shakespearemom

Ever notice how boring most of your life is? I should say “my life,” since all I have to go on is my own experience. I suppose I’m just hoping I’m not alone in this.

You see, although I sometimes get a rush from some cool opportunity I receive, like the Amazon.com contest or other such things, for the most part my life runs on a sort of boring flatline… week after week of the same boring things to do: dishes, meals, vacuuming, sweeping, cleaning bathrooms once a week (hopefully!), carting kids everywhere, bookkeeping at the church, and the list drones on. 

I have a list very like this one today, but it’s not really making me jump up and get to work. Perhaps that is why I’m writing this blog instead of starting in on the dishes. For the most part, I get up in the morning because I have kids to get ready, breakfast to make, babysitting to do (the kids I sit come around 7:30 a.m.), things to clean, etc. 

But I do, on occasion, have real reasons to get up in the morning. I have plays that call to me, scenes that my mind works through while I am sleeping, dreams that lead to short stories, poems, or subplots… I have goals to get to, dreams of what I want to become, of what I want to do with my life. I know “doing dishes” isn’t what I plan to have carved into my tombstone. I want to make a difference. 

I know I’ve written about this before, but perhaps this is my attempt to get myself going this morning–to do something real this week instead of just keeping my house clean. I have the morning off, sort of, since all the kids will be in school until nearly noon. Do I go to church and figure out quarterly taxes? Do I clean the toilets? Do I do dishes? Fold laundry? Sweep?

Or do I set all that aside and feed my soul a bit, revising a play or two, fixing a huge problem one of my readers discovered in the novel I turned in at Amazon.com? Do I tend to my soul today, or clean my kitchen?

By now I know the answer… do you? What will you choose today?

Today is my thirty-ninth birthday (and the crowd goes wild!!!), and for many, this is a time to feel old, grumpy, morose, depressed, etc. But being grumpy just doesn’t suit me, so instead, I’m going to be my typical Pollyanna self and make a top ten (or whatever number I come up with) list of THINGS I’M GRATEFUL FOR:

1.  My husband. Yes, he’s late for stuff a lot, but he’s got a soft heart, and it’s softest for me, and nothing makes him more unhappy than when I’m sad, or mad, or disappointed, especially if it’s his fault. It’s nice to have somebody else revolve around me once in a while, even if it’s only every so often. Besides, he gives great back rubs, and that makes up for almost anything.

2.  My daughter. She’s darling, she’s as soft hearted as her father, and she loves to do what I’m doing–including writing her own books (she staples pages of typing paper together, writes the story out over the pages, and then draws in pictures), painting, drawing (she’s practicing pointalism right now), sewing, cooking, etc. And she loves school (and I will do everything in my power to keep that going, too).

3.  My son (bet you all saw that coming). He’s darling, in a sneaky sort of mischievous way, and he keeps me on my toes. But he also loves school, and he’s learning to read and do math surprisingly fast. And he battles with his temper the same way I do (only I don’t get to throw myself on the ground and scream–darn it!). Mostly, though, he’s super cheery, snuggly, and independent. All good things, if you ask me.

4.  Mom–and by that, I mean my mother-in-law. While other married people seem to be cursed with dominating, bossy mothers-in-law, Mom is just the most amazing person. We share a lot of hobbies, have extremely intelligent conversations about religion, psychology, and the world in general, but she’s also the most capable woman I think I’ve ever met. She can install a toilet, put up drywall, make any food imaginable, and a lot of it. I have yet to find something she couldn’t do.

5.  Sis (if you’re a regular reader, you saw this coming, too). My older sister is my biggest fan, gives the best advice, and is a never-ending source of support and encouragement. She also gave me the best birthday present EVER last year: a niece. And, from her most recent commentary, Roxanne is taking after me in many ways (even down to liking cottage cheese). So, now I have a psychic link with another Pisces, and I get to share her growing up, and I will NEVER forget her birthday. Very cool.

6.  My readers. Yes, even on this blog I have some, those loyal people who stop by to commiserate with me, share their own stories, offer advice, and try out the sometimes excruciatingly difficult writing exercises I force upon them. But this also includes all the guinea pigs who read first and later drafts of my novels, who read my plays dramatically so that I can hear them, and who offer commentary on my developing writing, nudging more description out of me, or telling me when something is going horribly wrong. I need all of you, for it is impossible to write in a void. 

