My Words Go Here

Time, time, time, see what’s become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please

I often feel like I live in two different worlds. When I am at work, in a suit, talking LIBOR rates and workouts and foreclosures, I am one of them. When I am here, at Starbucks on my days off, in my yoga pants, I am one of us, a mother and a writer.

One day I was sitting in my yoga pants, typing away and I was sitting by another lone guy, computer set up, papers spread out. We caught each other’s eye and smiled, two creative types struggling through. On the other side of me sat down three men in suits. They were loud and trying to out-impress the other, shouting about interest rates and hedging and real estate.  The lone guy looked at me and rolled his eyes in a “aren’t they obnoxious and aren’t we glad we aren’t them” way. The thing is, somedays, I am them. I don’t talk loud or try to impress, because I really don’t care, but I have been in a Starbucks in a suit, meeting with clients and discussing such things. We often make judgments about people based on simple things. What they are wearing. Where they are at 10 am on a weekday. I float between both.

Sometimes I feel like my life is like Sliding Doors, that Gwyneth Paltrow movie where in one existence she made the train and her life went in one direction, and in the other she didn’t and her life went another. Except in mine, I flash back and forth between the two. And I don’t have that fabulous pixie haircut.

A few weeks ago, the husband and I took O back to California for the first time. The husband is from California, and I lived there for 10 years so it’s “home” to both of us in different ways. We stepped off the plane and walked out into the California sunshine. (Well, we disembarked, waited for our luggage, waited for our rental car, watched O marvel at the massive John Wayne statue in the lobby of the airport, waited some more and THEN walked outside into the California sunshine).

The sliding doors swished open and instantly I felt like I was “home”. There is a certain indefinable smell and feel to the air in California- dry, cool, smelling of gasoline and a hint of ocean, a smell of infinite possibility.  Instantly, I was 18 years old again, walking around the open-air mall in Century City with my parents.  California seemed so wide-open, not in space but in possibility, in living, in experience.  Meandering around an open-air mall in late-afternoon sunshine seemed impossibly glamorous and somehow right for California. My dad bought me this luscious cigar-colored leather backpack, a grown-up backpack, a sophisticated backpack for my college days.  I felt very cool, and very very far away from Texas. I felt like I belonged there, I easily slipped into being a Californian. I kept that backpack all through my college days, and I still have it, somewhere. It is soft with use now, has a big navy blue inkspot on it, and looks very used. Yet I can’t bear to throw it away.

I had forgotten about this backpack, but stepping out into the sunshine it came rushing back at me. Except, instead of feeling like a memory, I felt exactly like that 18 year old girl. Time slipped away, and I was her. I am her. I felt a yearning for something, so deep that it brought tears to my eyes. It was a yearning for home, for California, for who I used to be and who I still am.

In many many ways, we are different, she and I. She was brash, fearless, a bit bossy. She was scared of nothing and believed that she could do anything. She was also immature, unaware of consequences, self-centered and impulsive. She made a LOT of bad decisions. She wasted opportunities, stole boyfriends, took things for granted. She never would have chosen this life, never would have moved away and become a lawyer, married the right guy. She was also so full of life, always up for an adventure, always saying yes to impossible things. She was stubborn and hard to please. She was exactly what an 18 year old girl should be.

I am not fearless anymore and I am very aware of the consequences of decisions. I am also a lot nicer and calmer, a better friend, a better listener. I am more at peace in my skin, in my life, more able to live in the moment and appreciate the now, because I know how fast it moves. I marvel everyday that I have become a person who chose the absolute best guy to marry, that I grew up enough to be smart enough to marry someone kind and wise and thoughtful, someone who makes me laugh and who always always has my back, someone who I never for one moment doubt. I am proud of my grown up self, because knowing her, I wasn’t sure we would ever get here.

I was born and raised in Texas. There is much about me that is pure Texan. Texas is not a place that you can drift through without it leaving its mark. Its too big, too brash, too charming. But I grew up in California. From 18 to 28, the formative years of one’s grown up existence, I lived and absorbed California. There is much about me that is California.

My grandmother’s family is from California and my grandmother grew up in Fullerton, when it was still all orange groves and farmland. Her mother was the first woman superintendent in California and her father was a beekeeper.  My grandparents met at Stanford, before the war and other things drew them out of California and they ended up in Texas. When I decided to go to school in California, my grandmother nodded knowingly and told my mom that I had California in my blood.

Now, in my thirties, I live in Texas, but not in a city that is familiar or home to me. And I struggle with what “home” means, not only to me, but what it will mean to O. I am not sure that I want this to be home for him.

On our visit, O saw the ocean for the first time and met my best friends for the first time. My best friends that live out there are so close we are like family. When we see each other again, we don’t skip a beat and it’s like I never left. It’s so normal and so easy. I feel at home with them in a way that I never feel in my new hometown.

