Sandra Tayler's Blog, page 79

Making Better Choices About Time

It is the interstitial moments that are my downfall. They are the spaces between one task and the next, when I’ve completed one email for business and before I’ve gathered my parenting thoughts to write the next one to a teacher. In that fraction of a moment some part of my brain tells me I should go check twitter. So I do. In fact I click through my saved tabs taking a look at all of my regular websites to see if there is anything new. If there is, I read it. If nothing is new, I feel like I want something new, so I am tempted to click something else, to go find something new. Ten or twenty minutes later I resurface and turn my mind to the next task. Sometimes that brief click through actually does refresh my mind, making me ready for the next thing. More often it fractures my focus, filling my mind with distraction. I have decided that I need to pay attention to this tendency, to acknowledge that sometimes I need a break, but that I should focus my break time on activities which actually refresh and refocus instead of those which distract and fracture. To that end, I have made the following list. These are the things I should do instead of clicking through internet tabs for the umpteenth time.

Spend time in spiritual study and scripture reading. Granted this is a larger break, but a very worthwhile one.
Go to the gym. Again a longer brake, again very worth the time.
Do a five minute house chore like switching out laundry loads or vacuuming a room.
Step outside my house and breath outdoor air for five minutes.
Spend a few minutes on a gardening task or watering the indoor plants.
Glance through fiction notes to see if new ideas jump out. (This one may lead into writing hijacking an hour.)
Spend ten or fifteen minutes working on the family photo book projects.
Declare writing time and go write fiction for awhile.
Read one of those books I’ve been intending to study for style and prose.
Read or watch one of the articles or TED talks that I put away to look at later when I had time to focus on it.
Just sit and stare at nothing to see what thoughts parade themselves into consciousness.

Some of these things will take more time thank a quick click through websites, but they actually feed and rest my brain in ways that clicking doesn’t. Having the list is a good start. The next part is learning to be mindful.

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Autumn Leaves

The view from my hammock swing on a lovely fall afternoon.

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A Conversation with My Writer Brain

So writer brain, we went on a retreat and shook loose ideas. We wrote notes and began forming stories. We made a plan to try to write 1000 words per day, and just to make it easier we decided that both blogging and fiction in that word count. Yet we’re only averaging around 600 words per day, what is up with that?

I’m not really sure. Instead of having a head full of clear thoughts, all I’m getting is static. Maybe you need more sleep.

Okay, I’ll grant you that sleep has been more scarce than it ought to be. But there were things to stay up and accomplish and things to get up and accomplish. We took that three hour nap on Thursday, but you wrote almost nothing that day.

True. On Thursday I was still busy processing all the emotional baggage from Wednesday night. The back brain cycles were reallocated to parenting thoughts. Can’t you arrange for the kids to not have crises?

Not really. I don’t get to pick when they have troubles with friends, what their homework loads will look like, how they’ll handle those homework loads, or if they get sick. Stomach flu is no respecter of persons, nor of writing brain space. Still, I tried to feed you good information even though we were tired. When sleep wasn’t possible, we watched some good shows and listened to Writing Excuses.

Yes. I’m still digesting all of that too. Sometimes I need more space, not more input.

But I gave you space and you didn’t do anything with it.

Yes I did. Just not things that you could see. Percolation is invisible. I need time to be bored.

I know that. We wrote a blog post about that. I’ve been trying. I keep shielding us from additional tasks, not taking on new jobs, but some of the ongoing jobs keep popping up with new requirements. I had to dust off my art director hat this week because Howard is going to a convention with an art show. Then there are all the assistant things I need to do because Howard is stressed and up against three different deadlines. Also the dryer broke.

Just listen to yourself. All of that going on in your head and you wonder why I’m drown out with static. Once. That is the number of times that you have set aside a couple of hours to open up the files of fiction and forced yourself to write the next 1000 words. That was a 1400 word day.

So now you’re blaming me for not making space? I’m trying, but it is hard. The phone always rings or there are a dozen urgent emails.

If you don’t sit down, I can’t organize the words.

But sometimes you do. Sometimes I’ll be doing something else and you just throw words into the front of my brain so that I’m excited to go and write them down. Why can’t you do that all the time?

I’ll do it more if you build writing time into the day.



Yes. I know this. Writing is important. I keep feeling like it is important even when I don’t know what to write. Even when all the thoughts in my head flow together into an indistinguishable mass. I’m working on giving writing more space, prioritizing it higher on the list of things to do. I keep telling myself no excuses, just get it done. And somehow it all ends up feeling messy, sloppy, uninteresting. There are so many important projects in my life and writing is only one of them. Also, I feel pretty dumb sitting down to blog about writing. Surely I can come up with something more poetic and meaningful than whining about writing. Isn’t the point of writing something to add good to the world rather than to waste words in a meta examination of my own writing and the lack thereof?

