The plan

 My life very rarely goes to plan.

But I have a plan.

Today I sat down and wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and I'm not sure if what I have is beautiful or pure crap or somewhere bland in between place, but I have a breakdown of my book by chapter, and a list of characters and their traits and relationships. There are some missing pieces - okay, there are a LOT of missing pieces - but the bones are there, and I know that there is something.

Today I wrote over 2000 words in two hours. I'm not sure if it counts because it was outlining, but I think it counts. Figuring out the order is hard for me - telling the story is the fun part, but making sure that I have a story to tell is the hard part. It's taken me a couple of years in my head (playing with the ideas) to get to this point, but now I know I'm ready.

I can't wait to introduce the world to Mary. I think you're going to love her, I think she's going to make you cringe, and I think you're going to cheer for her anyway.

Back at it tomorrow. Tomorrow will be harder because I will teach all day, and still need to walk the dog and make dinner and do the laundry...

But I'll face that tomorrow. Today, I used up all my brainpower by writing, and it was a success. Hurrah!

Visions

 I have a vision that I'm really clear on.

I've had a few visions like these in my life: of being a mother, of becoming a teacher, of surviving cancer, of getting divorced. The vision is always a little fuzzy the way that dreams are always a little confusing, but the messages are clear. I must. I will. It feels like fate, like truth, like inevitability.

And I'm having a vision of being a writer.

My whole life, I thought I was doing everything wrong and that everyone except me had it figured out. I still feel like that most of the time. I keep returning back to the Mary Oliver line, ruminating after a day spent in the fields admiring nature, "Tell me, what else is should I have done?" Oliver is right. It was her destiny to stare at grasshoppers, not because to do so is delightful or restful or something, but because only she could capture it so perfectly that the first time I read her words tears sprang into my eyes, a mixture of gratitude for beauty and the clean pain of a wound that is healing.

I do not fit into the vision that the world creates for me every day.

I don't want to wear sexy high heels and bandage dresses and prove to anyone that I am sexy.

I don't want to be a teacher who grades until 2am because that is what she thinks dedication looks like.

I don't want to spend my Saturdays scrubbing out my house of every speck of dust.

I do not want to be with people who look like they belong in magazines, doing the right things and listening to the right music.

I want to stare out my front window, watching the birds in the bird feeder, playing with phrases in my mind. Might. Light. Nightlight. Mightlight. Might? Right? Rightmight? Might. Light.

I want to read books that I love, not books I'm supposed to love.

I want to play board games with my friends, and I want them to leave by 10pm because I'm tired and done at that hour, no matter how I might wish otherwise.

It is my destiny - as it is all of our destinies - to be myself. I'm still figuring that out, but I think - no, I know - that I'm supposed to be a writer.

I do best in fits and starts. I am not good at focusing for eight hours, twelve hours, grinding it out. I keep listening to Writer's Routine podcasts and I'm startled to hear real writers - successful writers, published writers, writers who make their living writing actual books! - say things like "I only have about two hours of productive writing in me each day." Now, of course there are a handful who write around the clock, but honestly, they sound relatively unhappy and obsessive (and like what I fear I have to be in order to be successful). No, so many of them say things like "I get up and walk the dog, and then I have a cup of tea, and then I dink around on the internet a bit, and then I am filled with self loathing for all I haven't done and then around 10am I finally kick into gear and write like mad until I'm hungry and have to stop for lunch" and the like.

In short, they are doing their thing and being good at it and accomplishing more than enough and making a living by BEHAVING THE WAY I ALWAYS FEARED WAS MY WEAKNESS.

When I work hard, I'm so "on" but I work in flashes. I burn bright and words tumble out of me and my mind is clear and sharp (even when it's messy) and then...it stops. When it stops I have always thought that meant that I was bereft of talent or enough desire or that I was broken in some way. And yet - here these real writers are, and the way they write is... the same way I write?

Some of them say things like "I'm done by noon, and then I walk the dog again and go to the shops and meet a friend and go to the gym..." and I think, "This is a version of life? Not because of sloth or lack, but because it is right and true?" Of course, many of these same folks also fight deadlines, and then they put in their long days and cancel engagements, and burn bright and long and tired...

Which is exactly how I have always done it.

I am not insane for the vision of the life that I have. Others are already living that life - ordinary people who found a way to be true to themselves, to tell their stories.

My vision is that I carve out this way of being for myself. That I stop running wild and anxious for what I haven't accomplished, and that I trust the process that I will do enough, that I will meet the deadline. That I can create a life with time to walk the dog, to be creative, to make my way with words, and to be enough.

My vision:

I write in the mornings. In the afternoons, I exercise, run errands, do podcasts, read, go to museums, connect with friends, volunteer at the food bank. I have time to make interesting healthy meals. I have time to date. I make more than "enough" and I have some ease (though not luxury). Sometimes I teach a semester or a quarter. Occasionally I substitute teach. Every few years I go on a book tour.

I believe in this. I know it's true. It's not a fantasy anymore, because I see it so clearly, in a way that I've seen only a handful of things in my life.

I'm not done teaching. Every day I teach, I learn. Every bit of it matters to me, and I'm proud of it. It will come to a natural end, and I hope that I neither leave it too soon nor too late.

The timeline isn't clear - this is a dreamlike state, but the vision, the feeling of the dream, is certain.

I'm ready to write, and the world is ready to read what I have to say.

I am.

 I have always wanted to be a writer. I know this, because I have always been a writer. I still remember a school assignment from around the second grade (grade two for my fellow Canadians) where we had to write a myth, and I wrote mine about how polar bears became white. I remember asking for extra pieces of paper, because I got lost in the process of writing and the story just flowed out of me, with twists and turns, and in the end I had to end it in a disappointing, sudden manner because I had to turn it in, but I felt like I could have gone on forever.

