Thursday, December 19, 2013

Why I Don't Blog

[Actually, the title should probably read "Why I Don't Blog That Often" because, clearly, I am blogging right now.]
But here's why, despite having "Blogger" and (more recently) "WordPress," I very rarely blog:
I have ideas that roll around in my head alright, and some of them even manage to make it to paper (both actual and virtual).  Some of these ideas may be good ones; some may even be great ones.  The problem, as I see it, is that if I blog about these and they ARE great (or even good), the essays I create on my web pages are then considered "published," or, at least, they don't qualify as submission material for literary magazines that insist on only pieces that have never appeared publicly in any form.  Unless I plan one day to compile my blogs into a published collection a la The Bloggess (who is awesome, by the way, and if you are unfamiliar with her work, Google her right now!), then my potentially great essay, er blog, is virtually (no pun intended) DEAD TO ME.
Unless, of course, I significantly change it enough later on that I can, guilt-free-ly, submit it to a magazine as unpublished.
But what are the odds that I will ever do that?  Slim to none.
Another reason that I don't blog more often (besides being lazy) is that I've read that the main reason a person should blog is to get "out there" if s/he is a frustrated unpublished writer because, after all, the main reason we writers write is to be read.  I've read several accounts that, beyond blowing off steam or using the blog as some other kind of catharsis, one needn't blog if one is already having at least moderate success at being published.  Since, over the last couple of years, nearly a dozen of my essays have been published in various magazines, that itch of mine is being scratched.  Most likely, since I have few "followers," more people have read my essays in those magazines that published them than would ever have seen them in my blog.
There are, of course the Leslie Pietrzyks (see Work-In-Progress on Blogger!!) who are repeatedly and wonderfully published, teach, AND keep up with a regular blog, and, to those people, I say "Thank You" and "Where DO you find the TIME and MOTIVATION?"  When I'M not grading papers, pretty much the last thing I want to do is put the energy and concentration into an essay or story that I can't submit yet also can't really count as having been "published."  It's just too easy and effortless to click on Candy Crush Saga instead (I'm on level 189 by the way).
But, yes, I have plenty to say.  
For instance, I'm planning an essay about a "secret room" my sister discovered in our grandparents' house and its potential link to the depression that, I've been told, runs in our family.
Banging around in my head is also an essay about how and why my "half" brother (now deceased) broke up with me.  That's right; I said half BROTHER who BROKE UP WITH ME.  Intrigued?  Well, someday you may read about it, but it won't be here or on Blogger.
Also, I just learned a new term (from Augusten Burroughs' book Magical Thinking).  The term, in case you missed it, is "magical thinking," which, when I read the definition (first in his book, then on Wikipedia) I realized applies to me and what I do (though I disagree with the part of the definition that calls it a "schizotypal personality disorder."  Only about an hour ago, I had the idea that I would like to write about my own version of magical thinking.  But not here.
Oh, the ideas just keep coming.  But, you see, I have to SAVE these for the REAL essays.  At least, that's what I tell myself.  Which is why many of my ideas will never actually become a finished product.
So if the "good" or potentially "great" pieces are saved instead of appearing on my blog, what is left?  Well, one need only look at my (very few) past blogs to find my recounting of dreams I've had, rants I've been compelled to write, or other ramblings (like this one) with long silent stretches in between.  Surely not great, probably not good, hopefully not total crap.
Will it change?  Probably not.  But now at least I've explained it.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Where She Wants to Be

I was speaking to someone about something as I left the room.  The details up until now are unimportant.

As I leave one room and step into another, I recognize my surroundings and stop short:  my old house in MA and, specifically, the room we called the Other Side.  Despite having lost this house in 2008, I have just stepped through time.  I instinctively know that I am my present self, fifty three, a mother, an orphan, a teacher - everything that I currently am, yet here I stand, rapidly blinking, taking it all in, every detail of the room just as it was before I left.  I am dreaming of the past.

Or am I?  Perhaps everything I've come to accept as "reality" over the last few years is the dream, and I am actually still living in MA, still a captive of the house on North Common Street in North Brookfield.  This  second possibility scares me.  I feel unbalanced, tilted off the axis I have taken for granted as "fact."  Which is it?  Whom do I ask?  I am alone in the Other Side.  My heart beats harder as I turn back and go out the door I just entered, afraid to see whatever is out there but needing to get my bearings.

The dining room.  Wait, this is somehow wrong.  There is my grandmother's set in the center, my mother's china cabinet between the front windows, everything in its place, even the shag wall-to-wall rug that I have always hated.  One of the first changes that I made when I moved in as an adult was to pull up that twenty five year old monstrosity.  And that's when it hits me:  this room, as I am seeing it, no longer exists, hasn't existed for more years than I have been in North Carolina.  This is the setting of my childhood home.  I am, I realize with relief, dreaming.

It occurs to me in this moment that this dream-flashback may have much more to offer, if I can just hang onto it.  As if I willed it to happen (and perhaps I have), I hear a noise upstairs.

"Ma?"  I call out, fearing disappointment.  Then I hear it, her voice in response.

