And the winner of the Halloween Cat print is….
Regina Murphy Silvia
I’ll be doing another Give-Away soon. Thanks for all the comments! It was fun to read through them all.
Author: Picking My Battles
Wedge Issues
Thirteen-year-old Jack and I have always been able to bond, not just over the mother-child kissing of boo-boo’s or doling out of hugs after a meltdown, but because we have a lot of the same interests. Lately, Jack’s primary interest has been focused on all things computer. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with this interest. I love that he has a hobby that lets me bond with my son while we discuss digital life. I hate that his passion has also become a wedge.
At the end of the school year, Jack brought home a less-that-stellar grade on a final exam, and the Big Guy and I lowered the boom. He had already enrolled in computer camp (his first sleep away camp), so we let him indulge his obsession over the summer. When he got home, however, we made it clear that until a satisfactory first progress report came home from school, he was grounded from the computer. We live in the middle of the woods and any social event requires us to act as chauffeur, so traditional grounding is redundant. Jack’s obsession revived the punishment as a useful stick.
We’re not shy about removing privileges or assigning extra chores when the occasion arises, and, in the past, Jack has seen the error of his ways and usually accepted our punishments as just. Something about being thirteen, however, has made the enforcement of this sentence much less pleasant.
The punishment has inspired tortured looks of betrayal from my first born. It’s prompted legal arguments about the wisdom of ending the punishment earlier and, as homework requires more time on the computer, it’s also inspired him to attempt head-on defiance of the punishment. No longer are we the people he trusts without question. No longer is our judgement sound. In his eyes there is now the constant question that, if we are so wrong about this punishment, what other things have his parents been wrong about? I don’t think he questions our love for him, but, for the first time in our relationship, he’s actively questioning if we know what we’re doing. I have that question all the time (and I can write it because I know he doesn’t read this blog).
I remember my parents using similar carrots and sticks and how they became wedges as well. It didn’t take becoming a parent to see around the wedge, but I think it did take walking this mile in their moccasins to see that the wedge really brought us closer because at that point they weren’t trying to be my friends. They were being my parents. And that’s ultimately what any kid needs.
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it is NOT Cold
At this time of year, the big challenge of living off-grid in an earth-sheltered (read: 3 feet of insulation on 3 sides) is to remind yourself 69 on the thermostat would be T-shirt weather if it were describing the temperature outdoors, but when the only thing reflecting light back at you as you let the cat in at 5AM for his morning nap is the frost coating the world outside your door, it’s hard to remember that it’s too early in the year to light a fire.
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Another Rainy Sunday
I’ve been getting pretty good at getting up at 6 or 6:30 on Sundays to have enough time to get in a longer-than-a-weekday run and still get back to the cave before the kids or the Big Guy are ready to hit the all-you-can-eat buffet in Cambridge, NY. Sunday wasn’t much different. It was raining, but I’d tackled the rain issue, and decided to go anyway.
I planned to go to the park since my usual route was about to be the scene of a 5k and 12k to support our local community day care center. But as I got to the turn for the park, I pulled the steering wheel the opposite direction and headed toward the covered bridge in West Arlington – a stone’s throw from Norman Rockwell’s studio. When I drove through the covered bridge, I saw several cars parked at the grange building on the other side.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to support the day care center – both my kids went there for preschool. But I have my first 10k coming up at the end of October, and I knew I needed both Sundays to get the longer routes in. I was also keenly aware that this race would be longer than anything I’d planned or done. I wasn’t thinking clearly because somehow I ended up getting out of the car and squishing through the muddy field to register for the 12k part of the race.
My boys were still at home with their aunt, and the Big Guy had gone in to work to cover a shift for a friend, so I was feeling a little lonely, but it had been a spur of the moment decision. I’d be busy for an hour and a half, but I knew six-year-old Thing2 wouldn’t tolerate an hour in the damp.
The rain stopped by the time the kids’ 1k fun run began. By the time the 5k and 12k participants began assembling, I’d waved to moms and dads I hadn’t seen since the beginning of the school year.
Fiddling with my music player and zipping it into its Ziploc baggie in my belt, I started dead last. I was to be happier for it.
I started slowly, determined to run the entire thing one way or another. The only person I passed on the entire race was another runner with a music player malfunction.
As I got close to the first turn around, other runners began passing me the other direction. I started yelling “Good Job” and “Way to Go”, and they did the same. I began passing friends. Sometimes we waved, other times we slowed to high five each other. Everyone – walking or running – was smiling.
The 12k continued past the starting gate for another lap out and back the other direction, and for a while, I was very alone. I settled into my Sunday pace, meditating and enjoying the saturated fall colors against the grey sky and dirt road. Then the front runners began to pass me on their way back to the finish line. Again we cheered each other.
Typically (for me) I got close to the turn around point, and promptly got confused. After running back and forth few times until my app said I’d gone 6.25 miles, I decided I was far enough out to get back and get all 7.45 miles in. Except for a car making sure the last runner hadn’t collapsed, I finished the rest of the route alone.
