Writer's Block

It frustrates me that I can’t write. I feel like there’s a story inside somewhere, but when I sit down to actually write it, I freeze. Can I really only write 500 words or less in corporate business speak?

When I was a little girl, writing “books” was one of my favorite things. Anything was story-worthy. Now I feel like I have to write the great American novel every time I have a quiet evening to myself. Those quiet evenings usually end in frustrated Facebook surfing.

I still love to write. I feel like it’s what I do best. The one skill I have that’s actually marketable. But I really want to write a story. I want to be invested and involved in characters. I want to craft a plot. But how? When I think of an idea, I’m usually sick of it by the time I’m done thinking about it. Probably not a good start to a book. I feel like I need to let my mind just go. Let it be free of the constraints of seven years of marketing pointless products of all shapes and software.

I've thought a lot the past year about what I want, who I am, and how I want to spend my life. I think these are answers I'll ponder for many years to come, but one thing I'm sure of is that creative expression through writing is something I want. Now that I know I want it, I need to make time to do it.

But first, I need to free myself of my own expectations. Stop worrying about perfection and just writing. Stop worrying about finishing and actually get started.

That’s my goal for 2014. To write something that means something to me. 

Gravy Train

Making gravy makes me anxious. But my attempt this Thanksgiving proved to be successful—both as a butter-laden blanket for the type of poultry we thankfully only eat once a year and as a new definition for the wonderfully hard stage of life known as new motherhood.

The story starts one afternoon as I was sitting on the floor, naming farm animals with their accompanying sounds as my one year old pointed to their pictures in a book. Time wasn’t even crawling; sitting still would be a better description. Anyone who has ever categorized fauna with a toddler knows that minutes have a mysterious way of doubling in length. We’d been at it for a quarter hour when an odor hit me that would have been right at home in a barnyard. I picked up Max and with a cheerful voice announced, “Time for a diappy change!”

Arms flailing. Legs kicking. Diaper flying. No more needs to be said to provide a sufficient image. The first thought to cross my mind: look what my life has been reduced to.

I used to make lots of money. I used to be a top-reviewed employee of a major technology company. I used to be complimented on my clothes. I used to be told I was smart, that I excelled, that I had potential. Now I try to figure out ways to change a diaper without getting poop smears on the carpet.

Life reduced? Yes, I thought, reveling in the self-pity that seems to come so easily to my stay-at-home self.

A few days later, as I prepared to make my gravy attempt, I read the recipe for the twenty-seventh time in the November edition of Bon Appetit: simmer until reduced to about 2 ½ cups, 20-25 minutes. There it was again: reduce.

I’d been previously thinking about reduce in the most basic way: to lessen, to deplete. In cooking though, reducing is a process of enriching. Simmering down a sauce concentrates the flavor and thickens the body. By lessening, you enhance the final product.

Reducing requires heat, which can’t be comfortable for gravy and definitely isn’t for me. I think of the heat in this case as the long hours, days, and weeks where you put someone else before yourself. Where you put yourself on the back burner.

Yes, my life has been reduced by having a baby. It’s smaller in scope and income. But I’m hopeful that this reduction will ultimately enhance me. By evaporating my own unselfishness and impatience day by painfully slow day, I hope to become a more fully developed person. By boiling down life to my most closely held values, I hope to eliminate materialistic success as a primary motivator in my decisions. The next time I think about what my life has been reduced to, I hope to see the richness rather than the want.

Message in the Leaves

Leaves' final color burst at the downhill edge of their lifecycle deliver a message from the Creator of us all. Don't fear the end, they seem to say. The yearly transformation of trees show us that there's beauty in change, even glory in death. In the same way that there could be no spring without winter, there can be no resurrection without death.

I've been thinking about death lately--the mystery rather than the macabre. For all our vast collective achievement, humanity still has not been able to permanently prevent our own end. Our mortality eventually catches up to all of us--no matter how indispensable we are, how accomplished, how needed. Death's inevitability is reason alone for humility. How can we, who cannot thwart the end of life, dare to say that this life is the end? How can we trust that our scientific method, that cannot find a solution to the most basic and universal aspect of the human condition, has all the answers to life's other pressing questions?

