Showing Up In My Pajamas, Clutching My Notebook and Feeling Rageful
I pinched myself this morning--twice--because if I didn't, I thought I'd just scream in frustration and resentment. I hate it when real life intrudes on writing, but there's a part of me that knows that this is "stinkin' thinkin'"; you can't have one without the other.
I was hunched over my morning pages, describing the nudge from Lou that happened while we were still in bed at 7:23 this morning, his sleepy panicked: "Soap-y'll be here in 7 minutes!" I barked that it was Saturday and that Soap-y and I do not enjoy companionship today. We went back to sleep. Or tried to. We are becoming like our grandfathers: with the passing of each year, the benchmark for "sleeping in" creeps earlier and earlier.
Coffee downstairs later, but of course, we were out of milk, so Lou scampered off happily in pursuit of that and donuts. I started to write. James woke up. I dug my pen into the page and carved these words: I feel very angry right now. This was subdued. I wanted to write "RAGE," and I should have. I felt a headache the same color as the overcast sky. Dull, lifeless, pelting. I had not found a flow before James woke up and I most certainly wouldn't find one now, with him tromping around the room screaming, "Whazzat?" or "Pay 'puter?"
Lou comes home and presents the donuts to the children the way Vanna White might present a new puzzle or a car. They trade me in for the crullers and I am grateful. I go searching for my rhythm again, but it must be sleeping off a wild night out at the club. I write something about feeling pushed and pulled, egged on, rag-doll sprawled defenseless.
And then, it hits me. The positive side.
I've written two pages of morning pages. Two more than I wrote yesterday. My child and I enjoyed a leisurely discussion about the names of our pets as I changed his diaper--not our usual rushed, "Soapy's gonna be here," hold-still-now diaper changing. I was able to look out the window and enjoy the dull wooden fence and sort of play with that image in my mind: I want to knock down fences before they go up. I want to fix fences before they are broken. Drenched fences. Drowning mind. A pent up soul. A bull busting from behind bars: tossing energy and ideas and emotion into the stands.
I realized that on some days, I've gotta take what I can get and appreciate it. Coffee consumed while it is still hot. Clean teeth. A single page in a really good book. One shiny window in the whole house. An organized refrigerator in a chaotic kitchen.
One good sentence. A kicky phrase. A blind date between a couple of words on a page which results in a shotgun wedding.
Showing up and trying. And being okay with it not working out.
I'm not happy with this post but it's done. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow. Maybe not. I wrestle with that adage that it's better to have tried and failed than to have not tried. I want to try and I want it to be perfect and I want to trot off on my merry, accomplished way.
There will be no trotting today. Meandering, maybe, but nothing faster.
I was hunched over my morning pages, describing the nudge from Lou that happened while we were still in bed at 7:23 this morning, his sleepy panicked: "Soap-y'll be here in 7 minutes!" I barked that it was Saturday and that Soap-y and I do not enjoy companionship today. We went back to sleep. Or tried to. We are becoming like our grandfathers: with the passing of each year, the benchmark for "sleeping in" creeps earlier and earlier.
Coffee downstairs later, but of course, we were out of milk, so Lou scampered off happily in pursuit of that and donuts. I started to write. James woke up. I dug my pen into the page and carved these words: I feel very angry right now. This was subdued. I wanted to write "RAGE," and I should have. I felt a headache the same color as the overcast sky. Dull, lifeless, pelting. I had not found a flow before James woke up and I most certainly wouldn't find one now, with him tromping around the room screaming, "Whazzat?" or "Pay 'puter?"
Lou comes home and presents the donuts to the children the way Vanna White might present a new puzzle or a car. They trade me in for the crullers and I am grateful. I go searching for my rhythm again, but it must be sleeping off a wild night out at the club. I write something about feeling pushed and pulled, egged on, rag-doll sprawled defenseless.
And then, it hits me. The positive side.
I've written two pages of morning pages. Two more than I wrote yesterday. My child and I enjoyed a leisurely discussion about the names of our pets as I changed his diaper--not our usual rushed, "Soapy's gonna be here," hold-still-now diaper changing. I was able to look out the window and enjoy the dull wooden fence and sort of play with that image in my mind: I want to knock down fences before they go up. I want to fix fences before they are broken. Drenched fences. Drowning mind. A pent up soul. A bull busting from behind bars: tossing energy and ideas and emotion into the stands.
I realized that on some days, I've gotta take what I can get and appreciate it. Coffee consumed while it is still hot. Clean teeth. A single page in a really good book. One shiny window in the whole house. An organized refrigerator in a chaotic kitchen.
One good sentence. A kicky phrase. A blind date between a couple of words on a page which results in a shotgun wedding.
Showing up and trying. And being okay with it not working out.