At the end, there were a few people still waiting to cheer the slow pokes. I got my 3rd place souvenir (out of 3 in my 40-something age group). I gave pats on the back to a few people and got a few myself and then went home to get cereal on the table for my boys.
I was soaked. I was sore. I was freezing. And I couldn’t stop smiling, even when I snuggled on the recliner for a nap. Some Sundays, the best plans are the ones that get rained out.
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Comfort
What is it about the colder days that makes bread need butter to be nourishing? What is it about the roads littered with leaves that sparks the craving for something hot and chocolatey?
I’ve been so good all summer, and while I’m still kicking it up on the exercise wagon, the numbers on the scale refused to budge for the last week or two. It’s no great mystery. I’ve been indulging. Cottage cream ice cream over apple crumb pie to celebrate the Big Guy’s birthday, a few days of stress-induced gluttony, and the only thing keeping the numbers on the scale from climbing is the fact that my exercise plan is often my only downtime – a fact that keeps it alive and well.
It’s another part of the game. The exercise is easy. It feels good when you’re doing it. If feels good when you’ve done it. It’s kind of like sex without consequences. But keeping up the calorie count – is there ever a time when it feels good when you’re doing it?
There are recipes that can make you think the calorie counting feels good because it tastes good, but the fretting is only rewarded on the scale in the morning. When it’s still dark at 5:30 in the morning, it’s hard to see those numbers at all, and the aroma wafting from that calorie-laden bowl of peanut-butter oatmeal wraps around me like a hug – softly strangling my willpower.
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Fear and Better Things
I know not to compare my writing to anyone else’s writing. I have my voice. They have theirs, and when a writer finds her voice it’s all good. But when a writer is finding her voice or adding a new dimension to their craft, it’s hard not to make comparisons, and it’s even harder not to feel like you’re coming up short.
Trying to make the jump from blog posts to short fiction prompted me to go back to my library of short stories. I spent the summer reading old favorites and discovering new ones. Reading feeds my inspirations and aspirations. Some of my favorite writers started with short stories, and more than a few have defined their careers as short story artists.
Now, after a summer of reading and journaling and drafting and scrapping ideas, the aspiration to make a life writing a lot of short somethings is still strong. But there has also been a nagging knowledge that my short somethings will never be the same caliber as the ones that inspire me.
I know not to make comparisons, but I still do. Now, as the end of another year approaches, I am at a crossroads. There is the option to use my voice – even if it means singing off key. Or there is the option to let fear keep it silent another year and then another.
Six-year-old Thing2 will be seven this month. He’s at the age when the world begins imposing it’s hangups, and his fearless refusal to accept the imposition inspires in a different way. He found his voice the minute he first felt a drum beat move through his body, and he will not be silenced.
We’re having a haunted birthday party very soon, but I’ll be celebrating his life and his inspiration again at the end of the month. I’ve been working on a few stories for the last few months. I’ll be putting five of them into an ebook on my site by the end of the month. It more than a deadline. It’s a moratorium on fear.
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The Race
I’ve helping a friend teach a class on the Art of the Blog for the last few weeks and another 2 weeks to go, and it’s kind of exciting for a number of reasons. One is, even though I do tech support on a daily basis, it’s kind of fun to come up with tech tips for something new and for an appreciative audience rather than a frazzled customer. The other exciting and slightly scary element was the fact that, aside from helping two kids navigate the rigors of potty training, I’ve never taught anybody anything.
I felt like I discovered myself as a writer when I attended my first serious workshop, and, even though I knew we were all different, a part of me always worried that everyone else would be a better writer. Ultimately they were better – better at writing authentically for them. The great thing about workshop last year and the blog class and Open Groups is they’re just like being in a 5K. Unless you’re in the running for the big cash prize at the end of the route, you won the moment you started the race. It’s not about the prize – it’s about going the distance. The only person you’re competing with is yourself, and encouraging the woman next to you doesn’t just help her, it helps you.
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October Common Thread Give-Away
Update: I’ll be announcing the winner tomorrow, so take a moment to visit the sites of the other artists in our group. Good Luck!
I am the featured artist for October’s Common Thread Give-Away and in keeping with the season, I’m giving away a signed, matted print of a mixed media drawing of Chuck, our Halloween Cat (who’s currently on walk-about). It’s a 5×7 print on watercolor paper.
To enter the contest, by leaving a message in the comments section, and I’ll choose a winner at random.
When you’ve commented on my site, take a minute to visit the other artists in our group – Jon Katz, Maria Wulf, Jane McMillan, and Kim Gifford!
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Crazy
It’s raining, it’s pouring, the whole house is snoring and I should be doing my long Sunday run. But it a fit of crazy (not isolated), I decided to go reclaim my favorite route from the race that’s being held there and register for a 12K I’m not sure I can finish.
