This is all making me dizzy.
Here we are, almost two weeks into the new year. I didnāt make any resolutions, itās not really a thing that I do, but I would like to make sure that I keep up with writing – here on the blog, as well as in other venues. I confess that I felt bogged down.
What do we do at the end of the year, at the beginning of the next? We look back at the year thatās past, we look ahead to the year to come. Itās really difficult for me to sum up an entire year in a simple way. An awful lot of stuff went on in 2011, some of it good, some of it bad, some of it really outstanding and excellent, some of it terrible. Was it a good year? I suppose it was. I kept learning, and trying to look forward, and to make right and good decisions for right and good reasons. But for the most part Iāve been impatient with looking back, this year. With the arrival of 2012, Iāve more or less had an attitude of āBring it on!ā Rather than trying to pin down specific goals (get published? Climb a volcano!), I just want to be ready for whatever the year throws my way.
All the looking-forward and looking-back left me, frankly, dizzy. And ridiculously enough, it left me far too uncertain what to write here. Whatās this blog for? What do I need to say? In a lot of ways, I feel like some Big Ideas that I was working on in 2011 are still works-in-progress. Do I honestly feel like I have to present something like a finished product here? In my blog? Which is about me? I reckon I wonāt be a finished product until Iām dead and buried (or cremated, or cadavered, or whatever) and I would really rather that not be for a while yet.
Maybe Iāll post more, about unfinished stuff, like almost everything in my life. I have some milestones coming up and Iām sure to yammer about those. In the meantime, as our little New Year finishes up its first fortnight, let me share something from a few years back:
Dream bigger, Petey!
This was Richard Thompsonās Cul-de-Sac for January 2, 2009. Itās a brilliant strip full of heart, and might I add the only strip thatās lulled Bill Watterson out of retirement to say nice things about it. I donāt suppose Iāll be needing to wrestle any bears in 2012, but if I need to, by golly, I want to be ready! Bring it on! (Note: not actually a direct challenge to bears.)
January 13, 2012
Ā· 
Jen Ā· 
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Tags: 2012, new year, stuff, thinking Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
“Milo says you can unbuckle now.”
Decemberās almost over with, 2011 is on its way out the door, and I havenāt managed to put fingers to keyboard to post in nearly a month. There are so many things I could talk about at this time of year. And so much thatās gone on in 2011! Things Iāve learned, things that Iām frustrated with myself for not learning, or for seeming to forget so easily. Accomplishments, plans, stories, anger, resentment, love, puzzlement, pride, shame.
Itās the end of the year. Itās the time to pull out the big guns. What was 2011 about? What do I want to see happen – no, what do I want to make happen in 2012? Where has my narrative been? Where is it going? What am I doing to my memories to create the story of this-year, this-time? Am I making right and good decisions, for right and good reasons?
Gosh. Itās all a little overwhelming, and I sure was letting myself be overwhelmed. I didnāt write about Thanksgiving! (Oh no! Iāll seem ungrateful!) I didnāt write about Christmas! (Oh no! Iāll seem ungenerous!) And now Iām gearing up for New Yearās! With all those big questions! What will I write about?
I will write about Bloom County.
Friends, if I donāt write something Iāll keep kicking myself about it, and if I keep staring up at the sheer cliff walls of Big Ideas too long, Iām gonna get a crick in my neck and a near-stagnant blog.
I love Bloom County. I have ridiculous, I mean really stunning amounts of my brain devoted to the words and images from that particular decade of comic strips. There are triggers that will probably be with me until I die. Just try it. Wait until Iām in some assisted-living facility somewhere, approaching my inevitable end with what grace and dignity I can summon, and you come up to my bedside. You take my hand. You look into my eyes. And you say, āThis is a fine batch of corn you have!ā And I will, if there is power of speech left within me, look up at you, grasp your hand more tightly, and say āTāaināt corn! Itās dope!ā
My brother got the first book when it first came out, and it took up residence in our shared bathroom. Over the years, every Bloom County collection would take up space there, getting splotchy and water-logged and mildewy and generally abused. Years later, Berke Breathed gave an interview to The Onion A.V. Club where he said there were no plans to re-release the books, but that you could pick them up on eBay if you didnāt mind the water damage from them all sitting in bathrooms throughout the ā80s.
