Writer’s Journal

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Routines and Losing Our Way

A weeks old Austin Kleon newsletter I had sitting in my inbox has me thinking about routines. Not the getting up, eating breakfast, getting dressed type routines, but routines for creativity and happiness. Along with all of the daily must-dos, it would be nice to set aside time for the like-to-dos. Time for things that feel good.

I feel, in many ways, like I’ve been asleep for the past 7 years. I’ve at least been far too much in my own head for much of that time. I’ve been putting one foot in front of the other without much thought as to where I’m going or whether I’m enjoying the journey. Occasionally I’ll stop and look around and think that maybe I should either pick a destination or make the trip worthwhile, but then I just start plodding along again.

Part of this is the modern life of a suburban mom. The kids come first. Activities, doctor’s appointments, school, food, clothing, shelter. Part of it was the anxiety that focused on some unknown future or some shameful past, but didn’t care much to stop and look around at today. Being a mom was a joy for me before the anxiety got so bad. I loved everything about it. Then it became a scary landscape full of monsters and landmines and dark alleys. I was just sure I was screwing it all up. Luckily, things aren’t so dark anymore. Unluckily, I lost several years to that dark forest. My kids are older now and things have really changed. Their needs have completely changed and I was too focused on the wrong things to keep up.

During the past few months I’ve felt more like my old self. I’ve started thinking about where I’d like to be going, but I’m still just putting one foot in front of the other without much thought. Sometimes I look around and wonder if I’m happy. I wonder if I’m doing the best for my family. I wonder if I really like the furniture and stuff that fills my house. Do I like this house, this neighborhood, this town, this state. I’ve started noticing the path that t’m plodding on. I’ve started checking out maps for a better destination. I’ve started thinking 5 years down the road instead of only wondering what I’ll make for dinner that night. One step at a time was all I could manage for awhile. It really was the best I had.

Writing kinda saved my sanity during that long plod through the dark night. I was able to do something that felt safe and comfortable. It didn’t take up much time so I didn’t have to feel guilty for having a passion. Yet now I feel like it’s work. Like it’s a chore I don’t want to do. I love words and I love mixing them up into my own creations. So, what has changed? Party it feels like a scrapbook of the dark path. So much of what I wrote was a reflection of the fear and anxiety. My uncertainty and discontentment. My connections were born of that need for someone to see that I was hurting and to soothe that hurt. I rambled on and on about fear, loneliness, brokenness, uncertainty, lack of self esteem. I begged for acceptance through my words. I just wanted people to see me and like me and somehow heal me.

The writing is a link to all of that darkness. Posting to Instagram is a link to all of that darkness. A place where I was so openly broken. It’s hard to know how to write now. It’s hard to know what to write about if it isn’t the brokenness, because I really think that’s what people want to read about. They want the hurt and the darkness. I think all of my poems of unrequited love were about feeling unlovable. Maybe about being unable to love myself. Certainly about being unable to accept it from anyone else. There may have been people I temporarily attached that feeling to, who I thought I wanted to love me. But in the end, it was something I wanted from everyone. It was something I wanted from myself, from my family, from the world. “Please just see something in me that you can love,” I was almost begging. And the community of Instagram witnessed it all.

My feet have stilled on the path, if just for today. I’m camped out, looking around, studying maps, and sitting by the fire with myself. I’m meditating on what I need NOW, not when I was younger. What my kids need NOW, not when they were small. What brings me joy, what moves me forward, what I can offer. I’m feeding the fire with old expectations and insecurities. I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I feel it will be a much more beautiful journey.

(I offer you a seat by the fire, Not because I need you to hold my hand, or because I need you to validate my existence. But because you may need some warmth and downtime too. I’ve looked at relationships quite selfishly the past several years. Only wanting them to make me feel whole and worthy. I now offer you a place to sit and talk. To exchange ideas. And to leave when your journey calls you on.)

I have digressed quite far from any talk of routines. From what started me writing this morning. Maybe talk of routine is for another journal entry. I think this one took the journey it was meant to take.

Hermiting

I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.

~ Alan Watts

Winter doesn’t seem to want to loosen its grip any time soon. There are still patches of hard snow, now covered in road dirt, sitting along the streets. Patches of snow where the sun never seems to reach sitting in backyards. The wind has howled making 10 degrees feel like 10 below. The only indication it’s March instead of January, is the fact that it’s still light out when I go to the kitchen to make dinner. A little promise that things will change. 

While my body is more than ready for warmer weather, my mind is reluctant to let go of my winter hermiting. With spring will come park days and neighbors out to chat. No excuses to stay home because of snow storms or the arrival of a polar vortex. Being a hermit in nice weather is seen as, put kindly, slightly eccentric.

I think that’s because the social rules are set by extraverts, but I’ll save that discussion for another time.

I’ve loved solitude since I was a child. Taking breaks from play with the neighbor kids to come inside and play by myself for awhile. I spent the summers of my teen years gloriously doing my own thing, alone, for the long hours my parents were at work. I have always preferred reading, writing, listening to music, and daydreaming to socializing.

