For a long time now I've avoided telling people about this blog and I've avoided posting anything to it -- both for the same reason: if I say I am a writer and I do not write perfectly or do not write about interesting things (i.e., if I am not perfect), then I will be rejected. I will be revealed as a fraud -- I might even be pitied, which for me is the ultimate insult. Just yesterday it occurred to me, as the cat slipped out of the bag and people began logging onto my blog after Thanksiving dinner, that I will write anyway, imperfectly, and about any subject without worrying about the approval of my audience. So as Flip Wilson (or his alter-ego, Geraldine) used to say in my childhood, What you see is what you get!
For some reason I never really felt like an adult until I turned 40, when I gave myself permission to be one, or finally recognized that I was one, regardless of my illusions to the contrary. Being in my 40s is liberating in the sense that I can make declarations about myself. I can embrace my personality and celebrate it, instead of looking for ways to bend it to another's liking. I am a finished product to the extent that one can ever really be 'finished,' which is not to imply that I never want to improve or grow or learn. I still want to do all of those things, but I am comfortable with who I am. I no longer need to qualify myself - I declare myself qualified.
Now about perfection. For a long time, I couldn't send a first draft of a written letter. If the handwriting slanted to one side or if a word had to be smudged out, even on the back side of a long letter, or if I thought of a cleverer way of saying something, I had to wad up that page and start over. Page after page after page. In college, I ducked into restrooms before every class to brush my hair and retouch my make-up. I've agonized over having a clean house (especially for houseguests), over striking just the right tone in my communications with people, over dotting all my i's and crossing all of my t's, and I have reaped rewards for all of these efforts: occasional recognition for my excellent penmanship, favorable relations with every living person I've ever known, excellent credit, a respectable GPA, etc. But I have paid a price, too, in terms of personal satisfaction. As a perfectionist, I could not, by definition, be satisfied with myself.
The odd thing is that I am not a critical person by nature. I forgive other people their mistakes quite easily. I even make excuses for their bad behavior and try earnestly to love them anyway and to reassure them of their worth. From time to time I catch myself earnestly admiring the imperfections of others, imagining how wonderful it would be to allow myself to be flawed with impunity. (I am flawed, of course, but I punish myself accordingly.)
My inner critic turns a blind eye to everyone but me, saying he is who he is, and she is who she is, but you cannot be who you are. You must be better than you are. You must improve.
I am going to work at accepting myself as readily as I accept others.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
Thanksgiving Preparations Underway...
This past week I set up a blog for my in-law family members to post pictures to, since we are spread out over a wide geographic area. At first, no one seemed to see the purpose for it, but I think everyone is catching on now that Grandpa understands it and can post to it. Everyone wants to communicate with him, naturally.
It's Thanksgiving this Thursday and we will be hosting the feast at our house. We expect to have 22 people in attendance and at least one turkey, with an array of side dishes, of course. Initially I balked at the idea of hosting, mostly due to the pre-party cleaning and prep, but then decided to go for it. I am going to celebrate the family and not worry as much about the little stuff, even the food, which would normally take center stage. Attitude is everything when it comes to family get-togethers (and most everything else in life).
Cleaning is slow-going for me right now. I don't know if I am being passive agressive, rebellious...Why is it so hard to see a cleaning project through to its completion? I do not understand. I remember when I would clean for comany and take the house from 0 to 60 in a day. I can't do that anymore. Tomorrow night we are having a guest sleepover, my son's college roommate en route to the airport early Wednesday morning...We (mostly I) will be cleaning between now and then, which will make Thanksgiving Day less of a bother.
It's Thanksgiving this Thursday and we will be hosting the feast at our house. We expect to have 22 people in attendance and at least one turkey, with an array of side dishes, of course. Initially I balked at the idea of hosting, mostly due to the pre-party cleaning and prep, but then decided to go for it. I am going to celebrate the family and not worry as much about the little stuff, even the food, which would normally take center stage. Attitude is everything when it comes to family get-togethers (and most everything else in life).