This taught me two things:

1. Brevity is not my strength; and

2. I am a writer.

I have spent the time since longing to be a writer, walking through bookstores in wonderment that behind every one of those spines was a person who was An Actual Writer who Had the Courage to Write.

But I've kept writing. Sometimes just in a little notebook, with snippets of ideas and words that call to me; sometimes in blogs (this is far from my first - I wrote my way through cancer, and then again through divorce); sometimes in email exchanges with friends (I'm talking to you, HCR); sometimes in stories that - usually at an inconvenient time when I am in the middle of something else or it's 10pm on a Tuesday - suddenly make themselves known to me and need to be written down right away, in that moment.

I have written terrible poetry, a range of essays, countless memoir pieces, and ramblings about the day to day of my life. I have written short stories, outlines for books, and one children's story. I have written in a dozen journals, filling their pages in illegible scrawl. I have written one note for publication in the NYT. I've put too much care into social media comments (before I abandoned all social media, recognizing that it was not the way I wanted to spend my life's energy).

Lately, I return over and over to the Anais Nin quote:

And finally, at long last, I think it's true.

I have spent 51 years dancing around the idea of being a real writer, the kind who actually shares her work with the world, the kind who gets paid, the kind who gets published. I have spent 51 years in longing, desperation, anonymity, ignoring every instinct that told me that this is what I was supposed to do.

Enough.

I might be nobody, it's true. But I don't think so. I think I'm somebody, and I think I have something to say, and I don't think I've wasted 51 years not doing the thing I long to do - I think I've spent 51 years getting ready for this moment.

I've read that Zora Neale Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God in seven weeks. It's so easy to reduce her brilliance into the stroke of genius that allows such a book to flow from her in less than two months, but I'd say that it took her entire life to write that book, and that what was inside of her all along bubbled out in seven weeks.

I have some ideas that have been inside me my whole life about what it means to be a woman, about how we choose right and wrong, about how to be cruel and how to be kind, about doing things our own way, despite it all. I've started writing them down in a book tentatively titled Might. (I love the double meanings of words - there is the might that is power, and there is the might that is possibility. We have all heard that might makes right, but I want to believe that it is our inherent possibility that makes right, not our wild fight to overtake another person with power.)

Not "I might write" but "I am filled with might."

I have frittered away so much time being afraid, and listening to the voices that cried "mend my life" (Oliver) instead of mending my own life.

In order for me to be whole, and heal, and live up to the potential and power of my own life, I must write, and I must be brave, and I must be willing to share how inept I am in addition to how vastly powerful and wise I am, one after the other, and both tangled together.

It's time.

I'm terrified - not that I will write garbage, but that I will not follow through. I have the insane, wonderful, exhilarating hubris that I actually have something to say, and an interesting take on new and old ideas, that - should I ever put them down, and organize them, and take the time - the world will want to read them.

I am putting myself on notice. It's time.

How will I do it? It is one thing to have will, another to have a plan. Do I have a plan?

***

1. Goodbye, television.

2. Remove the NYT from my phone. (So many articles, so little time. I love reading the news, it makes me feel smart and up to date. But the world will not suffer if I'm less well informed, and the hours I waste are quite extraordinary.)

3. Refuse to sleep before I write. I say this rather than "get up at 5am to write" or "write before bed" because I know myself too well. Some days I awaken with an idea, and other times it isn't until it's dark that I figure it out.

4. My goal is 5000 words a week. This is modest - I hope to do more.

***

I have squandered quarantine. I have fallen into sloth and television and staring out the window, dreaming without doing, and I could have written multiple books by now - after all, what else is there to do?! But to say so is also false. I did what I could do when I did it. It's not time to beat myself up, to chastise the me that came before and tell her all the things she did wrong. (I'm good at that - it's time to build a different skill.) Now it's time to be who I've always wanted to be, who I've always been capable of being, who I've always been. Now it's time to put on the outside what has always been on the inside.

Statistically, I will fail. Nobody makes any money as a writer, they say. It's an unstable profession, they say. It's a cute hobby, they say.

Well, screw that.

Bookstores are filled with books from authors who published them.

Everyone can name countless people who make a living writing books.

Lately I read a few books and thought "good grief I can do better than this!" and these are by successful authors.

The statistics area always a lie. They aren't about the individual.

I am ready to tell my truth, and to trust that the world is ready for it. I am ready to find success. My goal is to have something ready to send to publishers before school returns in August, about a half a year, maybe less. This is both an eternity from now and a blink, but I think it's enough. I am not trying to write a book in six months, I'm trying to finish the book that I've been writing on for over 51 years.

It's time.

***

I plan to use this blog to document my process, to tell the story of telling my story. This space will be my warmup, my accountability, and the account of my struggles and strategies and successes.

I'm ready. I'm stiff from being curled into a tight knot, protecting my soft middle. I'd rather fail than not try...but I know, deep within, that I'm not going to fail. This is faith, and it is bigger than my fear.

I am a writer.

How much do you love me?

Growing up, I learned that the way to survive was to praise my father.

But it wasn't enough.

I could say the right words, but he wanted me to believe them. He wanted me not only to walk the party line, to show respect, to do as I was told, but most of all he wanted me to BELIEVE.

He didn't just want me to believe in him - a common enough occurrence, I'm a parent and I certainly like it when my daughter agrees with me or approve of me - he wanted me to truly like the things he liked, approve of the things he approved of, hate the things he hated. Anything less sent him into a rage, or a cold shoulder, or otherwise made my life difficult. He wanted full agreement and adoration.

When I was young, if I wanted something - clothing, toys, activities - that he didn't like, he told me I was stupid. Simple enough. Because of his German upbringing, some of his insults were in German - dummkopf and schweinhund were the two most popular ones. (They translate to "dumb head" and "pig dog" for those not versed in German insults.) It wasn't enough to do more chores, I was supposed to be grateful to do them. If he wanted something, I needed to be happy about it.

