World and Wilderness

Yesterday I walked and talked with a very insightful woman whose career is in marketing. She is a naturally intuitive person, picking up immediately on the nuances of things I said, and willing to challenge me on my assumptions. I want to get better acquainted with her. What she reflected back to me was that I love writing and I love teaching, but I hate marketing. She wondered aloud why I would want to run my own business, this being the case, but she understood that I like to have control over my endeavors.

This last sounds unsettling. I'm not eager to be perceived as a control freak. But I do understand that I'm happier and more effective if I have creative freedom both in my writing and in my teaching. When I have this, I am able to share more authentically my thoughts, feelings, visions and dreams. And these things, both in writing and in teaching, are at the heart of what I do.

Of course, it helps to be reassured that these things are helpful to my readers and my students -- that we have somehow made a human-to-human connection. When I receive emails from a classroom full child readers, as I did the other day, or words from a parent that my class is sparking her teen's creative imagination, I use these good words as fuel to continue my work.

My friend, J, calls the dual realms of creation and people-connection "wilderness and world." Sometimes I think that for me, the two realms overlap -- as they do now, while I blog very private thoughts, knowing that there may be a reader or two. Maybe it is my inclination to live as an open book that brings me to jarring moments where wilderness and world collide and I want to scurry for cover. (This is why I avoid PTA meetings.)

Do others have some extra layer of protection that I tend not to bring with me? I have the writer's "thick skin" recommended by all editors. But I do not seem to have it in the world of "marketing." If I get a vibe that I'm annoying someone with my notices of classes or church services or books available for sale, I use that as fuel to postpone mailings until it is nearly too late, to hesitate before sharing, even sometimes to procrastinate on sending information to interested parties.

So if marketing is about perceiving what people need and then seeing if I have something to meet that need, I seem, in my more vulnerable moments, to be favoring those who don't need what I have.

And this is silly.

What I need is a sense of "holy apatheia," similar to, but not exactly the same as the Buddhist's detachment from the self. I am clinging too tightly to myself, to my ego, so that I am not allowing the Spirit to work in me. I am equating my gifts with my survival.

Today I will focus on the work -- the writing and the teaching -- as its own self, an entity that can exist under its own power with or without me clinging to it like a worried mother.

And I will bless each emotion that comes and let it come and move through me, but I will not follow that emotion until it leads me away from my center.

In order to do the work, I need an emotional attachment to it. But I also need a strength to separate from the work and trust that neither it nor I will disappear.

On the Disequlibrium of Success

I didn't pick the title of this blog to be ironic. Truly I didn't. But since it's my secret "unloading" blog, it's often not very mirthful.

Within the last hour I have finished a rewrite of my novel. This is a good thing, I think. Why am I filled with panic? I finished it earlier than expected after having left home and gone to a friend's house where I have been writing my patootie off. And my patootie is rather sore, thank you very much.

I did major overhaul on the early chapters and not so much on the later ones. As this is probably the 7th rewrite, I shouldn't be nervous, but I know it's not done. And I know I have absolutely no perspective on it and that an agent is waiting to see it. And that I've just spent the last 4 1/2 years of my life on this one book and the next one better not take that long.

As soon as I was done, I checked my email and herein is where the trouble lies: Taran is in a parent partnership program where we need to submit progress reports every month. And I do this, but twice I have done it late. So I did this month's report early -- only they never got it and now they're "disappointed" with me and unsure whether I can handle the writing class I'm going to teach there. And of course, I can, and will. But really, I just want to be independently wealthy and not have to teach writing in order to pay for groceries. I'd rather teach it as a grand favor to humanity.

I'm not very happy with being flawed tonight. The manuscript is flawed, but I don't know where (see: no perspective). My report-submitting is evidently flawed (thought I really DID do it early this month.) My inbox is so full and I've been away from home since Sunday. I miss my family. I miss Lancelot.

And it is very, very silly for me to be posting all this on a blog.

I must make something deep and philosophical of it.

Somebody sent me the following scripture:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
- 1 Corinthians 4:7-10

Well, I can say that the surpassing power certainly doesn't belong to me. My afflictions I seem to bring on myself -- with a little help from modern technology. And I would qualify as perplexed. I don't feel particularly persecuted at the moment. This scripture seems to be about really good people who don't screw up as much as I do.

I KNOW that I'll have more perspective on this once I've had some sleep and can go through the emails one at a time.

One thing about being a writer is that you have to feel things -- you know, emotions and such. Fear, dread, joy, sorrow -- stuff like that. If you can't feel it you can't write it. So you open up the emotion doors and POW.

I would do well to watch some Monty Python.

the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

And (I think) I finished my rewrite.

Salesmanship and Stillness

I've been posting on my author blog. Lots of pictures of the kids at the writing workshops. Taran very good-naturedly took some head shots of me as all my existing pictures were awful or really out of date. I stopped having pix taken when I got fat, but now I'm getting skinny again.

The author blog sounds kind of sales-y. When I'm trying to earn money I get like that. It's irritating, cloying. I want to tell people that's not really me. But then, I don't know if long, brooding posts are what parents are looking for when they are trying to find writing workshops for their kids.

I cried through the inauguration, from Aretha Franklin to the closing benediction. What a day! I feel some hope for this country for the first time -- ever? Was this how people felt about Kennedy?

I spent some time with the icons in the new chapel Lancelot put in. (Maybe I will post a pic. What the heck?)

I'm loving the chapel more and more. In a sacred space the heart is more willing to open. Mine has been heavy this evening, despite the inauguration. Breaking over Maverick again. I have felt Christ telling me to get back into my heart, but it's full of pain. He says, "Don't worry; I'll be there." To be a mother is to have a broken heart. But maybe that's how we find our own way back home.

Will I write about this one day? Sometimes I think yes. Other times I think it would be career suicide.

And I need to just get really, really quiet in order to write authentically. No salesmanship. No mailing lists. Stillness.

Tess

Simmering

...at least, I hope so. I feel as if I am truly "between projects" instead of actively working on one. I've spent a good deal of time this summer researching Impressionist artists in prep for a novel-in-verse I'd planned to write. Now, I'm not sure if I'm getting cold feet or simply losing my enthusiasm.