Cleaning is slow-going for me right now. I don't know if I am being passive agressive, rebellious...Why is it so hard to see a cleaning project through to its completion? I do not understand. I remember when I would clean for comany and take the house from 0 to 60 in a day. I can't do that anymore. Tomorrow night we are having a guest sleepover, my son's college roommate en route to the airport early Wednesday morning...We (mostly I) will be cleaning between now and then, which will make Thanksgiving Day less of a bother.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Desparately Seeking an Agent
Each Friday for the past several weeks I have visited the local post office to send out my book proposal to one agent per week. (It's a non-fiction children's book that I've been working on for several years now...) To date I have received one official rejection - a form letter, nonetheless, from the second agency I sent to. (I neglected to send an SASE to the first agency, so I may never hear from them at all.) I wouldn't say that it's frustrating yet, but it would be very nice to have a nibble, a hint of interest from SOMEone in the publishing industry. In reality, I understand that first books are almost never published without some real effort. If the book is picked up (i.e., sold), I will throw myself into the remaining research and writing until it is complete and published. I'd love to see it happen because I really think it would be a wonderful book for families.
In other news, I am processing loads of laundry and dishes today. (Yes, more than one load of dishes! I made a special dinner last night for Scott's birthday and used every mixing bowl we own, multiple pots, baking dishes, etc. As an aside, I must admit that the lasagna was particularly delicious...)
Tom woke me up before my alarm went off this morning to kill a spider who was dangling from the light fixture in the hallway. He described it as bungee jumping, springing up and down as it spun its web, but when the spider saw me it dropped to the ground and disappeared into the chocolate chip carpet. I couldn't see it at all, couldn't even detect movement. (That's why we chose this carpet. Scott asked the salesperson to show us carpet that already looked dirty.) So I dragged the vacuum cleaner up two stories and vacuumed all over the place before the sun had even come up. I really needed a housework day like this anyway, I suppose.
I think I finally told my first potential reader the address for this blog last night -- my husband. I'm still not sure exactly what to do with it, but I suppose the real purpose fr this blog will reveal itself over time. Meanwhile, it's nice to have one.
In other news, I am processing loads of laundry and dishes today. (Yes, more than one load of dishes! I made a special dinner last night for Scott's birthday and used every mixing bowl we own, multiple pots, baking dishes, etc. As an aside, I must admit that the lasagna was particularly delicious...)
Tom woke me up before my alarm went off this morning to kill a spider who was dangling from the light fixture in the hallway. He described it as bungee jumping, springing up and down as it spun its web, but when the spider saw me it dropped to the ground and disappeared into the chocolate chip carpet. I couldn't see it at all, couldn't even detect movement. (That's why we chose this carpet. Scott asked the salesperson to show us carpet that already looked dirty.) So I dragged the vacuum cleaner up two stories and vacuumed all over the place before the sun had even come up. I really needed a housework day like this anyway, I suppose.
I think I finally told my first potential reader the address for this blog last night -- my husband. I'm still not sure exactly what to do with it, but I suppose the real purpose fr this blog will reveal itself over time. Meanwhile, it's nice to have one.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
A Day at the Utah Book Festival
I've just returned from spending the day at the Utah Book Festival at the City Library downtown. I thought I'd write the insights that struck me as I sat in several lectures, workshops, and discussion groups today among a throng of other booklovers.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "A Woman and a Cow" Lecture delivered Thursday on campus at the University of Utah:
Ms. Ulrich is a Pulitzer prize-winning professor of history at Harvard. She is also an amazing LDS woman and a feminist in the most complimentary sense of the word. She said that she enjoys the detective work of being a historian. (I could relate to that - I enjoy detective work, too...maybe I should dabble in history...still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.)
Karen Chamberlain, "Solitude and Community on a Utah Desert Ranch":
Author of the memoir 'Desert of the Heart' and a poet and screenwriter as well, Ms. Chamberlain struck me as a very sincere wordsmith. The book is about the largely solitary time she spent at the Horsethief Ranch in Southeastern Utah, a homestead built in 1928 that is 20 miles from the nearest building. She lived alone and worked the ranch because it gave her an opportunity to write and to experience life as a pioneer without telehone, technology, crowds of people, or even electricity. She said that she had enjoyed solitude even as a child, and solitude on the ranch became her teacher. She differentiated solitude from loneliness, which she said is a void, a yearning to be somewhere else or with someone else. She said that before going to the ranch her identity was tied up in what she did, but at the ranch she discovered that her core identity was much deeper and simpler.
