Susan Henderson's Blog, page 5

Question of the Month: Social Media vs. The Real World

How has your life changed with social media?

I love many things about email, blogging, FaceBook and Twitter. It allows a shy person with not-so-great hearing to engage in the world without awkward pauses, without misunderstanding what’s said if more than one person is talking. It allows me to work when I need to work and play when I have time to play. It allows me to connect with the writers and friends I feel closest to, even if they live far away. I really do love to hear about your regular lives, not just your book releases, but the struggles of writing in between the triumphs, the pushing through when you’re stuck, the setting work aside to tend to ailing parents. I love hearing about your kids and your hobbies and your favorite recipes. I love how I can get the news in real time on Twitter, even if I have to question the sources. I love (sometimes) seeing the world’s reaction to the news. Actually, I often hate that, but it’s instructive, eye-opening. Social media has been enriching in so many ways. But this summer I took a break from it. No blogging, no FaceBook, no streams of news feed.

With my boys and my parents at The Cloisters.

This summer, my 18-year-old was home after his first year of college. My 17-year-old is about to begin his senior year of high school. I am so very aware of how brief this window of time is, this bridge between boyhood and manhood, this gift of both boys being home for the entire summer. They are changing before my eyes and I want to be here, I want to hear their dreams and frustrations, I want to know their friends and their thoughts, or as much of them as they choose to share.

This summer in a nutshell: Driver’s ed for both boys (yes, we are late getting to some things in our family), summer jobs, guitar lessons, college applications, walks and talks, movies, a basement full of teenagers, too many sleepovers to count, The World Cup, a homemade zombie movie, a trip to Montana for my brother’s wedding, a trip to Hawaii to visit my in-laws, novel editing (with serious help from some genius writers), concerts, wine and coffee on the front porch, barbecues, bonfires, galley reading and blurbing, and face-to-face hanging out with friends. I’m grateful for this time away and that doesn’t mean at all that I didn’t miss you.

I’m going to post some photos and links from the summer and hope you’ll share some of your summer stories in the comments.

My brother got married to the very awesome Molly, with my cousin officiating.

My 18-year-old performed the entire Michael Jackson “Off the Wall” album with his band, Mike Rath and the Grapes (my son being a grape). They had their first rehearsal the day before their gig at NYC’s The Bitter End. Was the happiest show I’ve ever been to… and I hear there will be video of it soon! In the meantime, here’s the tiniest clip from my phone.

I had such a great time in Brooklyn with my friends, Rob Fields and Bridgett Davis (whose new book is EXTRAORDINARY). I’ve known Rob since we were both eighteen!

This is my 17-year-old filming his zombie movie. He wrote the screenplay, directed and edited the film, and composed the music for it. I’ve known for a long time that he’s talented, but this year I realized he’s an artist.

Mr. H played lots of gigs with his band, Bad Mary. They’re playing Arlene’s Grocery tomorrow (September 2nd). Go see them if you can!

I’m not a fan of the sun (or the beach, really), so when we visit Hawaii, I’m always on the lookout for shade. This is me reading David Ulin‘s gorgeous book at Makapu’u.

We had a two-hour hike in the rain with my boys and their friend, James, who we brought with us to Hawaii.

I loved receiving the spontaneous invitation and then making the spontaneous decision to drive down to LaTrobe and hang out at Steelers’ training camp with my friend, Angela Small, and her beautiful family.

Some quick thank you’s to Sincerely Stacie, WTF Are You Reading?, vvb32reads, Beckie and Jeremy, Blackbird Letterpress, Pretty Little Fofinha,  The Washington Post’s Ben Opipari, and The Merrick Library.

And that’s it from me this month. Except to say: Welcome back, everyone! Looking forward to hearing your answers to the Question of the Month, as well as stories about your summer!

Question of the Month: Hurry, Hurry, Hurry!

Why do we get so caught up in a sense that we need to hurry?

