Sunday Scribblings: Regret

(Image from here.)

A word like regret should have sparked about a million story ideas for me...or OK, at least ten. After all, I think most of my writing is about regret in some way—missed opportunities, words that stick in the throat that perhaps could have changed everything. A decision never made that perhaps would have been the right decision.

But nothing really came. See, regret is a really loaded word for me, so much so that I can't seem to fictionalize it (not this week, anyway). Regret is something that was constantly on my mind, for a really long time. There are whole pathways in my brain seemingly dedicated to traveling down the same painful ruts again and again.

I grew up believing in the myth of unlimited potential. That's what people always told me. “You have so much potential.” Potential sounded like the sound of my parents' voice when they had some money in the bank. Their voices grew fat with safety. What mattered, of course, was not spending the money. Not squandering the potential.

But, of course, potential doesn't sit in some cosmic bank account. It certainly doesn't accrue interest, especially if you don't apply it to your interests. And I didn't, not really. I was terrified of making the wrong choices, of wasting this potential—of facing my life with the same blank, pinched expression my parents had when the bank account grew lean again, but the bills kept arriving.

So many great opportunities floated close to me, bobbed within my grasp, then drifted away. So many times that I didn't reach out, didn't risk, didn't turn my potential into something more.

By the time Madam was born, I spent much of my day tuned into my mental radio station, K-RGRT.
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Has anyone ever mentioned that babies are awesome listeners? Because they so are. I would strap baby Madam into her stroller and take her up and down the hill where we lived. The sun would stream through her shade, drenching my little Freudian with a luminescent glow. And I would confess...If only I had gone to graduate school immediately after college! If only I had worked harder in publishing, made more contacts, been less afraid! If only I had finished a novel and gotten it published already! If only I had moved to California before I got pregnant, then maybe I could have become a big wig in television before having a baby!

At this point, Madam would be asleep, no doubt thinking my words were some sort of whining prose poem for her benefit, instead of my own. Certainly, the content of my regrets rarely varied...only the intensity of the pain expressed by my words as I worked myself up to a crescendo of Lost Opportunity and Wasted Life Forever.

The Saturday when all that changed wasn't noticably different from all of the other days. Madam still in her stroller, sleeping in the pink glow of her partially shaded seat. The sky was blue as it almost always is in California. Cars rushed past us as I pushed her on the uneven pavement, up the hill.

I started my litany again, I got myself worked up again, maybe a tear or two escaped while I walked, faster and faster.

Then a new thought entered my mind. Why do I need to tell this story over and over again? Did I think I would ever forget my regrets? Did I think that I might gasp..be happy for a moment with my current circumstance if I could just...let it go? And...would I want Madam to grow up and feel this way? Feel like she was doomed because she'd made some less-than-brilliant choices in her past? I thought about my regrets. Some were things that I had wanted passionately, and had not worked hard enough to achieve. Some were things I had given up on too soon. But some were things I didn't really want, but felt like I should. And some were things I could see I was better off without anyway.

And the most important dream was not at all timebound. Was I attempting to join some Olympic Team of Novelists? No? So then why did it matter so much whether I wrote my novel at 25 or 35 or 50? Maybe no one would ever call me a wunderkind or an overnight sensation, but maybe I'd be a better writer for all that. Potential should be squandered, because potential means about as much as those numbers on our bank statements. It stands for something else--something that must be realized, even if it's as far from pristine "potential" as I am from my twenty-something self.  If I manage to teach Madam anything, I hope it's that—to burn through all of her potential fearlessly, to hold on to none of it. To trust that she'll be able to make more deposits to her bank account.

That day changed my relationship to my regrets. Yes, there are long, dark times where I can see every bad choice my younger self made—as though I am watching her through two sided glass, screaming, “No, do the OTHER THING. THE OTHER THING!” But usually I can dig up a little perspective from somewhere (I find chocolate and a nap are spectacular for this purpose) and remind myself that all of these plodding steps are going somewhere. They are going back to the page, again and again, until I spend whatever potential still lies curled within me.

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Death and...

Some people can function, create, LIVE while they do their taxes.

I assume those people have accountants.

I am so tired, y'all. And I still have to finish Federal and do two states. 

More when I can wrap my brain around something besides Schedule A. 

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Sunday Scribblings: Pilgrimage (a short short)

(Hajj pic from here.)

Ed note: Just a short little story inspired by this weeks Sunday Scribbling prompt. It's been a while.
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Me? I'm nothing.