7.  Writing. It is my therapy, my encouragement, my solace on long, rainy days. It’s often what gets me up in the morning, happy to get the day started if only I can write a few pages before I go to bed that night. It’s priceless to call myself “a writer,” to see myself as a creator, a crafter, a storyteller.

8.  My other pursuits. When I can’t (or don’t want to) write, I have so many other interests, from playing piano to singing to painting to sewing to theatre to teaching to reading, and each one fills a little facet of me.

9.  Friends. These include some of my readers, but they are also other moms who are trying the same sort of balance I am, who know what it’s like to raise kids and still have a life of one’s own, who take me to brunch on my birthday (yes, that’s you, Sue!), who are pretty much there whenever I need to phone somebody before I go absolutely insane. And they give me a chance to be nice back, too, for they sometimes need me to help them maintain their own sanity. And being needed is a good thing.

10. Everything else. Yes, that includes all the pain I’ve endured, the two C-sections, my old family, and every life experience I’ve had, good and bad. You see, I could be bitter about things. I could resent people or events, or see myself as missing out on something, but every event and person, even those which hurt me, made me into who I am today. They weren’t the events or people I would have planned, but they were helpful, nonetheless. And overall, my life so far has felt rather extraordinary.

So, there’s my list. It’s pretty exhausting, but so is life, if you think about it (or even if you don’t). I can’t finish a blog without trying to nudge a bit of writing out of you readers, though… so, what are you grateful for?

I know you have been. “Where the hell is ShakespeareMom?” you’ve ranted. “It’s, like, 4:15 her time. Why the hell doesn’t she post?” Okay, so maybe that’s not what you’re thinking. Maybe you get to this blog once every few weeks, and you’re reading this eight days after I post it… 

Oh, to be truly popular. *sigh*

Anyway, I digress. I was talking about WAITING, that excruciating extended amount of time when we sit expectantly still, when we listen, watch, and pine away while we depend upon someone else for something to happen. Maybe we’re waiting by the phone for a call from some guy we went on a date with, some guy who said he’d call five days prior. Maybe we sent off a bunch of resumes, and we’re waiting for a single call for an interview. Maybe we’re waiting for dinner (my kids always are). 

But we’re waiting. Tense, worried, impatient, unable to move on until we know something. 

Welcome to my world. I’d list out all the ways I have to wait, and all the people I have to wait for, but I just wrote out a ranting blog, and I don’t want to anymore. 

But I have a theory. I think waiting is a way for other people to have power over you. I learned this from my son. You see, if he knows I’m waiting for him to get dressed in the morning, he’ll drag it out as long as possible (sometimes TWO HOURS). It’s his way of telling me that he is in charge of his clothing situation, not me. 

And when my husband is late, he’s telling me that his time is more important than mine, that his obligations are more important than mine, etc. Naturally, he’ll deny thinking either of these things. After all, he doesn’t usually like sleeping on the couch.

That’s the two-part equation in my theory. 

1.  Making people wait = power.

2.  Making people wait = pissing people off. 

Can you actually think of a time when you didn’t get peeved when you had to wait a long time? I don’t tend to fester when the check at a restaurant comes a little late, or when a new cashier isn’t perfect. That would be stupid. No more would I mind waiting for a really good ending to a novel…

But I rage when a novel goes nowhere for hours, when my husband misses dinner time by ninety minutes, when an appointment doesn’t show. 

Think about this with your writing. It’s one thing to wield your authorial power and make us wait for a good scene, pinching us here and there as you build suspense. It’s another thing entirely to blow everybody up without reason, to make a quick ending to keep everything hanging for the next book, or to make us read thousands of unnecessary words filled with nothing but fluff, just to prove you can do it.

As for me, you’ll only do it to me once. Only my husband gets away with it with few serious repercussions. 

My son–he’s not so lucky. If he doesn’t get dressed, he gets a time-out. Let him wait a while, so he knows MY power.

When one can’t sleep, what should one do? I am contemplating the question because it is after 3 a.m., and I am in that very situation. I’ve had insomnia most of my life, and it’s the hard kind, the one where I fall asleep fine, but then I’m up at 2 or 3 a.m., sweating from the stress of panic dreams that don’t make any sense but still leave me tense. 

