Going rogue

For months now, I've seen pictures in my Facebook feed of various friends and acquaintances posing with identical (or nearly) paintings they had made during paint nights at various organizations. It's a fad I didn't have any interest in. None of the paintings that showed up in my newsfeed were the kind that, if I saw them in a store or gallery, I'd want to buy. And it seemed odd to want to hang up a painting in my house, knowing that a group of my friends/coworkers/acquaintances and a roomful of strangers all it had in their houses, too.

If you want to do that, go right ahead. It's just not something that interests me.

But then a very good friend said she wanted to do one of these paint nights and she invited me along. I said I'd go, but I made it clear from the beginning that I wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to paint the sky (as I remembered it) from the view of the boat deck when I saw the Northern Lights in Iceland.

Our group of three arrived at the studio last night and found our way to the corner where our assigned easels were. We were supposed to be painting this:



We received paper plates with globs of paint in the color pallet needed to paint this picture. It didn't include any blues or greens, which would've been necessary for the painting I wanted to make. I was nervous that I was going to have to come up with another plan, because although this picture is fine, it's not something I particularly wanted to hang in my home.

And then the instructor said we could help ourselves to any of the colors in the "paint bar" and to feel free to paint whatever we wanted.

I tuned out the instructor as she described how to paint the picture above. From my initial brush strokes, it was obvious I was doing my own thing. The guy seated next to me said, "Going rogue!" I just said, "Yep," and continued painting.

During an early break, a woman I didn't know stopped in front of my easel. I'm not sure where she was painting or why she came over to look at mine. She asked me (in a bit of a sharp tone) why I wasn't painting the picture everyone else was.

"Because I didn't want to," I said. (My tone might have been sharper if I hadn't been so taken aback by the fact that a stranger was interrupting me to ask what I perceived to be a pretty dumb question.)

My friend stepped in and very cheerfully said something about my overwhelming desire to paint the Northern Lights as I had seen them recently. The lady walked away.

What I wanted to ask was, "Why do you feel like you need to paint exactly what's up there?" Or, "Why is it so threatening to you that I wanted to do something different?"

The instructor came by, was very complimentary, and even dug out the studio's Northern Lights painting to help serve as inspiration, if I wanted it. (Theirs was very different from what I was doing, but it's a nice painting, and it was nice of her to be so enthusiastic.)

In the end, this is what I painted:



That's the moon in the upper right corner. The column of white light is supposed to represent the Imagine Peace tower. That's a big cloud rolling horizontally across the canvas.

It turned out to be a really fun evening with friends, where I got to do something creative and make a painting I truly wanted to make. I'd do it again.

The guy next to me seemed impressed that I was "going rogue" while the strange lady was clearly disturbed by it. I marvel at both of their reactions. I didn't break any rules. I took advantage of the freedom the instructor gave all of us. And it's not like I went way outside the box or anything -- I didn't make splatters or use my fingers. I didn't go abstract. I didn't make a mess or engage in any kind of odd creative process.

If the instructor had insisted on using the original color pallet as provided, what would I have done? (Probably something abstract with those same colors.) If the instructor had insisted that everyone in the room conform and paint the same thing, what would I have done? (I honestly don't know. I probably would have had to go rogue at that point and risk getting thrown out.) What's the worst that could've happened? I guess they could've asked me to leave, and I would've been out some time and money and would've needed to find a way to entertain myself until my friends were done. As far as worst case scenarios go, none of these are all that bad. But I didn't even have to worry about any of these things.

It's like we're all conditioned to live in our tiny, little boxes that we don't even see the possibilities right in front of us a lot of the time. I feel like people have often viewed me as some kind of rebellious free spirit in the way they've described my style of dress (tutus and mismatching socks and silver boots with checked laces, etc.), but I'm really not. I like what I like, and I take advantage of the opportunities to enjoy those things. It's not that hard. You just need to pay attention and look for the opportunities. (And then exploit them for all you can.)

