I’d been procrastinating for weeks. I knew I needed an author headshot taken for my book cover, but I hate having my picture taken. Not only that, what if I want to change my hair color? Or get a dramatic new haircut? It never seemed the right time.
Then I got an email from the publisher asking about it and saying something about schedules and blah, blah, blah. OK. Time to act.
There were 10 of us around the large wooden table. We came together on Valentine’s Day to talk about writing and to have a little fun capturing the memories of our first loves. After a 15-minute exercise, every paper was marked with details that were touching, surprising, funny, and heartbreaking.
We heard about the beautiful red hair of a pre-teen boy; about a first kiss, at 12 years old, in a field, that made the writer’s body feel things she had never imagined it was capable of; about the storybook Germanic features of a first crush that the writer, now in his sixties, can see as clearly as if it were yesterday.
I was in Michigan this week at our annual girls’ weekend—two wonderfully lazy days spent by the fireplace in a cozy inn, catching up with seven old and new friends. We ate and shopped and laughed and it wasn’t until I got home that I remembered one friend mentioning how stressful her job was.
I have no idea what her job is. I never asked. And because I never asked, I missed a chance to connect with her in a more meaningful way.
Last night, when I went to kiss my 12-year-old daughter goodnight, she burst into tears.
“Why can’t I see them more often?” she wailed. She was talking about her friends, the triplets, who had been at our house for a sleepover.
My daughter met the three sisters several years ago at a family summer camp, and the four of them have remained friends despite the 70 miles between them. They had a wonderful visit, crammed with movies, make-overs, homemade cake pops, and late-night giggles—the stuff of memories. But none of that stopped her from sobbing in grief.
I was walking my dog today when she spotted two other dogs behind us on the other side of the street. She kept stopping to look back at them, making strange little growling sounds. Since it was only twenty degrees and I didn’t want to be out in the first place, I quickly became annoyed. I tried to point her in the right direction and convince her that what was a block behind her wasn’t going to hurt her.
When I got home, I sat at my computer and felt the same annoyance. I struggled to get my writing going in the right direction and to remind myself that looking back at past events can’t hurt me.
I’d been looking forward to the visioning workshop for a few weeks. It was an annual event hosted at my spiritual center and would be held after Sunday services. The day of the event I made all the necessary arrangements to be gone all day: I scheduled a dog walk, made a lunch, and took an Uber so my son could have the car for the day. I was ready to vision my new year!
What I’d forgotten to do was pre-register. As the church service was concluding, the pastor announced that the workshop was sold out. I felt myself caving with disappointment, followed quickly by outrage. It can’t be sold out! I’m supposed to go!
In a recent blog, I asked if there was any topic you’d like me to write about. I thought it would be fun to have an “assignment.”
Dave sent me this: “I would like to hear about your biggest challenges for 2018, challenges you know that if you decided to embody and embrace, you would uplevel as a mom or writer, and allow you to give more of your gifts to the world.”
Hmmm. This is a tough request.
This month marks the winter solstice, the shortest, darkest day of the year. It’s a time to turn inward and allow the shadows to loom up and over us while we patiently, trustingly wait for the light. It’s fitting then that when I wrote last week about some of my challenges as a single mom, I heard from readers who were remembering their own dark times.
Three women shared with me why it’s particularly hard to hold the light around the holidays:
Today I want to write about something I’m pretty sure I can’t put into words. I realize that sounds crazy and it probably is.
But isn’t that the fascination behind writing–that desire to brush against the ineffable? To come as close as possible to defining the formless?
It is for me. And since Christmas is the time of year when we make lists of the things we want, I started thinking about those desires of our hearts that we don’t write down, specifically the longings we don’t realize we have until something strikes a chord within us.
Here we are, smack in the middle of the holiday season, and I’m waffling on how much good cheer I plan to spread. Too much will spread me too thin, and too little will make me feel crusty and crotchety. I’ve already told my kids that I don’t feel like buying a tree this year. “Jeez, mom, why not just cancel Christmas?” my daughter said.
See? There’s pressure everywhere to be jolly and generous, to shine brightly, to bake and shop and make polite chitchat. It’s the time of year for white elephants—the kind that come in wrapping paper or as 2-ton grievances that crush the joy out of family gatherings.
👉 Enjoy dedicated writing space just steps from Lake Michigan
👉 Benefit from one-on-one developmental editing sessions
