Sea Legs
Posted: January 18, 2010 Filed under: Writers Write | Tags: balance, compensation, dizzy, perception, Trusting Your Instincts, vertigo Leave a comment »I didn’t eat this morning. Instead, I got up on a ladder and felt the world drop out from under me. My balance is not what it used to be–not even close. Once, I was the girl standing at the top of the ladder, fearlesssly holding on with my calves digging into the risers, a bucket of paint in one hand a brush in the other. Like the speaker in Robert Frost’s “After Apple Picking”
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
No more. I am wobbly. The world spins in a motion I can’t predict or identify. Once I’m steady, it does a change up. Like an NBA guard cutting around his opponent then switching directions. It fakes me out and scores over my head. So, I come down from the ladder and sit.
I like to think I have a sort of inner stability that comes with maturity–an emotional balance–a sense of the digital replacing the analog that once allowed me to stand at the edge of a precipice without diving over. Maybe I had to lose one to gain the other?
The Yogurt Wars
Posted: January 16, 2010 Filed under: A Zany Life, Housekeeping, Joined at the Heart, Mouths of Babes, Writers Write | Tags: family Leave a comment »Three of the four members of my household don’t drink milk. Which means about ten years ago I should have invested heavily in soy farming. Since I didn’t, we pay a premium for the vanilla-flavored gold. I’m positive a portion of our income goes to finance black-market edamame patches in Indonesia.
But we do eat yogurt, and not just any yogurt. Every week I clip coupons, so we can pay for the pricey stuff. With flavors like Apple Turnover, Key Lime Pie, and White Chocolate Raspberry, it’s our not-so-secret indulgence. I started out buying half a dozen, but that was never enough. Arguments ensued.
“You took the last Banana Creme Pie.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“That junk tastes like Laughy-Taffy.”
“Better than pink snowflake or whatever you call it.”
“Strawberry Cheesecake or Very Cherry.”
“Whatever. You ate the Banana Cream Pie.”
“I already told you. I don’t like Banana.”
“Then who ate it?”
“Bacon?”
“He likes Blueberry Patch.”
“No, he likes . . . “
“Everything.”
Now, the cart is full. Entire grocery bags of individual containers enter our house weekly. I can’t buy a case because they only come in generic strawberry and peach. Most households have a refrigerator shelf dedicated to soft drinks or beer. The middle shelf of our Kenmore is home to dozens of cone-shaped plastic containers with foil lids. We can’t get enough of the stuff.
Watching Hair Grow
Posted: January 14, 2010 Filed under: Aha!, Writers Write | Tags: writers, writing Leave a comment »
Fog this morning. Dense, wet Dark Shadows vampire fog. Sandburg said, “The fog comes on little cat feet.” I wouldn’t have used that metaphor, but I’m not a poet. By afternoon, the fog outside the window will drip, and then, the deludge will start. Our local forecasters don’t get much opportunity to make real predictions, but they tend to get this one right. Five inches by tonight, I’ve heard. I should get out of the house to walk before I’m stuck for the three or four days it takes for the rain to pass. But, it’s a writing day, and I know what I have to do.
I’m still waiting for this to get easy. And it still isn’t. I’m an incremental writer. Layer and layer and layer–a million drafts. I tweek it over and over. I don’t get the ideas or the language all at once. Instead, it’s like watching hair grow. I get a line and then trim it just so, and I watch it grow a little more before I curl it. Ridiculous analogy, I know, but I’m not Sandburg. Maybe when I’ve written ten manuscripts, I’ll be quicker, but probably not. I can say this. I know the story. I don’t have to do a dissection to understand where things are and how they fit. I know the heart and ribs and spleen. And, I have that sense of why I didn’t have last August.
At least there’s that.
So, I have the silence of fog. Sandburg’s cat feet don’t make much noise, and Lilly-the-wonderdog snores softly while she waits for me to get on with it.
