Nothing is Something
Henry David Thoreau wrote: “A man has not everything to do, but something…” I get so caught up in getting through my to-do lists that sometimes, like today, I get mad when I catch myself doing nothing. But doing nothing is something.
Years ago, at an SCBWI Conference in Los Angeles, E.L. Konigsburg discussed creativity and how we need negative space—white space, blank space—in our minds, in our lives, in order to allow new ideas to emerge. The only author to win the Newbery Medal and a Newbery Honor in the same year (1968), with her 2nd and 1st books respectively: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, and then 27 years later win a second Newbery Medal (The View from Saturday, 1997) Elaine Konigsburg is my hero. She is who I want to be when I grow up: a brilliant, accessible, prolific writer. All this being said, you would think that I would take her advice to heart and embrace the white space, allow myself to make nothing that something—sometimes, anyway.
Occasionally, when I consciously try, I give myself that nothing space…really I do. But often, like today—right now—instead of giving my mind time to empty, and the extra time needed for my imagination to kick up to high gear, and even more time to see where it leads me, I take over and get busy doing something—say writing a blog entry.
Earlier, when I was supposed to be doing nothing, I stumbled upon this passage by Brenda Ueland. I believe Julie Larios shared it at a Vermont College residency:
Long, Happy Dawdling
The imagination needs moodling--long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas, such as: "I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget." But they have no slow, big ideas. And the fewer consoling, noble, shining, free, jovial, magnanimous ideas that come, the more nervously and desperately they rush and run from office to office and up and down stairs, thinking by action at last to make life have some warmth and meaning.
And so, on this the 31st day of the old year, at the dawning of a new year, 2010, with the hope of allowing for plenty of "moodling" I make this bold and italicized resolution:
The next time I catch myself daydreaming or look back after an afternoon spent…how? and I feel those raging Puritan Ethics Monitors shaking their scabby heads over the wasteful way I spent my day I'm going to set them straight: “Nothing is something! It is what we are supposed to do. ..Elaine said so! ”
I opened with Thoreau, so it feels fitting to close with his blessing. And now, as soon as I post this, I'm going to get busy doing nothing, promise!
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
Happy Moodling!
Have Ourselves a Hope-filled Holiday and New Year!
Max, my son, graduated from Prescott College, Sunday, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies with an emphasis in Research Ecology and Studio Arts. A long hoped for, joyous occasion for which 16 family and adopted family members gathered. Prescott College is an extraordinary college, peopled by students, staff and faculty oozing purpose. And, as befitting the school, this was no ordinary listen-for-your-name-march-across-the-stage-take-a-diploma-shake-hands-leave….throw-your-mortarboard-you-did-it-yeah! graduation. This was a weekend long celebration. Forty one students officially graduated Sunday; 37 attended the ceremony. Each of those 37 students was honored with a one-minute speech by her or his faculty adviser and then spoke for one-minute. You can share a lot of information, experiences, reflections, gratitude into a minute. It was a long, emotionally-charged ceremony. I left feeling the way I did after watching It’s A Wonderful Life for the first time—and I sooooooooo wanted to be a student again. During his welcome speech, Prescott College President, Dan Garvey, said (and I paraphrase):
“We can live about 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, 3 minutes without oxygen...but we can’t survive for even a second without hope…”
HOPE: It is why we do….everything! Because we have hopes for the next second, the next minute, the next day, the next year and after that…
As mothers, we hope to see our children grow up to live the lives they dream for themselves. I am blessed to see my children, Max and Lexi, doing exactly that.
As writers, we write with the hope of transferring our ideas into words on a page. Some hopes are simple: let me write it down so I won’t forget. Some are complex: let me arrange these words in a lyrical, provocative, entertaining order. Many go beyond: after I dredge up the best words to convey my ideas, set these words on the page, arrange them and rearrange them, pleeeeease let someone else read them and understand and feel and connect with the thoughts I am hoping to convey. Some are even loftier: let an editor connect so strongly with my writing that she/he wants to publish it and thus make my ideas accessible to others.
We breathe, eat, drink, strive, because we hope to live. We write because we hope to make connections. To twist a phrase from my family’s favorite holiday movie: Hope is all you need!
May ours be a joyful holiday and hope-filled New Year!
What the Heck is "Real" Reading?
