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.

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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.”

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Life

Weekend in New York

Mary C

New York city is often on my mind as a destination to take in some culture. We were there in May, sans kiddo, to celebrate my husband’s birthday,  but as is usually the case when we leave our son overnight, the trip was a hasty get in, get out endeavor. When Liam found out we were going there without him, we had a very sad kid on our hands. I had taken him to the city last fall and he loved it and has been asking to go back ever since so I promised him next time.

91MtPDqj-bLThis year turned out to be perfect timing for adding a summer in the city to our family agenda. Liam, who is heading into fifth grade, was assigned to read and write about the book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwwiler by E.L. Konigsburg. The book was first published in 1968 and follows the travails of Claudia and Jamie Kincaid who decide to run away from home and inhabit the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a week.

After reading the book with him and the accompanying worksheet from his English teacher,  I saw the suggestion to either complete the work by visiting the museum’s website or to visit in person. I haven’t been to the Met in years so I thought a field trip was in order.  Last Saturday morning we left early and caught a train into the city with a few ideas of things to do on our two-day sojourn.

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Writing

Stand up and write!

Mary C

I am now a proud user of something called a CubeCorner 36 which is basically a standing desk.  When I googled it to link for the link, I was brought to a picture of a desk a bit different than the one I have in that it is white and a little wider. I love things that are white because they make me think of clean design and it’s a bit more of a contrast to my black monitors. I’m a bit jealous I didn’t get a white one, but since the office paid, I will not complain.

 

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My desk is like this but black

 

How does the desk work? It goes up and down by holding a couple of handles on either side and then you pull up and forward to go up and push away and down to go down. Going up is pretty easy but putting it back down was a bit of struggle at first. I’m either getting better at it or the joints in the desk are loosening up.

I didn’t know if I should jump right into standing so I did a little reading on the topic before commencing this activity. A few sources recommended starting slow, maybe 20-30 minutes at a time which I’ve been gradually increasing over time and now stand about 2 hours a day in 30-minute increments.  I think the goal is to spend about 3 to 4 hours standing each day which is about half of the workday.

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Life

A Boy and His Frog

Mary C

I’m not one to plan too far ahead. There are always fuzzy plans in the future and then about an hour or two before we’re to set out, I’ll start to consider what the plans entail. This happened Saturday when we had to go to a party hosted by one of the partners at my husband’s firm. The party was to begin at 2:00 so at noon I began sending him a flurry of texts about the afternoon ahead. Do we need to bring anything? How long will we be there? How should I dress? What else do we need? This is where I find out it will be a pool party so I hunt and gather the things Liam will need: swimsuit, towel, flip flops, sunscreen. Flowers for the host. After a time, we’re ready to go.

I forget Liam (a 10-year-old) sometimes has an issue with new situations and I didn’t foresee that this would be one of them. Surely anything that involves a pool is outside the realm of social anxiety. I’m not sure where he gets this. OK, he gets it from me. I was an awkwardly shy kid and still get quiet in new situations or with meeting new people.

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Writing

Writing and Domestic Life

Mary C

It has been my goal for a very long time to write a book. I let the idea go for many years but over the last several months, with mid-life firmly fading in the rearview mirror, I can no longer hold off the voice in the back of my mind: write, Mary, write (channeling Forrest Gump here). I am trying to squeeze in the time to write and so I’ve signed up for an online writing course to hold me accountable and to get help in starting the process.

Today I am working on week 2 of the class where we write the first chapter (or any chapter or scene). Week 1 we completed a story summary which had sort of come to me a couple of months ago and I’ve been trying to suss out the characters over the past few weeks which helped me dive into this week’s assignment. Who they are. Where they’ve been. Where they’re going.  It’s been an interesting process!

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Life

Offline living

Mary C

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Oh my, it’s been ages! We are officially at summer’s halfway point (at least in my mind) and I should update you on what’s going on here. I don’t know if you remember, but back in May, I decided the family needed a technology break (including me).  I have posted just a handful of blogs since that time because you know, I’m on a break which means everything is happening offline, including writing.

The break from technology has been, overall, a mostly fabulous experience. You know how sometimes you don’t know how stressed out you are until you are sitting on a beach with sand filtering through your toes and then you dig in a little deeper to get to the cool, wet sand and you let out a huge sigh? That’s kind of what it’s been like. To know that you are not going to be fighting with your kid about when to turn off their iPad and go do something outside like you did when you were a kid is just, well, pretty amazing.

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Life

Living the Dash

Mary C

Several months ago, our nephew lost a long battle with depression and addiction at the young age of 32. It is not something I could imagine being able to survive, but my sister-in-law bravely took to the podium to talk about his life and referred to this piece by Linda Ellis. She spoke of the dash between his dates of birth and death and told us the story of his life in a moving and beautiful way. He was not to be remembered by how he died but the dash he lived between the two dates.

The death of a loved one is always a shock to our system regardless of whether it is expected or not, whether they are young or old. Whether the person lived a full and happy life or it was cut too short, we are sad. And it lingers. But it also can serve as a wake-up to those left behind and this is a good thing.  We are human. We are going to die someday and we don’t know when that time will come. We must make the most of our dash.

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Tech Free Parenting

Status update

Mary C

pexels-photo-63572

A few years ago I ran into an acquaintance at an event. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years but we carried on a conversation as though we’d talked just last week. It went something like this. How was your vacation? The pictures looked fabulous! You kids are getting so big. Congratulations on your new job!

As we walked away my husband remarked that he didn’t know we’d kept in touch. Facebook, I explained. The highlight reel of our lives. Carefully curated for the highest yield of likes. I had to admit, it was weird, the exchange this woman and I had. How did life get to the point that I was hyper aware of what near-stranger/acquaintances were up to? How much unnecessary information was taking up valuable real estate in my brain?

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Life

The technology reset continues

Mary C

“What can I do when we get home?” was the greeting I received when I picked my son up from school yesterday. I gently reminded him we had an appointment with the therapist, followed by an audible groan of displeasure. Why and ugh were uttered and I was right there with him. I didn’t want to go any more than he did. With the rain beating down, I wanted to snuggle on the couch with tea and a book and a movie for him. Not an option.

Since last September we’ve seen R, the therapist, about a half dozen times and the maxresdefaultappointments are usually scheduled on the heels of a major meltdown as this one was. That was about three weeks ago as he experienced a a breakdown over a fidget spinner and a birthday party I didn’t end up letting him attend.  It’s when I finally took his iPad and Roblox away. Roblox could be a post all it’s own and has been a major source of conflict for L with his peers over the past few months. I didn’t totally get what it was when he first started playing but knew there is a social aspect and a multi-player game facet that included things like hide and seek and role playing games which he gravitates toward. I don’t feel it’s a healthy environment for him.

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