There were other insults, too, mostly about intelligence. When I disagreed, protested, or simply said something that he didn't agree with, he told me I was stupid, a cretin, a moron. "Idiot" was common, and I don't remember him telling me that he loved me, but I do recall his shouted "What's the matter with you?" or "What the hell is wrong with you?" as the most common refrain. Disagreement was a sign of lack of intelligence - choosing the wrong item on a menu, or dressing wrong, or liking the wrong movies were all cause for insult.

When I grew up, I got away. Not far away, just across town, but enough. I fought for an education, a career, a life. I carved out a little space for myself in the world, and demonstrated responsibility. I paid my bills, volunteered, held good jobs. I found community. It made me braver. I started to see that other families weren't like mine, and that I wasn't bad for wanting my own opinions, I was normal. My mind was blown. When I watched a friend tease a parent, I cringed, thinking "oh no here we go" and bracing for shouting or worse; when the parent merely laughed I was stunned. I started to learn that it was their version, not mine, that was normal.

(On one occasion when I was eight or nine, my father really gave me a take-down and called me names, and I cried. Perhaps feeling some remorse, he told me that he was just teasing, and I should know the joke. Days thereafter, with this new understanding, he dropped something and I teased him. I can still feel the sensation of his large hand impacting with my face, furious with me. "Teasing" was one directional. Message received.)

Distance made me bolder, and safer. I was a grown women, not beholden to my family. I tried to be a good daughter, but to live my own life. I didn't push back against my family, I just tried not to engage.

Not engaging is not possible.

My father can bear no disagreement, no difference. Every time I chose something different than him - the kind of car I drive (foreign, not domestic), the kind of food I eat (organic, from a wide variety of cultures), the kind of books I read (I read!)...all of it was, to him, not a choice made by a grown woman, but an indictment of his choices.

Sometimes I argued. Of course, that didn't go well. I learned to mostly keep it to myself, to mute myself. But I stepped on landmines anyway.

One Christmas a few years ago, I checked in cheerfully - despite the stress of being in my parents' home - to see which dishes I should bring for the meal. I cook a lot, and enjoy holiday cooking (as do many people). My father said, "We're getting everything pre-made at Costco this year. Don't bring anything, it's all taken care of." I told him I was looking forward to the meal, but that I also enjoyed home cooked food, so I'd supplement with a couple ideas (a home made pie, etc.). He said "No! I told you, we will have it all!" I calmly explained that I liked preparing home made food at the holidays, that it was important to me, and that I prefer home made food, but he didn't need to eat it of course." That wasn't good enough. Not only did he forbid me from bringing anything for myself or to share, he was incredibly angry that I wanted to do so. There was shouting, and actual rage, and demeaning, and questioning my integrity...because I wanted to bake a pie to eat at Christmas. I sucked it up and gave up my hope for good food.

Disappointed, I came to the meal anyway. It was all processed food from boxes and plastic containers; the gravy came in a can. I found it unpalatable and disappointing, but I didn't say so. My father was not satisfied with my cheerful company, or with the fact that he'd won (the food on the table was of his choosing). He wanted me to say that I was wrong, that I loved the Costco food, that it was better than what I would have brought, that it was preferable, that he was right all along. He wanted me to apologize for offering to bring food. My attempts at diplomacy ("I'm just glad to be here with my family" and "it's so generous of you to provide everything") were not enough. He needed me to recant on my wishes, to deny them, to tell him that I should have known better, that his food was the best in the whole world. He brought it up over, and over, and over, souring the holiday. I had to choose between placating him and being honest. (I was distant, honest...until I declared a headache that made me need to leave.)

I have dozens of examples like this. It is crazy making. It isn't enough to say "We can agree to disagree" or to say "thank you" or to say "this tastes good" he needs to know that he was right, that I was wrong, and that even the idea of disagreement was a mistake.

It wasn't about the food. It was all about his insatiable desire to be The Best, to be Right, to be Adored. His version of adoration leaves no room for difference. 

I have all kinds of theories about why it is that way. I think that when I disagreed, it triggered all of his senses of not being enough, of not being loved, of not being appreciated or understood. It triggered his own power dynamics with his own parents. It made him feel insecure, and small, and scared.

And so, like narcissists everywhere, he responded with anger, attempts to control.

And worst of all? I couldn't use logic, truth, or reason. I couldn't change the conversation, flatter about something else, set a boundary, use counter-facts, or point out that arguing about mashed potatoes was silly and we could just let it go.

"Let it go" is not in his vocabulary.

Living like that for my entire life changed me. I became an expert at dodging, both in and out of conversation. I became an expert at finding the compliment and amplifying it. I became an expert at anticipating needs and meeting them. I became an expert at smoothing things over.

But it was never enough.

Imagine, if you can, what it's like to invoke someone's rage over a disagreement over home made vs. store bought mashed potatoes. Imagine what it's like when more important topics come up. I hope you can't imagine it. I hope this feels a little other-worldly to you. If you can understand, empathize, then I'm sorry. Sorry for both of us.

Right now, our nation is arguing with Donald Trump, not about mashed potatoes at the holiday table, but about democracy. He cannot hear anything other than what he wants to hear. Any pleading, any attempts at logic, will fall on deaf ears. Worse, like gremlins, the truth is like water, and when wet with truth, Trump will double down, over and over, exponentially, his rage increasing.

I'm sure it's because his father was an asshole and that he doesn't feel loved, and that he has a giant gaping hole inside that makes him feel like he's dying and that only pure loyalty, respect, love, and adoration can make him survive. I'm sure of these things, because I grew up with them. If you don't believe me, just look at his behavior, just listen to what he says, how he behaves. He cannot abide anything but reverence - anything less than being treated as a god causes him to lash out. I almost feel sorry for him.