A good chunk of the novel involves my own adolescence, stuff about Dad, homelessness, mental illness. I'm not sure how I feel about writing that.

I did do a chapbook on it two years ago and I wonder if I'm done talking about it.

I truly do not want to embarrass Dad. I'm not sure how he feels about the chapbook, which he has, and which he knows I read publicly. I even got to read the final poem directly to him at a reading which featured his best friend. Not sure how he felt about that, but he said, "I came off better than in that other poem you wrote."

When I talked to the editor in NY in February, she was very interested in the fact that my dad had been homeless, though he was an educated professional. She said, "You have to write that book! I know I kept saying, 'commercial, commercial,' but you have to write that book."

The thing is, I'm not sure she's even prepared to take me on as an author. It has been many months... I'm in a bit of a holding pattern.

So now my head is full of Impressionism and I've written nearly nothing on this project.

I am reading Crank by Ellen Hopkins, and it's opening me up again to this idea. She writes poetry that stands up as poetry (not doing this is one of my pet peeves about novels-in-verse), and which speaks sensitively to a topic dangerous not only to the reader, but to her as an author. I wonder what kind of communication she had with her daughter before she published it.

How can I make it not about "Me and My Ego?" My ego is killing me off as a creator. It has its sticky fingers in everything I do. If I can't write things that move a reader through despair and towards transcendence I may as well quit writing altogether.

I've just finished, and have been discussing Gifts of the Desert by Kyriacos C. Markides. It's this book that is causing me to revisit the idea of ego as a distraction.

Markides writes about spirituality in a way that takes me somewhere. I imagine he struggles with his own ego, too.

So maybe the answer is to simply do the work -- if I can figure out what it is -- and know that the ego struggle is a given and overcoming it again and again is the path that I must walk.

While Falling Asleep

I wrote odd poetry last night as I was falling asleep. I had been reading Mary Oliver, whose work I love, but I realized I don't love it as much as the work of Margaret D. Smith. Maybe I should have a look at these strange ramblings:

Poem While Falling Asleep

I stack six books in my lap
or two
or three
never one
lest I not be able
to devour them all.

By having my hands
on three or four
objects at once
I hope to gain
years lost in
a swift backward march.

The other day I followed stories
to their source --
the other day I followed me
and became a story.

Outside are growing things --
beetles in the dirt,
woodpecker,
soft-spotted fawn.

How I would like
to keep them company.

As hours turn to years
I must decide:

Will I let it all be snake-stolen?

How many herons will I need
to carry the books I want to write?

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Here's another one...

Dream Poem

Today as I was
falling asleep I felt
I needed a uniform
for dreams.

How else to go into
them without the dignity
of piping, pressed pockets
and a really good hat?

If you are prepared to go into a dream -- that
is to say, dressed properly --
the people will know
to offer the proper respect
reserved for dreamers
who arrive at their dreams
in some official capacity.

If you forget some of this --
especially the hat --
you may be subject to
the whims of dream people
who, while not altogether solid,
can pack a mean left hook
when you aren't expecting it.

If you remember at least the hat,
those in the dream will know
to solute,
to serenade you,
or at least to bring flowers.

These are the rules for going into a dream:
1) find a small rock that you can kick
in order to find your way out
2) talk to strangers
3) never interpret a dream while you are
in the dream -- that's cheating.

Try to find a quiet place
in the dream,
like a side lawn of a house
or an abandoned airplane hangar.

Especially, look for someplace
that is spelled correctly.
Failing that, look for a
dream-like spelling
and the muses will forgive you.

Know that dream travel
is dangerous
the way certain snakes
are dangerous --
always carry a flute and basket
and you will have
nothing to fear.

Gut feeling

Writing class has gone very well for the most part. I hope I'm giving them enough balance between time to work, time to move, time to socialize. I feel that the socializing is pretty important for teen writers -- heck, it's important for adult writers.

I keep saying this is an isolating profession, but I don't know if that's true. It hasn't really been isolating for me. I've made some of my best friendships in the writing community -- and I do feel I've found my tribe after feeling just a little "odd" and "outside" most of my younger life.

I'm worried about Maverick. In a way that sick, anxious feeling in my gut only goes away when I distract myself. Writing classes were good for that. Someday maybe I'll be able to write about this, but I'm still not interested in making myself a target. I love my boy. I'm heartbroken about some of the choices he's making. I wish the world was different. But if it was different, there would be other things to worry about.

I'm ready to learn to pray again.

Tess

Loaded

It feels strange to be posting here again, having finished with my "anonymous phase." But the idea of writing whatever I feel like without a real audience is appealing.

I did the AFSP suicide prevention walk last month in Seattle. It was amazing. 17 miles. Took us 8 hours. My son, Maverick, walked with me and that was the best thing of all. To be around so many who had lost loved one and who could say the word "suicide" without laughing or flinching was mind-blowing. I thought at first that I'd feel out of place because Dad survived. That I'd have no right to tell my story. And I kind of didn't want to tell it all that much. It felt good to listen. My feelings about Dad are still loaded.

I called him from the walk and thanked him for having taken the gun out of his mouth. He had been sleeping and he had no idea what I was talking about. He said, "I don't have a gun in my mouth. I have sleep. In my mouth."

I worry that he's winding down -- that he's failing. He has memory lapses. He is 80, after all. I need to clean his apartment, or hire someone to clean it. I'm not as good a daughter as I wish I were.

So having finished my last novel, I'm playing with the idea for the new one. It keep getting further and further afield from parental suicide. At the moment it contains time travel. And I still don't know if I can write it. Didn't I already write about this?

I've had 23 extra years with Dad. I haven't used them particularly well, but I've had them to come to terms with things. He's incredibly homophobic. He pretends not to know Maverick is gay. I wish this were not so, but there it is. And yes, that was a deliberately ambiguous sentence.

I can almost deal better with dad in writing than in person. But does that mean I've simply created a character called "Dad" and that's who I'm interacting with?

This is a great deal more angsty than I intended. I think I'd better get my lesson plan on humourous essays done.

