Tag: write

Fits & The Starts.

CommonMaggie1 Comment

My writing for the past few months is best described as in fits & starts.  The week leading up to Mother’s Day, I was all over it.  I wrote a 9-page letter to my mom.  It’s not even finished.  I reread it today.  It’s garbage.  I think I put pressure on myself to write something for Mother’s Day because that is how this blog began last year.  I’m not sure last year can be topped, which is undoubtedly what I was trying to do.

I am often writing scraps here and there.  I have several Word documents saved that may never see the Interwebs.  I like to revisit them later to find out if they have any teeth.  It’s kinda fun.

While at work today – desperately trying to write – I decided I would share my recent fits here.  The letter to my mom deteriorated and got into some very personal information, so I will only share part of that.  Not that you would know that without me telling you.  In general, I wish I was writing more that I found worthy of being shared.  I feel weird going so long without posting an entry here.  If it’s any consolation, I am reading my ass off this year.  Still not good enough, but much better than last year.

Welcome to the fits & starts of late Spring 2018:

 

PART 1

Dear Mom,

Mother’s Day is this weekend.  It’ll be the first Mother’s Day in years that I haven’t felt obligated to fake it.  Dad gave me a pass for the first Mother’s Day after you died [….] I’m off the hook.  Finally. 

It goes without saying that I wish you were here.  I need advice and support.  Since you aren’t here, I can create a fantasy in which if only you were here, everything would be just right.  I would share openly with you about my troubles and my feelings.  You would listen without judgement and guide me right into the best, most appropriate decision.  Aside from this being completely impossible, even if you were here, it reminds me that I don’t know you at all. 

You were a human being; a woman.  You were also a wife and mother.  Were you completely devoted to those roles?  Would you be horrified to find one of your daughters rejecting motherhood so emphatically?  Would you feel disappointed?  Maybe you would be supportive, either out of love for me or in agreement with [my perception of] motherhood as a bottomless pit of demand, work [….].  Motherhood isn’t even the problem.  That conviction, thankfully, is firm.  I wish I could pinpoint exactly how I figured this out.  I sure could use some clarity. 

It’s the strangest thing. [….] I am guilty of being unrealistic.  I am guilty of confusing assumption with accuracy.  I am guilty of believing a very difficult thing is actually easy and simple.  We all begin as children, though, right?  We all begin empty and fill up over time – hopefully.  I’m nowhere near being full, I hope.  There has to be so much more to learn.  I want more knowledge and more time….

++++++++++++

PART 2

When your mom dies you’re the best memory of her.  Everything you do and say is a memory of her.  –Alice Oswalt

By these standards, I am never doing enough.  I am not actively making my mom proud.  I say “bad” words, I gossip, I judge.  I have a dry sense of humor.  I’m sarcastic and I have been known to laugh at crude jokes, violent jokes.  I am not especially nice or cheerful.  I earned this resting bitch face.  Not unlike Daria Morgandorfer, I only smile if I have a reason. 

While I am worrying about not being a positive memory of my mom, I have to consider that I’m an accurate memory of her.  I believe Lindsay (my sister) is an accurate memory of our mom.  A very important part of our mom is still here because of Lindsay.  She’s a mom.  She’s nurturing, she bakes cookies, she keeps my secrets, she has my back. 

Last week, I wrote a letter to my mom.  I never actually finished it.  It was meant to help me process some things that have been rattling around in my mind.  I’m never able to answer the question, What would mom do? Or What would she tell me to do?  Sometimes getting close to that question is fun.  She’s isn’t here, so I can assume she’d tell me to do what makes me happy.  Or would she tell me to do what I think is best?  That’s different….

++++++++++++

PART 3

When your mom dies you’re the best memory of her.  Everything you do and say is a memory of  her. –Alice Oswalt

I haven’t written many letters to my mom.  They typically transition from some kind of explanation to an apology.  Sometimes the lack of her presence in my life can be seen as an advantage (it helps if you tilt your head when you squint) because I have no idea what her expectations were for me.  Without that, I can pretend that she just wanted me to be happy [….]

The other side of not knowing her expectations for me is the inescapable feeling that I haven’t met them.  I can’t know if/when I’ll meet them.  That means I need to be a truly incredible and good person at all times.  That is pressure.  That is failure.  Already.

More often than not, I consider what I’ve learned about motherhood and mother-child relationships.  Surely she just wanted me to be happy and safe….

