, but now I want to change that pattern and write through the busy times, too.  I was surprised this past month when I couldn’t stick to my daily plan, thinking I created reasonable goals for myself, though I haven’t fallen as far away from writing as usual. (In 2014, I participated in three online courses through Tweetspeak and published 20 posts total at my blog.  So far in 7 weeks of 2015, I have published 8 posts). I spent time hashing out thoughts on this with my writing partner in our weekly chats, and refined some of my goals and expectations for my writing life through this process.

I am grateful for my writing partner.  It’s given me joy and encouragement to share what I am writing, and the accountability has kept me connected to my plan.  During weeks three and four, a week passed and I didn’t have anything written to discuss, so I chewed on my barriers during our discussion.  Another week went by, and still I had no writing to share.  The start of the fifth week I was motivated to write SOMETHING.  I was stuck on a piece that didn’t seem complete, but before my next online chat, I published it anyway (see “notice”).  Even reading it now there are lines that I would edit, but surrendering perfection allowed me to move forward.

I know that for me to keep writing during these intense phases, I need to have some prompts to work on, whether it’s blogging through a book, refining journal entries and thoughts, or participating with other writer’s/groups prompts.  When blogging through THIS this book, I am provided with guidance to hone my skills, and often have a topic bubbling right at the surface to develop.  I enjoy the notebooks of my notes that I continue to mine.  I have been writing and re-tooling some of these thoughts, even if I don’t publish them at the blog.

Most importantly, this week I have been evaluating how well my goals support the vision for my writing life.  Right now, I am not writing to earn a living, but I am writing because I feel a passion to do so and I want my writing to continuously improve.  The pressure to write daily is actually taxing my motivation to write regularly.  I have decided that each week I will look at my calendar and schedule 3 blocks of time to write that fit flexibly within my composite schedule.  I am going to keep the rest of the goals as I initially established them, and look forward to exploring the next chapters in this second half of my 13 weeks (I can still finish “on time”). 

on being a writer: notice

Washington Square Park, July 5, 2014

I exit the cool air of the train at the Christopher Street station.  Negotiating a heated wind tunnel to climb the staircase from the platform, I emerge onto the sidewalk into blistering sun.  I squint and shield my eyes as they adjust to the light, slipping my hand into my bag for my sunglasses, then head east toward Washington Square Park.

While walking, I adjust the straps of my backpack and slip both arms back through for a better balance.  The bag isn’t heavy but its contents fit awkwardly in the space: phone, wallet, a baggie of trail mix, a large bottle of water, pens and my journal, and my new camera.

Most locals are out of town for the holiday weekend, leaving Washington Square Park to us visitors and tourists.  I am a visitor; not native to the city by any means, but one who frequents the parks and shops and museums and restaurants with a degree of ease and familiarity. A visitor takes no detail for granted, but unlike the tourist, is not on a sole hunt to document these details via selfies for Facebook.   I have my pick of seats, and I choose a wide, flat concrete bench so that my back is to the Arch and my view is set on the fountain.  An a capella doo-wop group harmonizing behind me draws a crowd; the people sway and clap along with the tunes.

I sit down and jump up from the heat on bench’s surface that threatens to sear my white skin.  In the summer sun my legs actually look a little nuclear in their glow.  I sit again, gingerly, close the edge so my shorts protect my legs.  I take off my white ankle socks and grey Converse All-Stars ®, but the ground is too hot for the soles of my feet so I rest them atop the empty shoes.

The sun is almost directly overhead and the shadows are harsh, so I decide to write instead of taking pictures.  Do I seem a cliché as I observe here in the park with my recycled paper notebook and gel point pen?  Or does anyone even notice me?  Probably the latter.  The invisibility here in the park, among other artists and citizens and visitors and tourists is a comfort, and I settle into my space and have a closer peek.

Parents stroll past me, singly or coupled, swaddling babies to their bodies with slings and pushing strollers.  A precocious toddler breaks free of her stroller, running ahead (not quite as far as it seems to her) with chubby legs and a banana’d belly, stopping short and turning to let her dad almost catch up.  An older girl whizzes past on a blue scooter.

A man stands next to the bench one down from mine, leaning against his bike. He stares off in one direction, not idly but as if scanning a crowd for someone to emerge.  There is no crowd where he is looking.  His sneakers are like mine, but black, and his socks were probably once bright white like mine. Now they are mottled, clean but thrown in one too many times with a washload of colors.  He holds an iTouch in his right hand and places the ear buds with his left.  I wonder why he would choose the isolation of a personal soundtrack over the streaming sounds of the fountain or the silliness of people splashing in it or the voices and languages too numerous to count and too comingled to identify, or the harmony of the doo wop group or the beats of the drummer across the circle.

The wind carries spray from the fountain to my skin. I wish I didn’t carry all this stuff with me so I could slip my feet in the fountain without getting my supplies wet.

A man stops beside me.  Hard-worn Nike flip-flops expose the most weathered digits I have ever seen.  They are thick with elephant skin wrinkles and callouses.  The yellow toenails curve on the edges a bit too much, grotesque cookie cutters pressing into slabs of dough.