I’ve been thinking more about last month’s blog and your comments, and it’s still with me… this slow-coming spring and the idea of planting seeds, nurturing the soil, and having faith in the importance and in the return of each season. It feels like a lesson I’m finally beginning to learn… that the seeds will grow and bear fruit; that the blank page we started writing on, where we first typed those early ideas and dreamed vaguely about a book that spoke to something deep in the soul will become something that speaks to others; that the journey is as important as the destination; that what evolves never takes the path or the shape we expected.

I’ve finished another draft of my book, and it’s starting to feel sturdy in so many ways. The shape of it is now clear and the reason I needed to write it is coming into focus. I’ve never enjoyed writing more—writing without deadlines, without the thought of anyone looking over my shoulder. I love the story I’m trying to pin down, and I even love the dance as parts of it stay hidden or try to squirm away from my control. I’m getting so very close to having the book I dreamed of writing, though I know it’s not there yet. That’s okay.

We have these false ideas of how fast we ought to do things, racing to the end. Sometimes I have to tell myself, “Wait a minute! What’s the hurry?”

I have examples all around me that what I value most, and what lasts, takes time. As I post this, Mr. H and I are about to celebrate our (hold on, I have to do the math) 22nd anniversary—27 years since our first date. Here’s a picture of us during that first year together that I posted on my author page. (I’m going to try to embed the post here but you may just have to click on that link).

Post by Susan Henderson.

Life, when you’ve lived long enough, and relationships, when you’ve seen them through enough ups and downs, can give you tremendous perspective. The strength of a marriage doesn’t happen overnight or because you will it to be strong. Mr. H and I happen to have awesome teenagers, but they didn’t suddenly appear that way. In marriage, as with raising children, it’s about day-to-day being there, listening, being ourselves, making mistakes, forgiving, realizing the one who got in trouble wasn’t always the one in the wrong, trying again, and so on. Books, too. They take time, and each writer has her own pace, her own balance to strike, and her own discoveries to make.

Sometimes the strength of a relationship is in the hard times that were weathered, the lessons learned, the humbling. Sometimes the glory of who your teens have become is where they disobeyed you and followed their own instincts. Sometimes the best writing comes from where you got stuck, when you put it away to let it breathe, when you let your guard down or set aside all the well-meaning advice you were given and wrote without thinking.

I’m still looking forward to weather where I can get rid of my coat, where I can sit on the porch without freezing, where all the seeds I planted break through the soil. I don’t even remember everything I planted. But in the meantime, I will enjoy the now, the tiny changes in color, the thick comforters we still need on the bed, the way the animals press up close at night, and the continued inspiration to dig deeper into this book. I’m fine with the pace of things. And by the way, I’m off in a week to meet with some folks about this book and feel unbelievably excited to place my manuscript into such talented hands!

If this feels like a repeat of last month’s message, it’s because some of us need help in the patience and faith department. Some of us need to be beat over the head with our lessons.

So how about you? Talk to me about hurrying and slowing down and whatever you’ve learned about that, whether in writing or simply in living.

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Some thank you’s… to Great New Books and to the fine people who’ve left reviews of Up from the Blue. See you in June!

Question of the Month: Spring

Spring really took it’s time this year, but look what pushed through the ground after all that snow and ice melted. It’s a good reminder, I think, of those projects and relationships that can’t be rushed. The groundwork and the strong roots are hidden. The incubation period is necessary, as much as most of us don’t like to wait. So talk to me about something you did or experienced that was in motion long before you saw or felt the results.

Those of you who know me best know how important walks are to me. I do my best thinking and writing as I walk. It balances my mood and my perspective. So being shut inside my office over the winter has not been easy.

Friends ask all the time, How’s the book going? If I measure it by whether it’s ready to share, it’s going too slow. I write or edit every day, and sometimes it feels like nothing’s happening, like staring at the ground in winter and trying to believe it’ll ever be spring again.

As winter dragged on through March and I passed the several-foot pile of gray ice every time I went in or out of the house, I found myself needing to look at bright pictures of flowers, needing to see color. It’s not so different for me with writing. I want to get to the end of a round of edits and say, That’s it! It looks like the idea I dreamed of creating! I can’t wait to share it!