Carol Lynn Pearson, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":
I first read Carol Lynn Pearson in the 1980s when Goodbye, I Love You was published, a memoir about caring for her gay husband as he died from AIDS. It was a powerful, beautiful book that made me proud of my faith. She's recently come out with a follow up book called No More Goodbyes, a book that tells the stories of LDS young men who commit suicide because they are homosexuals. She sees herself as a bridge between the LDS and the non-LDS, and she feels called to this work of impacting the lives and arousing the consciences of LDS people.
Christopher Kimball Bigelow, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":
This author uses humor as a bridge between the LDS and the non-LDS. He said that good literature of any genre portrays what it's like to be a human being. Mormon lit misses the mark when it is agenda-driven.
Emma Lou Thayne, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":
Ms. Thayne is an 83-year-old poet and the author of several hymns. She is a real treasure! Everyone knows who she is and she seems to know everyone else connected to words in the state. She said that good writing is all about sifting, sifting, sifting until you are left with the essentials only. Good writing is always a product of what is thought, felt, and believed. She facilitated the discussion and interjected periodically with very insightful comments and observations. What a delight to see her in action!
Book Club Panel:
I decided to go to this panel discussion because for some time now I've considered forming my own book club. The one I've been attending for several years now (and thoroughly enjoy as a women's discussion group) rarely selects quality books to read. I'd like a more serious book club for booklovers. Maybe we just need to modify the one we have and make it into what it could be...
Jane Hamilton, "Literary Confessions: The Worst Thing I Ever Did":
I can't say enough good things about this session! She was FANTASTIC! Ms. Hamilton is the writer of several bestsellers, including two Oprah Winfrey selections: The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World. I have never read any of her books, but I bought two tonight and will soon get started. She was hilariously funny and obviously brilliant...As a writer she said she starts with character, voice, trouble, and a setting and usually knows the last line of the book before she begins. She says she wrote initially out of rage because she had no time or space to write, no babysitter, and no money. Her first book was rejected about 30 times.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History":
The historian (see above) spoke about what history is: 1) what happened, 2) based upon surviving sources, 3) reconstructed by later generations who have some interest in it. She has explored how history was made by women, common, ordinary women for the most part, women who talked back or misbehaved, nudging world events along. She recounted another historian's observation that if women's libbers had been burning girdles instead of bras everyone would have been on board. (Huge laughter and applause!)
Now my head is aching from hanging on so many words. My face is tired from smiling. I have laundry to do, as always. They really should come up with a 4-letter word for laundry. As the great equalizer it deserves one.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "A Woman and a Cow" Lecture delivered Thursday on campus at the University of Utah:
Ms. Ulrich is a Pulitzer prize-winning professor of history at Harvard. She is also an amazing LDS woman and a feminist in the most complimentary sense of the word. She said that she enjoys the detective work of being a historian. (I could relate to that - I enjoy detective work, too...maybe I should dabble in history...still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.)
Karen Chamberlain, "Solitude and Community on a Utah Desert Ranch":
Author of the memoir 'Desert of the Heart' and a poet and screenwriter as well, Ms. Chamberlain struck me as a very sincere wordsmith. The book is about the largely solitary time she spent at the Horsethief Ranch in Southeastern Utah, a homestead built in 1928 that is 20 miles from the nearest building. She lived alone and worked the ranch because it gave her an opportunity to write and to experience life as a pioneer without telehone, technology, crowds of people, or even electricity. She said that she had enjoyed solitude even as a child, and solitude on the ranch became her teacher. She differentiated solitude from loneliness, which she said is a void, a yearning to be somewhere else or with someone else. She said that before going to the ranch her identity was tied up in what she did, but at the ranch she discovered that her core identity was much deeper and simpler.
Carol Lynn Pearson, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":
I first read Carol Lynn Pearson in the 1980s when Goodbye, I Love You was published, a memoir about caring for her gay husband as he died from AIDS. It was a powerful, beautiful book that made me proud of my faith. She's recently come out with a follow up book called No More Goodbyes, a book that tells the stories of LDS young men who commit suicide because they are homosexuals. She sees herself as a bridge between the LDS and the non-LDS, and she feels called to this work of impacting the lives and arousing the consciences of LDS people.
Christopher Kimball Bigelow, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":
This author uses humor as a bridge between the LDS and the non-LDS. He said that good literature of any genre portrays what it's like to be a human being. Mormon lit misses the mark when it is agenda-driven.
