creativity – Mama the Reader

Rest assured I am writing when I can but not here. There are only so many words I can compose, and I know my limits, so I don’t prioritize this space like I used to. Today is December 21st, the Winter Solstice. The darkest day of the year. This is the week that we celebrate but also, for me, it is always the week that I put things to rest. I shut off some part of me, as my friend likes to say. The mom brain and the teacher brain and the long to-do list.

In the past ten days, I’ve had a sick child, well, then sick again. Elementary class parties, dress up theme days, gift exchanges, and teacher gifts. Two Nutcracker dress rehearsals with two Nutcracker performances coming up this weekend. Final exams for my own students with piles of grading. And another issue that is weighing enormously heavy on my heart and mind, but I cannot write all of the details here simply because it involves other people. (Nothing mysterious or dramatic or even personal, just part of the million surprises and stresses that compose a life.) It’s been a perfect storm of stress.

I was feeling it heavily on Thursday, and I texted my longtime best friend asking “Is it possible to raise two kids solo and be away from home 6:45am – 4:30 everyday?” I expected soft talk back to encourage me, but she responded with a one word NO in about 2 seconds flat. I feel this sometimes — that I’m doing the impossible and I can’t keep doing it. But look, I am. And a million other women in my situation are doing it, too. I have holidays and spring break and summer break to recalibrate which is more than many people have. I have family 25 minutes down the road when I need help and am in a pinch, and that is more than many have as well. My kids go to Dad’s four days a month, and I get that time to reset and recenter. I get child support payments on time, and many women don’t. I have lots of things that I’m grateful for, sure. But you can be grateful and also exhausted at the same time, and this is me. Raising the white flag right now to say that I’m carrying too many things, and I’m laying it down here with lines on the page.

I haven’t slept soundly in weeks. I’m out like a light every night without a problem, but the worry brain wakes me around 2am, and I have a hard time turning it off. Then the alarm rings at 5:00, and the marathon begins. Rinse repeat. I am using this last stretch of the year to let that tightness subside for me. It takes a while; I know this because I have done it before. But by the end of this week, it will fade, and I will feel human again.

I’m thinking a lot about my word for 2020. The last few years have brought Write, Intention, Trust, and Persist. I persisted in 2019 in ways that astound me in hindsight. I made things happen with sheer will and determination. The things I wanted that felt so impossible — travel with the kids, a new job, and a literary agent — happened because I wouldn’t stop until they did.

But now I am feeling the need to soften it all, to recenter and find again that pulse beneath all the madness. I’m leaning toward Create as my word to begin this new decade. I want to see 2020 as a space where I can create experiences that inspire me, writing that holds true to the promise I’ve made to myself and to others, and even create space in my life where there was none. It feels like so much of my day is a marathon, and there is no room to breathe. But stillness has to be there if I look hard enough. I’m determined to create room to breathe this year somehow.

Earlier this week, I ran across a Joyce Sutphen poem that did that thing poetry can do — harness a feeling you forgot you ever had and make you nostalgic for it.

“Those Hours”

There were moments, hours even,

when it was clear what I

was meant to do, as if

a landscape had revealed itself

in the morning light.

I could see the road

plainly now, imagining myself

walking towards the distant mountains

like a pilgrim in the old stories —

ready to take on any danger,

hapless but always hopeful,

certain that my simple belief

in the light

would be enough.

I miss the light so much this time of year. I wake to darkness, and by the time I am home to stir dinner on the stove, it is back again. I’m ready to see the road again, to harness that simple belief in the light and know that it’s enough. Merry Christmas to you, and if these words are finding you in a dark place, my wish for you is to find the light again in 2020. I’ve passed an entire decade writing in this space. (Which is crazy to reflect on!) So many moments and so many things recorded here. Both darkness and light. A whole landscape revealed itself here for me, and there’s more to be illuminated down the road. Let’s keep going.

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It is late July. Almost the end of the summer. How did that happen?

I got the kids back last weekend, and we spent a little time at my grandparents’ house as they helped my Granddad gather corn from the garden. We all have our own associations with passing months and seasons, but this will always be July to me. Hot as Hell and feeling the epitome of the lethargic, lazy days of summer. Plates full of corn and tomatoes. Heads full of thoughts that move a little slower now than they do the rest of the year.

We fumbled into the car with a bag of fresh corn to shuck at home and a box with a new pet turtle that we kept for a day or two before releasing him to the woods again. I could hear the kids talking with their neighbor friends on the patio when we brought him home, trading elaborate stories about what life is like for the turtle and what sort of family he’d find in the woods.

Our shoulders are pink almost every afternoon, and we are spotted with mosquito bites and exhausted when we finally hit the pillow each night. I love the energy of summer. So much opportunity for imagination in the spaces left by the abandoned schedule.

Jude participated in a little “Drawing and Painting” class each morning this week with our local recreation department. He was so proud of his creations, and I ended up with a heap of fun kid art to display at home.

They learned all kinds of fun techniques like how to create texture and use hydro-dipping for certain effects. He loves creating things with his own two hands, and it’s inspiring to watch. It’s so satisfying to make something of your own, isn’t it?

Norah was talking a few days ago with me in the car about my grandmother, asking me if I was still sad. I told her that of course I feel that sadness sometimes, but that I am so thankful I had her at all and thankful for all she taught me. When Norah asked what she taught me and I had to rattle off the list as it occurred to me, I realized that one of the things she showed me is how good it feels to make something. I’ve incorporated these things in my daily life without even realizing it — nurturing the plants on my porch and watching them grow to something bigger than I expected, baking muffins to deliver to the new neighbors, and sometimes when I’m lucky, even doing something tangible like knitting or writing. What we create somehow comes to mean so much more, doesn’t it?

I read Rob Bell’s How to Be Here back in April, and I’m not sure that I ever commented on it here, but it was such a great exploration into what it feels like to be here in the truest sense and make something of your life. He asks, “What would it look like for you to approach tomorrow with a sense of honor and privilege, believing that you have work to do in the world, that it matters, that it’s needed, that you have a path and you’re working your craft?” Our craft is our everyday experience, and I’m seeing this more and more. But actual crafts, actual handiwork, have a place in my life as well. I don’t think I always give that enough credit.

I feel lucky that someone else’s mid-life crisis essentially led to my own mid-life awakening. I see creation everywhere. In my own home, my own life, my own family. What I have to say contributes to something greater, and that sound echos farther than I can ever see or understand.

In that same book, Bell tells me, “How we respond to what happens to us – especially the painful, excruciating things that we never wanted and we have no control over – is a creative act.” I’m seeing that now as I create something new by simply staying open and curious.

I can’t see the whole mural yet, but I think it’s something beautiful.