carry me ohio

One of those songs I want to wrap around me like a blanket, stand alone on a mountain in the cold with eyes closed, let myself feel warmed by it.
I don't want to know the lyrics, because they couldn't possibly make it better, might make it worse, might do something to take away from Mark Kozelek's eerie haunting voice.
If I could write the way he sings, with that soul-piercing, achingly beautiful quality, than I would never need more than that. If I could just unload emotions so poignantly, I would feel always cleansed.
For some reason, it makes me think of dried out corn husks, the quietly broken-down reeds of autumn stacked in fields. The soybeans, dried and brown but soft with fuzz, hanging dully off the plants. Plodding onward, hair scattering around my head. Cold and dry and alone, and I'll always be alone, and I'll never know how to let anyone relieve me of being alone.

Have I yet? Have I figured out how not to push people away, how to stop forcing myself to be alone? Sometimes I catch myself still living in my own log cabin, peering out at other people through the windows I constructed, finding reasons that we can't relate.

Exacizing Doz Chompas - Describe Your Mental Partition

You're supposed to use a "mental partition" to separate yourself from opinions and half-truths that keep you from writing, apparently. I'm supposed to describe mine here. This seemed silly to me at first, so imagine my surprise when one appeared almost immediately in my mind.

My partition is tall, but not too tall. Maybe not tall enough to protect me? It's made of looping vines, roses and ivy, climbing high and thick up a verdigris trellis. Pink cabbage roses bloom here and there. Thorns jab out everywhere, threatening to prick the fingers of anyone who dares to scale my partition. It's lovely, but sinister at the same time, sort of like the thorn thickets that surrounded Sleeping Beauty in the classic Disney film.

Surrounding myself with this partition feels strangely stifling. You would think I'd feel protected, since it's supposed to be keeping out the festering negativity that keeps me from writing. But no, instead I feel trapped. Maybe I need to make my space bigger. Can I see enough of the world to accurately describe it? Am I limiting myself? No, I'm just keeping out the negativity--why would that feel stifling?

For the next part of the exercise, I'm supposed to write about what I'll tell myself when the negativity seeps in and threatens to bring my writing to a grinding halt. What will I tell myself?

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett (that's the author, maybe I'll remember her name now!) suggests her own line/mantra: Someone has to make it, why not me? Yeah, it sounds a little Al Franken, but isn't he a Congressman now anyway?

Someone has to make it. And why shouldn't it be me? I'm witty, intelligent, insightful. I can dig up a compliment here and there that reminds me of my good (and relevant) qualities...I need to remind myself of them. Yes, sometimes I give people pause. No one is saying that I rock, hard. But remember, I'm untrained. I've never taken a professional or college-level writing course. Get me some training, get me some experience, and I'll rock your freaking socks off. If I'm this good NOW (and by that, I mean good enough that my work gleans compliments, etc.) think of how good I'll be once I've got some experience under my belt.

And one day, when I've made it, i can tell those stories of the lonely little girl who lived in the middle of nowhere and entertained herself by making up stories in her head as she walked back and forth in the yard, or bounced the ball in the solarium, or played Zim-Zam (remember Zim-Zam?). See--it's just pathetic enough to be endearing. Right?

Nothing worth doing is easy, that's what I tell my friends. I roll my eyes at people's inability to see the truths behind their actions. But it's hard to turn that microscope on myself. I have to remind myself that if I were my friend, I would encourage me to go for it, to stop lollygagging around and get to work, already. I'm not exactly getting ahead in my writing career just sitting here. And I don't want to grow old and always wonder what would have happened if I had ever really tried. There is no shame in trying. And those who don't try, really TRY, rarely succeed. Especially in a cutthroat business like this.

So I'll tell myself to heave a great breath, suck in my stomach, and push past the negativity. I don't like it here in the negative quicksand patch, so I'm getting the eff out. I'm going to rise above those nasty, negative voices. I'm going to succeed and flaunt my success for them, instead. Nothing worth doing is easy, right? And someone has to make it. There are thousands of freelance writers who are making a living as such, many of which aren't as witty or insightful as I. So, as Al Franken would say, why not me? Why not make a go of it?