High school was a real challenge and I faked a lot of illnesses to get the solitude I needed. I was much more social in my twenties, and with my thirties came motherhood. There is no such thing as solitude when you are a mother. I struggled with the pressures of making sure the kids were “socialized.” We went to classes, playdates, park days, activities – for years. In between I was the always available mom. There for anything they needed. Much of the time I was cranky and exhausted. It was hard to socialize almost daily with people outside the house, and with my family at home. They were hard for my introvert daughter as well.

At some point she asked me if we could stop. If she could just take one year to not be running from one activity to another. I reluctantly agreed. Not because it didn’t sound wonderful, but because the glorification of busy is the norm. How could I complain to the other moms about how busy we were? I am so grateful now that she asked for what she needed. We were able to find balance. The kids have their own things now that they are older. They socialize in their own ways in the amounts that they need. I still am the always available to them mom, but I only have to socialize outside of that when I choose. I am much less cranky. I am a better mom for having listened to what we needed and for dropping out of the supermom competition. I sometimes feel guilty that I have time to write and read. That we eat dinner together as a family every night. I know most of my friends are running their kids everywhere and still exchanging stories about their exhaustion. I feel guilty I chose something else.

Choosing something that serves you and makes you happy is frowned upon when it isn’t what the masses have decided is the norm. Being a suburban hermit ain’t easy. I take the kids where they need to be, I go to the grocery store, I actually enjoy stopping to talk to the neighbors when they are out in the yard, I love taking my son to the park, watching my daughter at Taekwondo… but I don’t rush around to prove my worth. I have no fear of missing out. 

I’m sorry to my fellow solitaries who need more time for themselves but don’t take it. But I’m not sorry for choosing a life that makes me yell at my kids less and makes me smile more. I’m not sorry for taking the time to breathe. I feel more connected to the world through solitude than I ever did running frantically around in it. You don’t need a mountaintop. You only need the courage to step away.

Wanderers Are Never Lost

Not all who wander are lost.

I’m thinking of this oft quoted phrase this morning because it was printed on the back of my cereal box. Along with a serene photo of people doing yoga. The cereal is good for me and I love how yoga makes me feel, but I’m really tired of the commercialized zen shit. But, back to the phrase.

I would argue that no one who wanders is lost. Wandering brings to mind an unhurried afternoon of exploration. A gentle meander down country roads or through city streets. Time to take in the sights and go places that you don’t normally have time to go. People who are wanderers are curious explorers. Not people who are lost. 

People who are lost don’t wander. They skitter. They search. They panic. I got lost once driving to work after taking my husband to O’Hare airport. I wasn’t wandering the tollway looking for the right exit. I was frantically reading signs, looking for landmarks, considering pulling over at a gas station to ask directions. (This was in the pre-cell phone/GPS days.) I was purposeful in my hunt for the right way. I certainly wasn’t wandering. 

So, I would say that we who enjoy wandering are never lost. We’re not looking for a certain path. We’re just enjoying the view from wherever we are.

*JRR Tolkien is the original writer of this line that is now so often found tattooed on “enlightened” arms and printed on t-shirts. The poem it’s from (part of the book “The Fellowship of the Ring”) is really lovely and should be enjoyed in its entirety, not just quoted on cereal boxes:

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes, a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.

~ from “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver died this week at 83. Her poetry has been a true inspiration to me. Her poetry was deeply rooted in looking at life through the lens of the natural world. She would take long daily, solitary walks in nature and even hid pencils in the woods in case she was inspired and hadn’t remembered to bring one. This particular poem has brought me comfort again and again. “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.” Take it from Mary. You have a place in the family of things even when you feel less than deserving of it.

“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.” Something we would all benefit from. Instead of only sharing the good, sharing a bit of our despair. We would all feel a little less alone in the things that are not always what we want to show the world

Thank you, Mary Oliver, for all you have given the world with your words.

Thanksgiving

I suppose you were expecting a poem of Thanksgiving. When every meal of cranberry sauce and homemade rolls fades into another memory of another parade, I’m uninspired. Today someone will ask what I’m grateful for. I’ll answer, with a full plate of food in front of me, “family, shelter, food,” as I always do.

It almost seems obscene to sit in a warm home, clothes on my back, too much food on our plates, and answer what I’m grateful for when there are so many out there who have none of this. Of course I’m grateful. Every damn day.

Sometimes I wish I could come up with a different answer. Something unique that I’m grateful for. Something different. Ot that we could skip the question altogether because everyone just gives the same answer again and again.

I want to be grateful that everyone has a home of some sort. I want to be grateful that everyone has a full plate. I want to be grateful that everyone can afford to go to the doctor when they’re sick. I want to be grateful that no one died from gun violence today. I want to be grateful that we are taking care of the environment for the future. I want to be grateful that everyone suffering has someone to turn to.

But I can’t be grateful for those things. It seems so small to be grateful for my own good fortune. I know how lucky I am.