The perfect day

begins with red raspberries picked off the bush my daughter planted two years ago. It was the height of the lockdown, the plant hardly more than a seedling. Now it's taken over one corner of the backyard, enough raspberries to eat handfuls each morning as I do my daily stroll through the garden, avoiding the dog poop and yanking out a stray shoot of bamboo--

that damn bamboo, three years digging it up and still it finds a way to lurk, to spread--

but let's go back to talking about the raspberries, the morning garden stroll, the zucchini that's swelled overnight and all of those green beans that only yesterday were flowers, were seeds. I don't know how any of it works. I only have faith that it will. 

And on a perfect day, I do have faith. 

On a perfect day, there is no bad news. No churn of anxiety. No tripping over the hose when I'm hauling my garbage bin out, skinned knees and torn pants--and those were new pants!--but ah well, it could've been worse. Now, sitting here writing (on the perfect day, of course I am writing) the quiet front porch, the absurd pink plants bobbing with bees, a woman on a bike stops to slip books into the little free library.

The dog barks warning barks, unsure if the woman is stranger or friend. Somewhere in between, I tell the dog, as if she can understand language. Last year on vacation with friends, browsing shops in a touristy part of town, we came upon a picture of a shoe in a store window, a sign: What colors do you see? 

Gray, I said, with teal-colored laces. At the same time my husband and friend said, Pink with white laces.

What? we all exclaimed, as my friend's husband laughed and reminded us that he was colorblind and all he saw was a shoe. The owner came out of the store then and told us what it meant. 

Pink and white and you are creative, right-brained. 

Teal and white, you are logical, left-brained. 

What's gray and teal? I said.

The woman shrugged. Somewhere in the middle. She turned to squint at me. Do you have trouble making decisions? 

My husband eyed me knowingly and we continued on our stroll, each of us seeing what only each of us could see. 

I finish up eating the day's red raspberries. Twist off the zucchini and the green beans. Eye the coloring on the tomatoes, the heft of the green peppers. Straighten the books in the library. Finish my writing. 

A perfect day.  

Writing at the edge of the world

I was going to write about how hard it is to start a book in the middle of a pandemic. The work involved, the thought, the focus, when I am feeling everything but focused. The tricks I have to play on myself to sit down and get to work each day. Turned over hourglasses and candles burning and numerous cups of tea. Noise blocking headphones and chocolate rewards. Nevermind the editor voice in my head

hissing about how dumb this idea is and every sentence a block of clunky words to shift around and labor over. Plus, there's the whole Why Are You Even Bothering voice, reminding me that I'm past my prime and the world's gone to shit and why are you so privileged to be a person who can write novels, maybe you should hang it all up and be a florist. Because who even reads books anymore

and how can anyone write while the world is transforming, collapsing? What will stories even look like after? How will we write about crowds or indoor dining or bare faces or in-person school or holiday gatherings ever again without acknowledging our collective trauma? 

We can't. Our stories will be different, just as we are different. But I don't want to write about any of this. What I want to write about is hope

because what else do you call the act of beginning something new in a time like this, in any time, really.

It means that you believe that you will make it through, that you still have something left to say, that the world you are creating is worth creating, 

even if it is only for you. 

On Broken Books and Possibly Dead or Maybe Not Dead Cats

Last year I finished writing a book I called Broken and it almost broke me. I had worked on the book for two years. But it was actually just another revision of an earlier book I’d worked on for two years fifteen years earlier. What I'm saying is I spent a good four years of my life working on this book. 

The idea started with a girl from a broken family. I kept thinking about the word broken and what it meant to be broken. In the later versions the story morphed into a fantasy of sorts about a girl who could break things with her mind. It happened whenever she was angry or upset. She couldn't control her power and it scared her. 

Because this was a book for children, I worked hard on the little girl's voice. I wanted to show her grappling with her power. She made rules. Came up with tips and tricks. That became the title of the book. How Not to Break. 

