Mar 9, 2012
I have desired to go where springs not fail
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow
And I have asked to be where no storms come
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb
And out of the swing of the sea
Gerard Manley Hopkins – Heaven-Haven: A Nun Takes the Veil
This is one of the few poems I have memorized and retained – I learned it as a teenager. It is a fantasy of cloistered life, and probably unlike any cloister inhabited by real people, though a vow of silence could certainly reduce the hail and storms. In my mind I often visit this poem.
Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection
My dream is solitude in a small white room, empty but for a single bed with a white candlewick spread, a nightstand with a lamp and a book, and a table with a bud vase holding a single rose. And my real life? Crazy with clutter and people.
After my brief first marriage I had always lived alone with my son. When he was 14, Iris, who had a two-year-old, suggested we join forces. We bought a house together, and shared expenses, chores, and lots of tea and laughter as the boys tore around the house.
After a couple of years, though, Iris got married. I bought her share of the house, and then advertised for roomers so that I could pay the mortgage. A succession of young men moved in and stayed with us briefly.
I only remember a few. A Nigerian man and an Africaaner, both grad students, shared our house. They did not like each other, though they had something in common – they ran up huge phone bills and then balked at paying. After they moved on, a musician moved in. He was a short, chubby man who practiced his bassoon in the living room. The other roomer thought he was gay, and complained to me about sharing the bathroom because he feared he would catch AIDS.
Finally we found two roomers who felt like family. We got along so well that we decided to share meals. I cooked dinner; they bought the food and, with Eric, cleaned the kitchen. I’ve always loved cooking for people who like to eat – now I had three hungry and very appreciative young men. I particularly remember a chocolate layer cake that lasted only one night.
Rick was a massage student. He set up his table at home and practiced on me on Sunday nights. Claudio was a Brazilian who was getting his doctorate in coastal engineering. I would find him pacing in the living room early in the morning, playing Bach at high volume on the stereo, as he wrestled with his thesis. Then one morning he burst into the kitchen and announced that he had figured out turbulence in breaking waves. He was ecstatic.
Rick graduated from massage school and joined his fiancé in Colorado. Claudio got his degree and returned to Rio. Then Eric finished high school and left home.
Eric’s teenage years had been rough on both of us. His absence wasn’t a case of out of sight, out of mind – I thought of him a lot. But he thrived on risk and extreme physical exertion, and it was so much easier to hear about his various adventures and misadventures from a distance.
.
Now I felt my life opening in front of me, a clear, empty space, and I was exhilarated. It was little things: I didn’t have to tell anyone where I was going or when I would be back, and when I returned, everything was just where I had left it – no wandering scissors. And it was the big thing: now I could write. I’d always found that my wool-gathering faculty, so necessary for writing, was fully occupied with work and child.
Lambtown 2008 (Dixon, CA) by WonderMike. Flickr via Sprixi. CC by license
GATHERED WOOL
Living alone, I completed my first novel, and got a good start on a second. Though a boyfriend moved in, he was very quiet and self-sufficient, and didn’t take up a lot of physical or psychic space.
Meantime I volunteered as a guardian ad litem, advocating for children who had been taken from their parents for abuse or neglect. But after watching two children move from foster home to foster home, I had no choice – I took them in myself. The boyfriend moved out. The children and I struggled together for almost two years, while I worked and tried to maintain some semblance of a social life. I put the writing on hold.
Eventually the children left, and I briefly lived alone, until Joe moved in. We married, and Amanda came to live with us for a couple of long stretches before it became permanent.
I have friends who live alone. I admire their independence, and envy their control over their time and space. I also admire foster parents who have three, four, five children at a time, and always have room in their houses and hearts for one more. I would love to be so open-hearted, so welcoming.
I think we all have a dream of greener grass. The farmer yearns for the city, the city girl for bucolic bliss. We visit our dream for solace, but if we are lucky enough to have had choices and made the right ones, maybe we are living the life that suits us.
Feb 10, 2012
A previous ornithological post click drew gratifying response, so I am bringing you another bird. I owe this one to my sister Luli, who suffers, as I do, from bizarre and frequently scatological images.