But I know that we're in such a dangerous time that even my sympathy for his unmet needs is dangerous, and that if he could, he'd manipulate that sympathy, too, which he sees as a sign of weakness. Incapable of understanding another viewpoint, because it would mean possibly understanding that he did not know everything, that he was fallible. He can't be fallible, he has to be perfect, or his whole world view crumbles. He will fight with any means possible to make sure that doesn't happen. If a narcissist sees sympathy, compassion, or kindness, they see it as proof of another's weakness.

The most dangerous time in an abused woman's life is the time that she decides to leave her abuser.

I escaped my family in degrees - by going to college, by moving across town, by choosing my own path, and creating a series of boundaries every time. But in the end, my parents rejected me. I crossed the line by saying something they didn't like, and unlike in healthy families, they couldn't talk about it, negotiate, ask questions, or let it go. Instead, my father screamed at me, and told me he was ashamed of me, and that was that.

It is one of the hardest things I've ever gone through, and it still impacts me. But mostly, it was a gift. Holding my breath all the time, trying to please someone unpleasable while still remaining true to myself, was impossible, and it hurt. I don't do that anymore. I still hurt, but so much less. Who knew that the amputation could save my life? I miss the limb - how is it that I do not have a family, though they live? - but I value my life more than the limb.

But America will have to fight harder than I did. My father is not in the public eye: for him, having the last word and declaring me persona non grata is enough for him. But Trump will not stop there. He will go to any length - and based on the attempted coup in our Capitol, "anything" could be ANYTHING. Based on chants of "Hang Pence" and the President encouraging an angry mob... I shudder to think of what could come next. I couldn't imagine a coup in our halls of democracy, and yet here we are.

America is trying to leave her abuser. and she's in grave danger. With pursuit of facts, we might win. I fear we will lose a limb, too, and I'm scared about what that looks like.

But if an abuser says "How much do you love me?"  and demands 100% fealty, there is no room for anything other than godlike adoration, and we will fall short. Trump needs perfect love, and we will never be able to give it to him.

Some women are killed by their abusers as they try to leave. It seems to me that is happening to us now. It's really, really easy to back down, to try to soothe it, to hope for peace. But women DO leave without dying. Not all of them, but some of them. He might try to kill - but he won't always succeed.

But my experience, with 51 years of trying to figure out how to please someone who can't be pleased because he's hurting too much to see past his own nose, I have this advice.

Pack your bags. Have a plan. Gather your friends. Practice self care. Get a therapist. Be prepared for shouting, rage, and horrible, horrible, horrible words that will wound you in places that you did not know that you could be wounded. But - take the leap.

Being with an abusive person, whether that is a boss, a spouse, or a partner, infiltrates every minute of your life, when you're with that person or far away. But you need to get out. At first, it hurts all over, but once you realize that you're out, the relief is indescribable.

America is in an abusive relationship, and that relationship is ending. Hang in there, grit your teeth, cry, and scream at the unfairness of it all.

But when the abuser asks, "How much do you love me?" no answer will ever be good enough. You can't be good enough, you can't say the right thing, you can't make them feel good about themselves to help them to see reason and behave.

So you get out.

Surviving

 As a former breast cancer patient, I'm often referred to as a survivor. When I tell people that I've been through cancer, their first words are often "I'm sorry" (what - were you responsible?) or "Congratulations." I recognize that the former is a polite way of saying "I wish that didn't happen to you" but the latter is said as - as what? Acknowledgment that I am not dead? Proof of something about me, maybe that my cancer wasn't that bad after all, or that I fought valiantly, or something else? Other occasions where we say "congratulations" include graduations, promotions, bringing new life into the world, summiting the mountain, writing the book, winning the lottery. Perhaps people are right to say "congratulations" not for any of the former reasons except the last. I know plenty of extraordinary women (I'm thinking of Lisa and Casey right now, more than any other, but there are so many more) who fought valiantly, had an incredible attitude, did whatever it took, and died anyway. It is not because they were less deserving of life than me - to the contrary, I feel the weight of knowing that I lived, while they did not, and I wonder if I'm doing what it takes to live up to their lost legacies - it is because I had the strange and extraordinary luck to win the lottery of life over death (so far).

Surviving, I can tell you, is a mystery.

I fought harder than just about anyone to stay alive, it's true. I took all the drugs, refused to give up when the side effects crippled me (this is not an exaggeration - thanks Femara and Aromasin).When I got third degree burns in radiation that made my radiation oncologist literally gasp at the sight and say "we're done!" I begged to continue through the pain, the ooze, the skin falling off. (Sorry not sorry. You probably didn't expect to read such a ghastly vision when you started reading this, but the truth is that those pink ribbons hide an awful lots of hideous horror.)

I survived.

But I know women who shrugged off their treatments - one who said "I don't like how the pills make me not care about sex; life is too short, so I want to enjoy sex with my husband" and despite her dire prognosis (much worse than mine) she stopped treatment, and, to the best of my knowledge, is still alive and well today. I know women (including ones I only know as an online celelbrity, like Kris Carr) who decided that conventional medicine was Bad with a capital B and went all juices and clean mountain air, and remain alive. I know many more women who made those choices and died. And yet - so many of us live, and we are declared "victors" in the "fight" who have "won" the "battle" and we gain respect and admiration from friends and strangers who applaud us for this accomplishment.

But I don't know how I lived, only that I did. How does a lottery winner win? They play the losing game, but then they get lucky. There are no magic numbers, no systems for bucking the rules - there are just some lucky winners.

But make no mistake: my confusion over the way survivors are lauded in no way negates the way that I feel about having made it fifteen years past the diagnosis that I feared would kill me. I shake my head in wonder sometimes that I get to do magical things like get mad at my teenager for not completing an assignment; or mowing the lawn; or reading a book. When I stand at the edge of the ocean and smell the waves, eyes closed to take in the sounds, scents, sensations - I still think "I nearly missed all of this, and I'm here" and it is so overwhelmingly beautiful that I think about doing a little Sound of Music twirling. (Sometimes, if nobody is around, maybe I do.)

