Ann Shields on Letting Go

Writers Undone

We met at a local landmark for lunch to toast our writer friend, no longer with us.  Some of us felt like local landmarks as well.  Old friends and past fellow writers, we came together to honor Claire.  Actually, we were her guests because her estate was paying for the lunch at her brother's request.

After sharing thoughts and recollections of this world traveler, someone brought some of her published travel articles.

 But here's the thing, some of us have since abandoned the writing world for more immediate gratification.  Writers are waiters, mostly.  We wait for reaction to our work, hope for publication, or at least, praise for how clever, witty, inspirational we all are.  Meanwhile,  some not so patient move on.

One woman at the luncheon is now a painter,  Right after her first written piece was accepted for publication, she quit submitting and began painting. She has sold her art in galleris since then. 

Another luncheon friend abandoned writing to go into charity work, full force, putting all her energies in a worthy organization.  She presides over that group today and doesn't seem to miss writing.

Health and eyesight issues contrived to push another friend out of the writing arena.

As for me, I now want instant gratification, too.  After writing 3 unpublished novels, one published novel,  a few published short stories and many articles, I crave feedback.  When my column with the Los Angeles Times ended in May of 2005, I realized it spoiled me, shotgun approach of sending off manuscripts to potential publishers  Been there, done that. 

My husband tried to get me interested in music by buying a keyboard for Christmas in 2007.  Andy,my musician grandson has it now.   Des also bought me a recumbant bike one year.  Blankets are piled up on it's seat in the porch.  Meanwhile, I joined LA Fitness and get my exercise there.  But, then I began blogging.  Voila, instant recognition.

When I was a real, published writer, thoughts would flit past my right brain, sometimes penetrate the left brain, and I would head for my computer in my solitary office/room and write for unknown readers. There is nothing like that thrill of an acceptance.   Rejection, on the other hand,  is depressing.

Blogging is fun.  I read my blogs to Des right after the printer spits it out.  He always rates them A, but wishes I would put more humor into them.  I thank him for his input and send it out as is.  It is not  wise to be each other's editor.  He writes too, by the way.

Blogging is also a solitary exercize.   Then there is the social network on the internet, multiplying faster than rats on viagra.  A blogger who gets into MySpace, Face Book, Twitter and Linded'in - to name a few - gets sucked into a continuous loop of writing stuff that leaves no time to really write.  Like in sentences with verbs, nouns and adjectives.   Not writing as in, so what are you doing now? and you say, I am gargling warm salt water  for a sore throat.  But I digress

Claire wrote a great article on how to pack for a trip.  She sold and resold it many times.  When she left all of us, she couldn't even pack her memory, thanks to Alzheimer's.    I think she was at our luncheon though,  eavesdropping on the conversation, thrilled to hear our compliments about her exquisite way with words.  Touched, she would say, 'my eyes are leaking.'

Come to think of it, mine are, too.

So says Sassy

Revisiting Father

The frustrating part of being an only child is the lack of  people who shared parts of your history.  No siblings to remind you of events that happened, no one to offer a differing perspective of how you grew up.

Lucky for me, my Chicago neighborhood lingers in my memory, along with a few others who stayed in touch to paint a different portrait of my family.

This week,John,  a former neighbor who lived next door, emailed me about my father.  He recalled him as a trim man with a mustache.  Got that right. My dad was handsome, cute my girlfriends would tell me.  John remembered him bringing home a bin of some kind that he later spray painted with what might have been my name, 'Ann Marie'  or 'Toys'.    This so impressed my neighbor, also an only child and living with a divorced mother, that he decided to make a toy chest for his children some day, just like my dad had done.  He did, too,  spraypainting it with baloons and other festive decor.

What a gift that was for me, a memory of my father I will put in my own magical mind chest I label 'happy memories of childhood.'  And, as long as I am remaking my childhood, I think I'll toss out a sad memory from the magical mind chest whenever I pop in a new one.   

Our old neighborhood was a magical place, with strong ties to each other.  The bond of those formative years  is still strong.  John's gift of my father's love for me demonstrated in the toy chest was just one.  He also recalled others and I will share them with my widowed cousin who lives in Glendora now.  She will love to hear him remember her husband who owned the grocery at the corner, opened after our friend Tina's parents moved their bakery to another neighborhood.   Tina and I email these days.  What's more, she writes to John, in Italian!  She always did have class.

Whenever I mention growing up in Chicago, I hear about the pleasures of small town life.  I suppose so.  Still, Des lived in towns without traffic lights and  indoor plumbing in rural New York,   Not to mention movie theaters, someplace I walked to every Saturday in my neighborhood. I see him as deprived.

Our neighborhood was  town within a city, a, place where everybody knew your name, as that theme song of the bar on TV's Cheers would tell us.  The older I am, the more my memory reverts back to those days in Chicago.  They are clearer to me than the last movie I saw a month ago.  Must be something to do with age.  Or the bonds  of shared history, formed so long ago.