Home: Place where one lives.

At home: In harmony with the surroundings.

So I wonder, what is home? Is it place? Is it where your family and loved ones are? Is it where you feel the most harmonious with the surroundings, the terrain and the weather and the people and the customs? For me, the easy answer is home is where my husband and son are. But where I am at home is still up in the air. And that’s okay.

For now, I live in between two worlds. Texas has my head- it is where my family is, it is where my husband and I work, it is where we live in a beautiful house in an amazing neighborhood, amongst neighbors that we actually know. Taxes are reasonable, schools are good. It’s a great place for O to grow up. It’s real summer and cicadas and good Tex-Mex and BBQ, it’s long drives under a limitless sky, football mania and easy access to Target. It’s safe and predictable and full of the best people I know, people with open arms and open hearts, people that know how to tell good stories, people that know what is important in life.

But California still has my heart. It is where I became who I am, it is where my other family, my best friends are. It is where the ocean is, and the sunshine all year long, and where possibility lives. I want O to grow up surfing and live among beauty, between the ocean and mountains.

I wish I could find the words to describe the simultaneous yearning and disillusionment I feel for California. But it’s still too close for me to view objectively. The artist Liz Kubal summed up California perfectly:

“And you’d think that, after all this, you’d become disillusioned and go back home, and some do, of course, but many more of us stay and instead of growing bitter, we hang on to a world that, to us, is even more fantastic than the one we thought we’d find, because it’s real in its absurdity and because we have stories to tell.”

Link to her photographs: http://www.20×200.com/art/2009/09/untitled-santa-barbara-2009.html

Soundtrack to this post:

Hazy Shade of Winter– Simon and Garfunkel

Goin to California– Led Zeppelin

California Dreamin’– Mamas & Papas

California Love– Dr Dre featuring Tupac

What I Got– Sublime

Estimated Prophet– Grateful Dead

*Note: This was written a few weeks ago. I hadn’t posted it because I decided it didn’t really say anything. Then I had lunch with Iz, who is a kindred reader and writer. Our talk reinvigorated these thoughts I had. So this post is for you, Iz. Hope it inspires you!

A few things in the zeitgeist have been blowing around my mind, but they haven’t quite congealed themselves into anything yet. First, there is the Franzen frenzy and this article that was posted on the Huffington Post. I’ve been mulling over my thoughts and realized that I have no fight in this game. I loved The Corrections. I love Jodi Picoult. I don’t begrudge Franzen his good reviews and I don’t begrudge Picoult her right to say what she feels. I would gladly take either of their careers. What struck me more was the hostile reaction to Picoult and Weiner’s comments on the matter. The comments to the article on Huffington Post and the comments in reaction to this article , in which a female writer sniffs that Picoult and Weiner are just jealous because Franzen is a good writer and they are not. I don’t know where the hostility is coming from- is it because they are women, or because they are successful women or because they write what is considered “women’s fiction”? I have no idea. But as a aspiring writer, the hostile dismissal of both Picoult and Weiner’s work stopped me in my typing. If they are considered hacks, then what hope do I have?

As I have been mulling over this controversy, another juggernaut in the zeitgeist crashed into my Friday afternoon and momentarily chased away these thoughts. I went and saw “Eat Pray Love“.

I have not read the book. Well, in full disclosure, I tried to read the book. I couldn’t get past the first chapter. I like to think I’m open-minded enough that the massive popularity didn’t color my opinions. I have been known to not like something just because everyone else does, and I have been known to dig in my heels until I have to wave the white flag and admit, yes I did like The Life of Pi. I’m not sure the reason, but I couldn’t get through Ms. Gilbert’s breakdown on her bathroom floor. It wasn’t her honest questioning of her life and marriage, that I understand. I don’t mind dark. I think it was more her writing style. She just came across as so whiny and self-indulgent. Instead of sympathising with her during her darkest moments, I just wanted to slap her. Or tell her to get over herself. I think this is something to do with the writing. Whenever I mention this to people that love the book, I think they assume that as a happily married woman living in a big white house, that I am offended or threatened by a woman who admits that not only are these things not enough, but that they can be their own kind of prison. They defend her by telling me how courageous and life-affirming her decisions was. I agree. I just don’t think she did her job as a writer. If my (and admittedly many others besides me) reaction is to be taken out of the moment, to not hurt with her, to think about her writing and her motivations, then as a writer at least, she failed.

I had to work in the morning last Friday and was feeling filled up with stress and grumpiness and just the busyness of life. I hadn’t had my morning writing session and I was feeling uninspired. I haven’t been to a movie since Christmas and I love movies. I decided to take the rest of the afternoon and go to a movie. I picked Eat Pray Love because I was hoping to be inspired.