Anyway, I finished writing the book, and it still didn't really work, in the sense that it will never be a published book read by others. Realizing that was upsetting to me, to put it mildly. There were a few weeks where I seriously considered quitting writing.

A tip and trick I've learned over the years for dealing with the grief over a book that doesn't quite work is to start another book. When you're writing a book, you're not thinking about old books. You're too absorbed with the one in front of you. The big questions like voice and structure and character development and motivation. All the way down to the sentences on the page, the individual words. 

The book I started was pretty much the opposite of Broken. It's for adults. It's a Rom/Com, a genre I hadn't tried writing before; although, I did write a few rom/com-like stories for teenagers that were published many years ago. Interestingly enough, some aspects of the broken book wormed their way into the new story. In Romance you are always working with broken people. They have a hole in their lives and love fills it. 

It's a very hopeful, life-affirming genre. When I started working on the story last year I had no idea how much the world would change by the time I got to the end of it. I also had no idea how much writing the book would help me grapple with this new world. If nothing else, it was the perfect escape. 

This week I finished it, in the sense that I wrote a first draft and then I revised it completely and sent it off to my agent. Now I'm at the Schrödinger's Cat part of the writing process where the book is somehow both 

a Thing that will eventually go out into the world and be read by others 

AND

a File on my computer that represents Time and Work and Thought. 

Either way, I know what I will be doing in the coming months. 

How I Wrote When I Was Twelve

I didn't think about publication or readers. I had never been rejected; although, I did get the occasional Meh response from a teacher on a writing assignment.

But the Meh responses didn't bug me.

I wrote when I had a funny idea or sad one, when I had something important I wanted to remember, when I'd read a good book and wished I could keep the story and the characters going.

I didn't worry about what type of writing I did. I wrote short stories and novels. I wrote a play. A comic strip. Essays and poems. I even wrote songs. And taped myself singing them.

I kept a journal. I typed on a typewriter. I hand-wrote in notebooks or on loose-leaf paper. I illustrated my stories. I drew my own book covers. I didn't care that I wasn't good at drawing.

Most of the stories I never finished. A few of the stories, I revised. Over and over. But it never felt like work.

If I didn't feel like writing one day, or for a week, or for a month, I just... didn't. And when I pulled out my typewriter to write another story, I didn't wonder if I'd lost my ability.

When I was twelve, I wrote for myself.

And it was my favorite thing to do in the world.

Back to Work

After all of the gallivanting around Prague and Venice, strolling over bridges and listening to music and peeking into ancient churches (the icons and the china Jesus babies and the Black Madonnas and the jawbones of saints and the bearded women statues),

after the cemeteries with the tilted headstones and the fallen over flowers, the gondola rides and the wandering in alleyways, the preoccupation with pavement stones, and the stunning artwork in the museums,

after the meals eaten in outdoor cafes, the slabs of pork and dense bread, the pasta, the daily tasting of gelato, the obsession with Trdlos, the wine, the beer (the first glass ever. And the second. And the third),

after the jet lag and unpacking,

after the out of town guests and the return to daily chores (the weeding of the overgrown garden, the picking of vegetables) and the laundry,

after the much longed for and anticipated visit with the young adult children (and a significant other), and the celebration of the 4th of July in that over-the-top way it is celebrated in our town (the parade route staked out with chairs weeks in advance, the star painted streets, the high school marching band warming up by drumming drumming drumming so that we all wonder if we have fallen into the Jumanji set, and the early morning wake up with the bullhorn, the parade and the all day long cookout leading up to the fireworks),

after the kiddos have taken off again, leaving behind the quiet empty nest (oh! I should be used to this by now but somehow it still pierces me, that stillness as I slip past their dark empty bedrooms),

after the chores are done and the garden's producing and the dog's been walked and walked and walked, and there is no more travel on the horizon, no impending house guests, and so nothing more to do, really,

that is when I know it is time,

at last,

to go back to work.