Surviving is confusing, but it's the most beautiful thing there is. I can't explain to you what it feels like, but maybe you know: most of us have had near misses in car accidents, or fevers, or cancer, or appendicitis, or any of a thousand things that nearly kill us. But if you are one of the Really Really Lucky Ones who never had it all go upside down and then had to fight to keep your breath, what I will say is this:

I'm convinced that the depth of my sorrow and loss is only matched by the new heights of my joy.

I feel things more now. Ordinary things aren't ordinary when you think that you might have never seen them again. I understand why people sometimes kiss the ground when they arrive at their destinations, why they burst into tears upon hearing the good news.

It took me years and years to understand it myself, but as awful, painful, and impacting the cancer diagnosis and treatment was on my life, and as much I never ever want to go back and relive it, or, even worse, experience it again in the future (oh please God no, please), I am strangely grateful that it shaped me the way it did, and I like myself more for having handled it to the best of my ability.

My life changed for the better because of the combination of getting cancer and surviving it. I feel more joy, I know what matters to me, and I'm less afraid. (I've done things that would make a lot of people weep. I found my way, often with weeping, but often without. I might be the strongest person you know. Knowing that strength makes me less afraid.)

Which leads us - so much rambling, congratulations if you've made it this far - to the present.

If you're reading this, you and I both survived 2021.

***

First, let's talk about the 350,000 or so Americans who have died from COVID19, and because we know that the world is made up of many places and not just America, let's talk about the over 1.4 million people worldwide (as of November 27) who have died, and the millions and millions of people who are still fighting to regain their lives as a result of the virus. I cannot fathom numbers like that, and when I try to do so it makes my chest squeeze in an alarming way. As they keep saying, "all those empty chairs at the table" and I'm thinking of mothers mourning children, and children mourning grandparents, and new brides made new widows, and it's all unbearable.

I've been careful, and I'm not in a high risk category if I do get it, but we all know that some of it comes down to luck, good or bad. I am healthy, and I do not take that for granted for one second. Perhaps you are lucky, too. So here we are, alive. I know very few people who have actually been diagnosed with COVID, and since I'm white, educated, middle class, and in a state (and on the side of the state) that values wearing masks and distancing and has closed restaurant dining and gyms and theaters so that even those who wish to cannot go indoors and breathe on someone else... so I'm lucky. (In case you've been living under a rock or avoiding the news, I'll explain my white comment. Black and Brown people are much more likely to die of COVID. They are much more likely to get deeply ill. They are much more likely to receive subpar care. This is fact, not opinion, and if you disagree with me please do your research. It is tied to income, but not a result of income: low income folks in general do worse with everything, but low income people of color do MUCH worse. This is horrible, and not the point of this post, but needs saying as often as possible so that people do something about it.)

So, I'm lucky again.

I'm also lucky that my job moved online and I was able to work from home. Teaching online is SO DAMN HARD: the tricks up my sleeve don't work half as well online, and while my students assure me that my class is doing better than some and as well as can be hoped, we all know that people just don't learn as well online, and it makes my job frustrating and confusing. My eyes ache from staring at a screen, I feel ineffective a great deal of the time, and I fear that I'm not giving my students what they need, and my motivation is lower than ever because of all of these difficulties. But I'm grateful every minute, because my difficulties are NOTHING compared to some. I have a warm, safe, comfortable home with a quiet space to work. I didn't lose income (well, except child support, because my daughter's father is unemployed in the pandemic). I have medical benefits in case I do get sick.

So. I know that businesses have closed left and right, that so many are unemployed, that so many are sick, that so many have died. I know these things, feel them until my body tightens with the pain of it all, the immensity, the powerlessness.

But I want to talk to you about survival.

If you are reading this, whether you are ill, or you are unemployed, or you are as lucky as I am, you are reading this. You have survived 2020, for better or worse.

With survival comes joy - who among us wasn't relieved to see the clock hit midnight, hoping that the worst was behind us?

But now comes the business of making it all mean something.

Most people who win the lottery squander it. By the time they're done, they've lost friends and family, spent great quantities of money, and seem no happier than when they started it.

So - surviving cancer is like winning the lottery. I got a rush of love and gratitude that was intoxicating every time I got an "all clear" scan, and on every birthday, every life event, every holiday, and watching my daughter turn from a tiny toddler (she was two when I was diagnosed) to a beautiful woman makes me well up with wonder and thankfulness. One of my many doctors - this one was supposed to put me together physically after cancer - saw how I was embracing life so thoroughly and with such joy and gratitude after I was done with the worst surgeries, chemo, and radiation, and he sat me down and said, "This phase you are in will pass. These wonderful feelings you have now will one day be replaced with more ordinary feelings; the initial rush of being alive will fade. My advice to you is to find new habits, new ways of living, while you have the energy and focus to do so."

It was the best advice that I received about surviving.

With surviving, comes some responsibility, to ourselves and to others. To ourselves, to make good of the life that we did not earn - we won the life lottery, and we're alive, when the disease that tried to kill us allowed us to escape, but some of our friends are dead from that same disease. We owe it to ourselves to live our best life, because if this isn't a wakeup call, then what is? We owe it to ourselves to care for our health: as I like to say, I didn't survive cancer to be taken down by a heart attack. It is a time to add vegetables and fruits, to go for daily walks, to meditate or do yoga. We owe it to ourselves to heed the call of our bodies to stay alive, and to do what it takes.

And, knowing how close we came to nearly losing it all, we owe it to ourselves to not merely stay alive but to really live. I'm not kidding when I talk about that Sound of Music moment that I have, with some regularity, at the edge of the small beach closest to my house. I walk the dog there, and I stand on a log, and I wonder how I ever got so lucky. I never, ever walk by without taking a moment to really take it in, to feel deep in my bones how fortunate I am. This translates to a lot of things: to time visiting with a dear friend, to camping trips, to a really good song on the radio on the commute, to shared jokes, to good food. It means stooping to look at a flower or to hunt for four leaf clovers, delighting in a favorite coffee mug. Little stuff adds up.