Nostalgia, Part 2: Go Your Own Way

Kind of randomly, I added the Fleetwood Mac song "Go Your Own Way" to a mix CD I made over the weekend.

I was listening to the mix in the car last night and this morning. Each time "Go Your Own Way" came on, I had the same flush of happiness that I have experienced every single time I have heard that song since I was a little, tiny kid.

I was maybe three or four. We were in my mom's old Vega at the A&P at Scot's Corners. This song came on. She said, "Do you want to go fast?"

I said yes.

And then she drove fast (or, what seemed like really fast to a toddler) behind the back side of the strip mall.

Every time I hear this song, I think of that. I think of freedom and breaking rules and having fun. It makes me feel happy and truly alive.

(This is all really ironic, considering the subject matter and lyrics of the song.)

Nostalgia

Yesterday, I got completely side tracked for HOURS when I saw a link to a comprehensive history of every game my league has ever played and wanted to help make sure all the details were right. I combed through my own game history and staffing polls and lineup spreadsheets. And then I went flipping through my calendar month by month for the last several years.

Starting about four years ago, I put pretty much everything in my Gmail calendar. Dentist appointments and hair cuts and reminders to put the trash out. Visits to the vet, reminders to drop the car off at the mechanic or to make something for a potluck at work. Recurring reminders to pay bills each month. Practices. Games. The birthdays of every person I hold dear. I page through my calendar all the time.

But I'd never looked at such a long period of my life through the lens of this calendar before. I saw all the notations about adventures, movie dates, concerts. Book launches. Random dinners and lunches and brunches with friends. Meetings with the writing partner who lives nearby. Dates to talk on the phone or have a virtual write-a-thon with the writing partner who lives far away. All those obstacle 5Ks. Trips home.

And then this morning, I was digging through all my writing emails, looking for the query letter that got me some interest from an agent on the first book I wrote (which still lies on this computer needing a fairly significant rewrite). And I found all these old emails I'd forgotten I'd saved and tagged as being related to writing -- sometimes mine specifically, but not always. There was an email with a transcript of a G-chat with my writing partner during a particularly difficult time that turned into both of us virtually laughing our asses off. There were emails where I argued with another writer friend about why we do what we do.

I often say that I am generally happy with my life, and that I am oh so lucky to have had so many great adventures and to have such incredible people in my life. It's true. But all this nostalgia as I went through my calendar yesterday and those emails today really just left me awash in this intense feeling of gratitude.

There have been a lot of really crappy times in my life the last several years (not the least of which has been dealing with so many losses of people I love). But the thing is, there have also been so very many beautiful and fun and creative and exhilarating times, too.

It makes me want to give these epic, long, squeeze-y hugs to all the people who played a part in those good moments. But for now, I'll settle for this:

Thank you. Sending you so much love. And then even more.

Death is your gift

In the last year, there have been probably a dozen posts I've started, got a paragraph or two or three into and deleted because I couldn't figure out a way to tie all the random thoughts together. This was going to be one (and maybe it should be), but maybe it's okay to open the window on the jumbled stuff in my head, too:


I've had a mighty productive morning, considering I am still wearing pajamas and have brushed neither my teeth nor hair.

I read a couple short books (Maurice Sendak's My Brother's Book; Neil Gaiman's Make Good Art; and The 13 Clocks by James Thurber); got my W-2 and promptly filed my taxes; shredded a bunch of stuff that's been sitting around for literally YEARS waiting to be shredded; organized the recycling (including all the shredded paper) to be dropped off at the EcoMaine trailer; put away a bunch of stuff in the storage area downstairs; sorted through a bunch of stuff in the junk pile on the kitchen counter. I found this CD I'd labeled "Death is your gift." I recognized it as a line from Buffy (which, coincidentally, I'm rewatching on Netflix right now), but I had no idea what was on it. I shoved it in my laptop and recognized that it's a mix of songs I had a hard time listening to around the time Mom died and afterward as well as other songs that remind me of loss. It's actually a great mix:

1.  View from Heaven - Yellowcard
2. Hope There's Someone - Antony and the Johnsons
3. I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Deathcab for Cutie
4. Ghost on the Dance Floor - blink-182
5. A Lifetime - Better Than Ezra
6. I Miss You - blink-182
7. (Coffee's for Closers) - Fall Out Boy
8. Shake it Out - Florence + the Machine
9. How to Save a Life - The Fray
10. Paul's Song - Jessica Campbell and Bullet
11. Lay Me Down - The Frames
12. In the Sun - Joseph Arthur
13. Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalez
14. Winter - Joshua Radin
15. The Cave - Mumford & Sons
16. Forgiveness - Patty Griffin
17. Breathe Me - Sia
18. Everything'll Be Alright (Will's Lullaby) - Joshua Radin
19. Life is Beautiful - Vega4

Last week, I started this plan to baby step my way to getting Ramona's books out into the world. And I made fabulous progress. The only real thing I needed to accomplish this week was a draft of a query letter...which I still haven't done. (I did at least finally get myself settled on some new ideas for a new book and a collection of short stories that finally feel like they are taking root in my brain, so that's a nice relief. I was starting to think Ramona's stories were all I had in me.)

And as I complete these concrete tasks that make me feel some sense of productivity and accomplishment, which makes it feel almost okay to avoid the query letter, I catch the line from blink-182's "Ghost on the Dance Floor" that always stops me -- it's like the universe has left me without a place to go.

Do other people feel like that? Because I do. All the time.

"You're in every single part of me. I hope that you know."

- Agent Fresco, "Eyes of a Cloud Catcher"

My trip to Iceland was amazing in so many ways, but one of the experiences that has settled deep in my squishy little heart was the Agent Fresco show at the Blue Lagoon. Anne and I had paid extra to go to this fancy off-venue show to see a great band, eat a catered lunch, and then go soak in the lagoon. I knew several Agent Fresco songs, including "Eyes of a Cloud Catcher," but I guess I just hadn't paid very close attention to the lyrics. Arnór Dan introduced the song by saying that he'd written it about the experience of being at his father's side when he died of cancer. He said that the song is about celebrating life -- his dad's life now that he is gone, and that we are still alive.

And then they started playing and it took an act of tremendous strength for me not to curl up on the floor and bawl.

Since I've been back, I've been somewhat obsessed with this song. I've also been having a really rough time back home with stress at work, all kinds of tension within my derby league, friends experiencing some rough stuff, and so much bleakness in the world (it feels more than ever like we are living the prologue to a dystopian novel). Plus, it's cold and dark. And here comes the first Christmas of my life without my grandma. My first Christmas as an orphan.

And as I approach these holidays feeling so lost and alone, I keep hearing Arnór Dan singing, "You're in every single part of me. I hope that you know."

It's true. The family I have loved and lost are present in my speech patterns and mannerisms and my desire to reach out and do good this time of year. In my desire to, despite the pain I'm in myself, show gratitude for the little life I get to live and all the beautiful things that make it worth getting out of bed every day.

I am lucky to be reasonably healthy, to live in a warm and safe place, to have people who love me both near and far. I'm lucky I got to spend a week in a magical place I've always wanted to visit. And, as challenging as my job is lately, I'm lucky to be recognized for my hard work (and the prizes for being named employee of the month are awfully entertaining in and of themselves). 

I'm lucky my grandparents invested the money they worked hard to earn as an electrician and factory worker so that I could have a little extra this Christmas to share with people who are having an even harder holiday than me. And that, more than anything, has helped me feel better. (Oh how I hope I have made them proud.)

Enchanted

I'm still in close contact with my high school journalism teacher, who is one of my top five favorite people on the planet. About a dozen years ago, she gave me a copy of the book Stargirl, because she said the eponymous character reminded her of me. It's one of the best compliments I've ever received. (It's funny how, in the ensuing years, I have unconsciously adopted more of Stargirl's traits.)

There's a line in the book that offhandedly mentions that Iceland has these government-recognized enchanted places. Ever since then, I've wanted to go to Iceland.