We stand continually in death's shadow. But that shadow can be more like the welcome shade of a tree in summer heat than a dark menace lurking on twilight street corners. If we accept that our time is limited, we can decide more wisely how to spend our short allotment. If we accept that there is only one Way to overcome death, we stop fearing the end and embrace the beginning and middle. Understanding death helps me appreciate life in all its simple grandeur, like the coral leaves waving starkly against a sharp blue autumn sky, telling me that life, even in death, goes on.

Change is History

A ship cannot sail until its loosed from its moorings.

Oh, history. That great teacher of lessons. No matter what the postmodernists say, I still believe there is much to be learned from looking back. By examining humanity's big picture, we spot trends or patterns that help us find understanding in our much smaller lives. For example, the different ways change can function.

Some historical transitions are simply the product of time. Minutes and days gently tick away and slowly, almost imperceptibly, things change. Flat medieval art gains Renaissance perspective. Romanesque heaviness loses weight and becomes Gothic splendor. Commonly held attitudes slowly change until what was once forbidden is openly lauded. It takes the benefit of hindsight--perhaps several hundred years of it--to see the change, let alone understand it.

Then there are the other kinds of transitions. The events or moments that pivot the world, taking it's course from one direction and forcibly twisting it toward another future. The dates that we have and will continue to pound into the minds of generations of school kids in the history classes they abhor. Columbus sailing the ocean blue. The shot heard 'round the world. Pearl Harbor. 9/11. In these moments, life, as we collectively know it, irrevocably changes.

Such it is with our own lives. Some transitions happen organically just by living. Friendships ebb and flow due more to circumstances than deliberate action. Relationships evolve, becoming better or worse depending on the daily acts we put into them. Haircuts grow out. These kinds of transitions are relatively comfortable. Yes, they require dealing with change, but not the in-your-face, aggressive kind of change.

And that kind of change can do a number on the most solid of us. These are the big events, the ones we mark our lives by. Leaving home. Getting married. Having a baby. Losing a loved one. Dying. For most of us, it's impossible to remember every moment of our lives; however, few of us ever forget the first time we hold our babies or the way we felt when we moved far from home, walking away from all that was familiar.

These transitions are the ones that can make us feel like strangers in our own lives. We wake up wondering who we are and how we got here. Even if we're grateful we're there, such seismic shifts in our existence understandably throw us off balance, making us question the fundamental elements of who we are.

As a mother whose first baby just turned one, the last year of my life has been one of searching. Who is this new baby, and how can I raise him well? Who am I now that I can't measure my worth by the checklist-paycheck productivity that's been my mainstay? What is really most important to me--and perhaps more precisely, how do I live my life in accordance with those most important things?

With great events, the aftermath is often as compelling as the moment itself. The event sparks the change, but it's what happens next that actually makes the change. Giving birth was the catalyst to a period of intense soul-searching that made me think about what is soul-satisfying. I think transitions unmoor us for good reason: if we were always tied down, we'd never have the chance to chart a new course.

Kool-Aid Allergies

Without brushstrokes, there would be no painting.

It's easy to see a big picture. We understand it - we know exactly what it is (unless it's modern art, in which case you at least know that you're too provincial to get it). But when you look closely, you see the details. The painstaking layers of paint and gesso applied, erased, reapplied. The brushstrokes that start hesitantly and then grow bold. The exact lines and the curved lines. Without the details, the big picture would never come to be.

Life is that way. It's easy to envision the big picture - happy family, financial security, fulfillment. What's tricky is the details that get you there. The minutes and hours and days that make up the months and years that eventually make up your life. Experts say you need a vision for you life if you want to make something of it. I don't disagree - after all, before there can be a painting there has to be an idea of a painting - but I do think that finding the path to that vision can be a lot more work than we anticipate.