I'm not happy with this post but it's done. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow. Maybe not. I wrestle with that adage that it's better to have tried and failed than to have not tried. I want to try and I want it to be perfect and I want to trot off on my merry, accomplished way.
There will be no trotting today. Meandering, maybe, but nothing faster.
posted by Cate at 7:27 AM
15 Comments:
This is such a GREAT post. It shows the reality of life and the intrusiveness (I say that in the best sense of the word) of children. They may not seem like gifts all the time but hey!, you found the bright side after all. This is such a GREAT post.
Saturdays seem to me to be more of a meandering kind of day than a trotting kind of day anyway, really. Here's to hoping you enjoy your Soap-y-free weekend! :-)
Oh how I'v missed your daily writing. This is just fabulous!
if getting PO'd results in brilliant writing like this than you should be deleriously happy! but then, that would be self-defeating wouldn't it?!
" A blind date between a couple of words on a page which results in a shotgun wedding" - now that is a sentence to be proud of. meandering is as good an exercise as a gallop :-) we gotta beat the words into shape sometimes... Sx
Hey this is a great post!!! Don't think that you can't do better than this...for what it is it is great! I don't know if that makes sense to you, but it does to me.
I spend my day in an anxiety, of what to accomplish, accomplishing it, and trying to feel that sense of going somewhere, while standing in place. I am faking myself out I know it. There are good days, but more bad than I'd like to admit. I WISH I could just be happy with my coffee, when I get to rarely drink it hot! And I constantly have those feelings of RAGE, when they won't take the nap, or get up unexpectedly early in the morning. I felt your RAGE completely!
Sometimes, I feel like I am running for something, and I don't really even know exactly what I am running to. WOW. I need therapy!
You have done it once again.
Created an image so fabulously, that I felt like I was there with you. I could envision your feelings of rage while you looked out of the window, past the window sill and across your yard to the fence. Not noticing anything except the blahness of a wood fence. I could picture a slight smirk on your face as you got your "ah-ha" moment and let the ink flow onto the paper.
Your words alone are just words, but when you put them together, they are beautiful. Every time I visit your blog, you bring a smile to my face.
Enjoy your Soapy-free weekend and keep that pen a-movin'.
Read ya later!
This post caused a hearty, out loud chuckle. If I could accomplish as much in one day, I would be happy. Your abbreviated moment of writing was more productive than you perhaps realize.
:)
Girl, in the little bit of meanandering as you called it was some fabulous in touch with yourself writing. Beautiful! I am in love with the idea of this.
Sounded good to me. Living gives fodder for writing. Glad to hear you're seeing the things to cherish. It's all good.
Though I am not the writer you are I do understand your feelings of being intruded upon. My girls constantly want attention. Should I expect any less from a two and four year old? But As I do my projects, usually sewing or knitting in my house, I want a few moments to see some progress. What I really want is to be finished and to do it in peace. Rage is a common thought in my mind. I think to myself that only is I was left alone for five minutes I would be happy and content with myself.
Your realization that it is the small things that should bring us joy is profound. From one mother to another it is good for a reminder of that occasionally. I overlook the day to day accomplishments. I look for something tangible to say to the world, See I am still something other than a mother. Thanks for the eye opener.
It would help if I proofread what I wrote before posting! It should be if not is in the last sentence of the first paragraph. Also the second sentence in the second paragraph should say, from one mother to another it is good to have a reminder of that occasionally. See. I am not the writer.
Cate this was beautiful, I loved how you so easily captured the feelings, the craziness, the hopelessness we feel sometimes trying to juggle it all and then ended with the contentment and the hope.
Great post, and I missed you this weekend!! And B. :)
a.
I have just started on the Artists Way myself and am really finding it difficult to do the morning pages in the morning. My daughter has a built in alarm set for six o'clock and quite frankly once she's up I can't do any writing as mummy duties kick in immediately (mummy i want milk, mummy I want TV, mummy come and play with me) and with each request I feel my blood pressure rising and I feel like screaming 'What about what I want???'. But she is only three so I don't.
My entry for yesterday was very similar to yours - 'Right now I am very angry'. And I felt bad about it because I shouldn't be putting my morning pages before my daughter, should I? So today I did my morning pages at 2 o'clock this afternoon when she was having her nap. And you know what, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. The thinking I have now is, it doesn't matter at what time I write my morning pages, just as long as I get them done.
Thanks for sharing, I now know I am not alone.
Oh, Cate. You can't imagine how much this post means to me. It's SO HARD to write with kids around, sometimes, and I can't help but feel resentful and angry as I watch my words slip away in the rushing tide of diapers and oopsies and pattycake. I need to remember this post when my "rope of hope" seems like it's tethered to nothing at all.
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