And I was. Julia Roberts was a good choice because she made an unlikable woman likable, which means the audience can stop focusing on whether or not they like the character and instead enjoy the story. And what a story it is. I do find it a little unbelievable how everything happened to her right when she needed it to, but other than that, it was a beautiful story. There were many moments that stood out to me, that made me wish I had a pen and paper handy, to write down my thoughts.

I’ve been thinking about what I could possibly say about Eat Pray Love that hasn’t been said before. I decided there wasn’t anything, so just chalked it up to a great movie experience.

Today though, I was bored at work and started surfing the internet. I decided to google Liz Gilbert because I was curious about her other writing work. And on her website was this absolute gem, that brought it all together for me. The fears of whether or not I will ever be good enough, both at the actual task of writing and for the writing community, as not one of their own. The worry about whether or not I have it in me to even finish a novel, and then to even sell it, and THEN to worry about whether or not it will be too popular or not literary enough or not thoughtful enough. And so on. So this is a lovely reminder, to just write. Believe in yourself. And then release it. Our only allegiance is to the words. What happens after that is out of our hands. So stop worrying and start writing. Enjoy!

Liz Gilbert on writing:

Sometimes people ask me for help or suggestions about how to write, or how to get published. Keeping in mind that this is all very ephemeral and personal, I will try to explain here everything that I believe about writing. I hope it is useful. It’s all I know.

I believe that – if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a holy calling. I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns. I made a vow to writing, very young. I became Bride-of-Writing. I was writing’s most devotional handmaiden. I built my entire life around writing. I didn’t know how else to do this. I didn’t know anyone who had ever become a writer. I had no, as they say, connections. I had no clues. I just began.

I took a few writing classes when I was at NYU, but, aside from an excellent workshop taught by Helen Schulman, I found that I didn’t really want to be practicing this work in a classroom. I wasn’t convinced that a workshop full of 13 other young writers trying to find their voices was the best place for me to find my voice. So I wrote on my own, as well. I showed my work to friends and family whose opinions I trusted. I was always writing, always showing. After I graduated from NYU, I decided not to pursue an MFA in creative writing. Instead, I created my own post-graduate writing program, which entailed several years spent traveling around the country and world, taking jobs at bars and restaurants and ranches, listening to how people spoke, collecting experiences and writing constantly. My life probably looked disordered to observers (not that anyone was observing it that closely) but my travels were a very deliberate effort to learn as much as I could about life, expressly so that I could write about it.

Back around the age of 19, I had started sending my short stories out for publication. My goal was to publish something (anything, anywhere) before I died. I collected only massive piles of rejection notes for years. I cannot explain exactly why I had the confidence to be sending off my short stories at the age of 19 to, say, The New Yorker, or why it did not destroy me when I was inevitably rejected. I sort of figured I’d be rejected. But I also thought: “Hey – somebody has to write all those stories: why not me?” I didn’t love being rejected, but my expectations were low and my patience was high. (Again – the goal was to get published before death. And I was young and healthy.) It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism. Wasn’t that the point of the creation – to communicate something to the world? So PUT IT OUT THERE. Send your work off to editors and agents as much as possible, show it to your neighbors, plaster it on the walls of the bus stops – just don’t sit on your work and suffocate it. At least try. And when the powers-that-be send you back your manuscript (and they will), take a deep breath and try again. I often hear people say, “I’m not good enough yet to be published.” That’s quite possible. Probable, even. All I’m saying is: Let someone else decide that. Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren’t good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Don’t pre-reject yourself. That’s their job, not yours. Your job is only to write your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest.

As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: “I’m going to write for an hour every day,” and then you won’t do it. You will think: “I suck, I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows.

I have a friend who’s an Italian filmmaker of great artistic sensibility. After years of struggling to get his films made, he sent an anguished letter to his hero, the brilliant (and perhaps half-insane) German filmmaker Werner Herzog. My friend complained about how difficult it is these days to be an independent filmmaker, how hard it is to find government arts grants, how the audiences have all been ruined by Hollywood and how the world has lost its taste…etc, etc. Herzog wrote back a personal letter to my friend that essentially ran along these lines: “Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work.” I repeat those words back to myself whenever I start to feel resentful, entitled, competitive or unappreciated with regard to my writing: “It’s not the world’s fault that you want to be an artist…now get back to work.”  Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.

Here’s another thing to consider. If you always wanted to write, and now you are A Certain Age, and you never got around to it, and you think it’s too late…do please think again. I watched Julia Glass win the National Book Award for her first novel, “The Three Junes”, which she began writing in her late 30’s. I listened to her give her moving acceptance speech, in which she told how she used to lie awake at night, tormented as she worked on her book, asking herself, “Who do you think you are, trying to write a first novel at your age?” But she wrote it. And as she held up her National Book Award, she said, “This is for all the late-bloomers in the world.” Writing is not like dancing or modeling; it’s not something where – if you missed it by age 19 – you’re finished. It’s never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world – at any age. At least try.