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And the next thing in the notebook is about the potential dangers of viewing pornography.  No kidding.  As a quick note: I don’t think viewing pornography is dangerous for everyone.  More on that….some other time.

What to take from this entry:  I have been struggling with writing for the past couple of months.  I wanted to post an update.  I wrote these pieces weeks ago, and I couldn’t shake them.  If you’re feeling disappointed, just remember there will eventually be an entry about pornography.  I’m sure you want to stick around for that!

Georgia boys.

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10.02.17

I recently received a special message from Todd’s friend, Zach M. I guess I received it on 09/24/17, and I have been sitting on it. I have read it over and over. I have tried to respond. And it brought me to writing a blog entry about it. If that’s not some weird circle of thinking and action, I don’t know what is.

I feel like I have endless support for my hobby of writing. Poor Todd gets stuck proofreading for me, which includes reading to reassure me that I’ve made sense and am not terrible at writing. Ever since I started sharing my blog, I have gotten compliments from surprising sources. I have had people encourage me to maintain my blog. They want to read more. I have gotten weepy over the feedback for my writing, whether it’s a blog entry or a Facebook post. It’s touching to me to have a person reach out to me to tell me they like my writing. Nobody has to do that. I would still keep a blog. I would still keep a journal. I would still want to write.

I have never met Zach. He and Todd have been friends since their time at University of Georgia (go dawgs!). Zach M. is the Editor of the Madison County Journal in Georgia.

10.8.17

I still haven’t addressed the message I received from Zach. I can’t even finish a blog entry about it (obviously)…. It’s too much, I think. A person who writes at a professional level cannot compliment my writing. I can’t handle it, folks. Lesson learned. When I told Todd that I still haven’t written back because I haven’t figured out what to write, he said that I just need to say, “Thanks,” or something to that effect. He’s right. I know that. I just need to thank Zach, and I will, but not until I am done obsessing about it. Maybe I will write back that I don’t know what to say. Like I said, it’s too much.

That I have never met Zach is a factor. I didn’t seek him out to read my writing. He found it because Todd posted a link to my MuckFestMS page on his own Facebook page. It never crossed my mind that he’d read it, and it definitely never crossed my mind that he would appreciate it. He’s under no obligation to compliment my writing.

I also need to tell you that Zach’s dad, Judson Mitcham, is the poet laureate for Georgia.

Yeah, I’m going to have to be honest when I write back to Zach. I’m going to have to admit that I don’t know what to say because, in this situation, “Thank you,” doesn’t seem sufficient.

Interweb Mistakes.

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I make a lot of mistakes on the Internet by looking at ridiculous shit. I recently noticed a trend in telling readers how to journal. For maximum effect, I will repeat: I recently noticed a trend in telling reader how to journal. I mostly see this on Pinterest accompanied by professional photographs of “fancy” writing in “fancy books” with multiple colors of ink, doodles, charts, graphs, etc. I see books with pockets for keeping items, stickers, bookmarks, paperclips with stuff glued to them…. It looks expensive and overwhelming.

I don’t remember when I started keeping a journal, but it was back when I still called it “keeping a diary.” I remember owning a lavender diary with a cat on it. I hate cats. I remember that diary. It had the goofy, flimsy lock and the key that had the strength of a paperclip – a low level paperclip, not one of those serious paperclips that can easily manage 18 pages.

I’ve written here about my current journal here – an emerald green moleskine that I carry in my purse. I would prefer nobody read it, but if someone grabbed it from me and ran off as if to humiliate me with what they found inside it, I don’t think I’d do much to stop them. They might learn something.

The idea that I need to be instructed or taught how to journal is offensive, unless the instructions are:
1 – buy a blank book, notebook, index cards, whatever you want to write on;
2 – buy a writing instrument you like to use;
3 – write whatever you want in whatever fashion you want in the item you acquired in Step 1.
What else is there? Am I missing something?
Realistically, you could scrap all of these (3) instructions and just write whatever on whatever surface with whatever instrument. If I really need/want to write something down, and I don’t have my journal or some kind of paper handy, I’ll write on receipts, napkins, old grocery store lists, etc. Whatever I can find. Later, I’ll copy it into my journal or maybe just put the written-on scrap between some pages. I wrote it down. It’s there. That’s all I need. It’s not uncommon to find napkins between the pages of my journals.

