Your Daily Miracle: Longing, Half-Truth, and a Clear Day
This morning: first grade art--watercolors for Mother's Day and continuing collage for our big end-of-the-year project--sunshine, the park, a very happy little white dog, and a cruise ship floating about in the harbor. I made a wrong turn on the way out of the park (whoppin' surprise there, eh?) and found myself close to downtown and the docked passengers swarming about the cute little shops, but I high-tailed it out of there just in time.
I finished the rough draft of my novel (for middle-schoolers, set in a fictional Greene County), and this morning was pleased to see Merry tucked up in bed speeding through the last part. Relieved, too, since she crushed me last night when I asked her WHY was she reading Nancy Drew instead of my book. "This is just so suspenseful," she admitted, "And I have to find out what happens." I then posed the dangerous, damning question, "Tell me, is my book boring?" followed by her flattened hand raised, palm down, waffling back and forth just enough to make my heart turn to lead. AHHHH. A year of work and I produced a crappy, boring book that scores BELOW Nancy Drew?
I had to take a hot shower. And collect myself.
But this morning she said, "Your book is really good at the end," which cheered me so much I gave her extra allowance. Just kidding. I didn't really give her extra allowance, but I was so happy. This is the book's maiden voyage, in the hands of my eleven-year old, and it's a big scary.
Now I'm at loose ends. If I go back to my book too soon, I could screw it up--like a painter, I know I'm too close to my art right now to make wise decisions. I'll slop it up by adding too much or I'll paint over the best part without knowing and throw the whole thing off balance. I have to be patient in that in between space while I allow the book the respect it deserves and let it simmer by itself for a while. Later I'll know what to do.
But after the adrenalin of finishing that last page and handing the copy to Merry for its first read, I am floating and I need to be careful that I don't drive Martin batty (have I mentioned that we live together this year? I mean, all the time). I know myself. I'm not such a good floater. I'm at my best when I have real direction. Too much floating makes me despair of my life. And. . .what is this year, in some ways, than a floater year? So good and so much potential to make one C.R.A.Z.Y. if one is not careful.
So I look online for jobs for Martin (and for myself, if the need should arise), I write letters, I watch Martin complete endless applications and I secretly beg God for a job for him now instead of later. I keep the house middling clean and I do a fair job with the laundry. I bake too many muffins and way too many tortellini and I go on walks. I need to find a fresh book to read.
I have never been on Craigslist more than I have this year. First house rentals and now jobs. I feel as if I should find a favorite cafe and slide into my booth armed with pencil and newspaper, curled around a white ceramic cup of coffee for hours as I scour the listings--like I'm part of a Seinfeld episode. Things just aren't as cool anymore now that we're glued to screens. Unfortunately, in my searches, I find myself unqualified for almost everything: meat cutting, retail, pipe layer, construction crew.
Some folks down the street were chatting to a friend of mine a few evenings ago as she left our house. Apparently she stopped and drank wine with them on the front porch for a good hour or so. Yesterday my friend told me, "I think they have the wrong idea about you and Martin."
Hmm. That could mean so many things.
"They think that you are writers who have moved here to escape the publicity while you wait for your books to be published."
"That sounds awesome," I said. It is, though, a half truth. I am waiting for a book to be published. But that is a process that may just take me into my twilight years at the rate I'm moving.
It reminds me of our friends, Tim and Lindsay, who moved to Montana to go to graduate school and ended up making soap in their basement for farmer's market (their business developed into a highly successful one with a warehouse and a ton of employees these eight or so years later). At the time, though, our alumni magazine printed a blurb about them that read: Lindsay is a photographer and Tim is a freelance writer in Missoula, MT.
I wish those were our lives, Lindsay said.
I guess the lives we wish for are not the ones we really wish for, deep down in our secret longings. Sometimes those longings, when they are brought to light, surprise us with their brilliancy and complete otherness from the things we thought we wanted. Does that make sense?
That's what I'm hoping for Martin. That the deepest longings of his heart, whether he even knows what they are, will be fulfilled in some mysterious way in this turning, twisting journey of his. And mine, too. And yours.