Perhaps I should do what I had my students do on Tuesday, when I saw that so many of them looked worn out and panicked: Write a list of what’s keeping me up at night. They probably assumed I wouldn’t care, that their list would be ignored, and perhaps mine won’t be more than dull, but I’m game to write it down anyway. Who knows? Maybe it will be dull enough to put me back to sleep (and if you are up late reading this, it should help you).

So, here’s the list, the reasons-I-am-up-at-nearly-three-a.m.-panicking list:

1.  My house is a mess. It has fallen in rank on my list of things to do, since I’ve had many other things to do. I spent the afternoon organizing my daughter’s bedroom, since her “cleaning” has been turning into a sort of shoveling-into-corners exercise. And now her room is great, but the playroom is in a worse shambles, the floors need vacuuming and sweeping, and the bathrooms!–oh, don’t let me get started. BLECCCCCHHH!

2.  I am torn between fatigue from grading papers all the time and my strong desire to do this class (and every class I teach) “right.” I want every student to work as hard as he/she can, and yet I want it to be clear to each one, too, that though I set the challenges of the course, I am also available to support each one. And the panic I see in my students’ eyes affects me more deeply than I sometimes admit. And since I teach primarily non-traditional students, who have kids, full-time jobs, or are still in high school while working through college, they have a great deal of other stuff on their plates besides my class. 

3.  I am worn out from watching little kids, especially my own son. A few months shy of five, he’s decided to enter the teen years early, refusing to get dressed when I tell him to, and then, while I’m taking my daughter across the street to the bus stop, dressing himself fully and making his own toast (no kidding–he even buttered it). And he and his friend (the other boy I watch) have been driving each other crazy all week, until I finally forced them to play separately ALL DAY on Thursday, since they couldn’t seem to be together for two minutes without fighting. They played great on Friday, though, but this week has made me wonder whether I should watch the younger boy next year, when my son’s in school all day. Even if their interaction sometimes drives me crazy (and them, too), it’s really good for them to have to interact, to share, to clean up, to settle differences, etc. And if I have one child all by himself, he’ll be lonely. His mother seems very willing to let me continue next year, since she knows he likes me, is very comfortable at my house, and trusts me, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing for either of us. I’m also facing a new schedule, when both of my kids will be in school full-time. Yet it is possible that my son won’t get into a full-time slot, which won’t be good for either of us. (Again, guilt, guilt, guilt…)

4.  All this upheaval with kids creates a new stress, and I think I’m saving the biggest one for last: work. With both kids in school, I would like to do more work. But where? I am applying for two full-time jobs at the moment, but I’m not sure how much of a negative effect they will have on me and my family. Will I have to put my kids in after school care? How will they ever get their homework done? Will I have to grade all evening, ignoring my kids further? What if I just pool a few part-time things together, like I’ve been doing over the last few years? Is that enough? Can I do all that work while the kids are at school, and be waiting for them when they get off the bus? I know how lonely I felt as a latch-key kid, even with an older sister home, too. A lot of responsibility fell on us to do housework, take care of our own homework, etc. But what about my career? Would it still be okay to do adjunct work, and then write in the afternoons, before the kids get home? I’m moved between responsibility, a desire to use my degrees, a loathing of grading papers (after all these years, it’s the ONE thing I detest about teaching), guilt over not wanting to care for my kids all day, guilt b/c my hubby’s been working full-time for years, while I’ve been mostly home with the kids (even if he says it would have driven him mad), and fear that I have, in fact, gone mad. 

There, it’s all out. The whole list. I could write a novel based on the fourth one, but I won’t bore you further. You probably fell asleep halfway through number 3 anyway. 

I wish I had.

Just in time for Lent, I’ve gotten my two little boys hooked on Jesus Christ Superstar. Their favorite song is the one sung by Herod, and we pretty much listen to that song over and over in the car the whole time we’re in it, and then the boys sing it pretty much constantly when we aren’t.

The little one I babysit all day, who is days from being four, sings it a bit differently than the soundtrack. When Herod urges, “Come on, King of the Jews,” Chayton sings it “Come on, King of the Juice.” And he really is singing it that way. This week, after singing the song, he’s specifically asked for “juice” with lunch three times–and he never asked before, NEVER. So, to him, Herod is actually talking to the King of the Juice.