Tess

Talking About Their Generation

I’m reading Marjorie Corbman’s A Tiny Step Away From Deepest Faith (Paraclete Press, 2005). Marjorie was 17 when she wrote the book (she’s now about 18). She speaks eloquently of her own spiritual journey and reflects on the longings of her generation. “We aren’t happy,” she says. “We take Zoloft and cut open our flesh and do anything to assure us that we’re here, that we feel, that our experience is valid and tangible. There’ something sick in a culture where prosperity is chased by suicide. We’re bored and lonely and we don’t care about anything anymore, while we still worship everything. Our emotions are not silly and they are not immature. On the contrary, they are surprisingly mature, and though not all of us have the eloquence to describe the depth of our feelings, nevertheless we feel strongly and in pure concentrations. The problem is not, as has been posited, that we are shallow, but that we cannot be shallow, that our inner experience is too strong to deny; too loud and too demanding.”

Many I’ve talked to who have read the book have a hard time believing it was actually written by a teen. I’m sure Marjorie has been hearing this a lot from readers. She is remarkably well-read. She is able to “hit the nail on the head,” approaching her questions without the superficiality I so often hear in media and in movements. Her depth comes, I think, from a willingness to stand alone, to disagree, to find what is really true for her, not just what is “supposed” to be true.

And like me, she ended up in the Orthodox Church. She wound up there through a route that is at once completely different from my own and achingly similar – a desire to dispense with the superficial and with posing and to immerse myself in the real and authentic.

But I wanted to talk about teenagers. I’ve got three now, my third child having just become 13. I’ve named my daughter Jane for this blog. She’s 18. My 16-year-old son could be Maverick. (Sometimes I’m filled with pain when I think of him – yet he’s so amazing, compassionate, kind and brilliant. He’s choosing a path that would not be my path for him. Really, he’s only trying to figure out who he is, and what his place is in the world.)

My youngest teen I’ll call Taran. He always strikes me as a visionary, mulling things over, drawing about them. He used to mumble all the time, but now he’s beginning to speak out, to talk back to me even. I call him on it, but I also like it.

My 9-year-old I’ll name later. He’s got his own personality and story, but today I’m talking about the teens.

Jane is with me today as we’re in Canada on a trip. She’s waiting patiently for me to finish so we can go shopping. (We went shopping yesterday and I concluded that I don’t need new clothes; I need a new body.)

The problem is that a teen is at a crossroads where he or she must separate from his parents. It makes me wish I was more shallow so that my teens could separate from that.

Now that I’ve written that, I see a bit of what’s wrong here: I think I’ve arrived. I think I’ve reached the pinnacle of spiritual understanding and that if my teens would simply follow what I’ve learned, they’d be all right for the rest of their lives. I’m afraid that if my teens do not simply listen to what I say and do it, they’ll wind up with a superficial understanding of the world. I’m afraid they’ll reject searching for meaning because it’s what I’m doing all the time. And they want to be less like me, not more.

Somehow I haven’t got it quite right here and I think it has something to do with trust. But sitting here with my daughter waiting for some actual time with me, I think I need to just go shopping and talk about the shampoo we just bought and the new skirt and the shoes. There’s something there that I am missing.

More later.

Selling

Yesterday I finally put together a gi-normous 2006-7 “Preview Mailing” for author visits. I’d put it off as long as I could. I must say I’m rather pleased with it: it’s got a bookmark with “teacher” poems on either side, a cover letter, a list of workshops, a flyer about my summer classes for teens, a flyer about free book talks and a return postcard. It’s spiffy. At the moment I am having printer problems, so I’m going to reflect on a conversation with Mom this AM.

Mom: Not to give you advice, dear, but couldn’t you get into trouble trying to sell your books in the schools?

Me (with great patience): No, actually, that’s the way it’s done. Authors take their books into schools and sell them. It’s not much different from the Scholastic book order.

Mom (persisting, kindergarten-teacher style): But what if the children can’t afford the book? Won’t they feel bad?

Me (still patient): Yes, probably.

Mom (moving in for the kill): I’ve always thought this book should be donated to some cause.

Me (what can I say? How could I argue with that?): Yes, I think that’s true.

I fought valiantly my tendency to pat her on the head. The fact is she hits on my core dilemma and that of most female artists: selling art feels like selling out. And, as Mom pointed out, what if the little children feel bad?

And the answer is, yes. They will feel bad. I will feel bad. I should never, ever sell something that was intended to bring peace and love to the world.

But the fact is my book went out of print a few months back. I have 1600 of them sitting in a storage unit, which represents a chunk of Lancelot’s retirement money (yes, authors pay for their own books). If I don’t sell them, I will have to do something else to contribute financially to this family.

But instead of being defensive, I feel like Mom provided me with an opportunity. I’ve donated books before, but I’ve always wanted to donate some of the proceeds to some organization. And when I find it, that could be the very thing that gets me up off the couch and into the schools again with this book. It is unmotivating just to do this for myself. It’s fun to do once I’m out there, and I feel like things are happening in the hearts of the kids – and in mine. But gearing up to do it is always an act of steely resolve because, bottom line, it feels selfish. It feels like “Look at me! I write books!”

I once admitted this to Frederica Mathewes-Green and this was her response:

The problem I think is that there is a huge sticky ego squatting in the
middle of all this. It makes you excited and ineffective and confused. The thrill of possibility, of ego-stoking, elates you so that you lose touch with the simple ditch-digging work that needs to be done. This is of the evil one. It's an important distinction. The gift is from God, and meant to draw praise and glory to Him. The evil one throws sand in your eyes to elate and confuse you, and ultimately cause your work to be impaired, less effective than it could be in drawing others to Christ.

That's the part to overcome. Not just a matter of "growing up" but of true struggle, to wrestle with and defeat a temptation, a dazzling lifelong temptation that you have caressed since childhood, the vision of yourself as a star.

But we are meant to be the "fragrance of Christ" in every place.

When you are near, people will start thinking of the goodness of God and desiring him, and they might not notice you at all. But because you were there, their hearts will turn toward the light like a sunflower. "Did you smell that fragrance? Where did that come from?" "I don't know, but it was wonderful." That will be Him, and He will be there because you carried Him into the room.