Oh, but he was wrong. I mean, not about the bathrooms. At long last, a definitive, snazzy, hard-cover five-book set of every. blessed. Bloom County cartoon. has been released. And that, my friends, is what my brother got me for Christmas this year. I am a lucky gal, to have a big brother whoās still feeding my ridiculous habit thirty years after he got me hooked in the first place.
Hey, I wound up writing about Christmas after all! Thatās all right. It was a lovely Christmas. These books will not be kept in my bathroom.
"Ah, a farmer! A man of the earth!"
December 27, 2011
Ā· Jen Ā· 5 Comments
Tags: fun, overthinking, writing Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
Project: Rejection
The collection is starting. A little over a month ago, I received word that a story I wrote was not accepted for publication in an upcoming anthology. Then just the other week, I learned that a story I submitted for a local short fiction contest did not win or place for a prize. Two different stories, two rejections in a month. And itās about damn time.
I have a blog. Itās no big secret that I want to write, that I love to write. What Iām here to confess is that for the longest time, for too long, I didnāt. Oh, I wrote in journals and I wrote blog posts and I wrote long emails and I wrote funny snippets of dialogue to post in online forums so that people would see how terribly clever I was. But once I was out of school and was no longer compelled to write or held to deadlines, I pretty much didnāt.
Last year I cleaned out an old box of writing from my childhood. I knew I was going to find old journals, but what I forgot was all the old stories. Pardon me, the beginnings of old stories. I never could quite seem to stick it out to the end, oh but I was full of beginnings. Most of them were terrible, but thatās not the point.
The point was I hadnāt begun a story in a long time. Why? As an adult with bills to pay and health insurance to keep, I am very familiar with how few writers of fiction are able to make a living for themselves with their writing. What I had forgotten was that I didnāt start all those stories when I was a kid with an idea of being paid for them. I started them because I wanted to. I started them because I thought I had something to say. I started them because I always enjoyed writing. I started them to have fun.
Finishing them, not always so fun. But that box of beginnings sat there like a challenge. I read through each one, and cringed. I couldnāt imagine finishing any of them. But maybe, I thought, I could start something else.
Well, I write in fits and starts. I still write for this blog, because I love that too, and I still keep a journal, because thatās how I process ideas and solve problems. Endings are still a lot harder than beginnings. With my tendency to over-write, I am trying to keep to very short projects, to cut down to the bare minimum. But in the past year Iād say Iāve written a half-dozen short pieces, two of which I liked enough to send out into the world. And the others arenāt beyond hope.
Iāve got a few big ideas, but I like these little ones. I like the endings. But I like the beginning of my rejection collection maybe even more.
December 6, 2011
Ā· Jen Ā· One Comment
Tags: writing Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
Stories to tell you.
Thereās a story Iād like to tell you. Once there was a woman who met a man, and they got married the way youāre supposed to, and they had a kid the way youāre supposed to. Not much else went the way it was supposed to go, though. The ending was bad, I mean the ending of the marriage. The story doesnāt end there. This woman came up from something ugly, and even though I know in my heart it was the hardest thing to do, know in a way I canāt explain, she still had the courage to open her eyes to something beautiful and new. A rush of new love like the brightest burst soap-bubble on a high spring day, like kite-flying and roller-coaster-riding and slow-dancing for the first time ever, that rush. Something Iām not sure everyone gets, though I hope in my heart they do. I hope in my heart they get it once, twice, the very number of times they can bear. And think, think about coming up from something ugly and even letting yourself believe that could happen again. Thatās what happened. There was another man, and they got married eventually, not because they were supposed to but because they could – or maybe because they couldnāt not. It was a tough road for both of them to get to that day, but they got there together and walked together from that day forward. They walked that way, in happiness, for seventeen years.