That one little line got me reminiscing about kids’ language in general. I remember my son’s favorite song:

Queenol, Queenol,

Duntoo Star,

How I wonder

What you are

Up, up, up the

World so high

Like da diamond 

In da sky.

When he finally figured out “Twinkle, Twinkle,” my heart sank. Thankfully, he still says “Lellow” for “Yellow,” a pattern his father used when he was little, from what my mother-in-law says. In fact, my husband, when he was a preschooler, had two pairs of pajamas, a yellow pair and a green pair. He wore the pajamas under his school clothes, pretending he was either “Strong Lellow” or “Strong Green” in disguise. 

My MIL, noticing my own son’s propensity for saying “Lellow,” and his love of superheroes, created “Strong Lellow” outfits for him (spelling “Yellow” properly, though). And they are his favorite pajamas. Naturally.

But how long will that last? I dread the day he says yellow correctly. Just like “myooskit,” his word for music, someday his ability to pronounce will grow, and he will lose those little lilts of speech. Just as my daughter hasn’t called SpongeBob Squarepants “SpaceBob Queerpants” for years, soon my son won’t remember what he used to call himself when he wore his “lellow” cape. 

But I will. I don’t intend to forget it, not ever. It will make a great story for his future girlfriend. 

You know the feeling: nobody understands you. No one sees what you are going through. No one can possibly see the world through your eyes, see your pain, sense your true level of frustration, notice you. The feeling might come at work, or at home (I remember an ad where dishes are washed, diapers changed, etc., all by unseen hands), or online. You think nobody hears you, or if they do, they aren’t really listening. 

What can you do? You can start screaming at people around you, biting at them in the same way Harry Potter snapped at his friends in book 5. Not very effective, really. It works well to chase people away. You can also give up entirely, playing the martyr, ending your long suffering by tossing your novel in the trash (nobody wants to read it anyway, you might say). 

Or you can ask for help. 

It’s tough. Tougher if you’ve never done it. It means you have to put your own emotional vulnerability in front of people. And they might scoff. They might ignore you still. More than likely, though, they have similar feelings of their own–or have had them–and they will reach out and reassure you. 

I thought about this as I read one of my favorite blogs, and it’s funny that it came from her, since she just received an award on Today.com and her blog seemed to be going strong. But her latest blog entry was a little plea for help, a plea that someone–anyone–reply to a blog so that she knew they were there. I did, and I was one of many who wrote back, the unseen readers she’d had all along without knowing, since they hadn’t written a response to any of her entries. You should check it out, and give her a few words of encouragement… she needs them right now.

I’m lucky. My sister checks my blog out several times a day (thanks, Sis!), writing encouraging words at every turn. And I have a playwrights group now, though I don’t meet with them as much as I’d like. They read my stuff, give me feedback, and then let me do the same for them. We support each other as we all struggle to work on our craft. I have moms to turn to when the kids drive me insane, and friends who share some similar struggles, or who like to read my writing and give me a gut reaction.

If you feel alone, find a network. It might be online, it might be a meet-twice-a-month-at-a-coffee-club sort of group. It could be for moms, or dads, or writers, or readers, or actors, artists, whatever. And if you can’t find one (craigslist is a great place to start), make one up, and post meeting times. Meet at the library–it’s free–and see who else shows up. 

Believe it or not, your cry for attention may be exactly what others need… most of us go through life far more lonely than we should be, and one person, by reaching for help, can change the lives of many more who feel the same way.

So reach out. See who reaches back. You might be surprised.

Just don’t give up…

Although my main profession is writing, at least according to this blog, I actually have over 15 years’ experience teaching English and writing at the college level (with a little junior and high school thrown in). I am about 2/3 of the way through a writing class right now, and a recent conversation reminded me of an important point with teaching: expectations.

As part of my education degree, I was required to conduct “field experience” three times, including two stints at the local high school and a 12-week session in junior high. At the high school, the teacher’s lounge was an illuminating place for me. Teachers–and even the principal–sat around at lunch ranting about the lame students they had, whining that retirement wasn’t closer, and commiserating about everything. In the class I was observing, the teacher–one of those whining in the lounge–was spending four weeks reading The Scarlet Letter aloud in her classes, in a droning voice that nearly put me to sleep. Now, I really like that novel, but I nearly forgot how much I liked it because of her reading. And I could tell that the students didn’t like it, either. The only time she actually interacted with them was when she told them to be quiet or insulted one of them, telling them they’d never amount to anything if they didn’t listen. The students were naturally crabby about the whole thing, and they weren’t the kindest in response. And those same students were going to walk out of that class believing that The Scarlet Letter was a terrible book, that English stunk, and that school was a waste of time.

