This Writing Life

I was just admiring my friend, poet Jane Springer's work habits. She rolls out of bed, doesn't get dressed, sets up on the porch with her laptop, some iced tea, and a full pack of cigarettes and sets about writing. For the whole day.

I am a hub of distraction.

This morning, I slept in. Because last night, we decided to watch another episode of Twin Peaks at 10:45. And then, what's another glass of wine at 11:45? Before I went to sleep at around 1:00, I remember saying, You know what would be great? If you just shut the door and let me sleep tomorrow.

And I did. I said goodbye to my teenager, but missed the little one getting on the bus. I slept until almost 10.

When I got up, I got online, answered emails. Checked to see how many people liked the photos I posted on facebook. And got a phone call from my brother.

Cascade Mountains, WA

My mom is coming to visit for ten days. I saw her last in 2010, but she hasn't seen the rest of us since 2008. And while this should be totally exciting, it's really mostly totally anxious. Everyone is anxious. We're anxious about being anxious. And my brother's reaction to anxiety, especially high levels of it, is to talk about it.

At 11:05, I finally got off the phone, only to be called by the teenager, who was on his lunch break, and wanted a cigarette. So I drove to McDonald's, where they were all gathered, dropped of a cigarette and went through the drive-thru for a free cup of coffee and nothing else.

Because I'm also broke.

I haven't written anything yet. Or even opened up the dropbox where my writing is. Truth is, I probably can't today. Not with the anxiety hanging over me. I'll probably clean the house and walk the dog. The cleaning will be scattered and less efficient than usual. I'll flit from one task to another and the end result will be that the house won't look much different. But I'll pace around for a few hours.

Writers I know spend long days working, or reading, because that too is part of the process. My brain is like a misfiring weapon a lot of the time. Doesn't, or does, too much. Too rapid. I've been told to quit drinking, to go to bed earlier, to not answer the phone, to get help, to focus on my work, to become the asshole who can steal way, can hole up and write, as Sugar says, like a motherfucker. I've been told to man up.

But the truth is, this is who I am, and this is what has made me into a writer when I'm able to do it. I should do some of these things, sure. I should also eat more leafy green vegetables. I would write more if I could ignore the phone, if I could not be so invested in my kids.

And when I think of that, I think of when I used to go to mass with my parents, and the way my dad would grip my hand during the sign of peace. He'd grip it like it was all he had to hang onto. Us. Would he have been happier, more productive, if he could have shrugged us off a little and not clung so tight? Maybe.

And maybe I would too. But it's not in my blood.

Hanging on the Telephone

I spend a lot of time on the phone. This has probably always been true. The nature of it has changed over the years, but at the end of the day, I still log a lot of time. I hate the phone.

When I was a kid we had a turquoise desk phone with a dial. It rang with a real bell and it was the only phone we had. We didn't have an answering machine. We had my mom. My dad booked all his jobs over the phone, so it was a commodity. Still, he wouldn't answer the phone. My mom was like the secretary. She screened. When necessary, she'd book for him. Back then, if she was on the old phone with my sister or a neighbor, my dad would listen and ask questions, and sometimes say things like I wish I knew what you were talking about. It drove him nuts not to be in on it. Later on they got a speaker phone and they took all their calls that way. You had to get used to the sound of your own voice echoing into the dining room, or saying, Can you pick up? when you had something delicate to say. A second line was also put in upstairs -- or reactivated, since it was originally my sister's -- for when we threatened to tie up the line with our own calls. This meant we could take and make our own calls. When my brother moved out, it was all mine. It was tan, and it had a dial like the one downstairs, and I think we bought it used at Ra-Lin. 

I talked to my friends on that phone. Made prank phone calls. Got prank phone calls. Called in for radio contests. For a while in college, I talked nearly every day to a guy who was in love with one of my friends. I think he was gay, and he talked only to me, and never to her, which was weird. We had a lovely relationship though. I think we talked about films and music and books. Every day. I don't remember his name anymore.

When we bought our own house, I bought a black wall phone -- used at Ra-lin -- to hang on the kitchen wall. It had a real bell and a long cord you could wrap into the living room. In some rough spots, my brother would call in the middle of the night, every night, at about 1:30. He doesn't remember them and the conversations were mostly incoherent. He would tell me stories that I think didn't happen, and then kind of fall asleep, so that I would lay the phone back in the cradle and go back to bed, hoping that he wouldn't call back in five or ten minutes. After a few weeks of this, I'd unplug the phone. It was stealth: I'd go into the kitchen right before bed, and slip the jack out. I didn't want anyone to notice my fear, or the measure I'd taken to quell it. It was easier to just unplug.

