Up Too Early
Up far too early for the usual reasons; physical complaints, tests to worry about (yeah, those are physical, too), the assorted child who is out of sync with housing or job or love life, the assorted irrational thanks that these same children have avoided yet another night without a brush with either an axe murderer or drunk driver, a nagging sense that I probably forgot to turn something off and a certainty that I have, in fact, turned someone off…Oh well, it’s true that as I get older I begin to embrace the idea that I can’t be loved by everybody.
Choices this morning are plentiful. I can read about Hillary Duff in concert, make the shopping list for the upcoming holidays (did I really agree to have my niece and nephew and their two boys ages 3 and 8 weeks in my new dining room?), exercise (oh yeah, that’s really happening on 4 hours sleep), or write. Somehow, not much of a choice. It occurs to me almost every day how lucky I am to have found this thing I do, this compulsion rather than vocation. Writing is both a verb and also a noun, I now hold it, it juts out from me as an emotional limb, no doubt formerly dormant until a set of circumstances sparked a rather remarkable growth spurt; the stub became an appendage, the girl evolved to adapt to her new world not unlike an amoeba or paramecium. Was it empty nesting? 9/11? Who can say why we adapt or change or embrace a new tool? And I have stopped looking back, wondering why I began to write and wondering why I didn’t begin earlier. If I find the answer will it matter?
Here’s what I know: I have a friend who is angry. You could argue that it’s easy to be angry in the world today, that we all exist in a borderline Post Traumatic Stress state and only time will reveal the ravages or not of spending a lifetime poised for fight or flight. But you could also argue that this lady has so much to be thankful for; fabulous family, health and wealth, comforts of all sorts. And yet, she has a chip, an edge, and an attitude that is so ugly and repellant it makes you want to shake her. I am tempted to say, “Hey! Are you going to your job at the factory today to put dolls’ arms on dolls? Because someone has that job and it’s not you--so lighten up and put a damn grateful smile on your face!” Would it matter? Under the heading of ‘things learned’ is this; you can’t change someone else, only how you feel about them. So this is what I do; I turn away and resolve to be extra grateful every day to counteract her negativity. I will put extra good karma in the world and in some skewed way I imagine I can affect the overall good and tip the scales back, back to when we were kids and didn’t’ worry about suicide bombers or falling buildings, back to when the only time we even heard the word ‘beheading’ was during a visit to the Colonial Era exhibit which had a square with stocks and a guillotine.
There are three things I’m most proud of; first is the work I do in my intimate relationships with my family, immediate and extended, (this includes the few close friends I also count as family). In the end, how you treat the people you care about and how they treat you is really all that matters. Second is the aforementioned work I do on myself to stay healthy and positive in the face of all the regular stuff that can wear you out and also in the chronic, enough already stuff, you know, the crap that keeps coming back to test you no matter how clever a navigator you are. And third, I am so proud to count myself a member of the writing community, to grow into and give back to the writing life. There are so many unexpected gifts, some tangible (I get to speak and volunteer and mentor) but there is something else, more subtle, less defined, a sense of having a talent, yes, but more, a sense of having developed another chamber; possibly it’s akin to what devout yogis call another level; I am many things, have many titles, some lofty others corporeal, but also I am this thing that propels herself out of bed at ungodly hours and barely stops (all right always stops) for coffee and wafts (yes, dammit, wafts!) up to the ‘writing space’ and melts and leaks and leeches onto the page. Ahh. And so often it just doesn’t get any better than that. So there is really no choice. Whenever there is time to fill there will be web pages to surf and mindless errands to run and puttering, certainly puttering as an option. There will be ailments to stress over and scenes to replay (did I really say that—exactly what number glass of wine was I on?) but in the end I always choose to fill the space the same way; I write. Whether it’s with an extra limb or chamber or level, it’s what I do; as if my body now manufactures this calling like a chemical, a spiritual serotonin. I write to enjoy I know I also write to survive. It’s what I do to make the anger go away. It's what I do to make sense of this new world. It’s what I do to make sense of me and my family in it.