Here goes….
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Seasons and Celebrations
Sept 23
It’s the Big Guy’s birthday. Today our family is celebrating him, but I’ve also come to see this day as the demarcation of the seasons.
It’s not just because his birthday coincides with the second day of fall, but because his favorite birthday dessert is not cake. It’s apple pie, preferably made with apples from our own tree. It’s only after a few cold snaps that the apples start to take on a sweeter taste, and the first, tart bite, softened by the streusel topping, evokes all the soon-to-be wood-stove warmed evenings, homemade breads and stews, and evenings snuggled on the couch. So now, celebrating the Big Guy is really a celebration of a season of family enjoying family. And who better to inspire it?
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Clutter
A few weeks ago, we threw out a ton of stuff. I don’t mean we threw out a lot of stuff. I mean we threw out 1 Ton of stuff. The Big Guy and I filled a one ton container with odds and ends we’d collected over our seventeen years together, and, I’m ashamed to say, we’ll probably be able to do it again in another month. I don’t mean to imply that our house is filled with trash, but the purge was a stark reminder that I need to look before I leap more often.
A week earlier, I had queried my writing group as to whether or not I should put some of my doodles on T-Shirts. I had an idea, not just to make money off my work, but for a line of fitness wear and T’s for plus-size women (google “plus size fitnesswear” and you’ll see there’s a market there for someone). This particular leap was inspired a sour grapes moment that resulted in my own fruitless search for running wear, and the first few responses were encouraging.
The Big Guy is always encouraging, and I began researching ‘how to print your own T-shirts’. When I the writing group page later in the day, however, a-look-before-the-leap had appeared. It was from our group’s fearless leader:
“I would finish your stories,” it said. “Then move on to other projects”
I was still determined to have something fun and different for my first race in 3 years, and I had a few pieces of T-shirt iron-on paper, but the words “Finish your stories” stayed in my head the rest of the day and the rest of the weekend.
I made my T-shirt and put a few up on CafePress (just for fun), but with the race behind me, and pre-holiday fall cleaning in front of us, I knew the last thing I needed was one more project or hobby – however good an idea it might seem. Filling that one ton container was suddenly more than a way to de-clutter our house. It was a reminder that to win the important battles, I needed to stop collecting projects and just finish the ones that matter.
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The Real World
“Watch this one, Mom!” Six-year-old Thing2 leapt from one end of the kitchen, contorting his body in ways that could land him a wildcard spot on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’.
I had only intended to watch for a few seconds, but his spinning leaps kept my attention through the rest of the song as I ignored the growing collection of unanswered emails in my inbox. When the song ended, I did not return to my email but opened a new tab in my browser and navigated to the Hubbard Hall website in search of autumn dance classes for younger artists. A weekend class would be ideal, I thought, and found an offering that started late enough in the day to let us get from soccer practice to the restored opera house with 2 minutes to spare.
“Would you like to take a dance class at Hubbard Hall?” I asked, knowing that Thing2 would say yes to any workshop sponsored by the community theatre and art center in the one-traffic light town of Cambridge, NY.
He grinned and shouted an barely intelligible “YES!” as he launched into the next song.
“It looks like a great class,” I said. “It’s jazz and ballet.” As I uttered the last word, Thing2 returned to earth and, for the first time all morning, stood completely still.
“I don’t want to do ballet,” he said very seriously.
“Why not?” I asked my youngest who had just performed a running split worthy of Baryshnikoff.
“Ballet is for girls,” he said as he raised his arm and began to spin around the breakfast table.
I struggled for a appropriate response, wondering what killjoy had infected my six-year-old’s psyche with the hangups of the world outside our door. He dances, he sings, he wears capes and wigs, and the Big Guy and I have been united in our feeling that if a boy does it, it’s a boy’s activity. Ballet shouldn’t be any different.
Swallowing my ire I refocused on his love of movement and music and gave him a list of reasons to take the class – regardless of the title. We pulled up a few dance videos on YouTube. And when the real Barysnikoff jumped across the monitor, Thing2 didn’t ask if he was watching ballet. There was only one question on his mind.
“How did he learn to jump that high?” he asked. Dinner hour was intruding, and I didn’t have a chance to answer, but it seemed the ballet dilemma had been put to rest. I got the confirmation Saturday night.
Thing2, inspired by a lego display at the Worlds Fair in Tunbridge, VT, had put together his own lego gallery on his desk. Promoting his opening was a hastily scribbled placard advertising an after-dinner evening of art, conversation and, of course, dancing in what is now exclusively his room.
Thing2’s party was an unqualified success. We admired, we chatted, and we danced. When the party was over, he stayed up a little longer, and, oblivious to anyone else’s conventions or labels, he continued to dance. I think he, too, knows the real world is out there waiting to tie his feet to the ground, but in this house he’s still the Master of Ceremonies.
Picking My Battles 