I Fought My Life

And my life won.

I’m shrinking back into the corners, licking my wounds, my head spinning from the constant beating.  I was just looking for the glimmer, the glint, the sparkle of joy.  Anything that shines.  I want to shine, too.

Instead the darkness sucks it back before I can really see it.  Before I can really feel it.  But I know it’s there, and I can feel it disappearing.  I can feel something heavy being laid on my shoulders, telling me to just lie down.  Urging me to stop looking for the magic.

“It’s not there,”  the darkness whispers.  “It’s not anywhere.”

But if I don’t believe that life can twinkle and dance, even when it is slapping me and driving me into a dark corner of silence, then I’ll have no reason to heal.  I’ll have no reason to be kind to myself.  No reason to stand up again and look for bright spots on the horizon.

 

Banana Bread and Sex

It has been raining here for days.  And days.  And years.  It feels biblical at this point.  I feel like my very soul has been soaked in muddy water.

There are really only two things to do when the rain keeps coming.  Bake and screw.  I was hungry, so I decided to bake.  I made the most scrumptuous, buttery, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside banana bread ever on the planet.  I put crushed walnuts on the top and they got all crispy and delicious.  We ate huge slabs of it with melted butter.  Oh, dear heaven above, you can try to wash away the whole world, nothing will bring me down when I have a mouthful of homemade banana bread.

I also contemplated having sex today, too.  But I was pretty bloated after all that banana bread.

Hello, Lover

Oh, how I missed you yesterday.  It was torture to have you so near, but occupied by my child who was watching a movie and, therefore, kept me from you.  If only I had been smart enough to put this blog link on another computer, we could’ve had our rendez-vous.  But instead I could only long for you from across the room while listening to the painful sounds of Dora the Explorer.  Knowing I couldn’t have you only made me want you more.

And then when my daughter took a nap and my husband suggested we watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on my computer, I thought I would explode.  I just wanted a few minutes alone with you, to blog with you all naughty and whatnot, and all of these people kept getting in the way.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is really good, by the way, if you get a chance to see it.  Don’t watch it before falling asleep, like I did.  You will wake up in a cold sweat.

Love,

Stranger

On being cool

Tags

cool, journaling, sharing, writing

Here are some reasons why I might be cooler than you:

I have kangaroos in my yard.

I can run 6 miles AND bake a killer chocolate chip cookie.

I am really tall with really long hair.  My legs never end.

I have started three businesses.

I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan.

 

Here are some reasons why I’m probably not cooler than you:

The kangaroos are in the yard, but it’s not my house.  I rent.

I can shuffle for 6 miles.  Because I bake so many chocolate chip cookies, and they like to hang out on my waist.

I am really tall and have really long hair, but I can never find clothes to fit because my appendages are freakishly long. Also my feet are really big.  My husband and I can share shoes.  But we don’t.

I have started three business, but made no money.  I’ve made a little money, but I keep putting it into other businesses.

I don’t know what that last one means.  I think it refers to housework.  I’m a terrible housekeeper.  Too busy starting businesses and searching the web for oversized shoe retailers.

A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?  Can good writing move us the same way a good picture can?  Maybe more deeply?

As writers, we have to believe that it can.  Photographers may disagree.  But chances are, if you are reading this, you are a writer and will probably side with me.  Have you ever read something that created a powerful, yet inexplicable feeling inside you or gave color and depth to a vision that exists nowhere except in your head?  Of course you have.  I remember closing the back cover of Poisonwood Bible and feeling suspended in time.  I used to wake up at 2:00 AM wondering what was happening in Shantaram.  I sank into Jeannette Walls’ memoir of her heart-breaking childhood in The Glass Castle.  While a picture is worth a thousand words, a good one thousand words cannot be captured in any picture that you can see with your eyes.  Writing that grips you from the inside out has no parallel.

I remember having “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” read to me as a child by my 5th grade teacher.  It was pure magic, having that sugary world spun to life in the thin air of my classroom.  Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, the oompa loopmas, Willy Wonka, the free-flowing chocolate rivers and all the adventures that took place, they were larger than life.  Larger than my 10-year-old life then and still larger than my 37-year-old life now.  That is the endurance of good writing, and the gift of a beautiful story.

