Month: October 2017

Life

Can you hear me now?

Mary C

Metro_Diner_Cafe_Interior

There was an interesting Miss Manners column over the weekend which caused me to reflect on my own experience in social situations as a person who cannot hear in noisy environments. The advice seeker had a couple of friends who preferred silence when they go out to dine and she was frustrated and perplexed about the situation, turning to Miss Manners for counsel. I know this scenario all too well and found myself in a similar position over the weekend at a trampoline park birthday party. If you’ve been to one of these, you know what I’m talking about.

I cannot hear. Let me just put that out there. That’s not completely true because I’ve gone to lengths to improve my hearing over the last several years. About 11 years ago, when I returned to work from maternity leave, I found myself with a new boss, a boss who was a soft talker. I thought maybe the last twelve months I’d spent at home with my child had left my hearing for the worse, with the crying, screaming and tantrums that had been occurring. I gave it a few weeks but finally decided to address it with an ENT. I was 40 years old and if I needed hearing aids, so be it.

Continue reading “Can you hear me now?” →

Writing

Finding the Time to Write

Mary C

clocks-1098080_960_720.jpg

I have read several books on writing and attempted the twelve week program outlined in The Artist’s Way over the summer (I didn’t make it past week three). The advice I most often see is to write in the morning and to commit to a block of time to do so. This sounds great to me but then I remember I have a job. A job where I’m in the office at 7 a.m. so right there I throw out the idea of morning writing. I so want a true writer’s life where I can devote specific hours to it every day.

For a time I tried getting up at 5 a.m. so I could at least put in an hour in the morning but that lasted as long as the end of summer when darkness and cooler weather enticed me to remain under the covers until 6 only giving myself enough time to quickly shower and dress before leaving the house at 6:40. When I was morning writing, some days it would be hard to break away from the rhythm after an hour.

Continue reading “Finding the Time to Write” →

Writing

Daily Blogging Challenge

Mary C

3803517719_61fc214012_b
In my internet wanderings yesterday, I happened across a post at See Jane Write about a daily blogging challenge for the month of November. I thought to myself, wow, people really blog daily, and then, no way could I do that. However, the thought kept niggling away at my brain until I was saying heck yeah! Challenge accepted!

I was hoping to have some guidance on how to make this a reality and luckily, upon further review, the post had some suggestions on how to successfully #bloglikecrazy for an entire month. Typically I don’t put a ton of thought into the topics I write about. That’s pretty clear, right, since I don’t blog very often and then they are about random things. My posts tend to grow out of a particular situation presently occurring in my life.

Continue reading “Daily Blogging Challenge” →

Writing

Writing about …

Mary C

noparking-4

Week one of the writing class was interesting.  The class is from six to eight every Thursday evening and at 5:45 last week, instead of traveling the 20-minute route to my class, I was running the kiddo back to school for some homework he forgot and absolutely needed. I’m trying to let him experience natural consequences when these things happen but he was near tears and I acted with my heart instead of my head knowing it was going to make me late. My GPS calculated my arrival at the Arts Center to be 6:20 but I didn’t realize how impossible the parking was going to be and circled the neighborhood several times which added another 20 minutes to the trip. Honestly, I nearly decided to bail and go home but something wouldn’t let me take the easy way out.

I ambled into the classroom a good forty-five minutes late (this was week one for me and week two for everyone else) and I interrupted an animated discussion which felt a bit awkward. Everything stopped and the instructor said “you must be Mary”, to which I blurted out quick apologies. I scanned the room for a chair, and after I sat, realized why it was empty. The arm clattered to the floor when I went to pull it in. I briefly wished I had just gone home.

Continue reading “Writing about …” →

Writing

Why I Write

Mary C

Pen Writer Girl Book Writing Notebook Notes

Writing has fallen by the wayside. Again. What is a wayside? The edge of a road. My thoughts are a bit disjointed if you can’t tell. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve put pen to paper in my journal and I’m starting to feel the weight of it. All the thoughts and ideas that keep churning around without a place to put them.

I start another writing class tonight which is actually week two and I’ve been catching up on the material I missed last week. One of them was an essay by Terry Tempest Williams titled “Why I Write“. It’s a beautiful piece and it covers just about every reason to write and I nodded along as I read. “I write to quell the pain. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts.” Yes, yes, yes. And also this: “I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient.”

Continue reading “Why I Write” →