And now, I can finally say I've been there. I can say that I got to see the Northern Lights and the light from the Imagine Peace Tower from a boat out in Reykjavik Harbor. I can say that I rode a bus through the no man's land between the North American and European tectonic plates. I can say that I watched a hot spring erupt just before visiting a double-decker waterfall. I can say that I hugged a couple of Icelandic musicians. I can say that I saw 22 bands in 4 days. I can say that I reffed a Roller Derby Iceland practice. I can say that I soaked in the Blue Lagoon. I can say that I rode a fuzzy Icelandic horse in absolutely freezing weather and got to see several of those "enchanted places" while I was at it. I can say that I visited almost every museum in Reykjavik and enjoyed the hell out of all the public sculpture in the city. I can say it was amazing and I'd love to go back.

Just a few of the more fun or picturesque moments:

The church with the name I couldn't say if my life depended on it.

Having a bit of fun at the National Museum of Iceland.

View through a window at the National Museum of Iceland.

Just a fun fountain.

Harpa, the concert hall where we saw a whole lot of bands perform.

Reykjavik harbor

Lost in Reykjavik, but at least the view was pretty.

Fun statue at the sculpture museum. I like that you can see the rainbow faintly in the background.

On our way to Thingvellir National Park.

Thingvellir National Park

Thingvellir National Park

Thingvellir National Park

Strokkur hot spring erupting

Gullfoss waterfall

The Blue Lagoon

Reykjavik from the top of Perlan

My favorite art exhibit, and one of the most enjoyable parts of the trip:

"Keep Hope Alive"

- William Goldman, Introduction to the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Princess Bride

I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Insomnia has plagued me my whole life. I often cite the story my mother told about how when I was born I stayed awake so long that the doctors in the hospital told her they wanted to give me Valium and she refused as evidence that I was born this way. (Oddly enough, Valium is one of few things that reliably works to knock me out.)

In general, though, the insomnia hasn’t been horrible the last few years. Yes, there have been nights (even work nights) where I’ve stayed up into the wee hours of the morning. Usually that has more to do with a poorly-timed nap earlier in the day or staying up to read “just one more chapter” too many times or to watch “just one more episode” of the latest show I’m watching on Netflix. But not the last week or so. It’s been bad. Really, really bad. And the insomnia was one of the reasons (the things causing the insomnia were many of the other reasons) I finally called my old therapist to make an appointment to start seeing her again.

I saw her Monday for the first time in about two and a half years. She gave me a lot to think about. And although the session did wonders for the knots my stomach had tied itself into, it only made the insomnia worse.

Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I picked up the book I’d been reading and just didn’t manage to put it down until I was done with it…at 5:30 in the morning. The dawn was already breaking somewhere below the horizon and everything was that eerie blue like the light a TV casts into a darkened room. I knew my alarm would be going off at 7:30 (I ended up pushing it to 7:40) and that I had to be at work by 8:30 at the latest. They say you shouldn’t sleep unless you can get at least 3 hours, and I learned that “they” are right about that while I was taking care of Mom when she was dying. (This was also the first time I’d kept myself up so long since those horrible, upside-down days of five years ago.) I didn’t actually fall asleep until somewhere around 6 a.m. 

I may have nodded off briefly as a passenger in someone else's car late this afternoon, but otherwise, I managed to avoid napping so as not to completely fuck up my sleep cycle (especially since this weekend is a rare one where I will have to get up earlier than I do for work – much earlier – on both Saturday and Sunday and won’t have any chance to catch up on the sleep I missed this week). I'm running on about an hour and a half of sleep. (So, you know, if this doesn't make a whole lot of sense or is riddle with typos, cut me some slack.) I should be practically collapsing under the weight of exhaustion right now, but I’m not.  I went to put myself to bed a little bit early tonight and instead, this narrative started forming in my head.