In a lot of ways it looks like that story ended a little over a week ago. That woman is my aunt, and last week her husband of seventeen years died suddenly and unexpectedly. Iām so sorry to have lost my uncle; Iām sorrier still for my aunt, that the story has come to this seeming end.
Life isnāt a narrative, however, no matter how dearly I want to turn it into one. Iāve told myself a lot of stories over the years, good ones and bad ones, and I believed them, too. Believed them to the point I found it hard to go out and deal with life on its own messy non-narrative terms.
Maybe if we believe too hard in the way the story should go we cheat ourselves out of the best parts. Maybe the courage to open our eyes and look forward is better than any story. Maybe that story I started to tell ended last week, but I donāt think that it did. I donāt think love disappears that easily; I believe it acts in our lives in ways we donāt understand and cannot know. The pain of that loss is unimaginable to me, and if I thought that I could write a story that would lift it away I would write it in a heartbeat. But I think sometimes I have too much faith in stories and not enough in people.
I hope, for her, that life still holds many surprises and joys, small and large. I hope for everything, and have faith in her to look for it. Life is more than a story, and each new day can say that a thousand times over.
November 14, 2011
Ā· Jen Ā· 6 Comments
Tags: loss, love, stories Ā· Posted in: family
A Walk in the Dark
One chilly October evening a long time ago, my best friend and I were getting ready to go out trick-or-treating. We were leaving from my house, working our way up the block. I canāt remember whether it was her fatherās turn to walk us around, or my fatherās turn. I canāt remember what I was dressed as that year. I canāt remember what actual year it was. In truth I canāt remember if it was chilly or not, I just went with something that sounded atmospheric.
But it was dark. Iām sad for the kids out walking around tonight, who started before it even got dark. Halloween is about the dark: walking around in it, holding up little lights against it, taking those first steps out into the world where you just do not know what will be waiting for you. Something good? Something bad?
It was a dark October evening and we walked up the block from my house. I knew most of the people on my block and so we went from house to house, not skipping a one, happily hoisting our treat bags and hollering āTrick or treat!ā as neighbors answered their doors.
A few houses up, the family had really gone all out with decorating. The porch light was on, illuminating the bales of hay and clutches of dried cornstalks that had been arrangedĀ on the lawn. There were several scarecrows set in the yard too. As we stepped onto the porch we noticed more hay, strewn around, with another bale over near a chair. Propped against the wall next to the bale was another scarecrow. We knocked on the door, our neighbor answered, the ritual of hollow-threat-met-with-empty-calories was enacted. The neighbor shut the door, we turned away clutching our treat bags and started to walk. At that point the scarecrow on the porch leapt up and started to run after us. We screamed at the top of our lungs and ran to the street as though our lives depended on it!
Whichever one of our fathers was walking us around was laughing. Soon we started too. Some part of our brains must have known what was happening right away. The family that lived in that house had teenage sons. One of the sons was disguised as a scarecrow, not popping out at each new group, but biding his time, waiting until things had quieted down from the last scare.
I donāt know what I was dressed as or if it was cold or whose father exactly was walking us around, but I remember the cold arrow of fear in my heart. I remember running and yelling and then laughing and laughing. I remember being out, in the dark, scared, holding a single flashlight and laughing long and hard.
Will the thing out there in the dark be something good, or something bad? Feeling that thrill of fear might have been my first clue that it could be both. The whole world of front porches and dark laughter and pounding hearts is a crazy mixed-up bag of good and bad and the strange exhilaration we feel when we canāt quite tell the difference.
October 31, 2011
Ā· Jen Ā· 2 Comments
Tags: fear, fun, memories Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
One for the books.
Itās October now, and when exactly did that happen?
September was one hell of a month for me. I feel like I ran an emotional marathon, with perhaps a few spiritual wind-sprints thrown in for good measure. Add a few mental kettle-bells and…basically, you drive a promising metaphor into the ground.