This blog is six months old, and I have written twenty-five posts, most of them focused on me. Like many people, I find myself fascinating. I love stories with rich detail, and the stories I know best are my own. I could happily fill a blog post with photos of my dog, my cat, the rooms of my house, and my amateurish attempts at container gardening, frequently wrecked by squirrels.
THE SQUIRRELS TOOK MY THYME
If I felt free to write about Amanda – her troubles and triumphs, the funny or maddening things she does – I would have a goldmine. Since I want to protect her privacy, instead I mine the past.
I think I’m far enough along in life to have found the proper balance between smugness and self-loathing, but while writing my previous post, about the cute little rich girl misbehaving on the train home from prep school click , I had a severe attack of the latter. ‘Who gives a shit?’ I thought.
I’m not planning to stop writing the blog. It is excellent practice, and finding the pictures is really fun. The weekly deadline maintains order and discipline in my otherwise ad lib life. While the thought of reading all day with cat and cookies has its appeal, I know from experience that sloth bums me out. I could turn back to my novel, but I’m still avoiding that. It has scared me off by being too close to my own life, and the revision I have in mind is daunting – it requires me to eliminate the main character.
Before I began The Feminist Grandma I consulted with Sandra, whose blog frequently highlights other activists and writers. click She suggested that I sometimes feature subjects other than myself, and I think it’s time to do that. Otherwise The Feminist Grandma will become The Blog Bird, which flies in constantly diminishing circles until it disappears into its own asshole.
THE BLOG BIRD (WITH APOLOGIES TO THE MAGNIFICENT SANDHILL CRANE)
Nov 3, 2011
In October I went to Jane’s Stories annual Writers’ Retreat. It was my second time at a writers’ conference. At the first, three years ago, I met Sandra, who told me that her goal is to find one new writer friend at each workshop she attends. It was Sandra who encouraged me to go to the Jane’s Stories retreat. click
I needed no urging. Like most loving mothers, I welcome any chance to re-enter the adult world. And this time, unlike the last, I felt I had something to offer. If a writer is anyone who writes regularly, and an author is a writer who has been published, a blogger is somewhere in between. I’m proud of my blog, and had just acquired beautiful cards to identify myself.
Just before my first conference, Amanda came to live with us for the second time, and I wondered whether I should go. Leaving Joe on his own for three days with an unhappy and confused little girl was troubling. But the conference was here in Gainesville, so I would be home every night, and Joe urged me to go. This time it happened that once again Amanda was going through a rough patch, and once again I considered cancelling. But Joe is an old hand, and it was just 24 hours. So I headed off to St. Augustine early Saturday morning, enjoying the solitary two-hour drive into dawn.
MATANZAS BAY – images.google.com from city-data.com
The retreat was at a restaurant, in a room overlooking Matanzas Bay. It included a two hour workshop on memoir by Karen Sayler McElmurray, author of two novels and her own memoir, Surrendered Child. Sandra Lambert and Anne Martin Fletcher described their successful quests for an agent, and gave pointers. Georgia Banks Martin spoke on fairy tales and poetry. We had the opportunity to have a manuscript or query letter critiqued. I brought a query letter for my third novel and Anne wrote useful scribbles all over it. click click click click
Attendance was small, which surely disappointed the hard-working, all-volunteer Jane’s Stories board. But it produced a most wonderful workshop, in which everyone felt free to participate, and had valuable things to say.
This was all interesting and helpful. But for me the most important part was being with people who are writers, who know what writing involves, and think it is worthwhile work. For each of us it is different – we are more or less fluent or blocked, frightened or brave. Most of us have been all of these.
These women have experienced writing as I have. Mucking around in my mind to dig up thoughts and catch them as they fly out. Beginning with a plan or throwing scraps at the screen to see what happens. Returning the next morning to find words dead on the page, or a sentence that sings. Tidying up the mess – one of my favorite parts, as I am a decisive editor. Exulting when, after many revisions, a draft feels final. (It never is.)
They have also experienced the grim and tedious business of trying to get published. I have submitted for years with no success, though once I had an agent, and two editors have been effusive about my writing as they rejected it.