It’s the first time in a very, very long time that words rumbling in my brain not only kept me up but drew me out of bed and to the computer. And there’s a little bit of joy in that. (Yes, I am still a writer. Even when I think it’s gone. Even when my heart is so broken and closed off and lost to me. …It comes back.) Just as there’s a bit of joy in the fact that while I was reading that book, I scribbled down some notes to myself about Ramona’s two books – things I want to go back and fix now that I can see a couple of new and different angles thanks to my recent experiences.

The book I was reading is called Fangirl and it’s by Rainbow Rowell. Last month, I stayed up til 2 a.m. on a work night finishing another book of hers, Eleanor & Park. In all the books I’ve ever read (and I read a lot of freaking books), I’ve never felt so connected to another writer’s voice. And I like that she writes characters I can relate to in a deep an powerful way even though they are so very, very different from me, because the stuff underneath is so similar to what lurks within me. But the thing I relate to the most is the thing that makes me love YA so much. It’s the single word that I think sums up who I am and what causes every good thing in me:

Hope.

…And, in a lot of ways, it goes back to a lot of the things my shrink and I talked about on Monday. She said that it’s important that I’ve tried to open myself up and allow myself to experience the pain of the losses I’ve experienced, because it’s the only way to heal and move forward and be close to others. Some people have described the quality that has allowed me to do that as “strength,” but they’re wrong. The current that flows beneath all the pain and frustration and confusion and disconnectedness, that keeps me drawing breath instant by instant, is hope. It grows even in the complete absence of light.

And that’s why I love YA (or, at least the YA books I’m drawn to), because hope is always a key thematic driver. Too many books written exclusively for an adult audience, at least in my experience, don’t have that. 

This is going to seem like a nonsequitor, but it’s not (and the timing is actually kind of freaky, I think). Yesterday, a friend posted an article about this organization on Facebook: http://www.wakeuptodyingproject.org/

The article quoted the project’s founder saying, “We also think that if we pay more attention to the way we die, we’ll pay more attention to the way we choose to live.”

Choosing hope leaves you incredibly vulnerable to all kinds of pain and disappointment. (And lots of people label the act of hoping as being childish.) But I think it’s also really brave. …And for me, I’m not sure it’s so much a matter of choice. It just…is. 

Not the best time of year

I was driving in my car literally thinking about how much it still bothers me every May to get promotional emails and see ads about Mother's Day (even though this was my fifth motherless Mother's Day) when my sister called to tell me my dad had collapsed. (I got the call that he'd died a couple of hours later.)

So, I spent the early days of May grieving the sudden loss of my dad and then got slammed with Mother's Day on top of it.

And now, I'm getting those promotional emails and ads reminding me (as if I could forget) that Father's Day is coming right up, too.

Who the hell decided to put Father's Day a month after Mother's Day anyway?

I have learned that I am very sensitive to dates. They should just be boxes on a calendar, but for me, they go beyond that. Birthdays matter. And I can't help remembering why Thursdays sometimes (probably in perpetuity) torment me. I am certain that, no matter how much I wish I could, I will never forget the dates that my parents died. And I am just as sure that each year both Mother's Day and Father's Day are going to smack me around a bit.

And I hate that every time I see an ad for these so-called holidays, it makes me angry. (Like, the kind of anger few people have ever known me to be capable of.) I hate that it makes me feel my loss deeper to see friends' social media posts about their parents and/or children. ...I hate that it makes me feel like someone dropped a house on me and then waited until I got back on my feet and dusted myself off before dropping another one on me.

I hate that I feel so helpless to stop this tide of negative emotions, even when I can see it coming, because they are appointed boxes on every calendar, every year.

Anyone who knows anything about the way I grieved for my mom knows that I'm not good at just sitting idly by and accepting these things. I fight back by DOING something in hopes of making myself feel better.

I don't know what I can do/will do to make this better for myself (yet), but I do know that I can remind people that there are many of us who have lost parents (not just to death -- to distance, to abandonment, to addiction, to illness, to incarceration) who have a hard time during these set-aside dates of honor. And while you should, of course, honor the people you love (every day, regardless of what box on the calendar you happen to be occupying), it's also good to put a little light around the people you love who have a hard time on these days. We may not always be comfortable asking for it, but the light is very much appreciated.