There are heaps of books out there on How To Get Published. Often people find the information in these books contradictory. My feeling is — of COURSE the information is contradictory. Because, frankly, nobody knows anything. Nobody can tell you how to succeed at writing (even if they write a book called “How To Succeed At Writing”) because there is no WAY; there are, instead, many ways. Everyone I know who managed to become a writer did it differently – sometimes radically differently. Try all the ways, I guess. Becoming a published writer is sort of like trying to find a cheap apartment in New York City: it’s impossible. And yet…every single day, somebody manages to find a cheap apartment in New York City. I can’t tell you how to do it. I’m still not even entirely sure how I did it. I can only tell you – through my own example – that it can be done. I once found a cheap apartment in Manhattan. And I also became a writer.

In the end, I love this work. I have always loved this work. My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. Please try, also, not to go totally freaking insane in the process. Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don’t need any more of that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.”

Good luck.

Thank you, Liz Gilbert!

So my plan to post on Mondays and Fridays has been blown a little off course, by a trip back to California and a crazy work schedule. So basically, just by normal life. Until I have time to post, here is a great article on Huffington Post on short story writers, and their thoughts on the short story versus the novel.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/short-stories-writers_b_667550.html

Enjoy!

It’s August 23. First, Happy Anniversary to my Mom & Dad! 41 years, going strong. Amazing. Thank you for showing me how to hang in there for the long haul.

Again, it’s August 23. Where I live, August is the hottest of the hottest months in one of the hottest cities in one of the hottest states. So it’s hot. And humid. The temp gauge in my car read 102 but according to the very chipper weatherman this morning, it feels like about 110. Did I mention that it’s hot? And unlike most reasonable states, August is not the end of the heat. It starts cooling off in October. If you’re lucky. November and we might turn off the A/C and get out a sweater. Maybe not though, but for sure December. Last year we even got a white Christmas. Though the year before that it was 60 and sunny. And it’s like this every year, it is not a new occurrence and it is not due to global warming. It’s just Texas, ya’ll.

I write all of this to preface what I am about to say next. So you can understand the absurdity.

This morning on my walk, I felt a hint of fall. A slight breeze, a whiff of anticipation. Of fall colors and pumpkins and falling leaves. Of college football and rainy days and drinking tea in the late afternoon. Of the slight chill chasing off the lingering heat of the summer, of schedules and new beginnings and new plans and new ideas. Of cozy sweaters and tall leather boots and jackets. Of pumpkin spice lattes and chicken pot pie and soup. Oh lordy, I love soup.  And new television shows, and fall movies and Halloween and Thanksgiving. You get the drift.

Walking my dog (black, panting after one block), rolling the stroller along with O (white, pale, almost translucent, covered in sunscreen and lolling listlessly, dumping his entire sippy cup of cool water in his lap), the air seemed different, as if summer was starting to pack up, starting to take it’s last final lap around the lake before it began putting away its swimsuits and BBQ’s and hot dogs and late evenings watching fireflies and drinking Coronas, of pool splashing and early morning walks drenched in sweat, of the sound of kids playing all day, of ice cream and loose linen dresses and wavy hair you let dry in the summer sun. I felt it, the subtle shift. The neighborhood seemed quieter, the women on their morning walks seemed lighter and happier and more purposeful. I began to feel the urge to clean out my closet and start shopping for a fall jacket.

And then I realized it was because school started today. Now, this shouldn’t really affect me. O is way too young for school and none of my friends’ kids are old enough for school yet.  But there it was, that moment when summer begins its long and stubborn slide into fall. At least in Texas. In Texas, summer is quite reluctant to give up its turn at the diving board. Summer is very much a bully and something of a show-off. On the East Coast, Summer is easy and lies down at the first flirtatious wink from Fall. Fall is definitely in charge over there. California, well, they don’t even know what Fall is. They have Flip-Flop season and Not Flip-Flop Season.

And knowing how very far away true fall is, I couldn’t help but wonder about my inexplicable notion that I could “feel” Fall. Clearly I can’t. It couldn’t be hotter outside. Things are melting out there. So are we that susceptible to suggestions around us? Halloween decorations are already out at local stores. I have been getting catalogues full of adorable fireflies and turtles and ninja costumes that my clueless one year old can wear. TV is slinging its commercials for new fall television shows. And football, blessed football, is already back, though in its boring and toothless NFL pre-season form. Kiddos are going to school, the neighborhood pool is only open on weekends now, and the college kids are back in the coffee shops. Not to mention my 400 pound September Vogue preening on my coffee table, chock full of delicious fall fashion that I will never get to wear here.