When I moved to the junior high, the teacher’s lounge was a hotbed of enthusiasm. The same actions that depressed the high school teachers made the junior high students rave. And I found myself drawn in by their happiness, by their optimism about their students. Instead of being encouraged to quell student discussion, I was pushed to do the opposite. “Expect them to be involved,” the principal told me, “and they will be. Encourage those who aren’t sharing to do so, and  create activities that involve the whole class, but let each kid shine.” I was teaching speech and theatre, so the task wasn’t hard, and I had a few lone resistant students, but they were won over. I had one student especially who, seeing on his progress report that he had a C+ in class, told me he’d never thought he’d pass at all. He was suddenly filled with a desire to do even better, and his final grade was a B. Overall, my classes were teeming with students who couldn’t wait to do the next activity, who raised their hands desperately, who wanted more than anything in the world to be involved.

Were the two groups of students radically different? I don’t think so. It was the expectation that changed. I have found in my own personal experience that I resist low expectations. When someone dismisses me, assuming I have little to offer, little talent, or a low capacity for achievement, I get mad, and I want to prove them wrong. However, what I’ve realized as an adult is that these same people will see what they want to see. I cannot ever prove to them that I’m worth more than they expect. So I stop trying. At the same time, I find I want to be around people who expect a lot from me. Their high expectations mean a great deal, for I know that as I grow and gain in expertise, they will be there cheering me on, watching my progress, and raising their expectations as I raise my game.

Perhaps the saying is true: “You get what you expect.” My kids know I expect a lot, but they aren’t weighed down by my judgment (you don’t want them to think they can never measure up, for that won’t help them–that is actually a low expectation), and they act better as a result. They are better behaved kids because I expect them to be.

So, what are your expectations? What do you expect from others? What do they expect from you? Can you raise those sights a bit, push yourself farther?  

Show me another time in school when you can spend hours and hours looking at a single piece of paper, with nothing but a brush in your hand and paint spread around you. When the teacher put classical music on, and you could feel yourself slide away from every other part of life for an hour or two. Where you can get messy with clay in your fingernails, or fingerpaint colors squishing into the sleeves of your shirt, or colored chalk marks on your cheeks while, or all of these on your shirt, and no one gets mad. Where your dad is willing to let you have an old ripped shirt of his so that you have a “painting shirt.”

Yes, art class is a time of concentration, relaxation, focus, and dreaming. It’s exploring–can you really use chalk to make something besides a still life? Yes, you can!–and the exploring helps you discover what you love about the world, what you find interesting, what you detest. It can be done in absolute silence, though only a few would object if you hum while you work. (I personally hum when I paint. I hum even when I color in a coloring book with my kids. I sometimes hum while eating, if I’m nervous. Just ask my hubby.)

Do you remember art class? Remember the teacher who was just a shade shy of abnormal, who loved everybody’s work, who gave whacked-out assignments using colors, shading, and perspective, and who said to every single student, at one time or another, “Wow! You are a real artist”? I had a bunch of those… and though I didn’t take art in college, I never forgot my art teachers. And their influence made certain I never forgot art, either. 

So now I have my own art class… still, after all these years… and it’s filled with art paper, a collapsable easel, acrylic paints, pastels, charcoals, watercolors, everything I need to make myself happy. And every once in a while, I take them out, pick an afternoon to relax, make sure the sun is streaming in through the windows, and go back to art class. 

I need to visit there more often. And so do you. Start small. Buy yourself an $8 box of pastels and some colored paper. Turn on some great music. And get drawing. And if you have old art supplies, dig them out of the garage and get to it. Hum while you work, if you can stand it. Let your kids join in. My kids have had “art class” for their whole lives. As soon as they could hold a brush, they’ve been painting, even if all they end up doing is mixing the watercolors into a sort of pinkish brown. But with each class they get better. Last summer, they had art class nearly every day. They loved it. I loved it. It brought me back to those art class days, and brought my creativity out in entirely new ways.