Alas. It’s a process of patience and faith. Recently, I needed to look at pictures of early revisions of my book (I’ll post them in the next blog) to see if I’m really making headway. And I am. When I remember it all started with a blank piece of paper, when I remember the choices I made in earlier drafts before I really knew the characters, before I owned the setting, before I woke up in the middle of the night with the idea that made me say, Wow, I realize how silly it is to think of measuring things by whether there’s a finished product yet.

I planted the seeds, the roots are strong, I’ve tended to it almost daily. I’ve done this before. There’s no flower to show, not yet, but it will come, I trust that it will.

Do I know exactly what I planted? No. And this is the fun part. Writing is sort of like planting a mystery seed. You know you’re growing something, but what? A tulip? A cactus? A peony that requires ants to chew the bud open and bends toward the ground with the weight of its flower? Dunno. But spring always comes, early or late, it comes, and I look forward to seeing those first shoots poke through the ground.

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In other news, I’m helping to judge a contest, so here is what you need to know…

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, DimeStories will publish a print anthology of 3-minute stories.  The stories can be deep or dark or funny or light. They can be true or made-up or somewhere in-between. All that matters is good storytelling. Stories will be selected by an editorial board, including these fine authors.

Stories must be submitted online (click right here) and may not exceed 500 words. There is a $5 fee to help defray costs of printing. Deadline:  May 31, 2014. If you have any questions, just post them in the comments section and I’ll find out the answers for you.

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Some thank you’s…

… to Robbins Library in Arlington, Massachusetts for reviving this essay I wrote in 2010 for Powell’s Books, and to author Renée Thompson, for featuring my greyhound, Steve, in her blog, A Year in Compliments.

Question of the Month: Untangling Necklaces

Ever tie your story or novel into a knot trying to revise it?

My parents took me and my brother to Disneyland when we were three and five. I have foggy memories of twirling inside a tea cup and floating past singing pirates, though maybe these are not memories but only associations I’ve made from photos I’ve seen and songs I’ve sung.

All I know is that on that trip, I got my favorite necklace ever. (The closest I could find to it was this photo on Etsy.)

The necklace was a little Dutch girl made of painted wood. She even had little painted braids that fit into holes in the sides of her head, and long after one of the braids fell out, I continued to wear it.

Have you ever thrown a bunch of your necklaces into a jewelry box, and then on the day you want to wear one, you open that box and find that they’re all in a knot? That’s what eventually happened to my little Dutch girl necklace. I tried to work the knot apart using fingers and toothpicks, trying not to break the chains. All the while, I considered which necklaces to sacrifice in order to save the ones I loved best.

I bring up this story because the revision on my latest book has felt like untangling necklaces. Staring at knots and wondering where to begin. Sacrificing one thing in order to save another.

How did these knots happen? During my revision, I changed the opening, reworked a key relationship, tightened this, cut that, pulled this plot thread over here, added a big new event and a character to go with it, gave the setting its own plot arc. And in most ways, the story dramatically improved. In fact, I’m very, very excited about this one because I’m trying to write the book I’ve always wanted to read.

But there was a giant knot.

I’m being kind to myself. There were many giant knots leftover from the revision, and I pinned the stuck places up on my bulletin board and stared at them for days with no idea of how to move forward.

In a strange way, this is my favorite part of editing. It’s where the magic happens but only if you’re able to risk the whole thing collapsing. It’s that close-your-eyes-and-jump moment.

But like someone who stands on the high dive for too long, feeling the fear and anticipating all that can go wrong, what got me stuck was not so much the knot itself. True, to untangle it, I knew I would have to throw out ideas I liked and discover parts of the the book I had yet to conceive.

I stood there, frozen. Rather than thinking, This could be fun. I’ve done this before. I wonder what I’ll discover? I started wondering, What will so-and-so think if I take a step here, or here? And I could imagine the distrustful sighs, the lack of faith, the poorly hidden disappointment.

I began to be tepid. Fearful. I took baby steps. I made safe but uncreative choices. I didn’t trust the magic. Or me.