I'm in the closing years of twenties. When I think back over the past almost-decade, my biggest regret is that I spent too much time being unhappy. Most of the unhappiness was the result of jobs I hated, particularly the one I had right out of college and later one at the place that is my personal Voldemort (the Giant-Tech-Company-That-Must-Not-Be-Named). I kept both these jobs for two-plus years because they provided what I needed. I let two companies suck the joy out of my life and the life out of me because I put practicality over fulfillment. Never again, I vowed.

And now here I am again. Doing a part-time contract gig that's fine. It's easy. I can do it during naptime. But it's so boring. On calls, I type almost verbatim notes just to keep myself awake. I find myself wondering how anyone can dredge up such enthusiasm for nothingness. For jobs that make not a shred of difference and are just endless, acronym-filled calls with pretty slide decks (although I love listening to people talk about the way their jobs change the world...it's probably the most creative they ever get to be at work). I think I have an allergy to corporate Kool-Aid.

I know what I want my Big Picture to be. It's my family. That's so easy to say, but what are the brushstrokes of that family portrait? What do I want my days to look like? That's what I don't know yet. When people talk about raising children, I wish they'd talk more about what that looks like. What does raising a one-year-old look like? What does it mean to do it well and how do I know if I am? How does child bearing and rearing fit with a career? Does it? What if I hate that career but have no idea what would be better?

These are the questions that haunt me right now. I have the big vision but I don't have the tactical execution plan. But maybe that's part of trusting. Aligning your strategy with His vision and then trusting Him to help you sort out the details. Line by line. Day by day. Stroke by stroke.

No Drama in My Life

A wise daughter appreciates the happiness of her parents.

Great memoirs are often the result of tumultuous, even tragic childhoods. The ones where money is scarce, abuse is commonplace, and full-blown psychosis is just a drink away. The single mother or perma-dysfunctional parents drag their brood from place to squalid place, sometimes abandoning them to a wretched relative while they pursue a drug-fueled artistic journey in a desert commune.

I can see why these childhoods lead to intensely readable literature (Angela's Ashes, The Glass Castle). The child at the center manages to rise above their broken family universe and turn their lives into something laudable when the most anyone could expect is welfare living at best and violent crime at worst. Who doesn't love a story of rags to riches, destitution to destiny, chaos to creative genius?

I guess this is the long way of saying that I'll never write a great memoir. My childhood was as idyllic as Monet's Giverny. When I think back on the years I spent in my parents' home, I can't say I have any memories of nastiness or meanness. I know there must have been the occasional bad mood or minor disagreement, but overall we were at peace. We were happy. My parents loved each other and they loved their children. My dad provided during the day and played with us at night. My mom dedicated her life to being an extraordinary nurturer, without any of the bitterness over lost dreams and self-sacrifice that writers love to dredge up when describing mothers who stay at home. We really were a family that was as happy as it looked.

My parents did not tolerate any meanness between the children. I'm still not sure how they communicated this message so clearly; I don't remember any conversations about household rules.Somehow my brother, sister, and I just knew that bullying, teasing, and fighting had no place in our home. My parents rarely had to discipline us because we rarely had any reason to want to disobey them. I think the reason we didn't talk back or yell at our parents was that our parents spoke to us with patience and respect from our earliest days.

I spend a lot of time pondering parenting and its associated challenges, from the daily (a diet consisting soley of graham crackers) to the big picture (raising a moral, well-adjusted child) to the just plain scary (drugs, child traffickers, trashy girlfriends). I don't have enough mommy time under my belt to claim to have all, or even any, answers. But when I look to parents and how they did it, it seems like the answers are the simple, time-tested principles that we too often turn away from because they aren't interesting, new, or exciting. We've heard them so many times that they almost lose their power unless we really think about what they mean. Love. Respect. Kindness. Obedience. Faith. These are the things that I was raised on and no matter what anyone says about these old school ideals, no one can argue that I did not have a pretty fantastic childhood.