A kid with a guitar is sitting on another bench 15 feet away from me.  I sense the beat of his foot tambourine and I see his mouth moving.  He is strums his guitar but his song is imperceptible from where I sit.

A  Hispanic man with a grandfatherly countenance sits across the fountain with two drums.  A small boy, not his own, sits on the bench next to him.  The man is patient and warm, smiling as he shows the boy how to add his beat to the man’s.  Both look up and smile at the mom who snaps a picture of the moment .  They boy and the mom say thank you and walk away but the boys hands are stinging with the vibration of the skins (his and the drums and the mans) and his heart was changed, just a bit, forever.

Suddenly, I am filled with longing and hot tears threaten to overflow my lids. I wish I was brave enough, or hopeful enough, to walk over and sit with the man myself.

A tiny girl walks by, probably a petite 2 ½ year old.  She is VERY sure of her steps with her tart lemony pants and sweet strawberry sandals.  When you were that little girl I cared for your every need.  Now that you are gone I only feel the care I need.

An older woman wearing  orthopedic black shoes, a white blazer and black polyester pants walks slowly through the park.  She is tall, upright in her shuffle, pretty with silver hair coiffed into pincurls and lacquered, unmoving in the wind. She has been here before and will not cease to return, although today she wears too many synthetic layers for this heat.

Soon it’s my time for me to board the train that will bring me home. I tuck my notebook and my pen into the backpack, finish the water in my bottle and discard the remains of the trail mix that has melted in my pack.  The sights and sounds of the park fade into the distance as I descend the stairs to the platform below.

on being a writer: surround

                                                   New York City Poetry Festival, Governor's Island, NY, July 2014

As a holistic speech pathologist, I spend much of my work day actively engaged in the occupation of listening.  I listen to the monologues of children who have difficulty with social cues, and help to shape better conversation.  I listen to children who lack spoken words cry and discern the meaning:  I don’t want to do this, I am sad/angry, I am relieving my stress and thank you for hearing me.  With my sight, I listen for responses in eye contact and body posture.  Using my hands I listen for changes in tissue tension and respiration rate, for the tensing and relaxing of the body as it readies itself for processing and learning new skills.  I listen for distortions in vowel production in connected speech to tell me how the articulators form the vocal tract during the complex motor acts of speech sound sequencing.  I listen to parents as they share the concerns and triumphs of their child’s journey.  I give physical and emotional support, knowledge and provide a sounding board when needed, in an intimate, intense exchange for 6-8 hours daily. 

When I am working, I have designed my room to be as distraction free as possible.  I keep the same traffic flow, use soft lighting, and the walls are painted the blue of Bahamian sea and sky.  The womb-like atmosphere fosters a soothing space that allows the children to initiate thoughts and ideas, to be heard and ultimately challenged to grow.  It is very easy to stay in that concentrated mental state when I leave work, but that type of intensity isn’t necessary, or healthy, for the rest of my life.  I find that a change of scenery every few weeks helps my brain to reboot.  I will go into NYC for the day for a meal, or to a museum or concert, by myself of with a friend.  Sometimes I meet my daughter when she’s at work and enjoy some awesome Mexican food at the Hotel Tortuga.  I often escape to Ocean Grove, New Jersey, most likely in the off-season, to feel the crisp salt air, collect shells and to walk barefoot on the beach.  Weird sidebar:  When I walk barefoot on the beach in the winter, instead of getting cold, my feet actually heat up to the point where they feel like baked potatoes.  It’s a very wild sensation. J

My home contains mementoes of these trips.  I’ve traveled some amazing vacations, but mostly I’ve ventured out on day jaunts and short detours when I could capture the time.  There are memories and stories and people associated with most of the objects I have on display.

Last year, due to a series of unfortunate (and unrelated) neurologic events, I was homebound most of the time I wasn’t working (and I was working a lot less than usual).  My ability to focus for reading and writing was seriously compromised, and I started many thoughts, projects and books that I didn’t finish, or even forgot about completely.  As I am recovering, I have set up a new plan to organize and deepen my creative writing process.

Firstly, I have a pile of notebooks, books with pages marked, papers clipped together, notes on my iPhone and other bits and scraps of written phrases and ideas.  While that (lack of) system used to work when I wrote sporadically, it’s no longer practical and doesn’t feel as “artsy” and cool as it used to feel.  Instead, it’s become an island of undeveloped ideas that are waiting to be brought to fruition or laid to rest.  I plan to take these first three months of 2015 and mine this pile using the “adapt, achieve, abandon or archive” approach to dealing with them.  So far, it’s been fun to gather these ideas and work them out or file them accordingly, either here at the blog or in my simple system at Google docs. 

I have also committed to reading more fiction, especially short stories.  Over the last two years I have mostly read poetry and other “formation” books, either spiritual or artistic.  I am going through this pile that I have accumulated.  It’s not an obscene amount, but it needs attention.  Some of the books need to be prioritized to read, and some need to be passed along or returned because their focus is no longer relevant to me.  I am also going to read at least one short story per week, in preparation, perhaps, for writing one of my own.

