This is just to say

Okay, couldn't resist that. I love that poem, love Matthew MacFadyen for that matter.

  

. . .

 

So (with apologies to William Carlos Williams):

This is just to say 

I am not gone or sad or done or quit.

I have posted the words

(which were in my mind, last week)

elsewhere.

Forgive me.

They were reruns

And might be familiar.

...

 

This is also just to say

Sam got his braces off

Louie got a regrettable haircut along with a cut paw

& is going on 5 trips to the vet

& wearing a cone of shame and plastic boot to go out

(poor puppy)

The sun is out

the rains and floods are lifting (10 inches of rain!).

Laundry is done and folded on the window seat.

Revisions on my QP are underway

I'm prepping for a guest lecture this week

at BU School of Public Health

Maddy was just in her school's drama night

Tonight Sam has a chorus concert

Tonight there are artichokes and new potatoes and peas

and rice pilaf for dinner

The clocks have sprung forward

Spring, you are welcome anytime.

 

 

Indulge me

Please indulge me if I pause a bit today to celebrate the final day of coursework in....my.....LIFE!  I started kindergarten when I was 4, back when they were much more flexible about deadlines and birthdays.

 first day of class^ 

And now, 35+ years later (with some years off in the middle) I have finished my final class of my ed-joo-cation (with still a couple of years of dissertating ahead of me).

Some school-going wisdom I've acquired over the years, or what I wish I'd known before:

Always read the syllabus ahead of time.  Trust me on this.

Go ahead and raise your hand and talk. Ask questions, be skeptical.

Sit toward the back with the sarcastic people (part rebel) but speak up (part teacher's pet).

Eye contact and nodding will go a long way toward making your teacher/professor think you know more than you do.  Especially if you are really texting your daughter on your phone at the time.

The semester system was not created with mothers of three in mind, especially around the holidays.

Some reading is optional.

The older you are, the more likely you are to do the optional reading just because it's interesting. 

There's no shame in dropping a class.

Good writing skills go a long, long, long way. Thank you, Mrs. Stock (and others).

Attendance, while not always mandatory, is usually a good idea.

Years from now, will you really care what grade you got in Psych 301? No.  Just do your best and move on.

Group projects are an exercise in futility and frustration (and scheduling nightmares) but just go with the flow.

Email yourself your papers just in case your disk drive crashes. Sigh.

College and graduate school degrees just mean you sat in class for a certain number of hours, read a lot, and wrote a bunch. No magic involved, just work.

I will admit to some lesser moments.  Like my last class of my undergraduate years, BIS 140 (said with derision), a class that taught you how to use a computer (rolls eyes).  I felt I already knew how to use a computer so I didn't attend very often and learned, when I showed up for the final, that in fact I did not know four different ways to save a document using WordPerfect (who needed to know four ways? And, it turns out, who needed to even know WordPerfect?) and other trivial but tested concepts. The sad result was a mediocre grade that, I found out after graduation and walking across with pride, kept me from getting the Summa cum laude distinction after all.  Whoopsie!

What school memories or wisdom would you add to the wish-someone-would-have-told me list?

Ah, normal days.

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return."

~Mary Jean Iron, via Ali

I had a fantastic and energizing trip to DC last week...also very humbling and overwhelming! I feel like I'm standing at a threshold of a door and taking a deep breath before stepping through (do I want to step through? what does it mean for my life and my family? what can I give? what should I hold back?)

I'm relishing the return to normal days this week. Sam is home sick with a fever (and will be fine soon) and we are enjoying being cozy and homebound for now. I'm baking a bit and lighting candles and breathing. Folding laundry into tidy squares. Ah, I love margins and space between the busyness of mothering/life.

photo via

Babies, bacon, & me

Hey there, I'm coming to you live from beautiful Washington, D.C. I'm here for the first meeting for the fellowship and have already met (and shared a cab) with two of the other lovely fellows. Should be interesting to hear all about what everyone's doing and have the chance to discuss my project and find out ways to make it better. It's inspiring to be around all of these people who are so passionate about finding ways to help improve the lives of babies and their families. Hopefully some of their brilliance will rub off a little on me.

It's kind of weird to be a business traveler though. I've traveled before but never professionally (meaning paid for by someone else). I always imagined myself walking briskly down the airport concourse like a Charlie commercial (or is it Enjoli? except I don't bring home any bacon, really, I pretty much work for free) but instead I was sweaty and I wore the wrong shoes and I kept getting my bag handles all tangled. You know, as usual.

Speaking of babies and families, I miss mine already. (Thanks, G, for holding down the fort). Bacon for everyone when I get home! Because I might not bring any home but I sure do know how to fry it up in a pan.

There, there little writing phobia

"The angel doesn't sit on your shoulder unless the pencil's in your hand."

~ Mary Oliver

I have that quote posted over in the sidebar and on a bulletin board. But I've been thinking. Is that even true? For me?

* * *

I'm knee-deep in writing a paper for my public health class (my LAST class for my degree. Woohoo! Let's not talk about all the writing that is still ahead of me...).

I have such a love/hate relationship with writing*. I need writing. I love to have written. But it's painful. After 23 years of school (ahem. I know, makes you want to stage an intervention, doesn't it?), I'm finally okay with the way my mind seems to need to write. Instead of fruitless sessions of staring at a blank screen and panicking, I've gone with my natural tendencies to ruminate and organize and THEN write.

1. I get the assignment. Or the idea.
2. I start hating the assignment/idea but my brain starts mulling.
3. I think about it. When I'm making beds, when I'm loading the dishwasher, when I'm in the car, little ideas are floating to the top of my mind. But it counts as time working on the paper (I tell myself)! (If it's a lit review, I start reading articles and taking notes.)
4. I start jotting down random ideas. I am still terrified of actually writing but tell myself to just write whatever ideas have surfaced. There, there, little writing phobia.
5. I start organizing the randomness into a skeleton outline. Again, much soothing of anxiety and telling myself it's no big deal, just writing an outline here.
6. More thinking. I have to walk away several times (sometimes you just have to give in to the adult onset ADD) and come back and type a few more lines.
7. Finally I start writing little snippets into the outline. Again, I am really sneaking up on myself. The idea is to get everything to the stage where the writing is all that's left: the ideas, order, and structure are already done! It might look like procrastination but it's really all just my necessary prep work.
8. NOW I'm truly writing the paper, linking the snippets and fleshing out thought. Inevitably I start getting excited and it starts feeling easier as the paper comes together. (Like childbirth, I'll forget all the pain and effort of the beginning once I get a glimpse of the final product.) THEN I love writing.

So I'm on #7 now with this paper, which makes it sound really good but all that writing is still ahead. Ugh. (And, as you can tell, I've walked away for a bit.)

For the longest time I tried to force myself into the One True Way of Writing, which (I thought or was taught) was sitting down at the computer and writing the whole thing, or at least spending hours on end focused on the writing. I fought myself the whole way.

In reality, if I would have just let myself do it the way I naturally operate--small bursts of attention and energy with lots of unproductive-looking baby steps--I would have been much more productive and happy. A peripatetic writer, that's what I am. And not really a procrastinator after all--a lot of the work just happens below the surface.

So, how does your writing/project process work?

* * *

* does anyone have a love/love relationship with writing?

this was inspired, in part, by Marty's post about the writing muse. Have you checked out her terrific 12-week seminar? Try out her challenges for scouting out your muse. I think my muse hides under the covers or trembles in the corner until I've done all the other prep work. Or maybe she's around the whole time?