While loving parents aren't nearly as conducive to nonfiction pageturners as delusional self-aggrandizing parents, I'll trade happy memories for a best-selling memoir any day.

How to Deal with Modern Life

Our priorities define our lives.

Driving is my sanctuary, which is ironic because I hate driving. I've never had much confidence behind the wheel, which I attribute to my pathetic sense of direction (getting lost in the town you grew up in your entire life is, yes, pathetic), my strange inability to tell which lane other cars are driving in when merging onto freeways (also problematic), and the fact that I got in an accident the first time I drove my first car (hitting an attorney in a Red Robin parking lot...not recommended). But at the present moment in my life with an almost-one-year-old, that fifteen minute drive between Grandma's and home is fifteen minutes of stillness. Max is locked in his seat and there's nothing I can do except keep my eyes on the road and let the soothing, ever-so-slightly-intellectually-arrogant voices of NPR reporters wash over me. It doesn't matter if they're talking about the newest salmon restoration project on the Skagit River or the latest meeting of the EU, if I'm driving, I'm listening to National Public Radio.

One night I heard a promo for an upcoming interview with an author that promised new, proven ways for dealing with the stresses and frenetic insanity of modern life: how to digitally disconnect, how to get more sleep, how to find time for yourself.

It struck me as a bunch of BS.

Yes, life has changed in unimaginable ways in the past 25, 50, 100, 1,000 years. Technology makes our lives easier and more complicated all the at the same time. But has human nature really changed? Has what we truly, deeply, really want changed (love, peace, security)? I don't think so. The answer to dealing with modern life is the same as the answer to dealing with ancient life: know your priorities and live by them.

Whether you live in 1013, 2013, or 3013, knowing what you want and what you value is at the core of dealing with life. After the past year of my life, I'm convinced that happiness is found when you live your life in line with what matters most to you. It may not be the most fun, most exciting, or most wealthy life, but it will ultimately be the most peaceful and most rewarding.

Oh, and my advice for dealing with today's problems? Here it is:

Want to digitally disconnect? Then turn off your phone at 7 pm.
Want to get more sleep? Turn off Facebook and go to bed.
Want to find time for yourself? Find it in the mundane moments technology hasn't taken away yet. Like driving in the car.

Foundations

A decent life is the beginning of greatness.

As a kid, I used to be jealous of my friend, whose grandparents gave beautiful presents at every holiday and occasion. Good grades? New toy horse stable. Summer visit? New American Girl Doll (along with extra clothes and accessories). When I mentioned to my mom how lucky my friend was (did I mention I'd like a few more presents, please?), she told me that we don't show love in our family that way (which of course made me wish that we did show love that way).

My grandparents are good people. They were and are good parents: steady, consistent, loving. They taught their children the values that strong families have held onto for generations: faith, work, loyalty. They've been true to each other, true to their families, true to their God. And before them, their parents lived the same way. And their parents before them.

My grandparents' posterity may not remember any single act of bravery or accomplishment of note. In fact, they probably won't because my grandparents have lived an ordinary life, marrying young, working hard, living frugally, raising kids. But although they won't remember, although they might never even know it, their posterity will owe them. By living a decent life, my grandparents built a foundation for the families that would come from them. They showed that right choices and good living are the way to happiness and the types of success that matter in this life and beyond. Just as dysfunction tends to bred dysfunction, decency leads to more decency, goodness to more goodness, strong families to more strong families.

As new parent in the throes of trying to build the foundation of my son's life, how grateful I am that this is the gift my grandparents chose to give.

Sister Pidgin

A sister is worth more than a thousand friends.

Here's how a conversation with my sister might go:

A:"Ol"

C: "Ol"

A: "Red"

C: "Vel"

A: "Vet"

C: "Cup"

A: "Cake"

C: "Yeah"

Then we get in the car and go get cupcakes - one red velvet and two other flavors. Then we split them and both get to eat one and a half cupcakes but with the guilt level of only sampling a few bites. It's a beautiful thing. (And in case you were wondering, "ol" is our abbreviated form of hola. Neither of us speak Spanish.)