Do you have a voice like this perched on your shoulder?

This is a long post. Sorry. I’ve saved it up and that’s what happens… too much to say at one time. But here is what happened with my plot-knot. I finally reached out to a friend.

I don’t reach out very often. I come from a long line of cowboys. We are stubborn. Loners. Work horses. Never weak or needy, or if we are, we don’t admit it. But I reached out, thinking I needed editorial feedback. What I got instead was a giant pep talk and help kicking the gloomy and doubting voice off my shoulder.

The next day I was writing so fast I couldn’t keep up. I made daring changes and let the ripples begin. I wrote about things that I’m emotional and obsessed about. I scrapped parts of the book that were good in order to reach for something that made me giddy.

Am I done? No, but I’m on my way and feeling good about it.

If I could go back to my little Dutch girl story for a moment… I was never able to rescue that necklace, but I did free up a ball chain and then hung a pocket knife to it, and that became my new look. It took being blocked from my original goal to discover something brand new. My new look was little more fierce, and probably more genuine, as well.

 Amy Wallen, Rick Moody, Melora Wolff, me, & Eber Lambert.

Speaking of revisions, I’ve been reminded recently that our stories and our processes for discovering and revising them are so personal and varied. Talk to the writers you know. Think about the writers you wish you could know—Marilynne Robinson who publishes a prize-winning book every twenty years, Jodi Picoult who publishes a big concept book every other year, Alice Munro who stays with short stories no matter who says they’re an unpopular genre. This process and this very personal time table, to me, is as  fascinating and valuable as the final product.

Over a long dinner a few weeks ago with the fine group of people you see above, we talked about revisions and finding a book’s opening and the glorious inaccuracies of memory. We talked about novels and non-fiction and movies and music and bridge closures and everything under the sun. Not the greatest picture but the only one of an exceptionally lovely night—a shot in the arm, a safety net appearing below, all the best parts of being with incredible and creative friends.

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If you haven’t taken advantage of this free contest, please consider it: Salt Cay Writers Retreat Merit Scholarship Contest.

And if you haven’t “liked” my FaceBook Author Page, just click here and then click LIKE.

Okay, let’s hear your revision stories! It’s good to have the company.

 

Announcing the Salt Cay Writers Retreat Merit Scholarship Contest

Announcing the Salt Cay Writers Retreat Merit Scholarship Contest

Oct 20-25, 2014 | Salt Cay, Bahamas

Did you know that William Styron put the finishing touches on Sophie’s Choice while vacationing on Salt Cay, Bahamas? Or that Anne Morrow Lindbergh worked on Gift From The Sea on Salt Cay as well?

Now you too can practice your craft on this beautiful private Bahamian island. While the Salt Cay Writers Retreat curriculum is particularly suited for advanced fiction writers, memorists, and narrative non-fiction writers, any author who wishes to take their writing to the next level is welcome to join us for a memorable week of writing and instruction October 20-25.

The winner of the Salt Cay Writers Retreat Merit Scholarship Contest will be invited to attend the Salt Cay Writers Retreat with all program and tuition fees covered (travel and retreat hotel accommodations are not included).

The contest will be judged by a well-qualified anonymous panel of publishing professionals including retreat faculty. More information at: www.saltcaywritersretreat.com

Entry deadline: April 1, 2014

Winner announced: April 15, 2014

To enter, send your writing sample as an attachment to submissions@saltcaywritersretreat.com.

Maximum 15 pages. Your writing sample may be from a work in progress or from a published work, including essays and short stories. All materials should be in 12pt Times New Roman. Pages should be double-spaced, with one-inch margins. Please use the following file name format: TITLE OF BOOK-Salt Cay Writers Retreat Scholarship Contest. .doc or .rtf formats only, please.

Be sure to include your name and contact information in the email with your submission.

There is no fee to enter this scholarship contest; however, please remember that the scholarship covers tuition fees only; travel and hotel costs are the responsibility of the scholarship winner.

