Giving In to the Spinning World

I gave in a day early this year.

Thanksgiving Day is my holiday music demarcation line. No a-wassailing or fiiiive golden rings before the fourth Thursday in November, please. But Thanksgiving fell later than normal, and the weather had turned wintry, and I was tired of resisting the pull of holiday sparkle. So I gave in, all at once and happily.

But I'm slow to change with the seasons. I usually feel like I'm about a month behind. Just as I'm settling into menus of garden fresh tomatoes and sweet corn, the back-to-school commercials remind me that it's nearly soup time. I finallyfeel ready for fall at the beginning of November, when the splendor of autumn leaves has waned. Then it's Thanksgiving and already the world is on to Christmas. I look up and see that we're a week into December, and I realize we still haven't brought in the patio furniture, despite swearing we would this year before the first snowfall. As I write this, snow covers the table and the patio umbrella resting on the deck floor.

My birthday arrives at the end of next week (Friday the 13th!, which are good luck days for me). I never feel truly ready to think about Jesus' birthday until after I've celebrated my own. By then, there are only 12 days before Christmas, and then it's New Year's and the grey of January and bam: Happy Valentine's Day.

I'm trying to keep up with the turning of the seasons and calendar pages, this spinning wheel of a planet that flings us from month to month, year to year, closer and nearer to the sun, round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows. This is how we grow older: gradually, then suddenly*. I've been worrying about running out of time for awhile now.

But what's to be done about it? We spin with the world whether we want to or not. So I try to give in and go with it.

*This wonderful phrase is attributed to Hemingway, who answered thusly when he was asked "How did you go bankrupt? 
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly."

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If you enjoyed this post and are interested in writing about the big questions and the small moments that shape your life, you may be interested in One-moment Memoirs, a step-by-step process to guide you through discovering and telling your life's stories (big and small) in bite-sized pieces (perfect for blog posts and short essays).

If you'd like to be among the first to know when One-moment Memoirs launches in 2014, please join The Word Cellar mailing list.

What I Really Want to Tell You....

What I really want to tell you is...

...that for a long time I've been trying to figure out what to do with my newsletter. I kept wondering: What did I really want to tell you in those little electonic missives?

When I'm stuck in my writing, I often turn to this phrase as a prompt: "What I really want to tell you is...."

And then I realized that this is exactly what I want my newsletter to be: a place where I can tell you what I really want you to know!

What I really want to tell you.... (a newsletter of stories, specials, & inspirations)

If you're already on the list, you don't need to do anything else. But if you'd like to join in, I invite you to sign up (over in the sidebar or right here).

A few times a month, I'll share with you the things I really want to tell you...

...Secret stories whispered to your inbox.

...Special offers just for you.

...Bits of creative inspiration, literary tips, and writing prompts.

I hope you'll join the list.

(And then tell me in the comments below what you really want me to know....)

Constellations of Friendships

Kindred Spirit Holiday Sale: Buy one copy of Lanterns: A Gathering of Stories and get a second half-off. That’s two copies (one for you and one to give as a gift) for $27 (normally $18 each).

Several years ago, I was inspired to celebrate women in creative community. The result was Lanterns: A Gathering of Stories, a collection of prose, poetry, and photography by seven women writers and artists. Every time I hold this beautiful book in my hands I’m grateful for the power and grace of creative collaboration.

Today I'm sharing the essay that closes the book. You can read the essay below or listen to an audio recording of me reading it.

"Lanterns: An Invitation"

I can chart my life's course by constellations of friendships. The stories of friends past and present shine like stars in the night sky. Some have faded like a bittersweet distant star; others have exploded like a blazing supernova; some burn steady and bright. Every star with her own name, her own story.

She is the girl who made ice cream floats with cheap vanilla ice cream and generic grape soda during weekend sleepovers. Together we belted out Whitney Huston songs and played mad scientist with a chemistry set. We took long walks in the humid summers, our young hearts longing for something beyond the acrid smell of hot, sticky blacktop in our small hometown.

She is the roommate, the hallmate, the classmate in college. She taught me to love the precise smell of lavender and folk music; before her, I was all baby sweet and pop culture.

She showed me that a kindred spirit with a goofy sense of humor can lurk beneath a picture perfect exterior.

She taught me that shared friendship will outlast shared crushes almost any day.

She introduced me to the pleasures of cheap Australian white wine and American sitcoms on foreign telly. She took me home for Christmas when I was thousands of miles from my home. 