But it was intense. The whole month, full of travels and adventures and good times and odd times and sad times and fantastic times and powerful times. When I was sitting still, like on the retreat at the monastery, my inner life was still busy indeed. When I was busy, like during the weekend in New York, there was some part of my brain still happily taking it all in. āBring it on!ā it seemed to say. And thatās not even to mention everything that happened NOT on one of those trips, and Iāll have you know itās not an insignificant amount of everything.
And now that itās over, what am I taking away? Lots of things, of course, many of which are still vague and nascent and proto- and ur- and…Iām driving that into the ground too. Thatās all right.
Iām taking away that itās complicated. Life, I mean. Everything about it. Emotions, actions, decisions, words spoken, words not spoken, words of prayer, words of anger. Itās frankly ridiculous how complicated it is.
Itās complicated and crazy and I love it. And I can handle it. Sometimes when I look back at my history, I suddenly see things in a new light. And the new light right now comes from recognizing and embracing complication. There have been many times in the past where I limited my imagination and expectations to simple things. How nice it would be, how uncomplicated, I would think. And at the bottom of that was self-doubt. Why did I want nice simple things? Because I wasnāt sure, deep down, if I could handle the alternative. But so far, so far… I have.
Does that mean I always will? Nope. Do I still have to remind myself to ask for help even though itās hard to do? Yep. Will I still screw up royally? Hells yes. But the gift of times like this September is, I hope, the ability to trust myself enough to try.
October 2, 2011
Ā· Jen Ā· No Comments
Tags: complication, figuring it out, self Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
My Kingdom For A Voice
My first copy of Lifes Rich Pageant was a cassette copy from my brotherās vinyl. There was a skip on the record during āThese Days,ā and to this day when I listen to that song thereās a part of me that waits for that little stutter. Itās not there, as I now listen to a ripped MP3 copy from my own CD, but I listened to that cassette over and over and over again so many times that some part of me is always going to think āThese Daysā has that blip.
Even though I didnāt (and still donāt) like āOrange Crush,ā my cassette copy of Green eventually flat-out broke from replay and rewinding. That was mainly due to āYou Are the Everythingā and āWorld Leader Pretend.ā Those were on the same side, when albums had sides.
I mainly remember Out of Time not for any one particular track, but for the boy who bought it for me. When I was cleaning out a closet two moves back, I found a laboriously hand-drawn birthday card complete with a āgift certificateā (also hand-drawn) for a new album…ideally, the new R.E.M., he wrote in his careful hand. It was 1991 and I was turning nineteen.
I think the first song I really became aware of by R.E.M. was āThe One I Love,ā which I didnāt like at the time but which has grown on me. My brother got the album and I said something about not liking the song. But even though I was fifteen and he was twenty-four, I was still very strongly influenced by my brotherās taste in music. He really liked the album, so I borrowed it. The first song, āFinest Worksong,ā was enough to convince me. āItās the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)ā was certainly a fun song, but the one I went back to over and over again on that one was āKing of Birds.ā āI am the king of all I see; my kingdom for a voice.ā
R.E.M. came into my life when I needed a voice. Iād grown up listening to big band music (Dad), whatever-soft-rock-was-nice-on-the-radio (Mom), and ā70s singer-songwriters and classic rock (my brother). Those were all dandy, music of almost any kind made me happy. But I didnāt have music that felt like mine, that was saying the kind of things I might like to say.
Although I havenāt bought a new album by them in years, thereās a part of my life, a part of me, that just wouldnāt exist if it werenāt for R.E.M. It gave me real pause when I heard the news today that they are breaking up. If I could shake their hands, I would. Their music was the soundtrack playing when I finally started growing up.
September 21, 2011
Ā· Jen Ā· 2 Comments
Tags: history, music Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
Rising up.
It rises up, the grief. It comes up at happy times, and perversely stays away at sad ones. It wants to defy anticipation. āHere is a day I will feel it,ā Iāll think, and then it will not appear, only to come up at another time.
When it is fresh, it doesnāt have to rise up. It is there, all around, informing every moment and thought. When it started to sink away, I didnāt notice. And then I did, and then I felt wrong somehow. That the grief should not leave. But it does. It leaves, but it will keep rising up.