You know that feeling you get when you walk down the halls of your school, and a draft of air blows past you? That feeling like maybe you should look around, see if you missed something? But also feeling a little dumb, and not wanting anyone to see you looking around for nothing?

I'm that nothing. And believe me, I've worked at it.

We've all lived in this neighborhood so long it's like we've worn a groove into the cement. First my brothers, Rich and Tom. Then my sister, Angie. Another brother Johnny. Sister Liz. And then me, Jenny. Some days it can feel like my sneakers are trudging into their footsteps, but my feet never quite fit. And so I trip, a lot.

Everybody knows my family. They remember the red sirens streaking across the walls of their houses, breaking through the gray. They remember the muttered metallic gibberish of the police radios as the cops' big hands shoved my brothers' heads into the car. Maybe their heads had a groove too. A rut where only cops' big hands could fit.

My sisters? They kept their terror local—inside the walls of the school itself. I still get the sideline look and scuffle from the older girls, even the tall, tough ones. The ones who remember them, and see my red hair and pale skin as an ugly echo.

Usually, I tried to stay out of everyone's way. This was easier than it sounded, thanks to Aziza Manjur and her family. They've lived in the neighborhood almost as long as we have, and are probably the first Muslims anyone around here ever met. People gave them the weird glances for a while, but they were just too normal. They lived in the same type of two story gray house we all did, with wooden steps that sagged after years of too much snow. Mr. Manjur taught me to drive behind the wheel of their old Honda with the scratches on the doors. Mrs. Manjur taught me to cook mutton, and boil tea. I'm sure if you look at their family pictures, you'll see me, pale as a ghost, floating off to one side. But still there.
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For a while, it was just the Manjurs, and me, and everyone else, but then something happened. It was like a worm hole opened between Somalia and here, and before long, there was a whole community of them here. The girls all looked a little like Aziza, except for those glittery head scarves that made their heads look like sleepy flowers. These girls smiled their shy, toothy smiles at me, but chattered to Aziza in that language that sounded like a bunch of As and Bs and Ms to me. And Aziza, who used to streak her dark hair orange and pink for parties (I used to have to hold her head over the sink for hours afterwards. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Manjur never knew), would stroll over to them, and talk back. The Manjurs were always busy. But they always offered me the use of the house. Sometimes, I didn't bother. Alone is alone, even with cable and nicer furniture.

It shouldn't have surprised me the day I picked her up to go to school, and she was wearing a pink flowered head scarf. She walked next to me like everything was normal, except she didn't even look at me. She kept sneaking glances of her new head in car windows.

“So...your mom and dad finally insisted?”

“Nah, I decided to try it for myself.” She tossed her head a little, like she'd grown a new mane of hair. The spangles in the scarf caught what little light was around us and seemed to reflect little pink spotlights on the dull snow piles.

“That doesn't even match what you are wearing.” I said, keeping my eyes on the cracked, iced sidewalk in front of me.

“You know it's not about that, Jen. Besides,” she added with a grin. “I kind of like the idea that it doesn't match. Feels more like me.”

“So...you gonna teach me how to wear one?” We always tried stuff together.

She stopped short. “Jen...this isn't...I mean...”

“I know.” We'd reached the school. I walked away from Aziza, but not before I noticed the excited crowd of girls around Aziza, pressing against her like jungle birds.

And then at the end of homeroom, Ms. Carena muttered her usual question about “Any announcements?” That was our cue to push our chairs away and trudge into our day. But Aziza stood up and said, “I have something. Uh...I'll be out of school for the next month. My family is going to hajj. The pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims need to take once in their lifetime. We're leaving, uh...this weekend.” I noticed she was using her “Explaining things to non-Muslims, and everyone not named Jenny” voice and felt a little smug, until her words hit me. Going?

I caught up with her in the hallway and managed to tear her away from the Somali girls for once. They were like an honor guard.

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Didn't you notice we were packing stuff?”

“Yeah, to send to family. Like you all do all the damn time.”

“A bunch of us are going this year.”

“Oh, you need to go because these girls are going? Like its Prom?”

“What?” She looked confused. I wished I could still see all of her. “I meant...a bunch of family. From England. From Somalia. It's a big deal.”

“Take me with you.”

“Jen...it's, uh...it's not a vacation. It's a pilgrimage. It's, like, super-holy to us.”

“I can be holy.” The endless rows of lockers faded from my eyes and I started to see myself there, surrounded by millions of other people, a part of the Manjurs' “us.”

“So...OK. Then you stay here. Let your folks go alone. You have the rest of your life to do this.”

“Yeah, like Mama and Papa would just lea...”