Oh, I wish you could see the mountains today: clear, craggy, topped with snow. And flowers everywhere--lilacs and tulips and apple blossoms. Perhaps that's one of them? A longing, I mean--to experience what is truly beautiful? Today it seems easy.
I finished the rough draft of my novel (for middle-schoolers, set in a fictional Greene County), and this morning was pleased to see Merry tucked up in bed speeding through the last part. Relieved, too, since she crushed me last night when I asked her WHY was she reading Nancy Drew instead of my book. "This is just so suspenseful," she admitted, "And I have to find out what happens." I then posed the dangerous, damning question, "Tell me, is my book boring?" followed by her flattened hand raised, palm down, waffling back and forth just enough to make my heart turn to lead. AHHHH. A year of work and I produced a crappy, boring book that scores BELOW Nancy Drew?
I had to take a hot shower. And collect myself.
But this morning she said, "Your book is really good at the end," which cheered me so much I gave her extra allowance. Just kidding. I didn't really give her extra allowance, but I was so happy. This is the book's maiden voyage, in the hands of my eleven-year old, and it's a big scary.
Now I'm at loose ends. If I go back to my book too soon, I could screw it up--like a painter, I know I'm too close to my art right now to make wise decisions. I'll slop it up by adding too much or I'll paint over the best part without knowing and throw the whole thing off balance. I have to be patient in that in between space while I allow the book the respect it deserves and let it simmer by itself for a while. Later I'll know what to do.
But after the adrenalin of finishing that last page and handing the copy to Merry for its first read, I am floating and I need to be careful that I don't drive Martin batty (have I mentioned that we live together this year? I mean, all the time). I know myself. I'm not such a good floater. I'm at my best when I have real direction. Too much floating makes me despair of my life. And. . .what is this year, in some ways, than a floater year? So good and so much potential to make one C.R.A.Z.Y. if one is not careful.
So I look online for jobs for Martin (and for myself, if the need should arise), I write letters, I watch Martin complete endless applications and I secretly beg God for a job for him now instead of later. I keep the house middling clean and I do a fair job with the laundry. I bake too many muffins and way too many tortellini and I go on walks. I need to find a fresh book to read.
I have never been on Craigslist more than I have this year. First house rentals and now jobs. I feel as if I should find a favorite cafe and slide into my booth armed with pencil and newspaper, curled around a white ceramic cup of coffee for hours as I scour the listings--like I'm part of a Seinfeld episode. Things just aren't as cool anymore now that we're glued to screens. Unfortunately, in my searches, I find myself unqualified for almost everything: meat cutting, retail, pipe layer, construction crew.
Some folks down the street were chatting to a friend of mine a few evenings ago as she left our house. Apparently she stopped and drank wine with them on the front porch for a good hour or so. Yesterday my friend told me, "I think they have the wrong idea about you and Martin."
Hmm. That could mean so many things.
"They think that you are writers who have moved here to escape the publicity while you wait for your books to be published."
"That sounds awesome," I said. It is, though, a half truth. I am waiting for a book to be published. But that is a process that may just take me into my twilight years at the rate I'm moving.
It reminds me of our friends, Tim and Lindsay, who moved to Montana to go to graduate school and ended up making soap in their basement for farmer's market (their business developed into a highly successful one with a warehouse and a ton of employees these eight or so years later). At the time, though, our alumni magazine printed a blurb about them that read: Lindsay is a photographer and Tim is a freelance writer in Missoula, MT.
I wish those were our lives, Lindsay said.
I guess the lives we wish for are not the ones we really wish for, deep down in our secret longings. Sometimes those longings, when they are brought to light, surprise us with their brilliancy and complete otherness from the things we thought we wanted. Does that make sense?
That's what I'm hoping for Martin. That the deepest longings of his heart, whether he even knows what they are, will be fulfilled in some mysterious way in this turning, twisting journey of his. And mine, too. And yours.
Oh, I wish you could see the mountains today: clear, craggy, topped with snow. And flowers everywhere--lilacs and tulips and apple blossoms. Perhaps that's one of them? A longing, I mean--to experience what is truly beautiful? Today it seems easy.
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Love you.