I didnāt fight it. I was lucky enough, blessed enough, to have good people around me who knew what I was swimming in and let me take the currents as they came. When you are swimming in strong current and suddenly come out of it, it can be unsettling. I felt disoriented, when the grief was sinking down. But I knew, I know it will rise up.
What I am lucky enough, blessed enough to know is that love also rises up. Always. It does not come when you call, it can be as perverse as grief, but it is there. It will rise.
Love will rise on a cloudy day, on a lonely road, from the soil of a grave. It will rise from a friendly smile, a helping hand, and a passing word. It is strong and buoyant beyond the telling.
Grief will rise, and sweep you in its current. Love will rise, and lift you up. Never so high that grief cannot reach you, but it is all that can keep you afloat. Friends, when grief comes, let love come also. You will rise.
In memorium. Miss you, Dad.
Taken June 2009, Corolla NC
September 19, 2011
Ā· Jen Ā· 6 Comments
Tags: dad, grief, love Ā· Posted in: family
Ten years.
This weekend I went on retreat at a Trappist monastery in Berryville, VA. Never having done such a thing before, I was curious, filled mostly with interested anticipation but with a little trepidation. Would I go crazy, I wondered, with nearly 48 hours off the grid entirely, not just no internet, but no phone, no music, no talking?
The short answer is no. My other worries were more vague: would I find the rest and time to center myself Iād hoped for? Would I feel intimidated or put off by overt āreligiosityā? Would I, simply put, just not feel like I fit in?
There are many cats atĀ Holy Cross Abbey. There are signs on the retreat house warning that the cats are not allowed inside, āno matter how much they meow,ā because some guests might be allergic. It wasnāt something I was anticipating. They donāt put on their website, āBy the way, this place is FULL of cats!ā But the cats are outside cats, rather like barn cats, but for the whole farm (the monastery is also a farm) and other buildings. At the small gift shop on the grounds, there were at least three mother cats and their litters of kittens – over a dozen kittens, all told, all around 7-10 weeks old. At the retreat house, there were four āregulars.ā One in particular, a young (under six months) brown tabby female, spent a lot of time with me. I would sit in a wooden porch chair for an hour morning or evening, letting her sit on my lap and purr.
None of my worries came to any fruition. I felt welcome and peaceful and not pressured to have any kind of experience other than what I shaped for myself. Saturday afternoon, I went to the little shop to get a few goodies for my Mom (the monks make truffles!), and the monk who works at the shop was clearly a cat-caretaker with a great deal of love for his charges. He had one of the kittens from outside sitting with him, tucked into his cassock as he sat behind the counter. The kitten started mewing fiercely, and he got up to take him outside. We both said similar things to the mewing kitten, to quiet him down. Apparently vows of silence do not apply to talking to kittens!
Later, after Iād taken my purchases back to my room, I was again sitting on the porch with my new friend curled up on my lap. Another new friend, a slightly larger (but still not full-grown) black male cat, was curling around my legs. Suddenly, the door opened and they both ran from me to the door. It was the same monk from the gift shop! He chided them gently for abandoning me, and I said, āItās all right, theyāve been spending lots of time with me.ā It was the first sentence Iād uttered the whole weekend. The monk smiled, then teased the cats with the paper towel he held in his hands. What was in it?
Chicken! Fresh bits of chicken, cut up specially for the cats. He leaned to put the chicken in their bowl, and letting the brown tabby begin to eat, he picked up the black one and sat in the chair next to me. The black one did not really want to play āsit stillā but the monk got him calmed down. And we chatted. These two had been born in the spring, down at the shop. But at some point they decided to move up to the guest house.
It was an unexpected moment. Of all the things I thought I might have a conversation about on my retreat weekend, when I figured I might not have any conversations at all, cats were not even on the list. But there it was. This convivial monk, bearing a passing resemblance to Wilford Brimley, was someone I might have had nothing else in common with in the world. He was of a different generation, and had taken a very different life path than I have.
But there we were, on common ground, built out of simple love.
