happy new year
Will spent time with both uncles this Christmas; here he is on the slide with my big brother. Photo by “Papa” Johnson
The Thursday after Christmas, I took Will to the Discovery Museum while Billy and the band practiced. On the way to the entrance, I ran into a mother I know, pushing her little girl around on the carousel outside.
Hey! How are you? she called.
Good, I said. When I got close enough, I told her how I feel totally crazy. Like my life is full but I have no time. No time to myself, no time with friends. A bit overwhelmed. But, how are you? I asked.
Good, too, but I know what you mean, she said. I could see in her eyes that she did. She’s a young single mother who works and goes to school. In a way, with a kid, your own life gets put on hold, she said.
We talked for a minute more, but Will was growing restless.
Well I better take the boy inside, I said.
Yeah, I better get to pushing, she said, her hand on her daughter’s back.
Nice to see you, I said.
See you around.
Happy New Year.
Happy New year.
Then we went our separate ways.
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Filed under writing | Comment (0)take two
Photo by “Papa” Johnson
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all I really, really want
family portrait by my dad, Michael
For Christmas I want:
-a whole drawer of matching socks
-The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
-perfect pitch or a photographic memory
-The collected stories of Amy Hempel
-nice brown cords that fit
- a set of simple matching drinking glasses
-The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño
-a soft bright scarf
time with friends
-and a moment or two to write my stories.
Billy resurrected our old site, ultrasmooth, a blog of sorts before blogs existed–which chronicles our year long trip around the world back in 1999-2000.
Some of the pictures don’t come up, and some links are broken, still it shows the beginnings of my writing, of billy’s photography, of our life together.
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Filed under writing | Comments (2)putting it all together
photograph by our friend, photographer Aaron Farrington
I’m not out of the woods with writing my middle school stories, but I’ve been trudging up, up, up, and finally the trees are thinning. I can look down and see path I’ve taken; how each story might fit into the collection.
I was naive when I set this task for myself: to link a set of stand-alone stories with a subplot that weaves through the lives of the characters. I figured,
Tim O’Brien did it with The Things they Carried; Chuck Palahniuk with Haunted; Amy Tan in The Joy Luck Club. Okay, truth be told, I figured the WB did it with the TV film Noir series, Veronica Mars..
How was I to know it would be so difficult; that each story would pull stubbornly in its own direction, buck and kick in my arms, cry and try to poke out my eyes?
And so I am learning to be tougher–like a mother of eleven literary babies. I will set my boundaries. I will stand my ground.
I will pick my little stories up as they kick and scream and cart them out into the fresh air if I have to.
One way, or another, I will reign them in.
What are you determined to do these days?
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Filed under writing | Comments (2)hurry up and wait
William with dad’s glasses
Photo by Billy
Do you hear the breathless rush, rush in my voice?
It feels like the whole world is in a hurry this morning, even the way the tiny snowflakes rush to the ground. William’s first snow; the first he will remember.
William is with his dad right now, and I’m off to work. I wonder if our baby boy will hold his palms out in the flurries.
Stick out his tongue.
Let it fall into his lashes.
A friend told me this weekend, earnestly, “Just wait, you’ll see; it goes by sooo fast.” Her babies are 14 and 11 now.
Today I’ll write for five minutes, ten, then hurry to work down a windy road, slow for the turns that seem to slid toward the trees. On the drive I will go over my lesson plan in my head, then think about the outline for the middle school stories; I am always trying keep everything balanced and together.
After school I will rush, rush, rush back home to William.
I will trade off with Billy.
I will watch William leave footprints in a thin layer of white.
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