And, just like that art teacher, once you’ve done what you wanted for the day, once the sun is going down, and you know the class is over, at least for the day, look at your finished product and declare, “Well, my word, you are a real artist!”

It isn’t just Fruits Basket that inspires my blog today.  I’m starting to feel the pull of art on me. I’ve been writing pretty well for months, and I still have writing to do (once I finish a mound of reading–and this current class, I’m afraid). But the itch to take out my paints is building, and reading manga and children’s books tends to increase art’s calling effect on me.

The manga, by Natsuki Takaya, is brilliantly drawn. Some of the best graphic novel illustration I’ve seen, honestly. The story line… well, not sure about that yet… but the artwork keeps me going, in the same way it does with children’s books. My daughter is as drawn into a book by the art as she is by the story–no, perhaps more so–and looking at all the glorious illustrations in a children’s book slows down her reading, but obviously adds immeasurably to her enjoyment.

So, now, I’m wanting to paint stuff from my books. When I wrote my first novel, I painted a picture of the healer in it, still imprisoned in her stone grave marker. The painting was imperfect at best–after all, I don’t work on my art enough, and it has been 20 years since I participated in any semblance of an art class–but I loved my painting. Here’s the best photo of it I could manage: 

Even now, I want that painting–or a better version of it (one that I paint myself)–to be on the cover of it. And I want to paint the covers, at least, for all my books… and do the pen-and-ink drawings for the inside chapter headings, or at least four or five illustration pages. Nothing extensive, since they are YA novels, but a little, just to bring a little of my own impression of these characters and their situation.

And that brings me to books in general. Wouldn’t it be nice if more of them had illustrations? A really good illustration in a chapter that runs kind of long could keep me reading… especially if it showed something interesting that was going to happen near the end of the chapter. And illustrations placed sporadically through the book might motivate me, too, for I’d want to get to the scene that was depicted, to find out more about it than the caption itself revealed. 

I think graphic novels are getting it right. In an age when so many of us (like my hubby) are glued to the television set, it might take a bit of visual to bring us to reading. Think of how many reluctant readers would be more likely to read if they had something to help them move through a longer work. And why not mix two of the most amazing forms of expression: art and writing? Theatre does this, to some extent… movies less so (in my not-so-humble opinion)… but why wait for performance art to do it? And why restrict it to children’s books and graphic novels? Why not spend a little extra on the publishing side to make a novel easier to pick up, to make the reading experience richer? 

Just my take on things. Now I need to get out my watercolors and paint something for my Ark novel (as soon as I get all this reading and grading done!). 

I am reading a boatload of manga sent to me by my sister… although it sat in my spare room for over two months, I think, while I was working on my third novel. And it’s really enjoyable. In English, the series is called “Fruits Basket,” though the title fits the manga’s story about as much as if my book of ghost stories were called “Toilet Toppers.” Still, I’m loving the little bits of drama here and there. 

But now I have a problem. 

I just finished book 11 this morning–a little before 6 a.m. (I know, what the hell was I doing up before 6 reading?!?)… and I reached in the box for 12. And it wasn’t there. Now, my kids think the pictures on the manga are cute, and I know I’ve seen them playing in the box, and I know the book has to be here somewhere… But, WAAAAHHHH! I feel suddenly like one of the overly emotional manga characters! Where is volume 12? What am I supposed to do now? Tear the house apart? Look in every nook and cranny?

I’m sick with a cold, I have a huge list of things to do today… but I will still probably do just that. I have volumes 13-20 waiting for me, but I simply can’t make myself read them out of order. Everything has its order, its time for appearing, its place. I’m not anal retentive, but I’d just as soon read the first Harry Potter first, the second second, and so on, in order. Otherwise I’ll miss subtle changes in character relationships, details that would explain future events more, or add significance. 

I simply can’t go out of order. I’ve had to renew books at the library before, not because I didn’t have time to read them, but because the previous book–a book I’d placed on hold–hadn’t come in yet, and I didn’t want to read them out of order. 

I know the author intends for all of this to come out in a certain order. Skip the order, and, well, the book won’t be the same. It won’t be as the author intended it. And I’d rather see the books as the author wanted them to be seen.

Wish me luck! I’ll dig through the playroom if I have to! (And you haven’t seen the playroom!)