My friend and writer, Marty Graham was in a bookstore reading through picture books to see what was out there, when she overheard a mother talking--lecturing--her son about his choice of preferred book. This is what Marty heard the mother say:
"That's not a real book."
And then Marty heard something behind her being moved back to a shelf. She wrote:
"By the time I turned to sneak my peak, mother and son were gone. The closest display was of paperback middle grades. I could have gone through them, or looked further (where had her voice come from? what shelf? what display?). I could have spent time looking for clues. Maybe it really hadn't been a book? But then...."
This is what Marty thought:
"I will never know. I stood a moment, thinking, 'that's what occurred in the children's book section at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore?. Fun to wonder, but So scary. So mysterious. Do you remember the famous line in the movie Crocodile Dundee, when Dundee unsheathes an incredible Australian wackywoo to a couple of NY Bronx street thugs?? He said: "That's no knife.........................THIS is a knife."
What the heck is a real book anyway? And should we really care what our children read as long as they are reading? My brother and I used to read the back of cereal boxes during breakfast--would the mother Marty overheard consider that "real" reading or "fake" reading? Honestly, what difference does what each of us chooses to read in our spare time make? Even pornography--if you, me, we- want to read it, or trashy romance, or comic books who cares? (And if we tell the truth, isn't learning a someone reads odd/surprising stuff fun?)
Isn't our goal to teach them: our children, our citizens, our tax payers, our fellow humans--all of them--to read? So they can comprehend/access information themselves...learn the facts...judge the situations (healthcare in the U.S. included)--and make informed decisions? To that end, isn't it more beneficial for children to be entertained by reading--"real" and not "real" books alike (cereal boxes even)--so they will want to keep reading and by doing so learn to read better?
What is "real" reading? What is a "read" book? Should "real" really matter?
Oh my gosh! Look there! It's a book...with words....pictures...ideas....help! Quick! Someone....everyone....
LET THEM READ IT!
Vacation Reading
Today is the first day of Christmas vacation—the first real vacation I recall being on in years and years—since Max and Alexis were in diapers. I began it the way I spent so many hours of holidays past, before I had so many responsibilities. Back when I didn’t carry a daily calendar. When every hour wasn’t divided into time slots. When vacation truly began as soon as the last school bell rang. I woke early, before the sun but fully rested after a more-than full night’s sleep following more than a full day spent napping and resting and sitting on flights from Jakarta to Houston. I woke as I usually do with a sense of urgency accompanied by reluctance to stir from my cozy cocoon.
Most mornings I compromise. I stall for a few more minutes in my nest by mentally reviewing my day’s calendar. I note my list of to-dos for the day and the time needed for each task, then line them up against the ticking clock and my regular daily requirements: wash, dress, breakfast, morning calls back to family: Lexi, Mom, Max, any business calls (these jerk me right out of bed as they must be made early—often before 6). With each item my internal engine revs louder and faster until the buzzing propels me from the bed and on with the day.
While vacations may be holidays from regular routine, ours are usually scheduled: so much to see and do, so little time. Certainly the daily task list differs from the norm and might read something like: 8:30 scrumptious breakfast; 9:30 tour of some place spectacular; 12 lunch in a palace; swim on the beach; sunset cocktails…. It is still a chock-full calendar.
So, I woke this morning and as I do, stretched, enjoyed the warm coziness of the bed, sought a cool corner for my toes, and opened my mental calendar. The page turned but nothing popped up. My calendar page was blank—empty—bright white and waiting. Not one appointment. Not one must do. And, because I was on the same side of the world as everyone on my usual morning call list, even it was blank (no one, no matter how much they loved me, would appreciate a call this early in the morning.) That’s when I realized I was truly, for the first time in adult history, on vacation-there were no great expectations. I turned on the light, picked up my book, Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones, found my place and snuggled down for a cozy read.
I read all the time. Read for information. Read to see how other writers write. Read to discover what other writers are writing. And each night I climb into bed to read strictly for pleasure. However because I try to pack as much into each day as possible, this pleasure reading rarely lasts beyond a page.Today, in the wee small hours of the morning, I found myself reading and reading and reading on the way I used to when I was young. Back in middle school, my friend Theresa and I would spend our vacation afternoons holed up in her bedroom with records and Harlequin Romances. We’d play the same albums over and over while we read—timing our chapter turns so we finished at the same time. During vacations spent at my grandparents, I worked my way through their shelves of fiction, especially Reader’s Digest Condensed Readers—the places those stories took me.