There's an old story that goes: in London in the 19th century there were two great preachers. On Sunday mornings, as you went by the church of one of them, you would see people on the steps saying "What a wonderful preacher." If you went by the other, they would be saying, "What a wonderful God."

God bless you, dear sister. This is the "die to self" part and it is hard. On the other side, you will accomplish great things, because he has planted great talent in you.

I was secretly irritated at the time. That part about “caressing the vision of myself as a star.” Ouch! It was true, true, true. I’d wanted her to say… I don’t know what, but not that. But now, a few years later, looking back at her words I find tremendous comfort. I love the idea of being the “fragrance of Christ.” In fact, if I could just keep my nose on that, I’d quit getting distracted by all this other stuff and just do the work I need to do day after day.

And I’m going to begin looking for that cause. It will need to be a group doing work in the area of peace and especially racial reconciliation. Let’s see what happens.

Spinning

I’ve been spinning for the last couple of weeks. Spinning round the region, spinning my wheels, spinning tales. Spinning. And it makes my head spin as well. So many little bits of things to do – French class, editing, novel-writing class, kids – and I’m distracted, every time, by the written word. Or by words in general.

Now I need to edit, but I’ve been chatting in an online forum about Troubling Things. Troubling Things are convincing me that I am in a crisis and can’t work.

I tried to finish my chapter at Starbucks yesterday. I really did. But Starbucks is loaded with people: a friend walked in and we began a conversation. After she left, a teenage girl who knew me as her brother’s writing teacher asked for a ride home. She seemed sad. I asked if she wrote, too, and she said yes, that she writes poems and stories and things about “life.” It helps her figure things out. Me, too, I told her. It’s why I write, too. To figure things out. Even Troubling Things, though I can’t write about them. I write fiction instead and probably come at it slant.

I invited her to the poetry reading. Don’t know if she’ll come. And all I could think of was, how can I reach more teenagers? The only thing I have to offer them is their own, beautiful souls – and hope. I want to give them hope. But there’s only so much of me and I’ve got four children of my own who need me and who I mother spottily, either lavishing them with attention or, more often, being off in my word cloud. So maybe I need to reach fewer teenagers and just mother better.

We went to the library and I tried to write there, really I did. But (as my daughter once pointed out to me when she was small and I wanted her to sit at the library window and watch for her father), “the library is full of books!” So I didn’t write there, either, but pulled the volumes off the shelves, thumbed them, checked a few out.

The teenage girl got another ride home and I went into a room and tried to write, but all I could think was that I wanted to write in a glass-enclosed gazebo in the woods. And where would I find a glass-enclosed gazebo? (Glass to protect from wind, and to keep bugs away.)

Finally, I went home. I skipped critique group and I took my computer and a deck chair out into the woods, using the chair as a kind of shield to push through thimbleberry vines and downed maple branches. I sat in the woods for an hour or two. The birds were noisy. Things smelled good. The mosquitoes bit me. I fingered the thimbleberry leaves and ate a thimbleberry. I finished my chapter!!

Now I want to live in the woods. I mean, I do live in the woods, but I want to live in the woods – like a redwing blackbird or a raccoon – only with opposable thumbs.

Jesus Obsession

I taught French today and once again we degenerated into theology. I let the girls derail me because I'd actually rather talk about God than conjugate verbs and they know it. (I also rather enjoy conjugating verbs). Morgaine wants to know why her next door neighbor believed Morgaine would burn for all eternity if she didn't believe Jesus was divine. Sabrina says Jesus claimed to be God and rose from the dead. And that you have to accept Him to be saved. She says it cheerily and with great certainty. My daughter, Jane, (have I given her a name before now?) tries to change the subject by talking about vampires.

And I ask them, What is 'divine,' what is 'saved,' what is 'God?' What do we mean? I think that evangelical Christian culture is hoping to bring people to wholeness by asking them to accept Jesus into their brains: to assent intellectually to a set of propositions about him with no context and no particular reason to desire connection with him.

Morgaine says she thinks Jesus was a "really great guy, very wise, a good teacher." And I think of how many youth group talks I used to hear telling me how to debunk the 'wise teacher' argument. But for Morgaine, all this is irrelevent. She did not grow up being told Bible stories (except by me, whenever she came to my house), does not have any particular emotional connection with Jesus. To her he is an historical figure. Why on earth would she decide that 1)there is a hell 2) she's going there if she can't figure out the proper Christian understanding of Jesus? That's absurd.

We've got to back way up, I tell them. We have to think what we mean when we say "God" and "soul" and "heaven." We've got to back up even further than that, because this is about our lives now -- how we treat one another, how we go about being good.
And then I think, but it's possible to just fall in love with Jesus, the man, by reading stories about him -- to just hear the stories and think, "I want that." So maybe it doesn't start with questioning the meaning of the word divine. Maybe Jesus could just trump all of that if we told the story.

I want to just talk and talk and talk about this stuff. That's how obsessed I am. The girls know it; my kids know it. And I'm trying to figure out why I'm so restless tonight. I tried to talk about this at the dinner table, but the kids kept interrupting. And I need to let them talk. It can't just be Mom and her Jesus obsession again. Could they ever long for this as much as I do? I can't make it important to them. And I'm afraid I wear them out with it.

Am I saying this just because being obsessed with Jesus somehow makes me a good person? Will I read this back to myself and say, 'Ah, how holy you are, Tess!'
Yes. That's what I'll do. I'll think that anyone that obsessed with Jesus is a really good sort. She's got her priorities in order, I'll think. She's focused. Jesus is undoubtedly pleased, too.

But I'm thinking I want to go out on a limb someday. I want to get out of my comfort zone and make my life mean something -- not by becoming a famous author, but by dying to myself. I haven't the foggiest notion how to do that. I think that if I could figure it out, I might be able to accept a future as a "famous author." Maybe it wouldn't seem so frightening then.

