Over the last few weeks, I have been doing so much cooking and baking I've had to re-think whether it's taking over my whole life (I could be doing more important things, such as writing), or if I should drop that dream and open a bakery. I already know what I would name it, too: The Lucky Puffin Bakery, after my much-worn and much-loved nickname. I do enjoy baking so much. I can kick baker's butt too: from carrot cake so moist that a couple notches moister and you could almost drink it with a straw (those are Phil's words, not mine), topped with a perfect cream cheese frosting; to zucchini bread and gluten-free scones made with coconut flour. If I'd started getting fat I would have stopped long ago, but instead of gaining weight I've dropped some. I badly need this to come to a screeching halt, and I'm at a loss as to what will stop me. At the moment though, I can think of one thing that just might.
Centrist Joe jetted into town this evening. Joe C. Smith came hauling books, political magazines, and enough DVDs for a multi-day movie marathon. He also arrived with enough intention to will mighty Mt. Rainier to uproot and plant itself in Oregon. That is, he came to get ME -- WHAT? -- to go in with HIM on a book about how political gamemanship is leading this country in the wrong direction, and how the place we need to be is in the center.
His area of expertise is American political systems, campaigns and elections. My "area," but certainly by no stretch my strength, is political philosophy and psychology. At 12:30 AM while whisking a steaming saucepan of key lime curd (I tell you, I need to stop), he told me we need to stop waffling, pick a subject we can both put our weight behind and simply begin writing about it.
What, oh what, have I gone and done? I thought I had married a sweet engineer and convinced myself that, within certain limits, I was in for an easy and steady married life. But that sweet engineer happens to be bestest of friends with a young and ambitious and frighteningly clever political scientist who won't leave me alone. I'm flattered. I'm utterly fucked.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
2 Years Later and Headed Nowhere
I think I wanted to shoot myself in Half Price Books today. While browsing I ran across a new edition of Thoreau’s annotated journal, “I and Myself.” Having worshiped the great writer as a youth, I was reminded of the person I have always wanted to become who somehow managed to bury herself alive under a giant heap of excuses. I think I need to dig her out soon before the person I am, lonely and unable to take the affliction of normalcy a moment longer, decides to take a splat off the Lake Union Bridge. Alright, I’m not contemplating suicide, but for a person of my temperament and idealism, living this way is as close to emotional death as one can come.
It’s been happening on and off for most of my life, but perhaps I first began to rock in the lull of mediocrity when I visited the opthalmologist’s office a couple months ago to get my eyes checked. A large floater had suddenly and mysteriously appeared in my field of vision while I was hiking the Enchanted Valley trail over the Memorial Day holiday, and had stayed with me ever since.
“It makes me not want to read or write, or do anything,” I moaned to Phil after getting home from hearing a rather dismal prognosis.
“Blind men and women play the piano and walk tightropes all the time,” he said. “And you won’t pursue your passion because of a single eye floater?” He was incredulous.
Sitting at my computer writing this, it strikes me how I’ve always known what a lame crock of shit that excuse was, and all the others since, which I have so carefully filled to the brim and which could stack and fill a whole stadium floor to ceiling. I can’t get up early enough. No one would read what I write. I never have the time; there’s always laundry and dishes to be done, meals to be prepared, jobs to go to. How would we live? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
For a single irrational moment, which one might actually consider a blip of sanity amidst the insanity of a too-civilized world that’s trying to kill me (Orwell), I am putting aside the necessities of living to measuredly consider what could be possible if I let loose my marbles and and went a little crazy. Not inebriated-and-staggering-down-the-street-in-tattered-clothes-shouting-invectives-at-everyone crazy – that’s for later, when I'm finally a published author -- but crazy in the sense of being possessed by a mission so powerful and a passion so all-consuming that I am driven not by necessity and practicality, but by what I’ve always wanted to do but keep putting off for the future that will never arrive.
Before I slink back into excuse-production, let me consider my fortunes. I live in a beautiful home in Seattle with a husband as close to perfect as they get, by a world-class university with all its libraries filled with as much collective knowledge as I can access to my heart’s content, and a beautiful office full of books and natural light and a big oak desk that begs me daily to sit down and write on it. What would I write about? My life, which is just as interesting as that of the young gentleman who pulled his car out of the library parking lot this afternoon and almost ran me over with it. He didn’t apologize, and the reason for his behavior could fill 20 pages. Anne Lamott said two things about writing that have always stayed with me: (1) Anyone who is lucky enough to have survived to the age of 18 has enough material to write about for the rest of his or her life, and (2) Spit it out. A shitty first draft is always better than nothing.
I wonder how many people have stopped to think about what could happen if they hit the pause button on life as usual long enough to realize they don’t need to be afraid to have what they want.
With that, my real life awaits. I have a past life to write about and a shitty first draft to spit out.
It’s been happening on and off for most of my life, but perhaps I first began to rock in the lull of mediocrity when I visited the opthalmologist’s office a couple months ago to get my eyes checked. A large floater had suddenly and mysteriously appeared in my field of vision while I was hiking the Enchanted Valley trail over the Memorial Day holiday, and had stayed with me ever since.
“It makes me not want to read or write, or do anything,” I moaned to Phil after getting home from hearing a rather dismal prognosis.
“Blind men and women play the piano and walk tightropes all the time,” he said. “And you won’t pursue your passion because of a single eye floater?” He was incredulous.
Sitting at my computer writing this, it strikes me how I’ve always known what a lame crock of shit that excuse was, and all the others since, which I have so carefully filled to the brim and which could stack and fill a whole stadium floor to ceiling. I can’t get up early enough. No one would read what I write. I never have the time; there’s always laundry and dishes to be done, meals to be prepared, jobs to go to. How would we live? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
For a single irrational moment, which one might actually consider a blip of sanity amidst the insanity of a too-civilized world that’s trying to kill me (Orwell), I am putting aside the necessities of living to measuredly consider what could be possible if I let loose my marbles and and went a little crazy. Not inebriated-and-staggering-down-the-street-in-tattered-clothes-shouting-invectives-at-everyone crazy – that’s for later, when I'm finally a published author -- but crazy in the sense of being possessed by a mission so powerful and a passion so all-consuming that I am driven not by necessity and practicality, but by what I’ve always wanted to do but keep putting off for the future that will never arrive.
Before I slink back into excuse-production, let me consider my fortunes. I live in a beautiful home in Seattle with a husband as close to perfect as they get, by a world-class university with all its libraries filled with as much collective knowledge as I can access to my heart’s content, and a beautiful office full of books and natural light and a big oak desk that begs me daily to sit down and write on it. What would I write about? My life, which is just as interesting as that of the young gentleman who pulled his car out of the library parking lot this afternoon and almost ran me over with it. He didn’t apologize, and the reason for his behavior could fill 20 pages. Anne Lamott said two things about writing that have always stayed with me: (1) Anyone who is lucky enough to have survived to the age of 18 has enough material to write about for the rest of his or her life, and (2) Spit it out. A shitty first draft is always better than nothing.
I wonder how many people have stopped to think about what could happen if they hit the pause button on life as usual long enough to realize they don’t need to be afraid to have what they want.
With that, my real life awaits. I have a past life to write about and a shitty first draft to spit out.
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