She sees straight through me to the other side, between where I am and where I could be. She calls, she texts, she chats, she emails. She comes for a visit. She invites me into her home. She writes me poems, shares her story, folds me into her journey. She is laughter in the dark, sobbing in the light.

She is a creative companion, my very own personal cheerleader. She holds my hand, hugs me, calls me on the carpet, tells it like it is. She inspires me to try crazy things and to encourage her to do the same. When I'm sad, she listens deeply and with love. When I run out of creative juice she inspires me, reassures me, kicks me back into gear. When I rejoice, she celebrates with me.

These are my lanterns, my friends. When I stumble and feel lost, they hold up their lights and say, “Look: You know the way. I'll come with you.” They are, as Lisa [Ottman] has called her essay, “lights unto my path.” By their examples, by their words, by their laughter, they have lighted my way and lightened my load. They have been, to borrow a phrase that contributor Rachelle [Mee-Chapman] often uses, my “withmates” on this journey of living the creative, authentic life.

You are here with us. As Jena [Strong] wrote in her essay, we are all “alone, together.” There are many women along these paths, each of us finding one another in the beautiful twilight, in the deep dark: gathering together, pooling the light from our lanterns until the darkness itself is invisible and everything glows.

* * *

This holiday season, I'm offering a kindred spirit special on Lanterns: A Gathering of Stories.

Buy one book and receive a second at half price.

That's two copies (one for you and one to give as a gift) for $27 (normally $18 each).

Offer ends December 10.

"Velocity" published by The Collapsar

I'm pleased to share that my essay "Velocity" has been published by The Collapsar. (Thanks to editors Nate Knapp and James Brubaker for giving this piece a home!)

Here's the opening of the essay. To read the rest, please hop on over to The Collapsar website.

Somewhere west of the Pennsylvania border but east of Columbus, the tree-dense slopes on either side of the highway started to ease themselves down to the ground. It was subtle enough that I didn’t notice it at first, but eventually the mountains shrunk to hills shrunk to fields, the way icebergs of plowed snow in parking lots melt and melt in the spring, until one day there’s nothing but a puddle where once stood a dirty white mound. Out on the highway, maybe an hour from Columbus, the treetop vistas and the cradling valleys gave way to farmland flat as paper.

{Keep reading.}

The Long but Necessary Way

Yesterday's lesson in Write into the Heart of Your Story was all about taking the long way 'round, which seems to describe much of my life, writing or otherwise.

In grad school a few years ago, I sent a very rough draft of an essay to my writing mentor. I knew it was a hot mess, but I also hoped that it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was. After all, that had happened to me before: I'd submitted something with the disclaimer that it was far from finished, only to get feedback that it seemed quite close to being a final draft. Happy surprise! I hoped for a similar dispensation on the hot mess essay.

Unfortunately, my mentor told me -- in the kindest way possible (and I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically) -- that the piece was more of a jumbled mess than I'd feared. Damn.

He then introduced to to that quote above, from Edward Albee's play The Zoo, and told me:

"Maybe this is your long but necessary way."

The long but necessary way. Yep, that's my way.

Some examples...

My main work-in-progress is an essay collection that I started to write in 2009. It took me several major revisions and a full year before I knew what those first essays wanted to be. It's four and half years later, and I'm still trying to figure out what else goes into the collection. (With any grace from the muse, I will finish a full first draft of the collection in January. I'm spending that month here, and I'm committed to making it count.)

My essay "Sugar Baby" initially included passages about gathering tomatoes in my backyard garden and excitement about a potential road trip. In fact, those passages sparked the whole essay. But none of that made it into the final draft, which ended up being about something else entirely.

It took me more than four years to find the true heart of my essay "Love and Silverware." When I finally did understand what that piece is really about, I realized that the meaning had been staring me in the face forever. It was such an integral part of the fabric of my life that I couldn't see it for a long time.

This is why I don't despair anymore when an essay or story misbehaves, or when I can't get a handle on what it is and where it's going. I know that eventually, if I'm writing what's asking to be written, I'll find my way.

The path to the heart of your story might be straight and true, like an arrow. Or it might be a winding country drive on a lazy afternoon. You might sprint to your destination, or you might wander. You might get lost along the way, but that's no cause for alarm. Your story knows the way into its own heart. All you have to do is follow.

I'm not saying that the long but necessary way is the best way or the most efficient way, but it's hard to argue with what's necessary.