Mr. Pip is set in Bougainville, a tropical island where, in the 60s, as a result of civil war brought about by unfair practices in the mining industry, results in all in a blockade of the island. Every non native evacuates—including medical personnel, teachers and clergy. The only white man left of the island, Mr. Watts (married to a local) takes it on himself to teach the children and each day reads a chapter from Great Expectations.
I must admit, today’s vacation reading wasn’t exactly like it used to be. I couldn’t entirely shake the feeling of having somewhere else to go, or something to do—but that may only have increased my enjoyment. At every chapter end—actually, at a spot right before the chapter end, where I could see an end coming and had to decide whether to put the book down at the chapter break or read on past it—I’d stop to consider if I was actually at leisure, with an empty calendar before me, or whether I’d forgotten some commitment. Then I smiled, rearranged the pillows and went back to my book.
I am loving vacation!
PinK Glove Dance
Employees at Providence St. Vincent Medial Center created this delightful video in support of breast cancer awareness--something women and men of all ages--including and especially their 40s--should screen for. Watch it! Pink Glove Dance.
Pounding My Breast-Because I Can...
Confession time: I avoid reading/hearing/watching the news. The news coverage often frightens me—and sickens me when responsible reporting is not practiced. I usually watch CNN while I work out. I figure, why not combine both not always pleasant but necessary tasks? On one particularly stressful day last week, I was in the gym when a report came on regarding an “independent study” which concluded (and I paraphrase): "mammograms and even self-examination is not necessary in women between the ages of 40 and 49.” What bull! Who among us doesn’t know women—friends, relatives, neighbors, loved ones—who have battled breast cancer? Many of whom could have been spared if those nodules, lumps, irregularities had been detected earlier… sometimes, say in our loved one’s 40s? And because this “independent study” is hot news, meaning it has people—primarily women—anxious and concerned, it is getting so much airtime? How irresponsible and reckless of the media to televise this report—and worse, of Capitol Hill to give it any public consideration at all? Certainly “independent studies” by reputable organizations should be read and considered. But shouldn’t that consideration be given prior to the report being publicly broadcasted and possibly misconstrued or interpreted to be “true”? And why now? In the midst of the U.S. health care reform debacle does challenging the need for breast examinations serve any person with breasts or loved ones with breasts best interests?
Yes! This is a “hot button” topic for me. Hotter still because I was viewing the coverage of this report—and the outcry against it by women who have had breast cancer—with my left breast bandaged. Thursday before last I had my usual, routine, annual, covered by insurance and recommended by my doctors—all of them—breast screening. This included a physical examination by my doctor, a mammogram, and because my doctor is cautious and informed, and because I have good health coverage, an ultra sound. During the ultra-sound (to detect irregularities not always detected by the other methods) my doctor noticed a nodule growing between layers of fat. The next day she removed it using vacuum assisted Mammatone.
On the same Friday I was having the nodule removed from my breast, my niece, Claire’s, mother-in-law was also having a growth removed from her breast. Diane is older than I am, and not fortunate to have the lump discovered as early as I did. So, while the procedure to remove the nodule in my breast was in-office, under local anesthetic, and resulted in a small bore hole closed with sterile-strips and bandaged, Diane’s procedure was major surgery, under general anesthetic, while her worried family waited anxiously to learn the results. Thank heaven we both received the screenings needed to find these lumps and we both could have them removed early and we both have good health care coverage.
My biggest concern—and all of our primary concern—should be what are the ramifications of this “study” receiving air time? What if someone hearing it actually take it seriously: Some insurance company trying to cut costs? Some elected official working on health reform recommendations? Some scared, nervous woman who might welcome any excuse not to have a mammogram…not to make an inconvenient appointment during which she will have to strip down and have her breast painfully squished in hopes of not revealing anything suspicious? Some husband or son or brother who doesn’t want to think about breast health?
Because of these early-detection breast screenings—including mammograms, breast exams and ultra sound—Diane and I, and so many other women, have received the medical treatment we need to remove these growths. But happens if the recommendations of this “independent study” are taken seriously? What about other women—some much younger than either of us--with irregular breast tissue? What will their futures be?