Over the years, we've had phones with Do Not Disturb buttons, which sometimes Geoff calls DNR buttons. (To which I'm like just let me die already. . . ) They go direct to voicemail. Which is ok, but not as good as unplugged.

When no one can call me nothing can go wrong. No one can call crying or yelling. No one can go to the hospital late at night, or die. I'm suspended in a no-phone zone. This is best when my brood is within arm's reach, or when we're camping. I might do ok in a bomb shelter.

I have friends who lose their phones, literally, in couch cushions or the floors of cars. Or who let their batteries run out. Who don't call you back for days, or forget. If I talked more often to my sister -- instead of mostly in crisis -- I would be less likely to think that something was terribly wrong when I do talk to her. When I do talk to her, I remember how much I enjoy it.

Now, when the phone rings at night, I still assume the worst. I'm less nervous about texting, but the buzz of my cell phone can jolt me too. I won't sleep with a phone in my bedroom, unless Kieran is spending the night somewhere, and when I do, I don't sleep very well. Because despite the phone's proximity, I'm also afraid I won't hear it. That I'll miss it. Because I'm the mom I assume full responsibility for the phone -- calls from school, calls from children. What would happen if I didn't?

I might relax. I might write more. I might miss something. Something I could fix, just by knowing about it. Just by being on the other end of the phone.

Things that Stall Me

Since school has been out for fifteen days, I thought it might be time to blog about some things that slow me down, which right about now, feels like everything. Here's a short list of the biggies:

Having the kids home from school. I spend a lot of the summertime driving, and a lot of time either waking someone up, or begging someone to go to bed. See Go The Fuck to Sleep, but with my own appendix for the teenage years, Wake the Fuck Up.

Sleeping. A while ago, Julianna Baggott blogged about how she finds the time to write and when she sleeps. I sleep too much. If I got up earlier, maybe I would have more time to write. But, unlike the highly romantic practices of writers who either get up in the early dark to write as the sun rises, or stay up and write all night, I appear to be a boring ass Mid-Day Writer. Such is the work of people with children in school. (See Number 1.)

Having a clean house. I fear sometimes that this is the thing that makes me not an artist. I am uncomfortable and anxious when the house is messy -- this includes dishes, laundry, dust, clutter and random shoes. This sometimes earns me exclamations from other writers: You're such a housewife! Sometimes, though, I think I could work better if the house was just clean. So on those days, I clean. It's a meditative practice for me, so in that way, at least, it works.

Surfing for music. I like a little non-distracting music sometimes while I'm writing. I'm not writing to the big indie bands that some of my colleagues are: The National, The Hold Steady, or Bon Iver. I don't have a Metallica kick like Steven King. I will admit this: I wrote a good deal of the early pages to this novel while listening to piano etudes by Philip Glass. They're clean and precise and grab you by the gut. Anything with words distracts me. So when I need to waste some more time, I sit here with the Roku remote going through a list of things that "aren't right."

Drinking. In that same post Julianna Baggott talks about how once she's had a drink it signals to her brain that the day is over. Once in a while, I can write a bit in the evening while having one glass of wine, but beyond that, I'm no good. After two drinks, I wouldn't trust my writing not to be sloppy. After three or four, I'm probably trying to kiss you. Or sing karaoke Eagles songs.

Facebook. Everyone's Achilles' Heel, right? Where else would I keep up with who's getting divorced, who's publishing seventeen pieces of micro-fiction, or look at pictures of people's dogs, babies and vacations?

Twitter. Where I need to keep track, at the very least, of what Amanda Palmer and John Taylor are up to. And the Dalai Lama. I know, weird.

Phone calls. I shouldn't answer them, or return them right away, but I do. And then sometimes, I spend hours on the phone. So much so that my younger son has taken to writing me notes: "How's it going on the phone?"

This morning, I got up at 10. My excuse? Kids were on a soda raid at 3:15 am, then home at 6:30 am from an all-nighter. Dear friends with babies and toddlers: IT GETS WORSE. Next week, we're well into week three of summer. I'm going to try -- as my mother-in-law says -- to get my shit together. Otherwise, somebody's gonna come undone.