The hours

Each day I have about seven hours to myself. [Message to mothers of young children currently neck deep in sippy cups and face wiping and tantrum calming: they do eventually tie their own shoes and trundle off for a good bit of the day! Unless you homeschool, in which case there is hopefully still shoe tying but less trundling off.]  We have just the one car right now so I usually drop everyone where they need to be by 8.30 and then the day unfurls before me, open to my whims until 3.30 pick up time. Of course, a good portion of the time goes to functional showering-laundry-grocery-errands-clean-housey-volunteering time but I have been mulling over what to do with those remaining elective hours when they happen. 

More and more I just feel compelled to write, write, write. (No, not my dissertation silly. Who feels compelled to do that?) Something about the stillness of the house and my still-fairly-empty calendar has awakened this long latent but always faintly nagging nudge to tell stories and spin the threads of my thoughts into words on paper. 

But then I think can I do this? Is this allowed? It feels (a) like I'm playing a role with this fairly sarcastic running commentary in my head complete with "air quotes": Here she is, "fiction writer" Annie sitting down at her computer in her "writerly chair" embarking on her "novel/story/saga."  I could barely tell G what I've turned my attentions to (he who knows me best), not because he would belittle it but because saying it out loud sounds so preposterous that I'm tempted to belittle it and brush it under the placemat. Oh, you know, just my little writing thing. And (b) it feels indulgent, like anything that I want to do this much should be left until after drudgery, dessert after finishing the spinach. I suspect I need a note from someone authorizing me to do this. Can this be my life or am I sneaking around behind the back of my life? 

I can feel some feathery hopes rustling around my soul about this, though. We'll see.

p.s. You might notice I've turned off comments on my posts. I am increasingly having to delete spam that is getting posted on old posts and I think maybe people are just generally less inclined to comment on blogs anymore. I do, however, LOVE emails and pen pals so I would love to hear from you if you'd like to say hi or chat about anything: basic (dot) annie at gmail (dot) com.

Good Long Reads

Somewhere in the last month or so, I discovered Longreads. Where have I been? It's a curated site that recommends the best long essays and articles from a wide array of magazines, journals, and newspapers. They link to the original article and even give the word count and estimated time it takes to read it. It's heaven--vetted to pass along consistently breathtaking writing + captivating topics. 

So, in an especially meta move, I offer you my best of Longreads' best, from recent weeks:

Fade to Light by Dave Cameron, published in Walrus Magazine: a poignant and insightful look at a couple who are living with Alzheimer's Disease. I dare you to read this and not fall a little bit in love with Lowell.

Coach by William Browning, published in SBNation: A real life portrait of a tough, beloved Friday-Night-Lights high school football coach, paralleled by a boy's search for himself.

At Home at the End of Google Earth by David Kushner, Vanity Fair: An amazing tale of how a young man used Google Earth to find his family he lost at age 5 in Calcutta.

The Dead are Real: Hilary Mantel's Imagination by Larissa Macfarquhar, The New Yorker: Fascinating interview with Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (for which she just won her second Booker Prize).

What are you reading lately? 

Ensconced

(This entire post should be whispered.)

Hello.

I am sequestered in a super secret hidey hole this week in a self-imposed writing retreat.  Just me, a stack of research studies, my computer, and a stretch of hours every day. A gal in search of self discipline, that's me.

I give all internet friends permission to scold me outright if I show up on facebook or twitter this week during working hours. Go ahead, publicly shame me like the old lady in Princess Bride. I need the deterrent.

But (she throws out an escape rope) don't be surprised if I still show up here now and then. It's my reward. If I'm good and stay away from the internet for a lot of hours in a row, I'll let myself think and write about other things besides parenting interventions and program retention and attribution theory and other such things. 

My poor, mushy (rebellious, addled) brain is being put through boot camp and doesn't like it one bit.

Pray for me. Send good thoughts and maybe some doughnuts.