This isn't quite what I mean. It has something to do with going out into the world in an inescapable way and risking being publicly flawed. No, it doesn't. It's not about flawed it's about failed. If I just tried to feed the hungry each day -- physically, spiritually, emotionally -- maybe I'd begin to know.

I think I need to approach every word I write, every verb I conjugate, every kid I listen to as an offering to Christ. No, really! I've got to do that not thinking it's something monumental and I'll be able to tell this fabulous story about it later so that I can be a saint in my own mind. I hoard my moments and my words. I do not love. Not really. Or if I do, I love only me -- the idea of me as a great, romantic heroine poet, penning her words to the dying masses.

But if they really are dying, just as I am dying, don't we all need those words?

I'm editing a manuscript this evening by a man who lost his wife to cancer. I'm allowing myself to love this woman I never met and I am grieving his loss and it is changing me. The author had never written a book before; he doesn't know how. But he did it anyway and I'm charged with the task of taking his words and bringing them to greater clarity. And we all get changed because someone decided to take a risk, to write down his pain for others to be healed and supported.

Does it matter if I tell my students about Jesus? Yes, it matters so much, but not because I think they'll be punished eternally if I don't. I'm not just wanting them all to believe properly. The idea of the creative force, the origin of the Universe, incarnating as a human being, teaching, healing and struggling with and defeating death is like a poem. It's also a hard story to incorporate with day to day life for most people. Why would Morgaine even care?

She's curious, and I don't say that in a gleeful, anticipatory way. Her mom is a dear friend of mine and has serious issues with Christianity. I think Morgaine would feel disloyal if she took too great an interest in the Bible. I don't want to undermine my friend's parenting, but maybe that's not the issue. The issue is that I still can't articulate my love for Jesus in a way that it makes sense to anybody else. Do they long for Him? I just don't know.

Sin and the Art of Cosmic Maintenance

My dad has mental illness – which is a sin.

I’m not at church this morning, so I think I’ll talk about sin. The Orthodox concept of sin is not juridical. It is not the breaking of a law. The Greek word for sin means “missing the mark,” an archery term. (I’ve probably talked about this before here.)

Dad was here this weekend. He looks terrible – so frail and bony, with a constant smoker’s cough. He seems even more unsteady on his feet than he was a month ago. He’s been sick with a cold he says he can’t shake. This, also, we could call sin.

My back aches this morning – a sin. My son wants my full attention while I am writing this and I’m not giving it to him – another sin. I have more things on my list to do than I can possibly do this week – more sin.

In Romans Paul says, “…for all sinned and are coming short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) In context, he’s talking about all people: Jews and non-Jews in his way of viewing the world. Paul goes on to say that “the creation itself shall be freed from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth together and travaileth together until now.” (Romans 8: 21-22) The idea is that we have lost Eden – that even the physical world has become subject to decay and death, which are not the original order of things.

So what am I trying to say? Perhaps it is that the entire model of sin that I’ve held for most of my life must be rebuilt. Perhaps sin is both inevitable and not inevitable.

Orthodoxy understands that we are capable of divinization – becoming like God. St. Athanasius said, “God became man so that man could become God.” That is returning to our original state in complete union with God.

At the same time, “falling short” of God is not just a matter of deliberate destructiveness – as I’ve always seen it before – but of things over which we seem to have no earthly control: illness, ageing, miscarriage, mental illness. These are challenges that are organic and which we have accepted as part of our creatureliness. We are called on to have patience with ourselves and others when we or they are subject to such things.

So what of deliberate destructiveness? Might it also be a form of mental illness? The man who killed all those teenagers at a rave in Seattle last week – surely he was not in his “right” mind. The mother who beats her child – surely her mind is not functioning the way it was designed to function. The friend who says something cutting or is “not there” when we needed comfort – if her mind had all the clarity of God, would things not be different? In fact, if she were not constrained also by the limits of time, would things not be different?

If we were not burdened by the weakness of our bodies, by time, by the fluctuations in our emotions, the polluted state of the planet, the machinations of dynasties, the limits of physical space, the fear of others’ cruelty – would we not be able to fully see one another, embrace one another and the cosmos, to truly and completely love?

And yet what we have here in this life is what we have. We’re born into a world that is not whole. A beautiful and holy world.

If sin is the “falling short” with which we are surrounded, then divinity is also that which surrounds and infuses us. This is the paradox: that our very struggle with the effects of fallenness is holy. And perhaps we would not find the holiness without the fallenness.

What if we were to see no difference between our bodies’ uncontrollable “falling short” and the deliberate destructive actions of another (since that’s the sin we seem to recognize first)? Would we be so quick to mete out condemnation and punishment? Would we be so eager to see the perpetrator suffer? Would we continue to hate him?

We all live in this condition. All of us. And rather than condemn ourselves we would do well to have self-compassion which could then extend to compassion towards the entire beautiful, fallen cosmos.

Madonna of Gloom

Look here. Don’t you see?
I am depressed tonight. I slept for two hours after work
And now am out on the couch beside you checking
Email while our son asks what’s for dinner. I don’t want to make
Dinner. But I do want to eat dinner.
People need to know that I get a pass
When I feel this dull, smotheredness of tasks.
People need to understand that I get to sit on the couch,
Watch a movie,
Not smile.

This morning I went to a parent meeting and it was there
I began to feel this way:
I am a meager mother
Too little time to read
All the books the teacher held up
Our daughter a mirror of me
In both her brilliance and perplexity
I left the meeting without smiling
And nobody even chased me down in the parking lot
To sympathize.

Last night
Our dog bit another dog
Who I took to the vet and crooned to
While she whimpered.
I felt noble
And then I didn’t feel noble
Because it was my dog who attacked her
And she was hurt.

Here on the couch I wrap myself
In the soft muslin of discouragement.
You are doing a project I asked you to do
But it’s quiet here,
Unsaid.

I want the house fairy to walk
Into my living room and vacuum the floors,
Answer my email,
Make spaghetti.

When people act around me
The way I am acting now
I find it supremely annoying.

All they need to do is act
All they need to do is decide
All they need to do is not be a black hole
Sucking in every bit of light
To feed their passive, lump-like souls.

