Maybe I don’t need to worry so much.

Which is unlikely to happen.

So.

I had a post all written (well, half written) (kind of a toss-off) (ok, I hadn’t thought it completely through) about my fears and the realizations I was coming to as a result of examining said fears.

But it’s funny how things work themselves out.

Which is to say that I have lots of fears, still.  Basic stuff, like disasters and Armageddon and such.  But perhaps the deepest fear, the most personal one, is that I don’t have the reservoir that I have long assumed I have – you know, the one that says “I will write a book.”

How many people in America, at this very moment, are laboring on a book?  Plenty, I’m sure.  Boggles the mind.

I had been reviewing the contents of my head recently and despairing at the state of my wellspring, which 20 years (or so) ago was flowing pretty well.  I suppose I always knew that my life would take this path, that the wellspring would suffer from the slings and arrows of “real” life, in which there are marriages and jobs and mortgages and children and all that other stuff that everyone’s life contains.  It’s hard to pay attention to ideas that bob to the surface when you’re in the throes of living — so much so that sometimes the ideas sink to the bottom, having never bobbed up at all.  And I had noticed that.  That nothing was coming to me.

I’d started to believe that my “creative” years were behind me, that there were no more stories in the depths of the wellspring — that, my friends, was plenty distressing and pretty painful.

Maybe it’s a side effect of being paid to write business copy.  Which I am SO not complaining about, because this is the first job I’ve ever had in which that is my entire job description.  It’s a little like a dream come true.  The title on my cube, under my name, is “Wordsmith” — how awesome is that?  But I’d like to grow these meager hours of part-time work so that I can make my car payment with a few shekels left over, and I’ve been trying without much success to find other sources of cash.

And then it dawned on me that maybe I have all this free time on my hands to (besides the summertime mom gig) refocus on my writing.

Which then looped back on itself for the umpteenth time, regarding that pesky dried-up wellspring.

So you see where this was going.  Nowhere.  Crazytown.

And then I had a dream.

MLK jokes aside, I am not much of a dream-type person.  I go to bed and I’m in such a deep sleep that I don’t recall my dreams.  But I’ve had some recall-able dreams here lately, which is unusual for me, and while I can trace the origins for most of them, one stuck out.  It sort of came out of nowhere.  And I pondered it, wondering what to make of it.  It seemed pretty obvious to me that it was the germ of a story, but there wasn’t enough content to see where it needed to go next.

But!  Wellspring, y’all!

And then this morning on my way to my parents’ house to drop Spawn off for the day, an old story muscled its’ way into my consciousness.  It’s a story that I started (YEARS ago) and then set aside because it wasn’t going anywhere.  And truthfully I’m not too sure where the actual saved file resides, though I can remember details of the story and could probably recreate it pretty accurately.  And a little while later I remembered the dream, and the two things sort of fit together.  Not perfectly, of course, but well enough that I got pretty excited.

BOOM!  Wellspring!

Just the fact that I’ve reconnected with that part of my creativity should be enough momentum to carry me forward.  At least for a little ways.

Now to sit down at the typewriter and bleed.

 

 

–Mox

 

 

Knowing.

I’m going to do a little something new and different here.  I tend to live in this space as if it were my whole world, and that means that my whole world is abnormally small from that perspective.  But today I’m going to do something I’ve never done here (at least not in recent memory, my memory really isn’t all that reliable).

I’m going to link to a post from another blog.

Here it is:  http://allietown.blogspot.com/2013/03/end-word-please.html

The reason I haven’t ever done this sort of thing is that it would blow my cover.  I am purposely anonymous and want to keep it that way.  But this is worth viewing.

I have a passing acquaintance with the person who wrote this, in a second-hand kind of way, and while my own child has nowhere near the issues her child has, I can so relate.

I know what it’s like to suspect that “something” about your child isn’t quite right.

I know what it’s like to think “maybe it’s this,” “maybe it’s that” and seek out experts in this or that field.

I know what it’s like to have to sit and listen to a doctor tell you things that confirm your thinking and yet you don’t want to hear.

I know what it’s like to have your spirit wither with this new knowledge.

I know what it’s like to make the decision whether to accept or reject what you’ve been told.

I know what it’s like to be pea green with envy when others from your/your child’s peer group brag about their kids’ accomplishments.

I know what it’s like to become a researching maniac, a tester, a tryer, an adopter, a label-reader, a crusader for that one bit of Rosetta Stone that will readjust the skewed world you live in.

I know what it’s like to love your child with a fierceness that surprises you, to take great offense at anyone who doesn’t see how amazing your kid is.

I know what it’s like to feel defeated, even on the most ordinary of days.

I know what it’s like.

And while I know all of this, what I can’t begin to know is why others can be so cruel.  For most people it takes a watershed moment, something that resets your vision by affecting your life in the most personal of ways, before that cruelty falls away.  Count me guilty.

Why is it that cruelty comes so easily to mankind?  Why don’t love and understanding rise to the top instead?

Are we so afraid of being viewed as weak that we strong-arm our way through life, glossing over our compassion for others?  It’s not a question of eat or be eaten in most cases, so why do we hit first and ask questions later?  Why are we so harsh towards the things we don’t understand?