Even considering that I journal incorrectly (that I need to be taught how to do it) or that I don’t journal effectively makes me think of being advised that I need to wear make-up all the time. I don’t do that. If you follow me on social media, you may remember that the caption for a picture of me & Todd the night we went out for my birthday dinner refers to me rubbing dirt and chemicals on my face. I do it when I want to do it. I also do it when I know I’m going to court, which I have to state specifically because that is a time when I don’t always want to do it. The point is, I am the same Maggie whether I paint my face or not. My journal is as valuable and effective and correct, regardless of how it’s done. As a special note, if you wear make-up every day and that’s what you want to do, *high five* You are kicking ass. If you wear make-up every day and you don’t want to, please talk to me about this. I have seen this other side of life, and I can tell you that nothing bad happens. You will still be you – worthy, valuable, important and loved.

Journaling seems like one of the last things we should need several items to do it effectively. One writing surface, one writing instrument and you’re set. What if someone was interested in keeping a journal and they saw all of these articles about different ink pens, stickers, etc. and decided it was too expensive, too overwhelming or required so much skill? That’s absurd. The special lettering and doodles may do someone in. I don’t draw and my handwriting is sloppy, but I keep my journal. I write what I want to, when I want to. But if I tried to start journaling and felt that to do it correctly I needed to master all of this lettering and special doodles…. I wouldn’t do it, because that’s not my area. I’m a word person, not a shapes and lines person.

Journaling doesn’t require special skills or equipment. Depending on your motivation for getting into it, it doesn’t even require a special commitment. The idea of writing in my journal every day sounds great, but I also like reading, going to the gym, spending time with Todd, spending time with our [four-legged] girls, watching TV/movies. I don’t always make time to write in my journal. If/When I feel moved to write, I do it. Sometimes, like today, it gets done here and not in the moleskine.

Write here. Write now.

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Before I officially started this blog, I did some research about writing and about blogging.  This included scouring Pinterest for writing prompts and tips.  I actually started to complete a 31-day May Writing Prompt list that I found there.  It did not go well.

On May 3rd, I was prompted to write about My Biggest Victory.  On May 4th, I was prompted to write about a Moment That Challenged Me.  I will copy & paste the results of these prompts:

 

May 3, 2017 MY BIGGEST VICTORY

I’m not sure what my biggest victory has been.  In a way, I think that’s good.  There have been many. It’s difficult to say what has been the “biggest.” 

I’m an introvert, so any time I am able to speak to a crowd is a victory.  About 10 days ago, I gave a presentation during a quarterly department meeting at work.  There were a lot of people.  All presentations were also recorded on video for those who were absent to watch later.  I can’t recall ever being recorded before.  Prior to giving my presentation, I warned the audience that I’m not very good with microphones.  After my presentation, our director said he thought I did a fine job with the microphone.  He also said my presentation was “professional.”  I had co-workers approach me later to compliment my presentation, including a co-worker who has a college degree in performing arts who said I did, “fantastic.” 

I’ve completed 2 half-marathons.  I can’t remember what year, but I completed one in late January and the other in October of that same year.  I feel very proud about completing those races.  My time for the second one was better than the first.  I did not finish last in either. 

I moved to Texas in 2010.  Alone.  It was late July.  It’s now May of 2017, and I’m still here.  I’m doing okay.  I may even be doing well.  Is this a victory, or just life?  I suppose I could have floundered.  I could have failed.  I could have lost.  But I’m still here.  I’ve been through 5 residences, a marriage, a divorce, 2 jobs, various trips back to Ohio, gaining friends, losing friends, becoming more assertive, learning to love myself wholly, gotten into the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had with a man who seems to be the best possible partner for me.  I’ve learned who I am and how I am.  I have been through so much in these 7 years.  Is this my biggest victory?

What about lifting weights?  What about PRs (personal records)?  What about standing up to people, especially defendants at work?  What about overcoming “what others might think” to just be myself?  What about learning to love myself and love my shape?  Maybe my biggest victory is happiness? 

 

May 4 – A MOMENT THAT CHALLENGED ME

 

You read right.  I wrote nothing for May 4th.  Today is May 17th.  It’s very unlikely that I’ll revisit the May 4th prompt.  I mean, it never really worked for me that on May 3rd I was writing about my biggest victory and expected to write about a moment that challenged me the next day.  I know I say this too much, but I can’t even.  Maybe I will pick & choose through the May prompts.  For me, using the prompts was more about making sure I wrote something every day.  I didn’t.  I’m not good at boring topics.  I need passion, excitement, drive….  Wait a minute.  Am I having a challenging moment?