But instead of dreaming of real seasons that happen when they are supposed to, I am trying something new. You see, every year that I’ve lived here (3 years now?), I get really angry come September.  I want a real fall. And I want it in September. Come October and I am downright pissed that I can’t wear a sweater and shiver. It’s still like 80 here in October. And in July? When I want to take walks and drink coffee outside and have happy hour on my back porch? It’s impossible because of the heat and mosquitoes. Really, the seasons apparently don’t give a shit so all that results is a grumpy lady.

So this year I am trying to just enjoy what I’ve got. So it’s not anywhere near fall weather yet. So I won’t be able to wear a sweater till November. But you know what? I can swim till October in a non-heated pool. And I won’t HAVE to wear a sweater till November. And when the rest of the country is freezing, I can take long walks and drink coffee outside and have happy hour on my back porch. In November. And sometimes even December. It’s all relative.

Though right now it’s gray outside and I’m sitting in Starbucks drinking tea and eating a pumpkin loaf. It’s so cold inside due to the A/C that I am wearing two sweaters. Can I just say that I’m starting to get really excited for Christmas?

Virginia Woolf has been on my mind lately.  This past weekend I celebrated both my husband’s birthday and my son’s first birthday.  We had a small-ish party for my son and I spent last week dashing about, buying cupcakes, and napkins and birthday banners and dips and chips and food, ice and beer and juice boxes and bottles of real Coke and Pez-colored straws and galvanized tins. And presents and wrapping paper and cards.  Everytime I started an errand, I’d think, I simply must not forget to pick up the flowers! And everytime I thought about flowers, I’d giggle and feel like Mrs. Dalloway.

You see, I am not a skilled party-thrower or homemaker. Growing up, I wanted to be glamorous and fun and have a corner office and wear stilettos and have people cook for me. I was so bored by those simple tasks, such as cooking and sewing buttons and arranging flowers. I refused to learn, and was content to let my mother and grandmother do those things, taking comfort in the fact that my mom always knew just how to sew a button or boil an egg, so I didn’t have to.

But now. Now I regret not paying more attention. My grandmother was an old-fashioned cook, the kind that made both biscuits and cornbread (from scratch) for every dinner (or supper, as she called it).  The kind that never used a recipe or exact measurements. The kind that knew that a pinch of sugar in every dish was that unexplainable difference. I grew up in her kitchen, watching her make hotcakes and sausage, bacon and eggs, fresh sweet tea aged in the sun, meatloaf and ham and mashed potatoes and everything good you can think of. And yet I never learned to cook from her. She’s gone now, and I look back on those missed opportunities with regret. Why wasn’t I a little curious? Why didn’t I ever just stand up at the stove next to her and watch her do her thing? Usually because I was in the other room with my head stuck in a book.

Now I’m a mother. And it feels a bit silly to still be calling my mom to ask how to boil an egg. Or to have to ask my husband to sew a button on my shirt for me. Because that is what mothers do, they know how to do things. They make the world feel safe and sure, for as long as they can.

So for me to be rushing about, thinking of flowers and cakes and serving platters, was exhilarating. It was like getting to be someone else for a day, someone that is good at these kinds of things, someone that knows how to arrange flowers and already has the cupcake stand and the right serving platters. Who knows NOT to buy an ugly orange plastic tablecloth that looks like a trash bag meant to dispose of a dead body.

So besides pretending to be Mrs. Dalloway, Ms. Woolf has been on my mind for another reason. Since my project has started over a week ago, the simple question of where to write must be addressed. Our home office is not set up yet. Even if it was, our house is lovely but older, and there is no quiet room in the house, no where to be “away” from my son and his musical banging and all day long soundtrack of giggling, gurgling, babbling, whining, crying and screeching. Not to mention that it is near impossible for me to ignore him. And he would be standing outside the glass doors to my office, with his little hands pressed to the glass, his nose pressed to the window, grinning at me with his jack-o-lantern teeth, enticing me to cuddle and play. No writing would get done at home.

I keep thinking Virginia Woolf had it right. The two biggest obstacles to my writing life (besides the obvious procrastination and self-doubt) are money and place. I can’t write full time because I need a paycheck. And one truly needs a “room of one’s own” to get away from the ordinary, to let her thoughts percolate and burst, fizzle and soar. So. What to do?

For now, Starbucks is my room. And can I just say that today I love my room? To my left is a gentleman that has a phone plugged in to the jack and resting on the table. When I say phone, I don’t mean an I-phone, aBlackberry, or even a regular cell phone. I mean the smooth rounded plastic kind that used to hang on my parent’s kitchen wall. The base attached to the wall, a rectangular piece of plastic. The receiver is rectangular as well, but rounded so as to fit snugly between one’s shoulder and one’s cheek. Ours was cream, but the one next to me is black. And it rings. The man keeps answering the phone, conducting business as if it were perfectly normal to bring your own phone and phone cord into a coffee shop.