We wrote some worthwhile stuff this week. Haven’t you looked back at it? We finished the Strength of Wild Horses draft.

Was that this week? Are you sure.

Go check.

Huh. It was, seems much longer ago. But surely we could have done more than that. Better.

We will. Bit by bit. 800 words a day, or 200 words a day, or 3 words a day if that is all we can do. Small daily efforts add up. Don’t get discouraged by numbers.

But I was trying to use the numbers to motivate me to do more.

Yes. And it is working. But give yourself time to settle into the new habits of thought, new daily structures. Trust me, I haven’t lost track of the things we learned during the retreat.

So…a busy week is not a sign that I’ll never be able to write.

It is not.

But all my weeks are busy. What if…

Stop playing what if. Just choose to write instead of choosing to watch a TV show. Choose to garden instead of choosing to read, because gardening lets the thoughts settle and percolate instead of feeding in new data. Sit and think instead of clicking through internet sites that you’ve already visited five times today. You can do this.

Okay. But are we really going to post this as a blog entry? Me talking to myself about writing? It makes me look a little bit crazy.

One of the purposes of the blog is to sort thoughts by writing them. You’re changing how you approach writing, so naturally that change needs to be processed. I had to write this first to clear space to write other things. Now that this is written, I can go write something else. Shall we do that now?

Yes.

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Facing My Calendar

The calendar square for today is empty–no appointments, activities, or places to be. So it would seem that I could have a quiet day of writing and working. That was what I’d planned for today when contemplating the day from a week’s distance. I knew last night that my plans for today were going to require revision. The day was filled to overflowing with the sorts of emotional events which do not get written on the calendar. Many of them slopped over into today as a result of yesterday’s deluge. None of it is tragic or long-term, just the various emotional dramas that attend the process of growing up. But now I’m looking at all the other blank days on my calendar and thinking how grateful I am that they are blank, because I’m certain they won’t actually be empty.

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A Promise to My Son

Last night I looked Link in the eyes and, with every ounce of intensity I could muster, I promised him “I know it is hard now, but it will get better.” He believed me. Even in the middle of feeling like his life was impossible and his challenges were insurmountable, even though he is fifteen and has begun to make value choices independent from mine, even though I’ve sometimes failed him–in that moment he believed me. It helped that I spoke truth.

I’d been listening to him for thirty minutes as he described the difficulties and emotions he faced. I tried not to speak too much, because it is a failing of mine to try to give him words to describe his experiences. I love words. I love wrapping them around concepts and experiences. For most of his life my son has not loved words and he was happy to let me provide them when he did not have them. But now he needs his own words, not mine. He needs to wrestle and struggle to give his own shapes to his thoughts. He needs to cry out in frustration until he manages to discover the words which fit his feelings. I must bite my tongue and not try to fix that struggle, because the struggle is what he needs. In so many ways my son is like the hatchling who must push and work his way out of the shell, because the effort to escape will give that chick the strength to survive everything else that comes later. I can already see the end of this struggle. I can see how far Link has come and how close he is to being free from the shell. He spent thirty minutes talking to me about his feelings, this would have been an impossible feat for him just six months ago. So when I told him it would get better, I knew that it was true. And he believed me.

Within an hour, better had already arrived. I didn’t know it would arrive so quickly, but I’m glad it did. I also know that more struggle is ahead, because he is not done with this process. Watching a chick struggle to hatch–without helping–is hard. So I do the equivalent of making sure that the egg and chick are in a safe place, a warm place. I speak encouragement. I prepare the food and other necessities that the chick will need which the egg did not. I do everything I can to make this easier, except pull off the shell. Then I wait, and occasionally I look into Link’s eyes and promise him that his struggles are temporary. It gets better.

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Attack of the Cranky

It is not news to me that crankiness is contagious, people can give it to each other. Given the quantity of cranky that has filled this house in the past few days, one would think that we’d somehow acquired a particularly infectious strain. Except, when I look closely at all the different flavors of cranky they all seem to have spontaneous origination within the host. Link had a headache and homework he didn’t want to do. Also he was hungry, because hunger is nigh constant when one is fifteen. Kiki was cranky because she was tired and it was nearly bedtime when she learned that the following day was an A schedule day. She had prepared for a B schedule day. Gleek was cranky because we didn’t have a book she wanted, the cat would not consent to being a snuggle toy, and life in general is angry making without any other reason when one is a pre-teen. Patch was cranky because he didn’t pass his math test and he got his third black eye for the year by crashing into a friend on a trampoline. Howard was cranky from deadline stress and just because some days are that way. My case of cranky was definitely made worse by all of the above, but probably originated in a creeping feeling that there was something important I was failing to do properly.

