I Met My Muse on a Stormy Day

I will never forget that morning. The sun peeked through the leaves, casting abstract shadows on my arm. It was warm, but I held my coffee cup close to my face, letting the steam fill me up. I wasn’t thinking about anything except the aroma of a specialty dark roast when the thought pushed its way forward and cleared its throat obnoxiously: Write a novel.

Um, write a novel? About what? I don’t even write anything anymore…what makes you think I wanna write an entire friggin novel?

I dismissed the silly thought and went on about my day, washing dishes, weeding my flower bed, reading children’s books, watching Lifetime. But the thought was persistent. It returned to me in the shower and again when I tried to fall asleep that night. And for the next week anytime I would leave my mind unoccupied that crazy idea would return with imaginary people in tow, people that I was really starting to care a good deal about.

I began to write lives around those people, penciling in fine details of their relationships and personalities until they seemed more and more real and the idea of their realness seemed less and less crazy.

Before I knew it, a novel really did begin to emerge. And the whole thing was just so incredible, so unreal that I did what any sane, logical person would do in that situation. I told everyone I knew. Everyone. People I liked. People I didn’t like. I just kept on blabbing about this story that felt more like it was writing me than the other way around.

But then I freaked out a little. No, a lot. I deleted everything I wrote, shredded the printed manuscripts, and drank a lot of wine because I had no interest in writing a memoir and I didn’t consider myself a fiction writer, yet I was caught somewhere in between the two. Besides, there were women being trafficked all over the world and children beaten in their own homes, and if the world’s burdens weren’t enough I had my own family to tend to. I convinced myself that my art wasn’t as important to me as I thought, and since I wasn’t sure what to do I chose the easy nothing. I let that apathy linger for months and months. It all sounds so dramatic to me now, and I’m sure to you also, but it felt real to me at the time. A literary depression, if you will.

 I never could get those characters out of my head though. They had become dear to me… like godchildren, perhaps. These stories I gathered, either through my observations or imaginations, deserved to be dusted off and refinished. With enough love they could someday be appreciated by others. I had to figure out how to give them a voice. It took me a while but I eventually let go of all the crap I had attached to my craft, all of the pointless expectations and unsolicited criticisms, and I just actively wrote. That may have been the most sensible thing I’ve done since the idea manifested.

A project like this takes diligence, patience, and a unique belief in one’s art, even (and especially) when doubt seems so much more attainable. I have a vague idea of what I’ll do after this novel is complete, but as of now I just want to write. Freely. Simply. Because it makes me happy. Because this work means a lot to me. Because I have no reason not to.



On Trusting Myself

As one might expect, a second child provides many opportunities for the expectant mother to reflect back on her first pregnancy. So as I I amuse myself with the usual questions:
How did I have so much energy with the first?  
How come my skin and hair looked so awesome then and not now?
Did I seriously just eat an entire jar of Kosher Dills?  
I like to find a quiet corner in my day and think back to what it was like to be an expectant mother for the first time. I smile at the memory of how I devoured every parenting and child development book I could get my hands on because, at the time, I had no idea how little my over-achieving tendencies would serve me in the Motherland. 

The Man and I were too young, not at all ready to be adults, but we were willing to figure it out together. We knew so little except that we were crazy about each other, and as it turns out, that was more than enough fuel to get us started. We moved out of our parents’ houses and into a quiet little home on a noisy street. He worked 14 hour days. I had an evening part time position after school to help put food on the table. We worked ourselves stupid and we still struggled, but blissfully, because we believed in ourselves, and even with just us two, we were a family.

Life has quieted down some now. We take family vacations and discuss such fascinating topics as home ownership and life insurance. I have the flexibility to be a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom, as well as a work outside of the home mom when and as long as it’s convenient for me. I also have the keen understanding that all of that could change in an instant so I try to remember to enjoy it every chance I get. My husband has a career that feeds his creative muse and gives him the opportunity to be active in our community. When he comes home from a long day at work only to look forward to a long night of paperwork, he still somehow finds time to kiss his wife and sprawl out on the living room floor to play a game of Candyland with his little girl. We are lucky. We are thankful. We are exhausted and deliriously happy (although that may just be a symptom of DVR induced sleep deprivation), and we’re learning to appreciate those extraordinary everyday moments of our hopeful lives. Oh yes, we’re still too young. We still run into struggles and we still don’t know a whole lot about being adults, but we find ways to make dreams come true despite those limitations.

I think back to the candlelit Hamburger Helper days with affection; those days when I didn’t know what kind of mother or wife I would be, when I wasn’t sure if I could trust myself to orchestrate the daily rhythms of a loving family. I still trip over those doubts on a fairly consistent basis. I overcook meals and rant about toys on the floor and unfolded laundry and having to repeat myself again and the lack of respect I imagine all that must mean. I have feelings of inadequacy because that’s just part of being human, but I’m realizing that it’s perfectly okay to just be happy with where I am- to relish in the peace of the present, or the utter chaos of it, depending on the moment. I’m growing out of that silly tendency to apologize for who I am, to whoever will listen, whether their assumptions matter to me or not. I do need to grow. Of course I do. But I don’t need to do it at a freakish rate, and I certainly don’t need my leaves to overshadow those of others in order to claim my space in the sun.

As we prepare our home for the arrival of our second child I feel an unfamiliar calm. I know that there’s no way to fully prepare, and I’m kind of okay with that. No really, I am. I take comfort in the unknown, and all of the possibilities that it has.There will be things that are crucial to my bond with this child that I had not even considered with my first. There will be several more moments in a day that test my patience, more opportunities to fail marvelously at some mundane task, and so many more chances for me to cower away from challenges. But some of the most important lessons I’ve learned through being a mother is to embrace life’s ever evolving absurdities, accept them for what they are, recognize the beauty in newfound knowledge, and understand the importance of unlearning old habits that no longer make sense in my life.