So says Sassy

Fears, Inherited vs Acquired

I grew up in a house of fears.  My mother feared thunderstorms, poverty and sickness.  My father feared success, or else why would he have had a gambling addiction.  That's my theory, anyway.

My mother also feared black men.  I never understood that, because we grew up on the north side of Chicago in the 1930's and '40's.  The neighborhood was mostly white--Irish and Italian, ethnically speaking.

My father worked in a defense plant during the war.  They made bullets for machine guns.  The plant was on the south side of Chicago.  It might have well has been another country.  Once in a while my mother and I would ride several street car lines to meet him after work.  That's when I discovered my mother's fear of black men.  Once our ride took us past downtown and further south, there was a white flight and we soon became the only whites on the street car.  My mother would clutch my arm and keep me tight at her side.

I never asked her about her fears.  The poverty fear was a no brainer.  She grew up without a father and my father wove interesting stories about where the pay stubs went.  She worried about sickness and transferred that to me, but thunderstorms didn't bother me.  I loved them, especially listening from a bedroom attic as the rain pelted down.  I was wary of black men as a child, but shed that fear in my teens.    I guess her worry about the future was easy to understand. I sometimes do that.  Inherited fears stick around far too long.  

Worse are the acquired fears.  I dread speaking in front of an audience, used to have panic attacks and never flew in an airplace until I met Des.  Over the years, these fear became merely past nightmares.  But I can empathize with anyone who has them.  If I ever hear someone admonish a person to 'snap out of it, ' I cringe.  I could write a book.  I did write a short essay called 'What if? - The agoraphobic's Lament."   Those tricky what if's lead down a garden path full of choking weeds.  I try not to go there anymore.

One of my favorite books, "Love Means Letting Go of  Fear" by Gerald Jampolsky, makes the most sense to me.  Paraphrasing his theory, we are either coming from a place of love or a place of fear.  It helps me understand people who are difficult to be around.  I think about Jampolsky's position and try to wonder what that person is afraid of.  It softens my judgments. 

Of course, my all time favorite verse which I have quoted in an earlier blog,  is my mantra for living.  "God has not given me the spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind."    How cool is that?

So says Sassy

 

 

Trigger Words

    

Notice that certain words trigger terror, or at least anxiety.  My broker called the other day to say there was a problem with my account.  Why do we always assume these call are bad news?  Just because I find it too time consuming to balance my checking accounts?  Really, what's the point?  I just enter an amount a dollar or so over the amount of the check in the register and that should take care of problems.  Right?

Anyway,  this turned out to be the IRS who goofed.  We have an estimated income tax payment withdrawn from this account quarterly.  How responsible is that.  Well, my broker said in a calm voice that the IRS wanted to cash a check from my account 'in excess of a million dollars.'  Due on January 15th, 2009.  He called on January 15th, 2009 and suggested we figure out the problem.  Promised he wouldn't honor the check.  Well, duh.  Take away several zeroes and I might be able to honor the $1350 that was actually due. At least that was my plan.   

Doesn't that do your heart good to know that the IRS gets careless with a few zeroes here and there and wipes you out in a heartbeat?  I called my tax preparer and he sounded laid back, said not to worry.  What should I do? I asked.  Nothing, he said.  I hope he is right because I followed his advice.

Meanwhile, news junkie that I am, I noticed that Obama's choice for Treasury secretary was on the hot seat because he forgot to pay some taxes.  Since I voted for Obama,  I trust my trust has not been placed in vain. Just another glitch in the system, I believe.  

Speaking of Obama, I am sure it is no surprise to readers of my blog that I voted for him. It is no surprise to me that some of my readers are not happy with my choice, but most of them are.  It doesn't matter.  I like the guy.  Does my heart good to see a politician who seems to be in love with his wife.  One who's daughters adore him.  One who doesn't lose his cool, is way smart and has a killer smile.There are tons more reasons I feel he is the man for the job at this time in the history of our country, but I won't elaborate.  If you don't like him,  words will not change your mind, and if you agree with me, then it isn't necessary to defend my choice.

On the other hand, I am a little nervous about the IRS.  Over one million dollars they wanted from me.  That's way beyond nervy.  I told Des I was going to write a blog about that.  I think I just did.

So says Sassy

Gratitude

I am a week into my gratitude journal and find a pattern emerging.  Seems friendships and workouts are dominating.  The deal is that I write down 5 things I am grateful for at the end of the day.  It should be easy, but lately I am stuck in neutral with my writing.  I noticed, reading my granddaughter's blog, that she was musing on whether it was possible to have bloggers block.  Must be going around.