But tonight it’s me and all I want
Is for you to say,
“Oh, my tulip, my buttercup,
My sweet mint julep baby,
Whatever could be wrong?”

Big Rocks

I won’t repeat the Big Rocks story, because it’s all over the internet. Today I’m trying to figure out my big rocks.
They are:

• Lancelot


• Kids # 1, 2, 3 & 4


• Writing novels


• Writing poetry


• Writing essay


• Prayer


• Order in my physical environment


• Financial peace


• Friends


• Extended family


• Mentoring


• Conversation about meaning


• Reading/learning


• Internal/spiritual growth

I think that getting outside and having some exercise would also be a good thing to put on there, though I’m not really doing it now. The sun has finally come out after about four months of gray and I’m eager to get out in it.

If I have the above things in my life, I can feel really alive.

Order of Sir Lancelot

My husband needs a blog name, so I think I’ll call him Lancelot. I always thought he kind of rode in on a white horse and rescued me when I was a struggling teenage girl (and he was a hormonal almost-twenty boy).
I taught novel-writing last night and when I got home Lancelot had made this great spreadsheet budget. It has columns for us to subtract every time we spend in a particular category so we’ll know automatically how much is left. This does not = death.
I actually love order and could sit and look at it for hours. When I get busy, I think I’m unable to maintain order despite having www.flylady.com as my home page. (Check it out.)
Order – financial, time and physical environment – is a gift, not a shutdown on my creativity. I’m happier living in order. I’m happier living in just a little order. This spreadsheet puts me over the moon. Now I’m realizing what makes boring people happy. I could be boring myself if it meant being happy more often. Then I could layer all the wildness over the boring order.

This does not mean I’d no longer be spontaneous
spon·ta·ne·ous P Pronunciation Key adj.

1. Happening or arising without apparent external cause; self-generated.


2. Arising from a natural inclination or impulse and not from external incitement or constraint.


3. Unconstrained and unstudied in manner or behavior.


4. Growing without cultivation or human labor.

[From Late Latin spont neus, of one's own accord, from Latin sponte. See (s)pen- in Indo-European Roots.]

I could do spontaneous planning. I could spontaneously plan what we will be having for dinner all month and then spontaneously eat it. I could spontaneously clean the house.
I don’t know if I want to spontaneously do everything, though. Chaos makes me tired.
This week we’re easing into the Lenten fast. I like fasting because it makes Pascha so much more fun. Last year I didn’t fast during Lent and during the Vigil I felt jealous of the people who had. They were soooo excited about that feast: meat and milk and cheese and eggs and wine and oil! Whooooie!
I thought, “It’s a feast. I like eating.”
So this year, I will fast. Maybe it makes me feel like I’ve got a little control over my life. And that’s a good thing.

Honesty

Got child #4 to school at 9:45. School starts at 9:30. District specialist met me in parking lot, scowling, as she had been there at 9:30, sharp, to test him and he wasn't there. New secretary remarked, out of her earshot, that specialist *could* smile. I told her that punctuality was very important to specialist. And that a year ago I'd have seen this as evidence of my being a complete failure as a mother. But not now. I signed him in, and in the spot where you're supposed to write the reason for the tardy, I wrote, "Late: Mother horribly depressed."
It's the first time I've ever filled in that log honestly.
Made the secretary peal with laughter. A good moment.
Got a latte. Feel better. Now have 30 minutes to make this manuscript perfect before turning it in. Ciao.

I've got ten minutes

I’ve got ten minutes in which I ought to be making phone calls, editing, looking at my checking account. Today is Mom’s 80th birthday. We were at her house yesterday celebrating her birthday and mine. I’m taking her somewhere today but there is not enough money this week for me to do that. I’m sure this is all symbolic somehow, but I feel too tired to think about it.
The manuscript I’m editing is taking me way too long. I wish I worked faster than I do, but I’m very particular about how things look in a manuscript. Unless it’s this blog. Here I just write.
I want to have something hopeful to say today, but my house is a mess, I’m low on cash and I’m feeling sort of silly and incompetent.
I’m taking Mom and Dad to child #2’s play this weekend only neither of them knows the other will be there. I’ll have to tell them and then they may make other plans. I’ll have to tell Mom today so that she can make other plans – plans to which she will want me to drive her.
I am such a bitch.
It is not helping me to talk this way or to think this way. Sometimes I think this kind of hopelessness is “real” and we need to write what’s “real.” But how is hopelessness any more real than hope? It’s all “real.” I do know that it’s temporary. It just never feels temporary at the time that I’m feeling hopeless.
The antidote for this is action. I will get into my day. I will drive child #4 to school, do the final edit on the manuscript, go to the appointment and meet the next client, take my mother out. Then I’ll come home and host the poetry reading in town. And I’ll be alive when I do that.
All of this, ALL of it has to do with my life with God. Everything I do is spiritual. Life is spiritual. So what does that mean when I am feeling like shit?
It means I am majorly feeling sorry for myself. There is redemption even in this, but it seems like I’m in the pre-redemptive phase of my cycle.
80 is probably older than Mom thought she’d ever be. I love Mom. And I get so irritated with her when she calls five times a day and says, “I have a suggestion…” I don’t pick up the phone unless I want to.
So what if she leaves this life when I am being rude or irritable with her? What if I’m not being a loving daughter when she dies? I’m only sometimes a loving daughter and she’s pretty tolerant, though I know she wishes it were different. She used to say I was selfish, but that was in high school. She used to say she was afraid she’d get very sick and I wouldn’t take care of her, but she doesn’t say that anymore. She’s got her husband to take care of and that has changed her. She was born to be a nurturer and she’s good at it. It can also be a little suffocating if I let it. But it’s my choice to be suffocated or not.
I want to find my balance with Mom and enjoy her. She’s really a lot of fun. This morning I am not a lot of fun.
Time to take child #4 to school. I’ll dive into my day and then I’ll be fun.
Gotta back up; gotta see the big picture. My son is watching me type, wondering whether I’m putting any bad words in my writing. When I stop, he says, “What?”
Good question.

Things I Am Afraid Of

So a couple of things have occurred to me since my last post.