The man across from me is whispering furiously into his cell phone, but in French. I can only make out a few words, enough to know that he seems to be arguing with his wife about the car. This requires much sighing and blowing air out of his pursued lips, which shoots his uncombed hair straight up off his forehead. He then has to brush his hair back off his forehead, before dropping his head into his arms. His next move is to throw his head back and roll his eyes, dropping the phone in the process. Once he puts the phone to his ear, he starts his little routine all over again. I don’t know about you, but domestic squabbles with my husband do not contain this much theatre and are not accompanied by as many cheoregraphed hand movements. Even domestic fights in French are more fun.

There is a woman across the way, who is here everytime I am. She has a muddy-colored dog, is always wearing a different hat and seems to be attending her own bible study. She has a beautiful crimson-colored leather Bible, with pink and green and purple post-its stuck to every page, words circled and highlighted. But she mutters under her breath. I can’t hear what she is saying. Is she praying? Practicing? Preparing to lead a class? I got a glimpse of what was playing on her I-pod last time. Metallica. Not kidding.

And I’ve got good coffee, a little Grateful Dead and Radiohead playing softly in the background. Good coffee, good music, great people-watching. All of the elements I need to get to the writing.

So maybe V.Woolf had it wrong. I don’t need a room of my own. All I need is a computer of my own, and a Starbucks filled with enough people and stories to get me started.

Dear O,

I can’t believe you’ve been a part of our lives for a whole year.  Part of me can’t remember life before you, and part of me is still surprised when I look at you and realize that you are mine and that we made you. Crazy.  This has been the hardest, and best, year of my life.  Hardest because you totally disrupted our happy little life together, turning it upside down with your constant immediacy, your constant needs.  When you need something, there is no “wait one second”, you need me right then.  Happiest because I look at your face, so joyous and happy and content, so trusting and ready to explore the world, so sure that the world is there for your taking and I am so proud you are mine. Happiest because I have never been needed like this, because I have never ever loved anything more than I love you. And I never will.

You were always a good baby, even before you were born. I loved being pregnant with you, you didn’t make me feel sick or give me any weird pains. You just grew quietly, until you started kicking and flipping, and it was like we lived in our own world together, just you and me. Nobody else was needed. Then you were born. You were 10 days late, totally content to just hang out where you were.  The doctor finally forced you out and let’s just say that labor was the most intense, painful experience of my life so far.  Though in retrospect, you came out pretty fast and pretty easily.  It’s all a blur, but I do remember we listened to Willie Nelson over and over, with some Kings of Leon mixed in.  The song “Use Somebody” will always remind me of you, it seemed like it was constantly playing in the final few weeks when I was waiting around for you. You were born and they handed you over to me, and I gotta admit, you looked really weird.  You were gray and skinny, wrinkly and you had your arms and legs intertwined like you were praying.  I thought I would instantly recognize you, that I would take one look at you and think “of course that’s what he looks like”.  But I didn’t. You were a stranger, your own complete person, and though you needed me desperately for food and comfort, you were self-contained.

The first few days were a blur, but eventually we settled into a routine. You were such a good baby, only cried when you were hungry or tired, otherwise content to just hang out and look around. You never liked being held like a baby, and always insisted on trying to lift your head up and look around at the world, even when you were really too weak to hold your head up on your own.  You loved the swing and spent hours in it, just looking around and sleeping. You sat up and crawled pretty early, at six months and you’ve been on the move ever since. No looking back.

Now at a year, I look at you and think “Of course that’s my baby. Of course this what you look like.” You have your dad’s white blonde hair, full lips, and good disposition. You have my smile and fiery personality.  I’m afraid you have my teeth. You are feisty and bold, a born leader and explorer. You aren’t afraid of anything so far. You jump in, head first and decide if you like something later.  You laugh often and a lot. I hope you have his patience, his sense of humor, his sense of right and wrong, his organizational skills and his teeth. I hope you have my sense of adventure, my love for words and stories, my ability to see the gray.  I hope you have his quickness of mind, but my creative side.  I hope you have my great ideas, and his follow-through.  I hope you have your own thoughts, dreams and ideas.

I look at you, and you have your whole life ahead of you. No heartbreaks yet, you haven’t learned that there are limitations in life, that there are things you cannot do. You haven’t spoken a real word yet, your first words, first run, first time catching a ball, are all in front of you. We don’t know yet if you’re a lefty or a righty.

What I hope for you is this. That you live life fully. That you still throw yourself into everything you do, with your whole heart.  That you still don’t accept that there are limitations in life.  That you don’t take no for an answer. That you find something you love, and work harder at it than anyone else around you, that you find joy in your work.  That you love deeply and forgive others for their faults.  That you go away to college and travel the world and see things you only dreamed of.  I wish for you to be happy.

I am so grateful you have come into our lives.  You have taught me patience. You have shown me that there is something bigger than myself.  You have shown me pure love and pure laughter. You have reminded me that it’s the littlest things that are the biggest things in life. Love. Laughter. Family.