Just breathe

It’s been a month. A month since I sat in a grocery store parking lot in the dark and heard my sister tell me through a crackly phone connection, “Daddy died.”

(I still hear it over and over in my head, when I try to sleep, on my many long drives home in the dark. Every time, I think how I hadn’t thought of him as “Daddy” in so many years, but how it sounds less like some stupid tongue-twister to say it the way she did than, “Dad died.”)

Today has been one of the bad days. It didn’t start out that way, and I’m not sure exactly when or how it turned. Maybe it’s because it’s a month today. Or because the plans I had for today fell through. Or because it’s Sunday (I don’t know why Sundays are so much harder than other days, but they were after Mom died, too). Or because I saw a guy who looked startlingly like my dad in the audience at a game I reffed last night. Maybe it's a little bit of all of those things. Or maybe it's none of them. Grief doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense a whole lot of the time. 

I don’t know how to write about Dad’s death. It’s not like Mom’s, where we had months – even years – to prepare for it and say goodbye. There are many things left unsaid between my dad and me. Many questions left unasked that will never be answered. And my relationship with my dad was much more complicated than the one I had with my mom, in so many ways.

But it’s not just Dad’s death I’m grieving right now. I am still trying to get used to this untethered feeling that comes from being an orphan. (A couple of people have taken issue with my use of this word, but it’s how I feel. My parents are gone and even though there are good, kind, loving people who fill parent-type roles in my life, they are not and never will be my parents.)

Shortly after Dad died, I went through my parents’ wedding album. I held a photograph in my hands of my parents and their parents and even though I already knew it, I couldn’t help marvel at the fact that everyone in that picture was dead. They all looked happy (and young) on that day 40 years ago…and now they’re all gone.

And I’m sitting here and even though I know it’s not true, even though I know there are so many incredible people in my life who truly and deeply care for me, I feel so alone. And small. It’s funny how the aloneness always shrinks you.

I was listening to the Joshua Radin song “Everything’ll Be Alright” earlier tonight. I always liked the line, “There’s a hole in my pocket that’s about her size.” I feel like the loneliness could shrink me enough to slip through a hole in somebody’s pocket.

The benefit of having gone through this before is that I know this is just a bad day. I know that it’ll turn again (probably just as fast) and I won’t feel like I’m just bobbing in dark water, trying to keep afloat. …But it’s hard to remember that when you’ve lost sight of the shore. It’s hard to remember that when you’re just focusing on breathing.

Just be happy

"Just be happy, and if you can't be happy, do things that make you happy. Or do nothing with the people that make you happy." - Esther Earl

I've been thinking a lot about my grandma since she died. Thinking about how when I would come to visit, I usually ended up lying on the couch and reading while she would sit in her chair watching old reruns on TV Land or her "cowboy pictures" on AMC Westerns. I always thought it seemed odd that we both genuinely enjoyed our time spent together, even though we weren't actually doing anything together. (And I felt guilty, like I should've done something more to enjoy those TV shows she liked or gotten her out of the house to do...something.)

The other day, my copy of This Star Won't Go Out finally arrived (it was my Project for Awesome perk). On the back cover is the above quote by Esther. I've heard it before -- quoted it before -- but seeing those words on the back of the book suddenly clicked for me.

I'm in a time and place in my life where I'm actually pretty happy most of the time. And when I get unhappy, I usually find ways to get happy pretty quickly and easily. (For this, I am exceptionally grateful.) There are lots of things I do and have done to make myself happy -- from the simple and stupid to the more grandiose and terrifying. But the thing is, the only time I've ever really done nothing with someone who makes me happy was when I'd read in my grandma's living room while she watched TV.

I had a dream about my grandma the other night -- the first since she died -- and all I remembered about it when I woke up was that there was something important she told me that I was supposed to remember (which, of course, I didn't). Maybe that's part of it. Maybe she wanted me to keep an eye open for more opportunities to just be with people who matter to me.