1. If lack of money = death, then a budget is constant lack of money. I mean, if you have $500 to buy groceries, then you have to stop buying them when the $500 is gone. You RUN OUT of the $500 and this means you lack money and this, in my very sick logic, means death.


2. I’m not actually afraid of death.

Sooooo, what does all THAT mean? What the hell am I afraid of? Pain. Definitely pain. Though I did pretty well in the childbirth department. Can’t say it was enjoyable, but I didn’t beg for drugs. So it’s not even pain I’m afraid of.
Cruelty. I am afraid of cruelty and cruel people. That’s why I don’t watch horror films, nor do I want anyone to describe them to me. Someone once told me about a scene from Hannibal and I couldn’t sleep after that. And I do find suicide to be cruel. It’s like, “Watch me take myself out and you can’t do anything about it, nyaa, nyaa, nyaa.” It’s the ultimate “fuck you.” That’s why it pisses me off.

Okay, so where am I going with this? I’m not afraid of death because I don’t believe there is any. I mean, there’s a transition from this life to the next one and you do leave your body behind, but I don’t believe we cease to exist. If I did believe that, I might find it frightening. I’m not sure. But I don’t have anything but curiosity about my own transition to the next life. I expect to be in a fierce and loving presence. I expect it to be exciting. But I’m not afraid about that. I have a feeling of trust about it even if I’m not sure how all the logistics work.

So. I am afraid of lovelessness. I told my husband I was feeling a little haunted lately and that when he’s depressed I’m anxious. He said, “You know, I may get depressed, but I’m not your dad. I’d never kill myself.” And I said, “I know.” But I was crying.
I never thought I was afraid of that. But I was filled with a ridiculous sense of relief.

The frightening thing about cruelty and about suicide is its seeming coldness. What has happened to the person who will do violence to himself and others? That’s what frightens me – that thing, whatever it is, that separates a person from his god-ness.
But is it coldness, really? Or is it heat, rage, a howl of despair? Is it actually love?

When child #2 was a baby, we went on a camping trip with Dad. He and I got into a discussion on abortion, which he is against – or so he says. My friend Annie had a Down Syndrome son. I mentioned him and said, “Those are the kids people say should be aborted. “They should be,” said Dad.

There are days I find his cruelty stunning, and this was one of them. We got into an argument as soon as my husband joined in. Dad was against retarded people, black people, gay people. I can’t remember the whole list, but he said he was sick of my husband’s sanctimonious crap. Whereupon, my husband told Dad we weren’t raising our children with Dad’s kind of values and that Dad needed to read the Bible and get to know God. (This is a rather atypical statement for my husband, but he was ticked.) Needless to say, this did not produce a sunlight-from-heaven kind of moment. Instead Dad walked out of the campsite and said he was going to hitchhike the 100 or so miles home.

Child #1 was two at the time. Dad had tied a string to a little wooden boat of hers and she was pulling it along in the dirt. She looked after him with these big, green eyes and said forlornly, “Where’d Granddaddy go?”

I chased him down with the station wagon. I rolled down the window and said, “Get in the car.”
He said, “I don’t have to take that.”
I said, “You’ve walked out on me for the last time. GET IN THE CAR.”
He said, “Oh, well in that case…” He got in the car.
I told him, “Every time things don’t go your way, you leave. You’ve been leaving me since I was born. And when you don’t get what you want, you threaten to leave permanently.”
He said, “You don’t understand the mind of a suicide.”

And now, I almost do. A year or two later, I was in a job that was taking everything I had, chewing it up and spitting it out. I felt like a failure in my chosen profession (teaching), and my children were with babysitters all day, missing me. My daughter would play with her dolls and the dolls would say that the mommy was dead. And for the first time, I wanted to. For the first time I thought, “This is how people feel who want to kill themselves.” I didn’t have a plan. I wasn’t longing to pull the trigger. But for the first time, I understood what it was to have all my hope drained away, as if some vampire had come in the night and sucked me dry. That’s what my dad felt, I think. He couldn’t have known how valuable he was to me. He couldn’t see it himself.

So it isn’t even cruelty I fear, because Dad isn’t really cruel – not when he stops and thinks about individuals. His cruelty is just a forgetting. Anyone’s is. And suicide is not coldness, but a void, an ache, a temporary seduction by hopelessness. It’s just that something irrevocable can happen in that moment of despair.

And then you miss that person. You miss them like I miss my grandmother, who didn’t kill herself, but died in her 80’s of pneumonia after a series of strokes. I miss her because we didn’t get to finish being together. I didn’t get to see her off. I got busy with my life and hid from her illness instead of flying out to see her. I’ve no doubt I’ll see her in the next life; I even talk to her sometimes now. But death changes everything you thought was permanent.

So it’s separation I fear. I love the physical you-are-here-now-I-can-hold-you world. And while I don’t believe we really die, I can’t get my mind around the reality that is beyond these three (four) dimensions.

I’m beginning to when I kiss the icons every day. Those people have become real to me in their own way: St. Brigid of Kildare, St. Katherine the Greatmartyr, St. Andrew, St. John the Baptist, Mary, Jesus. I love their faces looking at me while I pray. And even though it’s only wood and paint, it reminds me that the people I love are with me in this extra-dimensional reality. The string theorists say there are 12 dimensions (or is it 11? 13? A bunch, anyway). I find that incredibly inspiring. All these dimensions we can’t see. If “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” as Jesus said, it’s a close as your hand.

The night I decided to convert to Orthodoxy, I didn’t decide. I blurted it out to my husband in a restaurant line, “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll convert.”
I spent the meal reassuring him that I was not doing this for him, even though I knew it gave him joy, but for me. But I still couldn’t believe I’d said that.

That night I went down to the river and clung to a tree. I looked across the river at the moon and I talked to my grandmother. “Should I do this? Am I crazy? Another church? I was through with churches. What if they try to own me? Tell me how to think? What if I can’t squeeze myself into a box that small? Am I climbing into a box or can my God stay big and full of wonder? Should I really do this? Should I?”
And the answer came back across the river and in the bark of the tree, “It’s all right. You’ll be all right. You don’t need to be afraid. It’s bigger than you think; it’s bigger than they think. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.”