Happiest birthday wishes to my sweet baby boy.

Note: This post was from a previous blog and was originally posted on April 29, 2010.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my husband was out of town. Husband is actually a really amazing partner and father, despite what I may say or complain about occasionally. He rushed home from the airport to make sure he saw O before O went to bed. O and I were sitting on our front porch and when Husband drove up and got out of the car, O started bouncing and screeching excitedly. SO CUTE. Nevermind that he doesn’t really do that when I get home. The smile on Husband’s face was priceless. We must have looked like one of those families in a laundry commercial. Mom and baby sitting on steps in front of white house with black shutters, jasmine blooming, dogs barking. Husband pulls up in sleek European car and gets out with briefcase to greet the happy family. Baby bounces excitedly, and Husband swoops baby up, twirling him around as baby giggles/gurgles joyfully. Husband kisses wife and all go inside pretty white house.

Husband missed baby, so barely blinked when I told him I was too tired to do bedtime tonight and that I couldn’t even LOOK at the rocking chair. He did say “the WHOLE bedtime routine?” I said yep and went into the other room and LAY ON MY BED AND READ A BOOK. I have never done that. Even when Husband offers to take care of baby, I feel this guilt and need to help. Not this time. Husband put baby to bed. I took care of dinner (ordered a pizza). We watched DVR’d episodes of Community and 30 Rock and I went to bed at 9:30 pm. Ahhh, bliss.

It gets better! O sleeps all night! (Of course he does since Husband offered to get up with him at night). O wakes up a bit earlier than normal but is playing in his crib babbling to himself and turning off and on his aquariaum thing. DH bounds out of bed saying “Let me get him up.” I selflessly “let” him get the baby and close my eyes for a few extra minutes of quiet time. Big sigh, I love my husband and my happy morning baby. We SHOULD be in a laundry commercial.

“MY NAME YELLED LOUDLY”! “COME HERE, I NEED YOUR HELP!”. Drag myself upstairs. O is gurgling merrily on the changing table, a pair of socks in his mouth. (Hey, it used to be the medicine bottle until I realized that letting O “play” with medicine might lead to accidents and/or serious drug addiction as a teenager so who cares if he puts his dirty socks in his mouth?) Husband is holding O’s legs up. O has pooped so much and so hard it is CAKED onto him, all the way up his back to his neck and under his arms. It’s a two-man job. I’ll spare you the details, but it basically involves crazy yoga moves to get O out of the now-green jammies, multiple wipe-downs with an entire tub of wipes, and a bath because the SMELL doesn’t go away even when we manage to peel all of the poop off of him. All before 7 am.

As Husband and I are watching O happily kick and play in his whale tub, big blue eyes grinning contentedly at us, I think we REALLY should be in a laundry commerical. This is what it should look like. Not the easy homecoming, but the gross morning poops, the sleep interruption and the sweet aftermath. THIS is what laundry really looks like with a baby. Though I guess I should mention that we didn’t use some magic laundry detergent to clean the poop. We threw the nasty jammies away.

And Scene.

This is what my husband said to me when I suggested the name of this blog “Keep calm and have a cupcake”.  And he’s right. I am not really a cake person, and therefore not really a cupcake person.  He, on the other hand, LOVES cupcakes. There is one place in town that makes a cupcake that I like, a pumpkin one. But I scrape all of the icing off first and only eat half. And I eat it in the morning with a cup of coffee. So it’s basically a breakfast muffin by the time I get through with it.

Also the word “cupcake” brings to mind a certain type of girl. A bubbly girly-girl. A girl who likes pink. And sparkles. A girl who had no issues planning her wedding because there can never be too much pink and sparkles at a wedding. I am not this girl. I like these kind of girls, I have many friends who are girls like this and I envy the easy way they glide through life, because they want the things that girls are supposed to want.

Point being, I am not someone who you would expect to put the word “cupcake” in her blog title. But there it is. So to explain this, I should also explain that I am indecisive. Very indecisive. And I often put off making decisions because I can’t quite commit. And one of the biggest things that I have not been able to commit to is naming this blog. You see, I decided to write this in May of 2010. It’s now August. I have written many draft “posts”, but they all sit in my inbox of my gmail account. All because whenever I tried to name the blog, I panicked. That isn’t “me”, I would say. Or whine, depending on if you are listening to me or my husband. And I couldn’t possibly start a blog with a title that doesn’t work, that doesn’t immediately capture exactly who I am and what I believe in one catchy title.

I did my research. Being a lawyer has rubbed off on me in a few ways. And there are great blog titles out there. I got a journal. I started making lists. Lists of blog names I like. Lists of possible names. List of words I like. List of phrases I think are funny. Lists of anything that could possibly sum me up and define me. I’ve been carrying it around with me for months. And nothing is right. Or, if it is right, it’s already taken. Imagine that!