This summer I read a book about Polynesia. The author spent a lot of time talking about the pidgin English used by the inhabitants of various islands and that's when I realized that my little sister and I have developed our own pidgin language. It started out as something called "abbrevialicious" and has slowly morphed into a strange combination of shortened words in multiple languages (i.e. "ol,"), shortened words repeated twice ("show show"=shower, "wa wa"=water, "cray cray"=crazy), normal words repeated twice ("chip chip", "nurse nurse"), and words with various endings added ("-licious", "-icus," etc.). We use this strange mishmash to communicate the basic needs and activities of the day - and adding a baby into the mix has only made the language more cray cray.

For our real conversations, we can - and do - use words longer than two syllables. But whether funny or serious, Court and I, we get each other. My sister is steadfastly loyal. Gain her love and you have someone on your side for life. Yes, she's known for being feisty, for calling it exactly how she sees it, for maybe being a little bit stubborn. Her bombshell looks (blond hair, blue eyes, legs out to there) have caused more than their share of intimidation and jealous. But Court is Court. She knows who she is, she knows who she loves, and she knows what's worth protecting at all costs.

As time has narrowed the six year gap between us, Court's gone from being the little sister I adored to the best friend I can't live without. As sil sil as our conversations may sometimes be, it's good to know there's always someone who knows exactly what you're saying.

Teething and Other Tales of Terror

A wise woman will recognize the blessing in the dirty work.

Max is getting teeth right now. A lot of them. He also has a cold and is refusing to eat food, which means I'm nursing my one year old like I did when he was one month old - except now, as I mentioned, he has lots of teeth, which he likes to practice using. Besides the biting, the other side effect of increased nursing is more nighttime wake-ups. Why is it so much harder to wake up once a night now than it was every couple hours with an infant? Can I please get an injection for whatever hormone made me deliriously giddy for the first six weeks of motherhood?

This morning Max was melting down. That term really is accurate for him. He throws his body up and back, arches, and then goes completely limp. The few times I haven't been there to catch him, he lands on the floor in a melted puddle, typically taking the impact with his head. More often, I'm holding him and his head impacts some part of my face (nose, jaw, cheek) instead of the floor. That was the case this morning. It was 6 am and after 5 hours of interrupted sleep, I'm sitting on the floor in a shirt that was doubling as a snot rag with yesterday's mascara smeared under my eyes, holding a toddler who is thrashing like a crazy man in a straight jacket and bobbing my head to avoid a skull to the nose.

In the midst of this pleasant tableau, I had a thought. What if I wasn't here right now? What if I wasn't the one holding Max while he had a tantrum about how tired he was, how much his gums hurts, and how frustrating it is to have salty goo run out of your nose all day? And I realized that I was grateful to be the one doing the hard, dirty work that mothering is day-in and day-out.

I'll have to remind myself of that next time the little vampire strikes.

Watching, Catching, Playing

I happened to read in Proverbs today. I love Proverbs. They are simple and wise. Even after multiple millennia the message is as resonate today as it was to ancient Israel: seek wisdom over wealth, choose righteousness over pleasure, trust God over man.

It started me thinking – what if I wrote a Proverb every day? A little gem of wisdom to capture what I'm thinking or learning that day. 

Here it goes...

Happy is the woman who has a mother who has walked her path before.

Motherhood is hard for me, harder than I thought. Max is a miracle, a dream, my joy. But each day sometimes feels like a mind-numbing repeat of the day before. I don’t know what to do with myself but then I realize I can’t really do anything. My job right now is to watch, catch, and play. Watch, catch, play. Watch, catch, play. It’s weird combination of boredom and busyness, inactivity and exhaustion. Having my mom, who has traveled this very road three times reassure me that I’m doing a good job, that there really is nothing I’m supposed to be doing besides watching, catching, playing is a balm to my guilt-ridden, self-doubting, bored-out-of-my-skull soul.