. . .

picture by Thibodeau, found via pinterest

Me vs. Me

Turns out that going to London for a week, then turning around and going to Washington, DC, for my (final!) fellowship meetings for four days results in a sizeable backlog of work on the homefront.  I have to pay the piper, apparently.  Man, I resent that piper sometimes. I'd much rather hide my head in the sand. Or in a giraffe costume, should that be conveniently on hand.

Towering at the top of my list is a major paper I promised to my advisor this week. It's sooooo close and yet so far from being done. I am experiencing major writing dread and I seem to be repelled from my computer. Well, maybe not my computer (here I am enjoying it immensely, see?) but definitely anything associated with academic writing.

On the other hand, I really want to do it. I do! I love the ideas I'm writing about and want to keep moving forward. I chose this set of challenges. So there's the battleground: me vs. me. I'm so good at sabotaging myself, too: my ultimate opponent.

When I was driving home this weekend, I heard a compelling Radio Lab story about this very issue. A woman named Zelda Gamson was trying to stop smoking: wanted to stop, knew she should, but somehow the "other" her kept getting in the way. I was fascinated to find out how she finally triumphed over herself. Would it be setting up a fabulous reward? Finally deciding to improve her health so she could be there for her grandchildren and (please bless) even their children?

You know what it was? She made a pact with a friend that if she had another cigarette she would send $5000 to the Ku Klux Klan. That's right, she would fund lynchings and prejudice and evil. And you know what? After decades of trying and failing to rid herself of smoking, this time she never took another puff. The key for her was finding something so revolting that it outsmarted all of her little excuses and compromises. Fascinating!

Well, back to work...surely you've figured out that even this post is a distraction from what I really should be doing. Time to locate some self discipline or get out my checkbook, I guess.

What would be the worst negative consequence you could give yourself to motivate a change or behavior you're after? Or do you work better with rewards?

p.s. I will do a mega-London post once I have made some headway toward my deadline. (Besides, if you're like me you probably overdosed on London and royal wedding coverage over the weekend, right? Take a breather and I'll inundate you soon. xo)

Paging EB White

Today was Lauren's pre-op day, filled with blood tests + medical interviews + an echocardiogram + waiting. (More on that in a bit.) If you have to be in a succession of waiting rooms, you could do worse than bringing along the Letters of EB White. The copy I have is satisfyingly tattered, a book that my parents gave to great-Grandma Brockbank in 1977 (the inscription is on the inside cover) and then later, meandering down through the line, it was given to me.

I'll admit I'm harboring a little long-held literary crush on Elwyn Brooks White. I can’t get enough of his New England wit and quick humor, his ease with sentiment and words. I knew he could write well, of course, but this open window to his personal friendships reveals much more of his warm soul and side glancing winks.

Back just two weeks after marrying his bride, Katherine, he sent her this poem*:

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unwinds a thread of his devising; 
A thin, premeditated rig
To use in rising. 

And all the journey down through space, 
In cool descent, and loyal-hearted, 
He builds a ladder to the place
From which he started. 

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do, 
In spider's web a truth discerning, 
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning.

Oh, those silken strands. Lately (and abundantly) I have felt their tug.

When I was in DC for meetings last week I felt it, triggered by the universal law that the needs and happenings at home seem to escalate as soon as I leave town!  One trip to the doctor, one trip to get an xray (everyone's fine), sad events at school...all within 36 hours. G valiantly kept the clockwork ticking, homefires burning, and fort held down in my absence--although he had to go in to work at 5:30 on Saturday morning to do some catching up from all that parenting. He graciously quipped, "well it was my turn to take someone to the doctor at least once in their lifetime" (true that!) but still. Thank goodness for cell phones and text messages, those latter-day placeholders for actual connection & conversation.

Tomorrow's surgery will be another tug. Truly, I am confident she will be fine. All will be well. We're all chins up, keeping calm and carrying on around here. But right now all I can see is the impossibly delicate weight of those silken strands.

*Hello, early glimmers of Charlotte's Web! His granddaughter Martha later commented that Charlotte typified Katherine, through and through.