I must say that by far the best thing about being in my 40′s is the clarity that comes with each passing year.  I better understand the phrase “the folly of youth.”

It’s one thing to be young and foolish.  It’s quite another to be old and foolish.  You really don’t have much of an excuse beyond willful ignorance, and that’s not all that excusable.

One thing’s certain:  regardless of where you fall on the disability parenting spectrum, the slings and arrows of others’ cruelty sting just the same across the board.  Doesn’t matter if your child is severely handicapped or mildly challenged.  It all hurts.

It. All. Hurts.

 

– Mox

 

 

 

 

At the corner of Want and Need.

So I have this recurring fantasy.

Said fantasy does not include piles of money or Channing Tatum, although I may exercise my option for that fantasy on another day.

No, said fantasy is more in keeping with the rich interior life of Yours Truly, The Closet Hermit.  I admit it, I prefer my own company probably just a little too much.  Particularly when the weather is cold.  I’m not a lot of company these days.

But I digress.  Central to my fantasy is this:

This, dear friends, is a caretaker’s cottage, located on an estate just one street over from my home.  The cottage is situated in an orchard well beyond the main house, and it is empty, empty, empty.

I don’t know when the last humans occupied it.  I’m pretty sure it’s occupied by a host of non-human creatures, mice and snakes and such.  And I’m pretty sure the rooms are tiny and unkempt, and probably full of junk.  The man who owns the estate is something of a collector.

I walk my dog along the lane that skirts the edge of the estate (such a grand term for it, when really it’s been reduced over the years to a bit acreage and a cluster of buildings) and I allow myself the freedom to fantasize about that little cottage.  I daydream about what it would be like to have it as a workspace.  I visualize a table in the sunshine, in front of a window, where I could set up my computer and write the next Great American Novel.  I visualize an easel set up where I would be able to get back to painting.  I visualize a table and shelves where I could stash my crafting stuff.

In short, I fantasize about having a little space all to myself, where all my stuff could exist peacefully in the chaotic format it tends to assume, and no one would touch anything and everything would be right where I left it.

I suppose most women, if they are wives and mothers, have similar fantasies.  Just to have a space for themselves that no one can intrude upon.  For me, the best part about it would be the absence of distraction that is endemic to writing, which I am beginning to miss.  (Not that I don’t write every day I’m at work… there’s only so much tech talk you can research and regurgitate before you start feeling a little cold about it.)  I haven’t felt this way about my writing in a long time and I’m a little afraid of it but at the same time a little excited about it too.  It’s been a long, long time since I felt that slow burn.  I haven’t had an idea hit me yet, but when I do I hope it’s a good one.

– Mox

So it happened.

After eight or nine years of living with prostate cancer, my (former) boss is no longer living with prostate cancer. 

To say that I am at a bit of a loss would be accurate. 

We knew this was coming.  Eventually.  Some day. 

I saw him on Friday. 

By Sunday afternoon, he was gone.

And now, the thing he wanted most to avoid is in the process of unfolding, namely, his family is having to sift through a not-quite-finished business.  He so wanted to get his loose ends tied up and save them from having to deal with the mess, thirty-five years in the making. 

And of course I’m in the mix of things.  Because I have some information and some perspective on it, which his wife does not have. 

And though I knew this was coming I am still wholly unprepared. 

There’s a lot of running around (mentally) like my hair is on fire. 

This is the part of adulthood that really, really sucks. 

 

– Mox 

Vermin – 1, Mox – 0

Of all the mysteries that exist in my world, the biggest one at the moment is this:  how is it possible for a household that boasts six cats (four in, two out) and a virtually empty larder to have mice?  Do the mice not realize that there is usually nothing to eat in Mox’s kitchen?

New Year’s Eve:  open the “junk” drawer in my kitchen to grab the scissors and discover that both of my (nice, thick) oven mitts have been chewed up.  Investigate the utensil drawer (the scene of the last murine crime) to discover… ahem… little turds.  Spend the rest of the afternoon furiously scrubbing the insides of both drawers, washing/sanitizing the contents, and pitching wholesale the unsalvageable (goodbye, perfectly seasoned but now splintered wooden spoons! farewell, brand-new but nibbled silicone stirrer! au revoir, entire collection of rubber spatulas!).  Curse feline populace.

New Year’s Day:  host annual Health & Wealth gathering, replete with black-eye peas, cabbage, cornbread, and rice.  Spend entire time shuttling back and forth to cardboard box being utilized as ersatz utensil drawer.  (Dog will eat the corners off the box if it’s left at his level, so it has to sit in one of the dining room chairs.)  Use damp tea towel as oven mitt.  Continue to curse feline populace.  Set old-fashioned snap mousetrap in now-empty utensil drawer, bait with peanut butter.

January 2, 2013:  Open utensil drawer.  Discover more little turds, a hole chewed in the drawer lining, and…. an empty mousetrap, cleaned of peanut butter bait.  Curse feline populace yet again.

2013:  off to an auspicious start, no?

 

– Mox

 

 

A nerd amongst geeks.