And there is the big stuff, too. If I had died, I would have missed so much that I long to do. I wouldn't have been there to tuck my daughter into bed at night, so for years afterwards I felt such tenderness in our nighttime ritual that I felt like I was floating. And I realized that my marriage, the shape and size of it, did not fit me at all, that I couldn't breathe within it, and so I found the courage to leave. I found meaningful work. Little things, and big things.

And with every breath I remember how lucky I am to be here at all, that some of my cancer friends weren't so lucky, and that I could have been them.

Dr. Zucker gave me a poem that I treasure to this day, Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Before you know what kindness really is,

you must lose things, 

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth...

So here we are, at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, and we survived. We have lost things. We've been stuck inside, and we've missed celebrations and hugs and the small joys of visiting in coffee shops and popping our heads into a colleague's office. We've lived with fear, and moist masks, and isolation, and economic worry. We've lost a lot of the joy of our jobs, missing handshakes and genuine laughter and bagels for everyone in the break room. We've missed game nights, dinner parties, concerts, and plays. We've been cooped up, alone or with those we love, crabby at our confinement.

And the end is in sight.

Soon, in a few months or a year, we will all be vaccinated, and we will slip back into something closer to normal life (albeit possibly with modifications). We will once again have to pretend to pay attention in the meeting instead of turning off our cameras and checking our phones or painting our nails through our boredom. We will be saddled with traffic jams, and slow waiters, and overpriced movies. We have all come through such hard times, and we have survived.

But as we look at our survival, we need to decide now how we're going to shape that survival. We are here, so we are lucky. (Maybe you are luckier than me, with a loving family and spouse and adequate savings. Maybe you are less lucky than me, without a beloved child or a comfortable home or work that is meaningful to you. This is not about ranking our luck: if we are alive, we are in luck.)

What will we do with our fortune? What lessons will we learn? Will we remember forever that to hug a friend is a joy, or will we let it slip away? Will we hold the dinner parties, or will we complain about how much work it is to clean the bathrooms and get the food prepared? Will we spring for the concert tickets? Will we remember the lessons about what we felt like we might lose forever, and live in gratitude moving forward?

I'll be honest. Five years after cancer, it was a lot easier to remember the gratitude, because regular doctor visits were reminders that I was not "normal" and that it could still all vanish in an instant. Fifteen years later, it is my habits - a gift from Dr. Zucker's reminders - that keep my gratitude alive. I have wired my brain to notice the sunsets, the sparkle of the rain, the smile of a friend. This summer, one of my favorite moments was drifting on the waves on a child's floatie (mine was a ring with a mermaid tail) next to my dear friend, who drifted on her own floatie (shaped, according to the package, like a "realistic lobster"). It was hilarious. The water was cold, the day was hot, the waves washed us - inept because were couldn't get our balance on the floaties - onto the sand and then soaked us. We are middle aged women, not playful children or flirty teens, and I laughed until it hurt. My friend - perhaps smarter than me - knew to say "yes" to my crazy idea of floating along the beach on children's toys, just for the fun of it. But for me, it was part of my commitment to simple pleasures available for the taking. The chores were done (enough). My daughter didn't need me (just then). The day was sunny. My friend was willing. I chose life.

So, we have survived. 2020 is gone, and the old calendar recycled, the new one freshly pinned to the wall. We all get to decide who we will be in 2021.

Who will I be? Will I remember, a year from now or twenty years from now, how I longed to go to book talks and art walks and happy hours? Will I take the appreciation of filling my table with my people with me into the future? Or will I fall back into old ways, taking for granted so much of my life?

With surviving comes responsibility. 1.4 million people have died so far, and won't get to make these choices. What, I wonder, do they wish they had done before they died? How many of them died content with their choices? What would they do differently if they had to do it all over again?

If I live my life the way I want to, then I honor those who did not survive.

I'm a survivor. Now I need to figure out what to do with that! I have some ideas - do you?

New Ideas

 I love the rituals of the seasons. I throw myself into pumpkins and cinnamon and knee high brown boots and orange scarves in the fall; the day after Thanksgiving I wrap my rooms in garlands and lights and ornaments and nutcrackers. In the summer I love to wear big floppy hats and gauzy swim cover ups and flip flops while I picnic on a beach.

And in the week after Christmas, I dream, I vision, I plot, I ponder.

This year, the heavy emphasis is on plot. I'm writing 1000 words a day. I've already started, because the stories that were inside me when I was born have been developing my whole life, and at long last, I'm not afraid to tell them. I'm not afraid of the critics, I'm not afraid that I'm stupid, I'm not afraid that what I say won't be read by anyone.

I'm not afraid.

This year, I'm writing my book. I'm on my way, sure of it, grateful. The words are spilling out of me. I love my characters, even my antagonist, who I once thought only filled with hate.

I am becoming (thanks, Michelle Obama) the person I was always supposed to be. At 51, it's better late than never, but I feel a young woman's excitement. I'm standing up a little taller, telling my friends, giggling and giddy. I'm a writer. Now I'm a writer for real, because I'm writing. I cannot control the future and I cannot force a publisher to like what I say, but I know this: I'm writing it anyway. I am convinced that I have something to say that the world needs to hear, and that the world will want to share. That is enough.

***

One thing that I am not doing this year is plotting my weight, my wardrobe, my clothing size. I have no plans to tone my arms, to reduce my belly fat, or to eat ten fruits and vegetables daily. I am not re-joining Weight Watchers (though I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered it). I am not stepping on the scale and measuring my worth by what that number tells me.

Is this because I've achieved perfection? Is this because my waist is trim, my buttocks and thighs smooth, my arms strong?

No.