Recently, driving from a doctor's appointment in Sassafrass (my red Toyota Corrolla--where the cats sleep at night in the garage on it's roof,)  but that isn't the point here.   Anyway, I was  listening to my CD playing a melancholy Sax that tugged at my heartstrings for no apparent reasons.   Grateful that the doctor's visit was nothing to get too excited about,   I passed a rag tag procession of people with obvious challenges.  Life was not fair to them, I thought, finding tears welling up. 

Hey, lighten up, I told myself.  Still, I felt sad as I watched one guy in a wheelchair, head rolling backward, pushed by a scrawny woman followed by four others intent on their journey.  I guessed they were coming from some day care center, heading for McDonalds a block away.  I thought about my gratitude journal and all I had to be thankful for.    But, maybe they did too.  It is all relative.

I changed the CD to KCET talk radio to kick start my brain into reality.  That's better.  The sun shone brightly, and life was good.  A family of unidentified flying objects, better known as birds I couldn't name, swooped in front of me and soared up to sit along telephone wires, all in a row,  like school kids waiting for the teacher to show up.   Another thing to be grateful for.  Birds.  But not garden lizards, especially when brought into the house by our hunter cat.

Meanwhile, I drove along with my thoughts now that sadness fled and I was mentally writing a grocery list when there sat another sad sight.  At the stoplight where I was turning to go to Trader Joe's, a tattered old man sat in a wheelchair next to a shopping cart full of his possessions heaped within plastic bags.  A teddy bear pearched at the top of his wheel chair and his head was slumped down to his chest.  A cardboard sign sat on his lap but it was not legible from my position. 

Who said that the world is too much with us must have been overcome by the visual sorrows of every day life in a semi prosperous city, with island views and a cross on a hill side overlooking the fair city.  It is a dichotomy, perplexing, mind bogging.  Could be fodder for a blog?

But my blogger is stil blocked and I have too many questions and too few answers for the perplexing unfairness of life.

Wait.  I have one more thing to be grateful for.  My sweet husband, Des, has built wonderful sleep area in the garage next to the wall with soft cushions and blankets in and around it.  So Sassafrass is free to come and go in the garage without having to be undressed from the cats' bedding on it's roof whenever I need to take it for a spin.   Obviously, Des is at the top of my gratitude page.

So says Sassy

 

Confessions

2009 is barely a day old and began ominously.  We have not mailed our annual Christmas greeting to friends and family dispersed all over the map.  I can see them spread out on the dining room table, not the friends, silly--the greetings.  There is the letter, reproduced at Kinko's, a bunch of envelopes already hand-addressed.  Forever stamps at the ready.  Discipline at a level one.  Now I am guilt ridden.  Des is half way there, but he is too busy eating a piece of blueberry cream cheese pie from Marie Callendar's.  This after his lengthy nap.  He has no shame, nor guilt.  But, I am Italian, remember. Guilt is my middle name

Every other year, we have been praised for our Christmas greetings.  The pressure was too great to bear this year.  I decided I lost my cleverness.    What I wrote was boring, but I did include a picture of us.  By the time you get it, we will have aged considerable. I am the one with the most hair. 

So why am I guilt ridden?  Well, I worry about all the people who expected a letter from us and now are convinced we have joined that celestial choir in the sky, or we would sure have written.  And speaking of that celestial choir, that is the only time I will ever be allowed to sing in one.  Trust me, this voice is not melodious.  My mother convinced me of that when I was a little girl trying to sing like Shirley Temple.  My mother would sigh, look at me and say, "Ann Marie, quit moaning."  Obviously, my mother escaped the guilt gene.

This morning, we vowed to mail out the letters before dark.  Easy to resolve while all tucked under a warm blanket watching the Rose Parade.  Resolutions weakened from that point on.  The day got frittered away and we never left the house. 

I didn't even list any new resolutions for 2009.  Just Hit the rerun button on all the other WWW's.  Walk-Water-Write-Worship-Wonder---in no particular order, lest you think my spirituality needs a tune-up.

During the fritter part of the day, I decided to abandon a 500 page novel after plodding through 71 pages.  "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski was an Oprah choiece about a mute boy who understood dogs better than people.  How dare I be bored by an Oprah choice, you may wonder?  Well, I did feel guilty about it, so I picked up a book of short stories by Elizabeth Berg and it soothed away my guilt.  I understand her. I want to be her.  That is my test of a good writer, one I envy.

At mid-day, Des wandered into the living room and I pointed to the Christmas greetings.  He sighed, sat down, tried to fold and stuff a few into envelopes and begged off.  Needed a nap.  See, the letter even bored him.  So off he went, followed by Murphy, the Irish cat who needed a nap,too.  The other cat, Mitzi, had already settled in my favorite chair and yawned. 

The beginning of the year was a lazy stretch and now it is too late to mail anything.  Darkness has descended.  If you are on our mailing list for Christmas greetings, rest assured that we are still alive, appreciative of the letters we received this month from all of you, and plan to send ours out any day now.  If you receive it after Valentine's Day, consider it an early greeting for next December.

So Says Sassy