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,” said Samuel Johnson. In truth, only a fool writes for money. The odds of making money by writing are probably smaller than the odds of a high school athlete making it in the pros. If it’s money you’re after, play the stock market; if it’s fame, try serial killing.
NO BLOCKHEAD HE? – Dr Samuel Johnson, after Joshua Reynolds Photo: THE GALLERY COLLECTION/CORBIS
I had dinner with Sandra, who is herself beginning to experience success, with publication in two prestigious literary journals. Her generosity is an inspiration. On her blog, full of beautiful photos and paeans to Florida nature, she tirelessly promotes the work of others, new authors and old. She doesn’t waste energy on carping and belittling. Unless she is critiquing, she saves her breath for praise.
Sandra’s attitude was an example and a gentle rebuke to me. In the intensity of my long wish to be published, to be heard, I had become selfish and envious. I clung to a distinction between real writers and dabblers. As though it were a race, I looked around to see who was ahead of me. But writing isn’t a competition, though the world would make it one. There is room for all the flowers in the garden.
POPPY GARDEN – by Slatesculpt at flickr.com/photos/57031315@N02/page3/
After dinner we went to Anastasia Books, where five women read from their work: memoir, poetry, essay, fiction. I bought a book of poems by one, and a memoir by another. Some of the writers have had more success than others; all were well worth listening to. To hear them was to remember that we each have unique vision, and can speak with a unique voice. I intend to go to workshops when I can, and be inspired, not threatened, by other writers’ gifts.
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NEXT WEEK: The Muumuu Mamas Go to the Beach
Aug 19, 2011
My father once said he really liked being important and hanging out with important people. I replied, “I don’t. The only thing I hate worse than kissing ass is having my ass kissed.” (My father brought out the worst in me.)
Emily Dickinson said it much better:
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – Too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!-
How public – like a Frog -
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog.
click
I can’t stand show offs. Raconteurs annoy me. Some men in my family indulge in monologues – I once clocked my father at 32 minutes without a break. In law and academia people tend to hold forth. When you combine these into a law professor, watch out! I worked 23 years at a law school; I was surrounded by bloviators.
I have always felt my opinion is not called for on every subject. Better to hold your tongue and be thought a fool than speak your mind and confirm it. If you use your ears more than your mouth, you learn a lot. My mother taught, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” But underneath this quiet, discreet exterior is the little girl saying, ‘Look at me, look at me.’ Deeper down is my yearning for everyone to like me, and my astonishment when someone doesn’t. And surrounding it all is a completely distorted self-image.
For instance, I consider myself tactful and well-behaved. My friends are astonished when I reveal that. Apparently what I am is extremely blunt. It’s true I sometimes say what no one else will, but I never get credit for all the times I hold my tongue.
When I worked at the law school, I often gave speeches at conferences or to community groups. I enjoyed giving the speeches, a nice mix of information and advocacy. I was usually preaching to the choir, and I liked the audiences’ responsiveness, the admiring cluster of people coming up afterwards to agree with me. After the talk, though, when I was alone, I quickly descended into self-loathing. What a know-it-all. Who gives a shit what I think.
When I discussed this with my sister Luli, she sent me a cartoon captioned, “Lizzy receives the Nobel Prize for peace, literature, and general wonderfulness.” It was a picture of me with a brown paper bag over my head, muttering, “Pond scum, I’m pond scum.” As you can see, she has a sharp wit, a skilled pencil, and an exaggerated view of the marvelousness of me.
click click
So why would I decide to write a blog, to throw my opinions out into the world for anyone to read? Clearly, Ms Lookatme is in charge. But more than that, with the complexities of raising Amanda, the writer I had struggled to create after retirement was expiring. She needed time and attention. Like Tinkerbell, she needed to hear me say, “I believe in you.”
It’s been well over a year since Amanda came to live with us, but I’m not yet ready to pick up my novel. This blog helps me keep the writing going as I adjust to motherhood. And I’m finding unexpected advantages in writing it.