We did not all explode into crankiness simultaneously. Instead it has been as if our house were built where the river of grouchy meets the sea of irritability. The tides ebbed and flowed creating eddies, rip tides, periods of calmness, and the occasional spectacular rogue wave. The good news is that we are all at least somewhat self-aware human beings and thus able to recognize that we are not being entirely reasonable. the most recent and amusing example of this was Patch stomping his feet and crying because Gleek, who had already finished her homework, got to watch Mythbusters, while he had to complete his work first.

“But I’ll miss some of it!” Patch wailed.

I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. (I recommend that all prospective parents learn the eyebrow trick, it is so very useful. Also you get to feel like Spock.)

“And the show will completely evaporate off of Netflix while Gleek watches so that it is gone forever?” I asked.

Patch half scowled and half smiled at me. Then he pulled the corners of his mouth down into a faux sad face.

“Yes.” he sighed. “It will be gone forever.”

Then he stopped complaining and completed his work in record time.

The cranky comes and goes, but it feels like the storm surge is settling out. Hopefully we’ll have calmer waters soon. Until then we try our best to not spread the cranky around.

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Pieces in Today

There are at least seven different places I could start to tell a story of today. A story, not the story. This day doesn’t have a single narrative, no big event which over rides all else and becomes the focus for all the events around it. Instead I’m left with pieces of stories: The science project in process sitting in mason jars on my counter. The lost homework paper which was the cause of much drama and stomping. The forgotten appointment that I hurried to arrive late for. The pounding of my feet on a treadmill while I listened to Disney’s ultimate swashbuckling album and pondered how pirate songs were not usual gym fare. The script I read for Howard before he headed out to draw on it. The plethora of emails both business and personal along with notifications from various colleges who are trying to make me believe that they’re enthralled with the wondrous capabilities of my daughter when they’re really hoping to get some of my money. The nap I didn’t take. The dinner which is sitting in a casserole dish on the stove “cooling” while I find the emotional energy to call everyone to the table. Then there are the fragments of stories yet ahead of me: homework time, dinner, bedtime.

I would dearly love to draw all of it together, make a coherent whole. I like it when stories have themes and deeper meanings than is implied by the basic scenes. Instead I must accept that today taken by itself does not carry a full story. All of these things are threads of much larger stories which will play out over the next months and years. Some days have stories, others just have pieces of stories. So it goes.

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Catch Up Day

I was staring down the barrel of Monday after taking three days off of work to venture into the realm of visiting relatives and college campuses. The four days prior to that I was functioning at minimal levels due to a head cold. Stuff had piled up and Monday was the day to get it all done. The only way I could possibly do it all was to deploy lists and minions–five lists, four minions. I wrote a list for each child and left the lists on the counter. My list resided in my google tasks window. At 7 am the work began.

I wish I could take credit for training my kids right, but I can’t. The truth of the matter is that each of them made choices this morning. I made the lists, but they could easily have chosen to rebel or get distracted. Instead my kids decided to own those lists, to claim them and dispatch them as quickly as possible. By noon the house was cleaner and all the critical kid tasks were complete. (Except for Patch’s science fair project which required my participation and thus was the one item on his list which remains incomplete here at bedtime.) I grant you that we have carefully practiced doing chores. We’ve created system after system for tracking chores, assigning chores, rewarding work done, and applying consequences for incomplete work. Each system was built out of the functioning bits of prior systems that had fallen apart. There is definitely a refining process as we figure out what works and what doesn’t for each child at each stage of life. Mostly though, the kids have realized that they have power to make our lives better, that when they do work life is happier, that if they don’t things feel chaotic. Some of this learning is the result of me being too tired and stressed to save them from from the consequences. My kids are good workers because I built a structure and then got out of the way. This let their innate awesomeness have room to grow.

My list of things also shrank by leaps and bounds through the morning. The largest of these things was that I needed to be online to help answer questions and troubleshoot during the opening of registration for the Writing Excuses Workshop and Retreat which will take place next summer. It is an event I’m really excited to be part of, but which I’ve not been mentioning online because there was only so much space and it seemed important to let those who follow the Writing Excuses blog have the first chance to register. They wasted no time at all. The event was sold out within ten minutes. Mary and I were online for an hour more just to double check everything and iron out a couple of minor behind-the-scenes organizational issues. So next June I’ll be headed back to Chattanooga for another writing retreat. Only this time I’ll have Howard with me and I’ll probably get to do some teaching. I’m looking forward to it.

By the time my kids were finishing up their lists I was barely half way through mine, and I was losing steam. I always assign myself more things to do than can be reasonably done in the allotted time. This is because some days I really can get it all done. Most days I just can’t. Also I have to put every random task I think of on the list or I will lose track of them. I often put things on lists for next week or even next month so that I can forget about them today. Somehow the afternoon turned into a slog for just about everyone. Then we all had to wade through patches of cranky in the evening. Yet here we are at bedtime with most of the things done. I do feel caught up, like tomorrow can be a normal day instead of a sprint. That will be nice. We need a steady pace for a while.