This plan is really a continuation of habits that I started last year with the physical off-loading.  I am going to use up what I have already on hand before I look for something more to add to my writing life surround, and pass along what some else can use better.  An extended artist’s date without leaving the comfort of my home this chilly East Coast January.  

on being a writer: arrange

In February 2013, my daughter and I lived in an apartment in Montmartre, Paris, for 10 days.  Spacious by Parisian standards, the apartment contained one bedroom (where I slept) and a good-sized living area with a kitchenette, a queen sofa-sleeper, and a dining area that doubled as a writing space for my daughter.  The apartment was warm, inviting, and very simply stocked.  Everything we needed to prepare and eat meals was there, but not too much extra.  I often looked around, pondering how much easier, and how freeing, how inspiring, it would be to keep a home that was so simple.

Every morning, I journaled at a wooden writing desk in the bedroom.  The grainy surface of the desk, the scratching of my pen across paper, and the texture of the aged wood floors under my socked feet, sealed the sensory experience of my records that rushes to my consciousness with the slightest trigger or call.  Even the memory of riding the coffin-like elevator from the fourth floor to street level and stepping out onto the cobblestone streets sends me into a giddy escape. 

I still dream of Rue Lepic.  For a time, Van Gogh lived at 54 Rue Lepic with his brother, Theo.  Artists and writers drunkenly stumbled and loved and cheated and created along those streets ages before me.  I can hear the clop-clopping of horses and the click-clackling of the wagons behind them, sometimes darting to the curb to avoid getting run over by their ghosts.  Aromas of chocolate, coffee, bread and the sweetest fruits mixed with cigarettes and wine, no matter the time of day, entice even the sleepiest, unhungry palate for just one sip, just one bite, and then one more.

Returning home after our travels, Tori and I were on the verge of major life transitions; she, heading off to college in NYC, and I, in a new season of singlehood.  I didn’t realize I was preparing for a move of my own, but I started to offload household items anyway.  Over the 16 years we lived in that house I had collected pots and pans, kitchen utensils, doubles, triples of things, glassware and dishes, decorations and furniture…I didn’t realize how much was there, because I had the room to neatly store or house it.  Now it was time for a change.  I had a vision of that Parisian apartment, and I wanted to live into it.

It was really so much fun to give things away, where they would be better used.  I prayed over the items, prayed for the volunteers handling the items and the people who would receive them.  I thanked God for His abundance.  Even after months of giving stuff away, I had more than enough, but was surrounded by just the things I loved.  I was thankful to be in a position to give, and mindful of the times I had a need that someone anticipated and met.

Then, last January, it was time to GO!  I moved to a condominium a few towns west, not as small the Parisian apartment, but closely resembling it. For the most part, this space is mine. (Just don’t tell Lucie, my cat, that I said it that way).  Thankfully, some weekends and school breaks when Tori comes home, we are making new routines and memories together, too. 

  

*****

As I settled into my new home, I left a lot of open space to allow new living habits to develop.  One conscious choice was not to set up a “home office”, for several reasons.  Firstly, I own my own business and have an office to myself just a few miles from where I live, and I tend not to bring work home with me.  Secondly, I wanted to test the need for that type of space in my new area, or see if I could integrate it somehow into the general living space.

This past year, I wrote at the dining table, at the computer workstation, sitting on my sofa; basically, wherever I landed for the allotted time.  Although I was able to produce when the ideas arose, a structured writing life did not emerge.  After reading through Chapter 2,  I realized I do have a need for a dedicated creative space.  What to do?  I really missed my desk from the old place.  It was a simple Ikea put-together, but a had large, flat surface, too big to fit anywhere now, or so I thought.  It had been sitting in my basement, waiting to be relocated.  The only possibility, after a careful survey, was in my bedroom.  Pushing all of the furniture about 3 feet to the window wall opened up a perfect space to fit my desk.  It was like Santa came down the chimney with my desk for Christmas morning! 

*****

Now I have been reunited with my desk, and the space is separate from the household workstation I established elsewhere.  No bills or errands to list here.  Just an easy plugin for my laptop, a few seashells from my latest winter beach excursion, a repositioned lamp, et voila!  Under the glass I have a few of my favorite photos, and to the upper right edge is a stack of books that I use to keep me moving deeper and forward with this craft.

When I look at this space, I breathe.  It’s a lovely feeling. And when I think about writing more regularly, I am ready to make that space in both my home and in my schedule.  I’m still working out the specifics, but I also enjoy the freedom to let a process unfold.  I’m a good meanderer, un veritable flaneur. 

I do plan to blog a narrative post, something other than poetry, once a week for the next three months.  These posts are hard for me!  I start them all the time, but abandon the thoughts before they are complete.   I have also found a writing partner to hash out the road blocks and cheer me along.  We are not working on the same projects, but we have taken online classes and know we work well together.  I’m excited and encouraged about that!

*****

Even if you are not a writer, or don’t intend to pursue writing in any way, I am sure you have places in your life that can use some off-loading.  Even good things can be a burden, or a block, to a new focus or endeavor.  Read along with me over the next three months.  Maybe you will want to make that next step wherever it may lead.  Let me know?