2014 Salt Cay Writers Retreat Faculty:

Lorenzo Carcaterra, #1 New York Times bestselling author

David Ebershoff, #1 international bestselling author; Executive Editor, Random House

Robert Goolrick, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Jacquelyn Mitchard, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Téa Obreht, National Book Award finalist and winner of the Orange Prize

Erin Harris, Folio Literary Management

Jeff Kleinman, Founder, Folio Literary Management

Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Agency

Erin Niumata, Senior Vice President, Folio Literary Management

“The SCWR was a life-changing experience I will never forget. The faculty was just superb across the board, especially the authors who were wise and gifted teachers. I appreciated how accessible, generous, and helpful everyone was. I was at a place in my writing career where I was ready for tools to take my work to the next level. I found this at the SCWR and so much more. Thank you all!” – 2013 Salt Cay Writers Retreat student

Questions? Email Salt Cay Writers Retreat administrators Karen Dionne or Christopher Graham at: admin@saltcaywritersretreat.com. You may also telephone Chris at 732-267-6449.

Karen and Chris are co-founders of the online writers community Backspace, and have directed the highly respected Backspace Writers Conferences held in New York City for the past 9 years.

 

Question of the Month: Where You Write

Tell me about where you like to do your writing.

Many of you know that my favorite place to “write” is on long walks. I leave the house with a question or scene in mind, and I walk until I have an answer or have figured out a crucial incident or relationship in the book. Once this happens, I grab my phone and talk the scene into my voice memo. My best ideas happen when I’m outside, walking fast.

Alas, in this weather, I have to do my writing inside with my butt in a chair. I feel restless and caged sitting in one place, but  I do love my writing space, and that helps me stay put. My office is inside my garage and decorated completely differently from my home. It’s girlie and playful with vibrant colors to wake up my senses and remind me to enjoy the process. The quilt and painting and pillow are from my mom, the typewriter was my grandmother’s, and the little angel was given to me by a friend after I ran this blog post.

The other walls are bulletin boards, where I tack up my work when I’m stuck or need a different perspective. Sometimes I pin the chapters I’m working on to the boards and look forward to seeing more and more cork as I finish them. I write at the big wooden table that Mr. H and I ate our meals at when we were first married, and there’s an elliptical machine by one of the windows, which isn’t pretty but is necessary for clearing my head.

So that’s my space, and now I’d love to hear about yours.

Next month, I’ll talk about how the revision’s going. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while—I have a lot to say—but didn’t want to slow my momentum by taking the time for it just yet.

So that’s it for this month. A few thank you’s before I go… to The Never Dusty Bookshelf, Smashwords, and The Robbing Mind Podcast for kind thoughts about my book, to everyone who has “liked” my author page and participated in the discussions over there. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate my time with you! Also, if you have an extra two minutes in your day, my friend, Amy Wallen, started a fantastic new blog called Living the Better Half. I hope you’ll check it out!

Happy Holidays! See you in January!

I have so very much to share and no time to share it. I’m enjoying having my whole family home for the holidays, and any spare moment I find I’m working on the new novel. Looking forward to hearing your holiday stories when I’m back in January. In the meantime, here’s something from Lev Grossman for writers needing a little lift.

Some thank you’s before I go: to Mega Book Club, to Keith Cronin over at Writer Unboxed, to Susan Cushman’s Pen & Palette, and as always, to readers who post reviews of UP FROM THE BLUE on Amazon and GoodReads.

See you in the new year! xo

Question of the Month: The Journey

Tell me about your journey as a writer, whether it’s your journey toward publication or you’ve set that goal aside so you can better enjoy the process of creating.

Writers often approach me for help in getting published. The conversation goes something like this (I’m going to put it in music- rather than book-terms to give the conversation a little clarity): “Hi there! Thanks for accepting my FaceBook friend request two seconds ago! I’ve never actually read your blog or listened to your album, but I notice you belong to the record company I want to belong to, so here goes. I’ve been playing guitar in my bedroom for two years and have written several things I call songs which have never been workshopped. I would like to put out an album immediately and need your help. Thanks so much! And if you offer me any kind of help that isn’t about personally introducing me to your agent or publisher, I just want you to know I’m going to tell everyone you’re an asshole. Okay, get back to me right away!”