Today at church, my last retreat activity barring lunch, the main theme was forgiveness. My own theme for the weekend seemed to be all the things we have in common. Not just monks and cats, but all of us. Though our differences can be large and can seem overwhelming, I think that ultimately we are more alike than we are different. The line about forgiveness that struck me most was this: āForgiveness is about reminding ourselves that we all hurt others.ā
We do. We all hurt others, and we are all hurt. It is another thing we have in common. On this day, a day where we think about hurt, instead I have chosen to think about the other things we have in common. Even the ones we may not know about yet.
Note: I have already written aĀ remembrance, on the five-year anniversary. For me, it felt important to move in a different direction. Each of us can decide for ourselves how best we would like to commemorate, think about, and otherwise put in perspective the events of that day that touched us all.
September 11, 2011
Ā· Jen Ā· 4 Comments
Tags: faith, history, questions, thoughts Ā· Posted in: cats, faith
I got ‘em all cut!
Knowing it had been far too long since Iād written a blog post, I sat down last night and wrote one on disasters. It wasnāt bad, but I decided to sleep on it, and in re-reading it I thought it sounded a little flippant.
The last thing I posted about was my belief in the existence of God. It seemed in bad form to jump from that to whimsical observations in the face of natural disaster(s).
Of course, thatās been part of the problem. āWell I wrote this whole big thing on God! What the hell do I do now?ā In the meantime Iāve also been writing other things, but I didnāt want to let the blog slip away. What to do, what to do?
Why, obviously I should write about the fact that my salon hired a shampoo dude.
Last night I went for a haircut. My stylist, who Iāve been going to for like eight or nine years and who does a wonderful job, also keeps getting more expensive. I try to go as long as possible between haircuts. I believe my last visit was early May. My hair was driving me absolutely bonkers so it was time. I called, got an appointment for right after work. Perfect.
When I arrived at the salon I checked in and sat to wait. I picked up a Discover magazine and my nose was buried in it when this really tall guy came out and said what I eventually realized was my name. I looked up and it clicked – oh, my turn to get taken back and shampooed. Apparently by this enormously tall young dude.
Walking back, he checked to make sure he had pronounced my name right. Immediately I reassured him that he had, that I had just not been paying particular attention. Then we arrived at the chairs for the shampooing, and I wondered. Had I ever been to a beauty salon as an adult woman and had my hair shampooed by a man? I donāt believe so! Usually the shampooing and other dirty work of the salon is done by teenaged girls. Usually teenaged girls are not quite so tall. Sometimes they are so short that they have to be careful not to squish portions of their anatomy into my face while scrubbing.
Clearly this would not be a problem this time. I sat back and took off my glasses and he fired up the faucet. Starting to wet down my hair, he checked that the temperature was all right and went to it. Yes, very professional. Well done, young man, I thought to myself, as if the art of shampooing was something that would not come naturally to a male. Hair thoroughly soaked he took up the shampoo and oh sweet merciful heavens. He started with a temple massage.
I immediately began a point-by-point shampoo critique in my head because frankly this was all terribly, awfully distracting. My strapping young shampooer was not unattractive, though I am hopeless at guessing ages and therefore had to assume that I was in fact old enough to be his mother. The simple fact of the matter is that having your head shampooed by another person is a tactile delight, regardless of who is doing the shampooing.
Ultimately what happened this time, though, was I spent far too much time concentrating in a very studious manner on whether he had rinsed the conditioner out sufficiently. I did this to avoid feeling like a dirty old woman. I was so engaged in this pastime (āPretty thorough, but I think he needs to work on the head-lift and back-of-the-neck rinseā) that I utterly missed it when he said I could sit up. I am fairly certain the nice young man who does the shampooing at my salon now thinks I am partially deaf or entirely insensate.
He did a temple massage for the conditioner, too. You really canāt blame me for my distraction, is what Iām saying here.
August 31, 2011
Ā· Jen Ā· One Comment
Tags: awkward, haircut, observations Ā· Posted in: Uncategorized