I have yet to watch any book-turned-movie that compares to the actual book.  I have given up wondering if anyone will actually pull off the feat of showing me a story on a screen and have it rival the experience of feeling it through words on a page.  I don’t think it can be done.  A good writer can make a story continue long after the credits have run.

XO

Stranger

(Not So) Funny Mommy

Tags

blogging, creative, prompts, writing

One day I am going to write a very funny book about motherhood.  Starting with why we call it motherhood.  Does it get its name from the fact that it cloaks us in a suffocating veil of frustration and confusion about what we are supposed to be doing with these little people?  Where did they come from?  Why are they picking their nose and wiping it on my clean laundry?  Why won’t they stop talking?  There is a drawstring on that hood that just gets tighter and tighter.  And…tighter.

I have always said that if you described your relationship with your child to a therapist, but didn’t reveal it was your child, they would tell you to run like hell from this person who does nothing but suck your time, your energy – and occasionally your body parts – and gives nothing in return. They scream when you need quiet, they keep you awake when you need sleep.  They steal your food and your libido. They pee on themselves when you are ready to walk out the door.  Who does that?  Any counselor would tell you that you are in a sick relationship, and you must hate yourself for staying in it.

I want to write a funny book about it because I have to find the humor in it to persevere.  I love my child.  I love love love my child.  I would disintegrate into a thousand pieces if something happened to her. But that doesn’t mean that I know how to just be a vehicle for her needs.  I am having a dysfunctional relationship with a 2-year-old.  I’m sure she would have a different perspective on the whole thing.  There’s always another side of the story.

But I have this nagging feeling that if I could just step sideways for a second and watch this movie reel of my life clicking along, it would actually be really hilarious.  Boogers are funny!  Everyone knows that.  If I could just watch this whole thing from someone’s else living room, I bet I’d laugh my ass off.

So that’s why I want to write a really funny book about being a mother.  Motherhood.  Because I don’t want my story to be that I was a tired, cranky woman who was afraid of dried snot.

Until next time…

XO

Stranger

Who Matters

Tags

blogging, creative, prompts, writing

The only thing that really matters is people.  Not all people.  Not even all of the people you are connected to.  They don’t all matter.  But the ones who do, the ones who fill your heart, the ones who make you feel something you don’t normally feel, are the ones who matter.  And they matter so much that they are all that matter.

They aren’t even the obvious people – parents and spouses and children.  A lot of those relationships can, quite frankly, suck.  And, therefore, they don’t really matter.  I don’t mean “matter” in terms of whether or not their lives have value.  I mean whether or not their relationship to you adds value to your life.  In that way, the people who matter the most can actually be quite random.

There is a guy who cuts the grass where I live.  I have talked to him a few times.  He also lives in my neighborhood and has a wife and kids who I have not met.  This guy has a manner about him that makes me feel comfortable chatting with him about nothing.  I am not nervous or antsy the way I usually am around people I don’t know well.  Even my daughter senses it.  She walked straight up to him, looked up and started talking to him.  With anyone who is not her father or me, she is usually hugging the backs of my legs.

This guy matters to me.

They can also be the kind of people who fall into your life like little gifts falling out of a pinata. This happened to me recently on a trip where I met three siblings who were vacationing together.  They laughed constantly.  They just laughed the entire three days we spent together.  It was belly laughing, the kind that hurts after awhile.  The kind that blows open your inhibitions like a water balloon dropped on the street.  What feels better than laughing uncontrollably?  How often do we do it?

These people matter to me.

The usual suspects can also matter.  The family members, the college roommates, the cousin you grew up with.  But they don’t necessarily matter.  And it’s ok to have a special place in your heart for the ones who really matter.

Until next time,

XO

Stranger

Rice Cereal Blogging

Tags

blogging, creative, prompts, writing

Lately, I’ve been afraid of doing things badly.  Right when my reminder popped up about my creative date at 3:00, I was actually staring at a sign-in page on Tumblr, wondering if I’m blogging properly for my business.  I am very confused about blogging.  Which seems like an ironic topic to blog about.  But I think what I find so confusing isn’t really my confusion, but a lack of confidence about publishing things that people read, knowing it’s me who’s posting.