EXACIZE Those Chompas, Again

Hey, imaginary friend who wants to write, you should do it. What are you going to do, spend the rest of your life NOT writing? Become one of those bitter little old ladies who live to dash others' hopes and dreams because you never really pursued your own? You say you're not sure you have the chops--well, you owe it to yourself to find out if you have the chops or not. And anyway, if it turns out that you're not as great as you had hoped, that doesn't mean that you can't still work to improve. Maybe this is something that you have to work harder at that anything else you've done if you want to make it a reality, you know? Maybe you give it a shot and find out you need some brushing-up. Maybe you take a few classes at a community college, or through a center for adult education. But improving just increases your chances of success, right?

Don't fret about not "being there" for your family. In the first place, you shouldn't be so damn irreplaceable that your occasional absence sends them into fits of confusion. That's just unhealthy and a sign that you should have been doing this all along. It might be a struggle at first, honestly. But they'll learn how to function without you. That doesn't mean that you aren't integral or that they don't love you--it means you are doing your JOB of teaching your kids (and husband, who is really a sort of kid as well) to be independent of you. In the second place, you owe it to your family to be happy, and fulfilled, and a bon vivant. Will writing help you to get there? Or would you be better off waiting tables for some easy cash? Yeah, that's what I thought. Be fulfilled, be more interesting, have something else to talk to your husband about over dinner. And so what if "dinner" is sometimes KFC takeout or hot dog fajitas? It's worth it in the end. You can't allow yourself to become solely responsible for your family, anyway.

You say you worry that you don't have anything to say. I totally understand that worry--it's a very normal and human worry. That's the worry of someone as her hand is hovering next to the door knocker, afraid to attend the cocktail party. Hey, you might NOT have enough to say, at least at first. But you have SOMETHING to say. Say it, at least for practice. Try and find your voice and maybe you'll find you have one, after all. And don't be so shy--chances are that what's important to you is also important to other people, too. Every single thing you write doesn't have to be worthy of the New Yorker--let's just start out with being relevant to SOMEONE, anyone. There are plenty of writers who never see their bylines in the Atlantic or the New Yorker who are still very successful, very relevant. Just because you're not one of the big dogs doesn't mean you can't still bark.

I know you don't know where to start, and that the first steps seem really intimidating. That's because they are. It's ok to feel intimidated. Hey, give yourself a day. Feel intimidated. Curl up in the fetal position if that's what you want. Then, get over it. Get up and get cracking. People who spend their days in the fetal position rarely become rousing successes...unless of course they are actual fetuses. Maybe start by taking a workshop, or a class. Does that help you feel inspired? If that feels like too much, hit your local library and you're sure to find a ton of books on writing to help you get started. But the most important thing is that you GET STARTED. You can do it. I believe in you.

Now, write to yourself.

Hi, self. So, self, you want to be a writer. You are even starting to let on to a select group of people that maybe, just maybe, you want to be a writer. You've been writing for half of forever, and you've had some admirers along the way. But guess what? You can't pay the bills on "you have such wit!". You aren't going to be remembered for "you should write professionally". If you want those things, you have to work for them. And probably, work hard for them.

You're so lazy with your dreams, self. You gaze indolently at them from a safe distance, promising you'll get to them later. But now you're 33, and they're not any closer. Your old approach clearly isn't doing the trick. It's time to step things up--it's time to be the person you know you can be, but don't make the effort to be.

Signing up for the workshop was a first step. But now you need more steps--you need to sign up for more IN PERSON local workshops. You need to call more mags and get samples, spend more of your valuable time researching and getting ready for querying. You can do it, you know you can.

You have to stop treating this 'ramp-up' as an annoying barrier between you and success. Maybe it is, but you must take it seriously and scale it fully if you want to BE successful. Everyone would love to breeze past the hardest part, you know?

You ARE worthy. You DO have something to say. When you start to talk, people listen. But you have to have the chutzpah to start speaking up in the first place.

Now, let's talk goals. You and I both know that if you had your druthers, you'd be pounding out a piece for Cookie or WonderTime or Family Circle right now. And it would sort of rock, obviously. And you'd stack up those clips and bylines and parlay them into that fantastic nonfiction book deal--that Priced Out project, and maybe many others besides. And let's not even pretend that you don't hope that once the writing bug bites you and bites you good again, that you'll be cranking out lovely fictional short stories and even novels. And screenplays? Well, why the heck not? You do it all, don't you, Amanda? You're the brilliant writer with the acerbic tongue and deliciously literary nonfiction, the mom people think of when they think of someone who found a way to fit her career in with her homelife. You're the one people can't wait to mention to their friends that they know, and say that they remember when she was just starting out as a writer and didn't know what to do or how to do it. Your success feeds them all, you know.