This is because I have spent too much time in my life worrying about how I looked, and feeling like I wasn't good enough. I've hidden behind drab clothing when I was bigger, and I've strutted like a peacock (but not a peahen) when I was smaller, but I have felt judged, for better or for worse, by my weight, and I'm done with that.

I like who I am becoming, and my body has carried me this far. It has carried me over mountains, and into lakes and oceans; it has birthed a child, it has held lovers. It has stood up to a grizzly, and to an abuser who was threatening his wife and children with a gun and his rage. It has fought cancer, and cancer treatment, and anaphylaxis, and surgeries gone wrong. It is covered with scars that are ugly yet beautiful. Ugly because they replaced something smooth and clean with ragged and jagged; insanely beautiful because they are marks of my survival.

So this year, for new year's, I vow to love my body. I will continue trying to take care of it - I just got back from a wonderful four mile walk with Chance - because I really do feel better when I eat fruits and veggies, and because when I get outside my soul breathes easier, and because I want to live a long life. But I am not convinced that trying to twist my body into a shape that doesn't quite work, and requires constant vigilance, is right for me.

My energy is going to be spent on loving myself, not chastising myself. This is new.

I am not conventionally beautiful. I was not granted supermodel looks through the genetic lottery; I suppose in that way I am quite ordinary.

But I know how to be beautiful.

I am beautiful when I shriek as I jump into an alpine lake, eyes lit up with excitement and the thrill. I'm beautiful when I help a student to work through a problem, to see themself as whole and good. I'm beautiful when I tell the truth. And sometimes, I'm beautiful when I'm paddle boarding, or when I wear a particular dress and heels.

When I'm living my best life, my eyes light up and shine, and some see me as beautiful because they long for the light.

When I'm tugging at my sweater, holding my belly in, and marking down every bite, I'm not beautiful, and I'm not whole, and it takes so much damn energy that I forget how to focus on the things that matter.

***

This year, I am writing a book, and I am focusing all my energy on the ideas I'm trying to express, and on being the writer that I have always been. I accept my body, and I will treat it well, but this is not a year to focus on a marathon or a goal weight. I will walk, or run. I will do yoga, or paddle board, or hike, or snowshoe. I will eat salads, but also pasta.

This is my way of saying that I'm worth it.

This is my declaration to myself that I do not have to change in order to be worthy. I do not have to become something new, or turn everything upside down or inside out in order to be good.

I'm good.

My sheets are in the wash, the fridge is full of good vegetarian food (because we've been playing at vegetarian for a few months, having meat only rarely, and it actually feels great). I have a stack of books to read. I canceled the Hallmark Movies Now subscription, because it was a good way to rest at the beginning of break, but I'm done with it now.

2020 was hard, but it wasn't all bad for me. I slowed down enough to remember some things I really care about. I fell in love with my home all over again. I got unexpected time with Tessa. I missed my friends, but I also connected with them. I wrote.

I have been hoping to fall in love for years now, and it hasn't happened at all the way I'd hoped it would: I am quite, quite single. But now it seems right that it should be so. There is a thing I haven't done, because I told myself I wasn't good enough, and "not good enough" is not good partner material (how I would loathe a relationship with a man who walked through the world believing that about himself).

This year, I'm falling back in love with myself. Not with caveats, but with tenderness.

I'm a writer. I have something to say. I'm not afraid of putting my stories out there, because I know they have worth. I know I have worth. I'm not afraid to pursue my dreams, and when success comes, I won't be afraid of it. When someone says that I am a late bloomer, I will smile at them and shake my head "no" because I've blossomed many times before; this is just a new kind of bloom. Some will think that this is sudden, but not those who have really known me. I've been working on this my whole life, in one way or another, turning the words over in my head, on scraps of paper, on pixels. The only difference now is that I'm ready.

Welcome, 2021. I've been waiting for you, and I'm ready. Happy new year!

A season for reinvention

It is Christmas Eve morning, and I'm writing from my cozy bed on a frosty morning. I've already had my two cups of coffee - in a Christmas mug, of course! - and I've been thinking about my personal universe in the quiet of the house. The gifts are wrapped, the tree is decorated, the lights are on, the groceries tucked away and awaiting transformation. Today I'll spend a big portion of the day baking, and then tonight we'll indulge in our Christmas Eve tradition of cheese fondue followed by a movie (this year, Tessa picked "Love Actually" which, though problematic, still has its charms).

Not much about this year feels traditional, and so many traditions have been lost: no Greenlake Luminaria Walk (the Pathway of Lights), no Christmas Ships at Lowman Beach or Alki, no holiday carousel or downtown gingerbread houses, no holiday parties. But other traditions endure: friends have dropped off festive cookies, we've watched holiday movies, we sent and received cards. We've driven around looking at lights. We wrapped gifts, and placed them under our tree (and setting that up is a tradition I love). I found a copy of Bing Crosby's Christmas album in a thrift store bin, and we've been listening to the wonderful crackle of a vinyl White Christmas.

I know how lucky I am. Others have it much worse.

This year of online school - as a student for Tessa, and as a teacher for me - has been challenging, painful, difficult, frustrating, limiting. But at the same time, it's been wonderful. We've had a chance to slow down, to hit the reset button.

I love the reset button.

I try to reset twice a year: once at New Year's, when everyone is doing it, and once in late August, as I prepare for the school year (the "real" new year in a teacher's life). I love vision boards (note: my vision board last year said "More Snow Days" and I am quite amused that the entire year turned into a snow day...!), journal writing, and putting the house in order (out with the old!) in preparation for new visions. (I'm not sure what it is about cleaning a closet and taking a trip to Goodwill that is so satisfying, but it is, and the empty spaces make me feel refreshed and focused.)

I've hit reset a few times in life, too. When I went to college despite my parents' ambivalence, when I left Microsoft to get my masters and become a teacher, when I became a stay at home mom, when I got divorced and re-entered the workforce, and when I became a teacher again... all of these were resets. And I'm due for another reset, I think, and I'm relishing it, planning it, savoring the prospect.