Growing up, I was one of those weird kids who read the thesaurus for fun.  I liked knowing different words for things, to be able to say the same thing in a number of diverse ways, or to be able to use a similar word to change the nuance of a meaning.  As a student, I was one of the very few in class who got all charged up when the teacher assigned an essay or research paper.  In my spare time in 5th and 6th grades, I began to write stories.  Bad stories, to be sure, but I was learning to play around with sentence structure and plot and tension and all those other things that make reading enjoyable.  This was a pattern I kept up right through my college years, where I majored in English because literature and writing were the things I understood and loved most of all.

I hadn’t the vaguest sense of what to do with myself once I graduated college, beyond “get a job, any job” and so that’s what I did.  I was just lucky enough to land in a place where my talents were recognized – an ad agency.  My boss needed someone who could write, because frankly he couldn’t write his way out of a wet paper sack.  And for 20 years that’s what I did – I wrote.  Oh, I did other things, too, and that’s been helpful (or at least has paid the bills) but my main identity has been writing.

When that portion of my career (and I call it that because that’s what it is) was over I really despaired of ever finding another good fit like that again.  When you live in a podunk market you don’t have a lot of opportunity to be gainfully employed as a writer without also having to be something else.  The writer part of it tends to be a smaller piece of the pie than you’d really like.

As luck would have it, I managed to find another spot where my ability as a writer has some value.  It’s a slow boat, yes, because heretofore they haven’t had anyone on staff dedicated to writing, and I’m there on the slimmest of margins:  I write content for the company blog.  That’s where it started, really, and it does seem that my boss wants to utilize my talents in other areas because he is starting shop me around as a content creator for other websites.

My new position is with a software developer, you see, and these guys tend to be hard-core code and numbers kind of guys.  I might be a bit like an exotic flower to them.  But I like it, and I like them, particularly since they don’t require me to be particularly gregarious.  Everyone pretty much sits shyly in their own cube and crunches code.  I like that about them.  It feeds my solitary tendencies.

(Sidebar:  I seem to like my own company probably just a little too much.)

My greatest pleasure in this position is when they give me a handful of topics and a broad latitude and then leave me alone with it all.  I’m filling up my little portion of the company drive with lots of content.  Those 20 years writing ad copy have been particularly helpful because I recognize that the company blog is no more than a sales tool, a marketing piece, a branding opportunity.  It’s just more of the same as I’ve been doing for 20 years.

And I’m getting paid for it.  Woot!

 

 

In appreciation.

We have entered those marvelous tween/preteen years at our house.

You think I’m joking.  About the “marvelous” part.  I’m not.

Okay, truth be told, not all of it is marvelous.  In fact some days are decidedly Not Marvelous.  Some days are more like eat or be eaten.

But there is a sea change here, and I am glad to see it.

We’re in that in-between stage where Spawn still thinks of the opposite sex as Just People, without any romantic notions.  Where a fart joke is still the height of comedy.  Where Mom and Dad, mostly, are still okay to be seen with.  Mostly.  We’re standing on the precipice of raging hormones, and the kid is starting to really gel, personality-wise, and so far I like who I’m seeing emerge from the little-kid cocoon.

Could we stand with a little more personal hygiene?  Yes.  Could we do without the heavy sighing and eye-rolling?  Most certainly.  But a switch has been flipped in the kid’s brain and we’re having some really great conversations.

Example:

In the car, coming home from a late evening run to the local DQ, Spawn starts telling me about some show where somebody “goes commando” meaning, in all innocence, that someone is kicking some major butt. 

Me:  Hey, kiddo, I just want you to know something.  There’s another meaning to the word commando, so you might want to be careful how you use it. 

Spawn:  What’s the other meaning? 

Me:  It means to go without underwear. 

Spawn: …

(laughter) 

Me: I just wanted you to be aware of that. 

Spawn:  Wait until I tell (my BFF) M!  (laughter again)

I can distinctly remember back about the time I was Spawn’s age, and I used the word “horny” in conversation – having some idea, yes, of the more adult meaning of the word – and my mother delivering a huge lecture on the use of the word.  Never one to mince words, my mother pounced on me:  “DO you know what that word means?  It means…”  And then I was properly grossed out and embarrassed and I clammed up and never spoke another word in front of my mother that I hadn’t carefully considered the definition of.  Because I was one of those kids who read the thesaurus for fun, and I had a pretty good-sized vocabulary.  And even today I will double-check the dictionary before I use a word in my correspondence or writing.  Because I don’t ever want to feel that sense of stupidity again.

So yeah, I think I handled the whole “do you know what that word means” discussion pretty well, at least this time.

I’m 45 years old, and I still choose my words carefully in front of my mother.  She’s pretty prim and proper, and as she ages, she gets more so.  I don’t want Spawn to have that same reluctance to have a real conversation with me.

I’m a firm believer that 95% of how you feel about things is due to the way they’re presented to you.  I’m working really hard to be a go-to person for Spawn, which is not something my mother was for me.  It’s one of those conscious decisions a person makes about parenting.

Some days I feel like I’m doing something right.

 

– Mox