Autumn is my favorite season. This is what I always say. I love the round orange pumpkins, the crisp air and brilliant blue skies, the leaves just starting to change color. I love sweaters and hats and scarves and not sweating all day long.

That's what I try to remind myself of on days I don't love my life.

Today feels better than some. The screaming toddler in the other room and the realization that I was in for a full day of such behavior made me smile somewhat indulgently, not slam my head against the table and cram my hands over my ears. The same toddler was thrilled to be handed a box of toys he had forgotten he possessed (that cabinet at the front door isn't working quite how I envisioned...). Now he's contentedly watching Elmo discuss 'singing' with his forced puppet seriousness. Singing, it's serious business.

According to the book I started reading last night, before I fell asleep and woke up and fell asleep and woke up, says that I should start writing in small increments. That 15 minutes is "enough time" to get things started, to flesh out ideas so they may later be turned into articles and short stories and works of sheer literary amazement. It also says that you have to get over the thinking that you're not good enough and just write, already. You don't get better by discussing writing, it says.

So here I am, plugging away. Jodi Picoult said that if you write complete crap, you can edit it into something manageable later, but you can't edit a blank page. Well put.

It's getting past the fear of failure for me, again, once more, like usual. Funny how many things in life I've denied myself because I didn't want to admit that they might matter to me. I'm trying to get past that now, but I'm not feeling that inspiration that I was a few weeks back. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that the author of the book I'm reading (have to remember her name for crying out loud) would tell me that 'inspiration' is for amateurs and failures, that it's something people who don't have the chops use to help enable their procrastination. Fuck inspiration, she'd say lightly. You can't eat inspiration. Inspiration is a NSF check you'll never cash.

Maybe that should be my new catchphrase--fuck inspiration. Inspiration didn't get me through grad school, or miserable times in my life. It doesn't make friends for me. It doesn't lose 37 pounds. It's like a petulant child demanding attention. And hell, I have one of those already.

Wow, she (the woman who's name I can't be bothered to remember?) was right. I do feel better.

Journalling is something that writers are supposed to do. I've done it on and off throughout life, but sometimes it still turns my stomach to do it. It's not that it's really too much effort, my fingers dancing across the keyboard faster than fast as I compose in my head, it's not that at all. It's more the danger of the ability to look back later and see where I was, what I was thinking. The smallness, the pathetic-ness of me is more than a trifle humiliating.

I want to be so much more than the pathos that seeps out when I start to compose freely. I think I am, most of the time. Why does journalling inspire me to be so melodramatic?

Started the Medford Family Network's fitness class today. (The one with free childcare?) Such an awkward time to start with, I was dragging myself in. All seemed well at first, Bryce running gaily to grab the BALLS and stack the BLOCKS and roll the TRUCKS. But he decided to be angry, and screeched mercilessly while I was supposed to be stretching my hip flexors and pelvis. It was another mom who got up to see if it was her son, I preferred to lay in partial denial so that I might be able to do a bit more working out, guilt-free. Or at least guilt-less (not to be confused with guiltless).

Of course, it wasn't her son. It was my little screaming demon, loudly professing his agitation with whatever card life was dealing him at the moment. I kept stretching, tears welling in my eyes. I am the terrible mother whose child screams, who feels like she can't move anymore under the weight of the screaming. I am the terrible mother who stifles the urge to smack when he reaches for the knife, who wads my husband's abandoned dress shirts into wrinkled messes and stomps them on the floor instead (which, incidentally, feels very Richard Scarry). I am the mother who this very morning dented her bookshelf by bashing the remote control into it, over and over.

Eileen, the facilitator, assures us all that "they will come get you if more intervention is needed, don't worry". The screams stretch into wails, so thin they might snap. Eileen instructs us to imagine our bellies are balloons, filling with air and relaxing as we inhale, pressing tight against our spines flatly as we exhale. I breathe in and out, focusing on the screams. The screams are my hymns.

We get up to do some push-ups, and the screams seem to have faded. I wonder if Bryce is asleep and hope not, or he might not nap later. I am a terrible mother for wanting him to nap more than I want him to be content, right? Terrible. My wrists ache terribly from the strain, and Eileen suggests I use my fists instead. I twist my engagement ring around so it digs into the fleshy part of my palm instead of the gymnasium wall. I don't hear screaming.