So I have been running some options by the husband. He hasn’t really liked any of them. And he does this annoying thing where he pulls apart the logic of things. It goes something like this.

Me: “How about DEFENESTRATION?”

Him: “Huh? What does that mean?”

Me: “Throwing things out the window.”

Him: “Why? What are you throwing out the window?”

Me: “I don’t know. Expectations? Being a lawyer? Does it matter?”

Him: “Yes, it matters. Why pick it if you don’t know why?”

Me: “I just like the way it sounds.”

Him: “Hmmm. I don’t know, it sounds a bit hostile.”

Back to the drawing board. So I am stuck treading water, wanting to write, wanting to make this blog part of my writing life, and yet, I can’t because I don’t have a name. Can I just tell you that it has taken me longer to come up with a blog title than it did for us to name our son? Seriously. There’s something wrong with that.

So last week I am at the bookstore. And I am standing in line about to pay. I am not paying much attention to anything around me, because this was the first free day I had since my new flex time started. This was the day I was to begin making writing a part of my everyday life. Start a blog, finish and submit my short stories, finish my screenplay and start a novel. Yet somehow I couldn’t do any of those things until I had a blog title. I am standing there, these thoughts egging each other on, so that by the time I get to the front of the line, they’ve pretty much started a riot, panic is rising, and I am about to admit defeat. Who am I kidding? I’m not really a writer. I can’t even write an anonymous blog. And then I notice the wall of books to my right, mostly suggestions by the store clerks. But there are a few gift items. And in the bottom right corner, below “Pillars of the Earth”  and beside “Eat Pray Love“, is this little journal. A hideous Pepto-Bismal pink cover. It had no business sitting besides the summer bestsellers. And yet, it sat there proudly. A little insouciantly. Like it knew it didn’t belong, and yet knew that it was secretly desired. And on the front, it said “Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake“.

And that was it. This silly pink journal made me laugh, and reminded me to get over myself. So I figured, why not? It’s not like I’m performing rocket surgery over here. And so what if it’s not “me”? If it was me, it would probably say something more like, “Shut up and drink your drink.” But that sounds a bit hostile and you don’t know me yet. And, you know, everybody likes cupcakes. Or at least normal people do, according to my husband. So here we go.

Note:  This is a post from a previous blog originally posted on April 28, 2010.

“Crossing The Rubicon” is an old phrase which means “the point at which one becomes irrevocably committed”. During Roman times, the Rubicon was a river in Italy and to cross it with your army was to make a statement of war. The phrase came into being when Caesar led his army across the Rubicon in 49 B.C..

I recently came across this phrase and have been rolling it around in my brain for a few weeks. The phrase “irrevocably committed” struck me in the forehead like a Harry Potter lightning tattoo. It sounds so strong, so dangerous, so final. Being irrecovably committed. Point of no return. I wonder at which point when Caesar “crossed the Rubicon” that it was considered that he was making a declaration of war. When he dipped his toe in? When he was waist-deep? When he got to the middle of the river? When his troops began to follow him? When he arrived on the other side?

I like to think it was when he dipped his first toe in.  Becoming irrevocably committed is kind of a big deal. It’s something that one should think about, consider, mull over and discuss over lots and lots of wine first. To lead your men into battle, to declare your intentions to the world is a bold move. And you’d better be sure.

I am a lawyer and a mother. One was a happy accident and one was what happens when you let life lead you. One makes me deliriously happy and deliriously tired, and the other just makes me tired.  The writer in me stayed quiet for many years, content to let me go to happy hours and drink wine with my best friends and spend all my lawyer money on gorgeous shoes. When I had all the time in the world, the writer within was content to slumber. Now though. Now I have no time. And the writer in me is prancing and prattling and knocking on the door of my brain, demanding to be let out, demanding to finally be heard.

After the birth of my son, I had a bit of an identity earthquake. I am still struggling to put the pieces back together of who I am or will be. But the one thing that is very clear to me is that I can no longer think that “someday” I will realize my dreams, that I can no longer wait for my “someday” over the rainbow. I have to chase those dreams now, for him. I want to teach him to follow your passion, to dream big and to never settle for ordinary. And how can I do that when I am not following my own advice? If I do this right, I won’t even have to tell him all of those cliches. He will learn by example.

In this past year of juggling motherhood and work and writing, I have been given a gift. For the next 6 months, I am working a flex time schedule. Which means I only have to work like a normal person and not like a crazy person. Which means that I get to actually spend time with my son. Which also means that a time warp has suddenly opened in front of me. I have six months to try to become a Writer. To stop talking about writing, and start doing. To become Irrevocably Committed.

So, this blog is my declaration of war. On myself. On talking and dreaming and not doing. I am dipping my toe in the water.