I have a blog that is kind-of personal, kind-of business.  (We’ll call it the other blog.)  I believe that blogging is a great way to promote your business – promotional writing with little flecks of personality sprinkled in.  Only I get very confused when I sit down to write.  Who’s voice do I use?  My business’s voice?  Because that tries to be very authoritative, but actually comes through a little desperate:  “Please buy something from me!”  Do I use my own voice?  When I start to do that I get very nervous about what I’m saying and who is reading it.  Will my customers be offended about potty training stories?  Shouldn’t I water it down a little bit, not share sooooo much with strangers?  And then I end up writing something that reminds me of that rice cereal you start babies out eating when they’re just learning to eat.  It’s clear and tasteless with predictable lumps, and no one really wants to consume it.

That’s why I started this blog.  It’s a place where I can just spew whatever is on my mind.  Some days it might be brilliant, others it might be just painfully bizarre, but it’s, at least, a place where I can totally be myself.  I am still not sure what to do about my business blog.  Maybe it’s ok to be all businessy one day and all potty trainy the next.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

XO

Stranger

I Want to Write

Tags

blogging, creative, prompts, writing

That has to be the most uninspiring title for a blog post in the history of blog post titles.  If they gave out awards for lame titles, well, this one’s a winner.

Except that the purpose of this blog post is ultimate creativity.  All day, I sit here at my desk, working, pretending to work, looking at Facebook every 4 minutes, moving stacks of paper around to make myself feel (look) productive – just like you.  We are all moving stacks of paper around.

But I want to write.  I write a fair bit now, but I want to write more.  I get up early to write (see my previous post about the rat in my kitchen at 4:30 AM), and I’m always kind of bummed out when the day finds me, taps me on the shoulder and tells me to go get started with my paper stack pushing.

So I decided to make a date with myself to write at a point in the day when I feel more like lying on the floor or playing Post-It note basketball with the waste paper basket than being creative.  But that’s exactly why I’ve made a date with myself – a date to be creative.  I’m going to wisk myself away at 3:00 every day (or 3:08-ish as so happened today) and write 300 words without stopping.  Just for me.  And myself.  And you, if you are reading this.

You should do it, too.  You’re too busy?  No, you’re not.  You find time for that jelly donut at 3:00, you can write a 300-word letter to yourself instead.  Maybe write a letter about how you’re using that jelly donut to avoid being creative.

Don’t you want to tap into that creative waterfall that’s just roaring inside you?  You have so much to say. Even if you don’t know at first what you will actually say, honor the creative date you’ve made with yourself and start writing.  If not at 3:00, when?

(328 words written in 16 minutes)

XO

Stranger

A Rat in My Kitchen

Tags

blogging, creative, diary, writing

When you find a rat in your kitchen at 4:30 in the morning, it does a few things to you.

First, you think you are losing your mind because there is no way you flipped on the light in a sleepy haze, your only real reason for being in that moment to make a pot of coffee, and saw a creature run across the floor in front of you.  It is the last thing you expect to see, and not the kind of thing a pre-caffeinated brain needs to be forced to process.

Second, you become very afraid on a primal level because if there is a rat in your kitchen, then anything could be lurking in any corner of your house.  Your cozy abode becomes a war zone with the possibility of car bombs and savagery at every turn.  The perimeter has been breached, so really, it’s just a matter of time before the full-fledged attack ensues.

Third, you get grossed out thinking about all of the places he might have been before you disturbed his raid.  Was he on the counter tops?  Was he in the fruit bowl?  Did he touch the COFFEE??  You want to throw all of your food away and torch the kitchen because, now, you are picturing little pieces of rat poo in everything.  Even in the food sealed up in the refrigerator.  If the rat figured out how to get in the house, surely he figured out how to open the refrigerator and poop in the food.  That’s child’s play for a military genius, such as himself.

Then you start to wonder why it was so important to get up at 4:30 AM.  You were going to write, waking up with inspiration dancing on your brain and a crystal clear storyline lifting you out of warm sheets into a dark room.

But now you are crazy, scared and nauseated, standing in your kitchen, thinking about a rat.