As we're finishing our push-ups, I can hear the goodbye song being sung next door. It's a familiar tune, the one we sing at Isis. I hope it puts Bryce in a better mood. The facilitator reminds us to do our balloon abdominal exercises and push-ups as "homework" for next week. The children begin to flow in, gleefully calling "Mama!" and bounding to their mommy's arms. Bryce wanders aimlessly, calling "Mama? Mama?" but not seeing me. I call him and he ambles over, grinning, as if he's never had a care in the world. As if he hasn't been screaming for 45 minutes. I ask him if he had a fun time, he smiles and says: "Yes!"

I go to pick up my bags, and apologize profusely to one of the caregivers. "He's never like this..." I stammer. "I'm so sorry." She puts a reassuring hand on my arm and smiles.

"Don't apologize. Don't ever apologize. That is what we're here for!" she says. "He was just angry. He was never crying. We ended on a high note and he had fun singing. Don't apologize!"

I feel all at once sad and grateful. So very grateful. The gratefulness of someone who has never, in the almost-22 months she's been a parent, had another human being tell her not to be sorry that her child behaved less than perfectly. And the sadness of someone who has never in 22 months had another person tell her not to be sorry for her child's behavior.

You gotta EXACISE those chompas, pt. 1

2. Write a one-paragraph description of a room in your house. Use as many specific details and senses as possible.

As you walk through the broad entry, past the partly-sheathed pocket door, you'll see a room of contradictions. A spanking-new paint job in soft creamy Pottery Barn colors, but with noticeable chips where wall meets ceiling. A contemporary sectional sofa in sleek dark leather, surrounded on either side by the bright primary plastics of a toddler's toys. Piles and piles of hip-lit books crammed into dark wood mission-style shelves face off against an enormous flat-panel plasma TV that rises like an obelisk opposite the sofa. Modern, espresso-wood furniture cleaned to gleaming perches atop a shabby and pockmarked hardwood floor. A small longhaired tortoiseshell cat purrs with insistent contentment, her body scarcely making a dent on the firm sofa cushion. The soundtrack to the room is the white-noise hum of a baby monitor, the kind of loudness you don't notice until it's gone. Even the smells offer contradictions: coffee and pledge, leather and stale Cheerios. It's as if a yuppie and a suburban housewife are quietly fighting to the death in here, and maybe they are.

Describe the fatal accident of a highway stripe painter

Dawn was just seeping into the sky, oozing light as red as blood, when Hank realized he'd left the urn at home. Dammit, he thought, even beyond the grave That Woman still managed to cause trouble. He heaved a sigh, pushed the worn leather hat up off his head, and rubbed at his bald spot. What now?

The pickup sputtered as if in reply, and it occurred to Hank that maybe the decision of what to do next could wait till after a fillup. Coffee for him, diesel for the truck. How far to the next station? Maybe he should have gotten one of those fancy GPS systems That Woman was always talking about. He glanced at the fuel gauge, where the needle hovered menacingly between the quarter-tank mark and "E". He could make it a few more miles, maybe even ten if he had to. But he hoped he wouldn't have to. Exhaustion from the long trip was finally setting in, and he really needed that coffee.

Hank mashed at his itchy eyes. Austin and Lake Travis seemed too far away to imagine, and here he was driving all the way there because That Woman wanted her ashes scattered along the shore. Ridiculous. She was always wanting frivolous things like that. Always wanted, Hank corrected himself. Wanted. Past tense. The highway swam a little before him, but it was just the tiredness. Tears weren't for men like Hank, and definitely not over That Woman. He scraped indignantly at his eye with the heel of his hand, trying to pry the offending dust out.

--WUMP--

The pickup lurched strangely, sickeningly, as if he'd taken if off a curb. Hank glanced blearily in the rearview mirror and saw nothing, just a tornado of dust in its wake. Stupid coyotes, he thought. He hoped he wouldn't have another dent in the wheel well this time. He had enough to worry about. Thank the Lord he hadn't lost control of the truck and followed it over the ditch--it was a good 5 feet down. Worthless creatures.

That Woman would have insisted on going back, wasting time to make sure that the coyote was put out of his misery. No more, thought Hank. I can just go and leave it in peace. Coffee and diesel were waiting for him at a truck stop somewhere up ahead. He patted his rifle absentmindedly; even though he wasn't going to be using it those fond feelings had still been called up. A man should have affection for his rifle, thought Hank. A man needs to be able to rely on his rifle.