So here we are, on the cusp of a new year, and on the cusp of getting vaccinated against covid, and on the cusp of re-entry to the world of work, school, and more. The whole world will reset - in a few months, or in a year, the reset is inevitable. But what will it look like? Will it be an attempted return to normal, or will it look utterly different? Can we even plan for it, or will life surprise us (again)?

I can't predict the world, and my ability to predict my own life is limited (so much happens that is outside of the plan!), but I am so grateful for the times I hit reset in the past, and I'm excited that I get another opportunity to do so. Each time I've hit reset I've moved closer to my truth, and this will be no exception. I can't control it all, but I can control some things, and create the life that I crave.

I only have two ideas this year. Oh, I have lots of ideas really - travel, love, museums and plays, concerts, camping, hiking, snow shoeing, cabins - but I've boiled it down to two things I really care about:

1) Buy nothing new.

2) Write the book.

The details:

I have been self-medicating through online shopping. (There, I said it.) I'm not proud of this - I feel sheepish and wasteful. I haven't bought anything too expensive, but I've bought unnecessary things. I've purchased too many sundresses, too many sweaters, too many shoes. While making jewelry is a wonderful new hobby, we have so many charms that we'll never use them all - it's a bit over the top. There have been kitchen gadgets (did I really need butter warmers and a six pack of crab crackers AND seafood scissors? - don't answer, I already know!), books I still haven't read. I have enough throw blankets to cover the neighborhood. I have so many picnic things that I could host the neighborhood at the park. It's too much.

I don't need anything. My home is filled with all of the comforts: there are comfortable chairs, soft sheets, cupboards full of dishes. When I cook, I use wooden cutting boards in a variety of sizes, with just the right knife: I place things in just the right size bowls for mis en place, and enough dishes to entertain a crowd. I have the right coat for the right event. I have camping equipment, ski gear, paddle boards, and (new!) snowshoes. I work at a stand-sit desk, in an office with a good little printer, cups full of pens. The refrigerator is always stuffed. Their is a bin filled with manicure supplies - polish and emery boards, cotton pads and remover. There is a games cupboard filled with board games. There are so many books, everywhere. My closet is so stuffed that it overflows into the guest room closet.

We lack for nothing important. We are so, so lucky to have these comforts, but it strikes me that I have too many comforts, and that managing them is a slight burden, and that my guilt that I am not living my values (I really do believe in simplicity, ethically sourced items, and avoiding excess) is greater than my joy in the items themselves.

So the new idea for 2021 is to buy nothing new. The only things we will buy will be consumables (food, of course, but also batteries, light bulbs, cleaning supplies, etc.) and thrifted items. If something wears out, we'll try to replace it with something used. (I did inventory of socks and underwear, and we're all set. Not all things are better used!) Tessa and I love thrifting, so we can find fun novelty items there: I love finding some cool old vinyl, a great serving platter, a wonderful basket, or some other small treasure. My favorite bookstore (Pegasus) has used books. I get a thrill finding the perfect cashmere sweater for $10 - there is no way I'm going to spend $200 on a sweater! - and I love the idea that I'm not contributing to workers in terrible conditions making clothes for pittance wages. 

I get no such thrills from Amazon, and the items are never quite right. (Realizing that the red dress was a hideous shade of semi-neon red, not a warm rich red, I was suitably punished by standing in line for a very long time at the UPS store so that I could return it. Had I been in the store, I never would have bought it - the fabric was cheap, the color was wrong. I had plenty of time to reflect upon my foolishness while in that line.)

Some of this is a wise financial decision - I've been wasteful, and my bank balance hurts when I do that. Some of this is a wise environmental decision - over consumption hurts our planet. Some of this is a wise soul decision - I am not my purchases, and when I focus my attention on Amazon.com then I'm not paying attention to what matters in my life. I can do better. I must do better!

Mostly, it's a soul decision. If I'm going to sit in front of my computer, it should be to compose a warm email to a friend. or to write my stories.

So: in 2021, I buy nothing new. Fun money can be spent on travel, or concerts, or entertaining, or plays and movies. It is a reminder to myself: I have enough. I am enough. I am focused elsewhere.

And speaking of focused elsewhere: I am focused on writing.

2) I am writing my book.

I am so sure of this. I know what I want to say, and I know why. This is the story that has been bubbling in me my whole life. This is a thing I must say. I know who the characters are, I know what they must endure, and I know the subtleties of their mistakes and their joys. It is time to bring them to life. I hope - dare I say, I believe! - that the world will want to read my story, that there is something beautiful and pure in it that will resonate with others. I hope that this will launch my writing career. (Fantasy: I work part time as a teacher. I still love teaching, but wouldn't it be extraordinary if I could do a 0.6 and get benefits and have connection, but still have time to write?!)

But it's okay if that's not what happens. I'm not writing this so I will get fame or fortune. I'm writing this because it is my soul's work to write this, so I have to do it. It is my truth, told in fiction, and I'm excited by it more than I'm nervous.

2021 is sure to be filled with surprises, some of them wonderful, some of them tragic. My beloved daughter is so unsure of her next steps, I worry for her. I don't know what the future holds for my own health, or if I will ever find the kind of love that I know exists for some people but not yet for me. I do not know if the world will reopen so that I can see Shakespeare in the Park or get on a plane or see Alicia Keys live in concert. There is a lot that I do not know.

But I know that I can write, so I'm going to write. And I know that I can focus on things bigger and better than trying to buy my happiness. I know that I'm filled with adventure, and hope, and possibility.

This year when the ball drops, I won't be there to see it, and I'm pretty sure that the fireworks will be from some other year gone by, and that my evening will be solo or with one slightly cranky teenage girl. That's okay. Next year is filled with promise, and I'm ready to keep my promises to myself and see how it changes everything.

I've hit reset before and reaped the rewards, so I know that it is within me to do it again. I can't wait for 2021!