It was so good to hear from her.

We think we are alone. We think we are separated. But we’re not. The air is full of souls calling out their love to us. They loved imperfectly, perhaps, on earth, but love they did and love they do. I think I am afraid of hopelessness, of cruelty, of despair. But love is stronger, love is stronger, love is stronger.

Fear of Finance

Fear of Finance

I wish I could be funny about this. I feel like writing something funny. I’m really funny when I want to be. But today I’m scared again. I’m scared, but I will whistle in the dark. I think sometimes that fear is detached from actual events. Fear is in the mind, not in the event. Or it is attached to a fearful event by association. It may be an outdated association.
So here I am. My husband is depressed this week because there is a hole in our budget. He will have to borrow from savings again. (Having savings at all is a novelty). So here is my thought process, which has its own logic:
Money = incompetence
Money = lack of money
Lack of money = death

Oh, I am so dramatic. I even majored in drama. Metaphorically, I major in drama. For God’s sake, calm down, Tess!
All right. I’m calm, I’m calm. And here are my Rorschach ink blots – my associations that cause money to equal death:

• Mom & Dad = bills in shoeboxes
• Bills in shoeboxes = bills in collection
• Bills in collection = angry Dad
• Angry Dad = suicidal Dad

This is so pathetic. I am, as I have mentioned, forty-three (had a birthday this month). So you’d think I could unhook from this by now.

16 months ago we had a bankruptcy; last year we left our house behind. Now we’re in the hole again. And all because I am afraid to look at finances consistently enough to stay on a budget. And probably, my husband is, too. But he certainly looks at them more than I do. I just buy things – groceries and lattes mostly – and deposit money into my business account when I earn it.

I’d like to write something now that will show how competent I am…

• Last night my novel-writing class started. I have eight students. We talked about plotting. I really enjoyed it. It was at the community college.


• Today I am editing a book for a client. It’s his memoir. It’s interesting work.


• Next week I have a story due. It’s an assignment. That means they asked me to write it. The editor said they wanted me because I’m good at capturing kids’ feelings and getting into a kid’s mind.


• I have four kids. They like me.


• I have a husband. He likes me, too.


• God likes me.


• Ummmmmm.

I don’t believe this is insurmountable. I’m just not getting past the discomfort of the fear. I’ve got to be willing to walk through it like it’s one of those bead curtains we used to divide rooms with in the 70’s.

There’s this verse in the Bible that goes “Perfect love casts out fear.” Just a sec, I’m going to look it up…Okay, I John 4:18. Here’s the parallel Bible site. http://bible.cc/1_john/4-18.htm Cool! Still no Orthodox translations, but cool, nonetheless.
Basically, it says that God is love and that perfect love casts out fear and that fear has to do with punishment, so that if we are fearful, we have not been perfected in love. Which says to me that I haven’t grasped and understood fully the presence of God in me, which is love and that when I can do that I will no longer be afraid.

Betraying My Father?

I did the unthinkable two weeks ago by completing and submitting a series of poems about me, Dad and suicide. “Are you just going to let him read it when it’s published? With no warning?” my friend, Isabelle asked me.

And I don’t know. When I see him lately and I think about what I’ve done, I try not to think about it. I’ve still got an out: the poems may not win the competition; I may not decide to publish them this summer under my own small press, as I’d planned to do. But it’s what I want to do. I want to publish them. I want to read them in public. I’m ready for that now. I’m ready for it not to be a shameful, secret thing about me that I bring out every once in a while and then think I’m doing it for dramatic effect.

The next step is to turn this into a YA novel in verse. Yes. I am going to do that. And I am going to focus on my first year of college, when Dad lived in his office and I called in the mental health people to confront him after I found his suicide note. I’m going to telescope the next four years and include his suicide attempt and hospitalization and how that was for me. Only I won’t be me, I’ll be “her” the main character. I’ll be the 18-year-old. I’m telling myself this will help people. But really, it’s just that I selfishly want to do this. This is what the “writer’s conference stomachache” is about. It’s about my hunger to tell the real story, to strip away all the falseness and embarrassment I have about it and to just tell it. If it makes me a drama queen, so be it.

I had a rejection when I was in the middle of working on the adult poetry collection. It was for a children’s story I wrote about two first-century saints. It wasn’t a bad story, but the editor felt it was a bit “dry.” This is the first time my work has ever been called “dry” and I wrote to thank the editor. It was such a confirmation that I need to be writing what is most real to me. I’ve had a number of friendly emails with her since. I may sometime write more stories about saints and make them into more picture books. I may publish my children’s story about good manners and republish the one about the little boy lost in the woods who comes across a Sunday school class discussing the Good Shepherd. I may do that. And they may sell. And little children may find Christ when their mothers read my stories aloud. I have about 150 published stories, many of which may lead children to be better Christians. I hope they do.

But the most redemptive thing I can think of for me is to write about betrayal; to write about the cliff walk of not knowing whether your father will jump and how the jagged rocks will slice him when he lands; I want to write that there is terror and there is relief from terror; I want to write how important it is to speak and speak and speak until someone listens, until you listen to yourself and save your own life because it is God inside of you that you are speaking to – it is Christ Himself who will answer back across the bleakness if you just keep grabbing and grabbing for Him, daring Him to try and leave you. I want to write that because it is a scream that so many of us share and I have to join my scream to that scream. I have to say I AM HERE. I AM ALIVE. YOU STAY ALIVE, TOO. WE’LL BE ALIVE TOGETHER.

This is not polite writing and it doesn’t have a good Sunday school lesson to it. But I think that Jesus is wild and fierce and the fire that rages within me is His fire, too. So for awhile I’m not going to write about saints.

But my father – am I betraying him? I don’t know. I haven’t showed him the poems. I may not. I may publish them and he may never see them and I may keep writing and writing about this and if he ever stumbled across it, he may be hurt though that is not what I intend. All I want to say to him is
I AM HERE.
I AM ALIVE.
YOU STAY ALIVE, TOO.
WE’LL BE ALIVE TOGETHER.