Emma Lou Thayne, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":
Ms. Thayne is an 83-year-old poet and the author of several hymns. She is a real treasure! Everyone knows who she is and she seems to know everyone else connected to words in the state. She said that good writing is all about sifting, sifting, sifting until you are left with the essentials only. Good writing is always a product of what is thought, felt, and believed. She facilitated the discussion and interjected periodically with very insightful comments and observations. What a delight to see her in action!
Book Club Panel:
I decided to go to this panel discussion because for some time now I've considered forming my own book club. The one I've been attending for several years now (and thoroughly enjoy as a women's discussion group) rarely selects quality books to read. I'd like a more serious book club for booklovers. Maybe we just need to modify the one we have and make it into what it could be...
Jane Hamilton, "Literary Confessions: The Worst Thing I Ever Did":
I can't say enough good things about this session! She was FANTASTIC! Ms. Hamilton is the writer of several bestsellers, including two Oprah Winfrey selections: The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World. I have never read any of her books, but I bought two tonight and will soon get started. She was hilariously funny and obviously brilliant...As a writer she said she starts with character, voice, trouble, and a setting and usually knows the last line of the book before she begins. She says she wrote initially out of rage because she had no time or space to write, no babysitter, and no money. Her first book was rejected about 30 times.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History":
The historian (see above) spoke about what history is: 1) what happened, 2) based upon surviving sources, 3) reconstructed by later generations who have some interest in it. She has explored how history was made by women, common, ordinary women for the most part, women who talked back or misbehaved, nudging world events along. She recounted another historian's observation that if women's libbers had been burning girdles instead of bras everyone would have been on board. (Huge laughter and applause!)
Now my head is aching from hanging on so many words. My face is tired from smiling. I have laundry to do, as always. They really should come up with a 4-letter word for laundry. As the great equalizer it deserves one.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Home Alone Watching "Old Joy"
It's Firday night and the entire family is gone to watch the local high school football game. I stayed behind to watch an 'art film', Old Joy - I haven't decided yet whether or ot to recommend it in a general way. (I would recommend it to a very particular audience.) But it has me thinking...
The most thought-provoking concept in the film for me was the statement: 'Sorrow is just warn-out joy.' If that is true, and I would say that in many cases it is, then it makes sorrow more bearable and even a bit beautiful. Maybe human beings can learn to see through sorrow to the joy that makes sorrow more exquisite.
The film is about old friends, both male, who have moved on with their lives but get back together for an overnight camping trip to a place called Bagby Hot Springs in Oregon. They seem to have little in common, except that they were roommates at one time in the past. The man who appears to have his life in order, with a job, a wife, and a baby on the way, is riddled with internalized questions, while the Rip-Van-Winkle, 21st century hippie beleves he understands everything at a metaphysical level. (He may understand reality, but he avoids it at the same time, using drugs and alcohol in virtually every scene.)
The movie poses the following questions: What is friendship? Why do we care about old friends who really have little place in our current lives? Can two people of the same gender touch without sexual meaning? Why is nature therapeutic, even healing?
I only stopped watching the movie an hour ago, and already it is growing on me. It's the kind of movie that feels like real time, like actual experience. I think that I would recommend it to people who like art films or people who are trying to figure out the nature of friendship and its role in our lives.
The most thought-provoking concept in the film for me was the statement: 'Sorrow is just warn-out joy.' If that is true, and I would say that in many cases it is, then it makes sorrow more bearable and even a bit beautiful. Maybe human beings can learn to see through sorrow to the joy that makes sorrow more exquisite.
The film is about old friends, both male, who have moved on with their lives but get back together for an overnight camping trip to a place called Bagby Hot Springs in Oregon. They seem to have little in common, except that they were roommates at one time in the past. The man who appears to have his life in order, with a job, a wife, and a baby on the way, is riddled with internalized questions, while the Rip-Van-Winkle, 21st century hippie beleves he understands everything at a metaphysical level. (He may understand reality, but he avoids it at the same time, using drugs and alcohol in virtually every scene.)
The movie poses the following questions: What is friendship? Why do we care about old friends who really have little place in our current lives? Can two people of the same gender touch without sexual meaning? Why is nature therapeutic, even healing?
I only stopped watching the movie an hour ago, and already it is growing on me. It's the kind of movie that feels like real time, like actual experience. I think that I would recommend it to people who like art films or people who are trying to figure out the nature of friendship and its role in our lives.
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