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A Visit to Fremont Indian State Park

“I just want to go home.” Kiki said as we drove away from my sister’s house. Link concurred. I sympathized, but Fremont Indian state Park was right on the road back to our house. It seemed a shame not to stop and see the carvings made by humans hundreds or thousands of years ago.

“We’ll only stay a little bit. Besides if we go straight home we’ll get there at the same time as the football game traffic.” Gleek and Patch were excited by the possibility of Native American things. So we stopped.

Court of Ceremonies Trail 1/2 mile the little sign said. We’d already wandered through the exhibit room, climbed on the pit house play structure, and listened to recordings. We decided to wander along the paved path to look at rock carvings up close. It was a good choice, the marks which looked like scrawls and graffiti from a distance resolved into a more deliberate art when we got up close. Curated exhibits are useful and informative, but outside in the sun and air we could think our own thoughts and draw our own conclusions about the things we saw–one of which was this little sign. The name Court of Ceremonies was intriguing enough to draw us off of the paved walkway and up a dirt path. We trekked in search of a place that was special or sacred. As we trekked, we saw that every flat surface reachable by human hands was marked.

I wondered what those long ago people thought as they scraped pictures into the rocks. Were the artists people who sneaked off to draw because of an inner need? Were they ridiculed by their community or revered? Were the markings sacred with ceremonial importance or were they like graffiti–an impermanent human being trying to leave something in the world to say “I was here”? If I’d made us all sit for the 15 minute video, I probably would have had answers to those questions. Instead we only had speculations as we walked.

The trail split and the little sign said nothing about Court of Ceremonies, just informing us that one way was back toward the museum along a Hidden Secrets trail. We’d already climbed out of the canyon. I pictured the court of ceremonies as a place circled by walls with drawings etched into them. The path we were on did not seem likely to take us to such a place. So we turned our feet back toward the museum. We all were still aware of the two hour drive necessary to take us home. None of us wanted to exhaust ourselves with a long hike. Link in particular was glad to be headed back. He ran ahead on the trail until we could see him in the distance waving his arms and jumping. He’d found something. As I drew closer, the kids appeared to be running in circles. They were following the trails of a spiral.

There was no sign to explain this spiral or its purpose. It was far too exposed to the elements to have existed since the Native American peoples lived there. Possibly it had been restored and maintained by people who came later, such as the museum staff. We all walked the spiral. I photographed the kids in the center. Then they spiraled back out and we continued on our way, having decided to call the place Court of Ceremonies.

Sometimes having interesting questions can be as satisfying as answers.

A trick of cloud cover and daylight made the clump of yellow trees in the valley below us radiant in comparison with the surrounding landscape.

Most of the natural plants more or less ignored the fall weather, but these trees declared it. I only saw them near the man-made highway. In other areas entire hillsides were orange and yellow. It was lovely, even in pouring rain.

The kids were quiet on the drive home. They had thoughts to think and video games to play. I looked at the spare and open countryside as I drove us home. Utah is very different than the forest I visited in Tennessee. I loved the forest, but I love Utah too. There is beauty in desert landscapes where all the plants and animals have to make the most of limited resources rather than fighting over abundance. I remember the little canyon wren we saw on our hike. It jumped along the cliff face and then vanished into crevices of rock. It was perfectly at home in a place that is difficult to turn into a living space.

Back at my house, I’m realizing how much more I could do to make it a lovely place, even when my resources feel limited. The Fremont Indians scraped beauty into rock and dug their homes out of the ground. Surely I can manage to sweep more often in my centrally-heated house. I can take time to decorate and mend. I’ve already turned my house into a place that is good to come home to. I can work to make it even better.

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Observations on a College Campus

I am old. Not old lady old, but mom old. Everywhere we went there were young people and they were all open and ready to engage, meet new friends, maybe find someone particularly special. …and I don’t fit with that anymore. I remember fitting. I remember belonging to the crazy energy of an apartment of girls baking cookies late at night because we had too much studying to do. Part of me misses it, and part of me is tired contemplating it. But I watched Kiki, and she is ready for it. She bounced as we looked at the library, the dorms, the art department. She is ready to launch into college and I am the mom who gets to send her off and go home. Just writing that sentence makes me feel boring.

(No need to make me feel better. I’m fine. I really like my current life stage and level of wisdom. It is just one of those How did I end up here? moments.)

When one tours a college campus in the rain, it is best to wear a coat with a hood. I wish I’d known that rain was in the plans when I walked out of my house without grabbing my jacket yesterday.

Up next: admissions forms, then an unending stream of scholarship forms and financial aid applications. But walking the campus let Kiki picture herself as a college student. It helped her to refine what she wants.

Onward

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