Like many writers, I struggle for self-discipline. If you’re a teacher, you have to show up every day, ready or not. If you’re a baker, you have to provide the daily bread. A mother’s work stands in front of her, insistent, a dozen times a day. But the world is not waiting for my writing. No eager audience is clamoring to hear from me. I’m the only one who cares whether I do it or not.
When I was working on novels, I could always find an excuse not to write. A novel takes at least a year just for the first draft. What does it matter if I skip a few days? I can always justify it with the idea that the whole thing is simmering inside. But if I’m writing mini-essays, I can’t pretend I have weeks for them. They’re not worth weeks. And they’re a manageable size. I can dump all my thoughts on the page in a morning or two, and then tidy them up.
Habit is taking over; each day I write makes it easier the next. I remember reading an essay years ago in which a writer said that every day you don’t write, you’re not a writer. This strikes me as both neurotic and male. Every woman writer knows that family will interfere. So I’m pleased to be writing almost every day.
And of course there is the practice – whatever you write, you are practicing your skills – the right word, rhythm, fluency of thought, editing. The passive voice, present participles, cliches all raise red flags. Oops, there’s one now.
I didn’t anticipate how much I would learn about myself. In my diary, my counselor and comfort in the darkest times, I usually simply ramble until I understand what’s troubling me. In these mini-essays I choose a subject and find out what I think about it.
I’ve written and edited seven of these, and have a dozen topics waiting. I wanted to have a store of them, to avoid the paralysis that might come if I faced a deadline and an empty page. (I’ve never been a journalist.) I also wanted an assignment to keep me occupied during our extended stay in South Africa. Six weeks is too long to be a tourist, too short to make a life.
The private me is still uncomfortable with the whole idea. Silence creates a peculiar power, a promise of deep water beneath the surface. Maybe the voice of the duckweed is a shrill quack, and underneath is just muck. But even Emily Dickinson wrote her letter to the world. Do you suppose she would have pulled her poems out of the drawer and put them on the Internet?
Frog in duckweed. Copyright 2000 Narciso Jaramillo, used by permission. click
Aug 17, 2011
Foster mom:squirrel monkey and night monkey
I have been many kinds of mother – a single mother, raising my son from scratch, a single foster mother for a daughter and a son, a step-mother. Now I am 64, and with my husband I am raising my eight-year old granddaughter, Amanda. Click here
I was a lawyer for 28 years, always focused on poverty. I still am. It’s not just a job; it’s a chronic condition. I retired to write, and wrote three novels. I helped start the HOME Van and nine years later we’re still going strong, carrying food and friendship to the people who live in the woods. Click here
When grandparents raise grandchildren there is usually a sad story behind it, but I’m not going to tell it. That one belongs to my daughter and granddaughter. Instead I’ll write about my friends and family, past and present. I’ll write about an old woman raising a young child, a feminist struggling with traditional women’s roles, a writer who is suddenly a mother again. It all sounds terribly serious, but everything has its lighter side. I'll try to keep my professorial self under control.
When my son was growing up, I felt inadequate as a mother, and overwhelmed doing it alone. In the1968 edition Dr. Spock included single mothers and “working” mothers in his chapter on special problems. I was both. I used to read that passage to my family law students to show them how dramatically times had changed. Yet people still speak of “working mothers,” a ridiculous phrase that implies mothering is not work.
Is motherhood work? Vandmoderen by Kai Nielsen
Now, for the first time, I have a partner, and I can do the job thoroughly. I take Amanda to soccer and gymnastics and therapy. I meet with her teacher, volunteer at the school, keep her at home when she’s sick. I see that she tidies her room and brushes her teeth.
I don’t feel inadequate. But like any mother I come to the end of a busy day and can't understand what I did with my time. Like any writer I struggle for discipline and focus, idle time to let my thoughts wander, work time to put the writing front and center. Like any stay-at-home wife I negotiate jobs with my husband, and wonder if he understands what I do all day.
When Amanda came to live with us I put my fourth novel aside. I’m not ready to pick it up yet; it’s simmering on the back of the stove. Instead, now that she is settled and happy, no longer bouncing off and knocking down walls, I will write these mini-essays, send them out in my blog, and hope you will read and respond.