I tear through the room, rounding the corner, taking the steep stairs as fast as I dare, terrified that I will wake before I can see her, talk to her.  At the very top of the stairs, I turn toward my old bedroom, and there she is, the woman without whom I once could not imagine my life, the only person whose love for me was unconditional:  my mother.  Not the strong, healthy mother from my childhood, but the slightly stooping, slightly frail mother who passed in 1996 and no less beautiful to me.

I throw my arms around her, sobbing like a child, and tell her that I miss her.  I miss laughing with her and talking on the phone with her and shopping with her, and it never gets any easier.  The feeling of loss never lessens, and I know it never will.  And in the seconds that I am in her arms, feeling her love wrapped around me, all of these thoughts go through my head, but all I can manage to choke out is "I miss you."

My mother does not cry.  Ever the nurturer, she tightens her arms around me and says, "I miss you, too."

The moment is fleeting, and I know the dream will soon end.  We release our hold on each other, and she steps back.  Already my surroundings are beginning to fade.  "Wait," I call out, desperately wanting just a little bit more.  Some piece of reassurance.  "Where are you?" I say.  It's awkward and blurted out, but she knows what I'm trying to ask.

"I'm right here," she says and looks around.  Of course she would, if at all possible, return to the house where she was born and where she spent her whole life.  "I stay here but, sometimes, I travel."  Her expression turns slightly mischievous.

Can this be true?  Even though I know I'm dreaming, I cling to the hope that there's some psychic thread allowing her to communicate with me.

"Do you . . . ever travel to see me?"

She only smiles in answer, and, again, of course she would, if at all possible, watch over me, her only daughter, letting me know, now and then, that she's still out there.  Just as she has this morning.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Random Thoughts

I keep thinking I'll get more motivated to write here, but somehow I can always think of so many other things I'd rather be doing, like flossing my teeth, drinking, or playing games on facebook.  I have been reading a great deal, so I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself.  Yeah, whatever, just another excuse.  Today, for instance, is a day off, day 1 of a 4 day weekend.  One of my students asked me yesterday if I planned to spend this Easter Break working on my next book.  Well, it's now almost 4:00, and so far I've balanced my checkbook.  And played games on facebook.  I've also spent some time debating over whether to have a beer or a mixed drink with my supper.  As you can see, I've been busy.

The truth is, I feel pressured to be witty or profound or something else that doesn't just come easily (for me, anyway) but has to be worked at.  Part of me says to treat my blog as a journal entry, which, granted, might make it seem more accessible for me, but who, then, would want to read it?  I know that if I did consider my blog a sort of diary, I'd simply use it to whine or complain.  Wait, is that what I'm doing anyway?  Then again, is anyone even reading what I write here?  Maybe I shouldn't worry about what I put in here; maybe I'm just kidding myself that I even HAVE an audience.  After all, I subscribe to a few blogs but rarely read them.  Once in a while I read Leslie Pietrzyck's blog, and when I do, I envy the extra hours she obviously has in her day such that she manages to find time for teaching, writing, travelling to conferences AND blogging.  Or, admittedly, she may just spend less time flossing, drinking, or playing games on fb than I do.  I also occasionally visit the pithy, daring, and sometimes crude page of The Bloggess (and if you have never read her work, dear readers (the 2 or 3 of you who may someday read this), then you are definitely missing out.  Her book is excellent, by the way, especially if you are a fan of taxidermy.

Speaking of taxidermy, my husband and I were in the Tractor Supply store the other day (and if you're wondering why I used caps there, that IS the name of the store - this is the South.) buying yet another couple of bags of environmentally correct fuel (i.e. wood pellets) to get us through this ungodly winter that will not let go, when I saw the sign for Baby Chickens and Ducks right next to a rack of books on how to raise various animals for food.  Okay, not exactly taxidermy but just as disgusting as far as I'm concerned.  A vegetarian of about 4 years now, I found myself staring down at the galvanized tubs full of newly hatched babies, imagining their fate and feeling bad.  Maybe a few will live pampered lives as family pets, but I'm guessing most will end up being eaten.

As we returned to the car, Scott said, "If a guy asked me 'How do you raise these? What do they eat?' I'd tell him 'You can't have one.'"

Evidently, my husband felt bad, too, but probably for different reasons.  After all, he still eats meat and doesn't consider it a moral issue.

That night, my daughter (also a vegetarian) told me that, in her opinion, raising one's own meat is more honest and less hypocritical than pretending that the nuggets you're eating have always been breaded and bite-sized.  Chloe also believes that animals raised for food on small farms are probably treated better than those raised en masse on factory farms.  I hope she's right, but I still don't have to like it.  If I had to eat meat to survive, I could, but I don't.  Most of us in this great, developed, consumer-oriented country we live in don't.  People eat meat because they like it, or maybe because they can't imagine NOT eating it, can't imagine what to put in that big space on the plate between the potatoes and the green beans.  So even with high cholesterol, and high blood pressure, and clogged arteries, people doggedly (oh, don't even get me started on the way DOGS are mistreated! THAT'S another blog for another day) hang on to their meat, as if they couldn't go on without it.

I believe it will be a beer this evening, since I will be preparing guacamole with black beans (whole grain chips on the side).  See?  Meatless AND delicious.