Do you get these, too? I’m sorry if you do.

Not all the requests come with this sense of ego and entitlement. Some ask for help in the loveliest, most humble ways, but the hope is the same: Can you tell me that my writing is ready, that it’s beautiful and engaging and important, that it can be published without any more hard work, that there’s a shortcut in this business, that I won’t feel the pain and humiliation of finding out I’ve written something that no one wants to read?

I wish I could answer, Yes. I wish this process could be easy and painless. But the truth is, it’s not. The above photo shows three decades of my work—a poem here, an essay there—and quite the ratio of rejection slips to publications.

I once had the confidence shown in those letters I get. In third grade, I declared in an autobiography assignment that I wanted to be a poet when I grew up. I said the same, and more forcefully, in seventh grade. In high school, I was the poetry editor of our school’s literary magazine. In my senior year, I interviewed President Reagan’s Press Secretary, Jim Brady, at the White House. Later that same year, I was chosen along with one other student to study with the Poet Laureate of Virginia. When I was an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon, I won an Academy of American Poets Prize and money from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for an essay I wrote. I was twenty years old and assumed the trajectory in this field went upward, but I still had so much to learn, and it would be almost two decades after that poetry award before I started feeling like I knew what I was doing.

For me, being a writer has looked something like this: writing poems, flash fiction, short stories, essays, novels, and throwing away the bulk of them; workshopping my own and other people’s stories; taking and teaching classes; entering and judging contests; going to readings as both a reader and a spectator; attending and speaking at conferences; blogging; editing at a literary magazine; editing book-length manuscripts; writing book reviews; interviewing authors and publishers; receiving and delivering rejections; writing for anthologies that never ended up being published; writing for magazines that no longer exist; writing blurbs and then getting bumped by bigger authors; and most importantly, reading; always reading.

In short, what I’ve learned is that…

a writer is forever a student.
shitty first drafts are what take you down the path to a great finish.
nips and tucks do not constitute a real edit.
rather than trying to pump life into an old story or an already-published book, it’s better to focus on writing something new.
it helps to take breaks on the weekend.
it’s possible to write and also live a full life in the present world.
grit and endurance matter.
the secret to that grit and endurance is being part of a creative community.

If we judge our journeys by rejection slips and publications, we’re likely to view ourselves as failures. But in all likelihood, our journeys have taught us about ourselves and the world, developed our empathy and our writing ability, sparked imagination and wonder. There is more to this life we’ve chosen than a book deal. Writers are my favorite people, not because of their publications, but because they are observing, recording, analyzing, and transforming all they see and experience.

I’m going to leave you with a few hopeful thoughts: Harper Lee only wrote one book (To Kill a Mockingbird). E. Annie Proulx published her first novel (Postcards) when she was 57, Frank McCourt published his first (Angela’s Ashes) at 66, and so did Karl Marlantes, who worked on his (Matterhorn) for 33 years.

You still have time to tell your stories.

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By the way,  if you should ever need some company or inspiration as you write and try to sell your manuscript, I wrote about my journey of publishing UP FROM THE BLUE at the links below. Sometimes the road to success looks suspiciously like constant failure:

We Want a Turn

When Patience is Required

How a Book Can Save a Kid

Places That Capture Us

A 30-Year-Old Letter Arrives

Temporary Ecstacy: The First Book Deal

Career Day

Unraveling the Sweater

Who Owns Our Truths?

Riding the Rollercoaster

Time for Waltzing

Rejected but Not Defeated

A Community of Misfits

LitPark’s Guide to Finding a Literary Agent

LitPark’s Guide to What Happens after You Sign with a Literary Agent

LitPark’s Guide to What Happens after Your Book Has Sold

The Truth about Blurbs

Writer Retreats: My Experience at Squaw Valley

The TNB Self-Interview

UP FROM THE BLUE is here!

Question of the Month: Focus

How do you keep your focus and momentum on long projects?

This is a picture of how the new book is coming along. (I’m big into bulletin boards!) Each weekday (because I’ve learned to take weekends off), I pick one chapter or theme or knot to tackle. I do many of my edits while hiking, talking my ideas into the voice memo on my phone, because my #1 motivator is getting outside and moving. And no matter whether my edits for the day are great or terrible, I always move on to something new the next day because my #2 motivator is seeing progress.

If this looks especially tidy or easy to you, that’s because I’m sharing only the tiniest glimpse of my writing process. Right now my energy is directed at these book edits. But sometime I’ll share more of the chaotic and nerve-wracking aspects of writing and revising, how some days it’s like untangling necklaces and other days it’s like blowing things up and seeing what survives among the ashes.

Okay, your turn. What tricks and motivators do you use to stay sharp, creative, and productive?

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Many thank you’s this month: To Jamie Ford for mentioning my book in the Barnes & Noble Review! I hope you’ll check out his latest, Songs of Willow Frost… #11 in this week’s New York Times Best Seller list. To The Book Blogger and Read A Book for writing nice reviews of the Dutch translation of my book. To Jessica Vealitzek for listing my book as one of her favorites of the year. And to Corey Mesler for placing my blurb of his newest book right under one of my great writing heroes:

Thank you to Cathrine, who took this picture in a Norwegian bookstore:

 And I’ll end with this: My husband’s band, Bad Mary, just released its first video. Now you can see some of the fine people who jam in my basement each week…

Question of the Month: Endings and Beginnings

Tell me about an ending for you that was also a beginning. What was that moment, how did it impact you emotionally, and what did you discover about that moment over time?

Last weekend, Mr. H and I dropped off our oldest son at college.

The week before the move, I would spontaneously burst into tears. Is this the last brownie mix I’m going to buy until Thanksgiving break? Is this the last load of laundry I’ll wash for him? When will I hear him play the piano again?

In those last days, he and his girlfriend would hold each other, playing sad sad music. All I felt was the impending goodbye and how loved he is here. As he packed, choosing what to take and what to leave behind, it was so clear that I view him differently than he views himself. He packed his Zappa posters and soldering gun, his keyboard and his graphing calculator, but for me, he is not just the 17-year-old going off to college. He is also the little boy who’d climb into my bed after a nightmare and run through the house with a dish towel pinned to the back of his shirt. When he was finished packing, he left behind so many things that are still a part of how I see him—the teddy bear he used to sleep with, the catapults and Lego he built, the this-and-that he made from paper and all kinds of etcetera.

But here’s a truth about this creative boy I raised: a lot of things he most wanted to do with his free time were not things any of the rest of us could do with him. He has made many amazing friends over the years but when he engaged in his deepest passions, he was always alone with them. When he applied to M.I.T., understanding the near-impossible chances of getting in, it was because it was the one school we visited where he sensed he’d find like souls.

And so we set off for Boston with the car stuffed to the roof and feeling the heaviness for what I believed was going to be a sad day. And then we arrived on campus and saw this… chop saws and piles of wood set out for the meet-and-greet.

And this…

Also, his dorm allows cats!

The idea of leaving him in this place didn’t feel so much like the ending I’d anticipated, but rather leaving him in a community where he will finally, finally be deeply understood and nurtured. These are his people. These are his passions. And more than anything, as we drove home, I just felt happy for him.

Our home is different without him. I’m used to hearing the piano. I miss him plugging his iPod into my car. I’m not used to the empty bed in the morning where he usually sleeps in with the cat curled up beside him. Sometimes I’ll pass a stack of records he left behind or come across something in his handwriting or accidentally set an extra plate at dinner, and the tears come again. Not constant, just now and then, the feeling of how much I enjoyed having him here.

Endings. Beginnings. And knowing when I see him next, there will be something new about him, a transformation that’s only possible to make by going away.

*

Thank you for the nice mention my book at  The Kindness of Strangers and Frequency. And thank you to the talented Heather Fowler who interviewed me over at Fictionaut.