“Right.”

“Anyway, Mama and Papa already said no. It's not like I didn't ask.” Her words were clipped. We'd reached my classroom. “See you later.”

“Fine.”

Oh, I wished that I could tap into that blood rage that marks my family. But maybe I'd been neglecting it too long. Unlike my brothers, who would have just slammed Aziza and her new friends into the pavement, and unlike my sisters, who would have found a way to make Aziza kill herself in self-loathing, I...couldn't do anything. Except sit and start my class, so that's what I did.

After school, I sat in the Manjurs' living room, and I couldn't believe I'd ignored all this. Huge suitcases lay open all over the floor in the living room and hallways. Silky piles of fabric and chiffon pooled inside of them, and draped on the couches and chairs. The room looked excited, happy—full of something I couldn't explain. I wanted to be anywhere else.

The Manjurs were trying to include me, I could tell. “Oh, Jenny....could you hand me that file folder? Oh, Jen...could you please make sure I'm not forgetting...?” I already had a set of keys, instructions on where the circuit breaker was, and a stern admonition to “eat for EVERY meal...not just the ones you remember.” Once I caught Mr. Manjur looking at me, a puzzled, sad expression on his face. Again, blood rose up in me, and wanted to flow through the ruts that were already inside of me.

I'm not sure when I found myself alone in the room.

The lamplight glowed warm, red in the room, making it look smaller, shoved up full with stuff for the pilgrimage. The whole room appeared to be leaving at once.

I stood up, stroked the ceremonial white suit draped on the back on my chair. Folded it and dropped it in the mouth of the open suitcase. Closed it, then opened it again. I knew Mr. Manjur had it specially made. I knew he needed to wear it on the hajj, another rule I couldn't follow.

And then I looked at Mr. Manjur's desk.

Piles of bills were stacked there, rubber banded. A plain manila folder teetered on the money. I knew the family paperwork was in there. Passports. Confirmations.

My hands moved towards them, and I pulled them back, hard. Steadied myself on the desk. I saw myself, then, shoving the money and papers into my backpack. Taking a pair of scissors and destroying the clothes. Doing it all.

It would be so easy. Blood hummed in my ears, in my throat. It would be so easy, and it would be so good. Then, they'd stay. Instead of leaving. Like it was nothing.

They'd already left me here.

With the keys. With all they had.

The blood beat in my skull, and roared around my well worn grooves. Rich, Tom, Angie, Johnny, Liz, me. My hands strained, itching with the desire for action. I had to get out.

“Jenny?” Aziza, soft, questioning. Normal.

I rushed past her without a word, ran through the door into a night without any stars, lit by the hollow glow of streetlamps on the tired snow. The circles of light were, and then were not.

The Manjurs went on their hajj, had their holy time without me. But I took a trip too. Maybe even a longer one.

Sometimes the pilgrimage that matters is the one from “nothing” to “something.”

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To take more holy trips, go here.

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When the student is ready...

From this site.

I am currently reading a book that I believe will change my life.

Considering the years I have spent reading self-help and how-to books, believe me when I say that I do not make this claim lightly.

The book is called Mindset by Carol Dweck, Ph.D, and it's about, well, your mindset and how it can help or hinder your efforts at success. She writes about two main mindsets—the “fixed” mindset which is the belief that talent is either there, or its not, and effort cannot change that; and the “growth” mindset that values hard work and sustained learning more than talent.

You can guess which one I have.

See, from an early age, certain things have come easily to me, and these are the things I have built my life around. Books, words, stories. I don't remember learning how to read, because I actually don't remember not knowing how to read. I adored school, adored the constant praise and steady stream of rewards. School was a place where I could be the best, unlike at home, where I was the far-behind youngest child.

Once I had a taste of being the best, well, I wanted to stay the best. And that meant avoiding anything that I wasn't immediately good at doing. I would tentatively try a new activity, and unless I showed unmistakable signs of genius, I would leave it alone. Because if you have to TRY, then it's obviously not in you.

I won't exactly say this attitude worked for me growing up, but I didn't challenge it because I was still doing well. I was still a straight A student in the subjects that mattered to me, still viewed as a girl with a great deal of potential. Potential was my very favorite word while I was young, and I wanted to stay potential forever. That way I could still see my future genius off in the hazy, pearly future—and not have to deal with the possibility that it wouldn't work out quite that way.
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In college, I worked harder than I ever did in my life, but I couldn't seem to make headway in several subjects. I blamed this on the fact that my fellow students had grown up with much more enrichment (in all the ways that mattered)--better schools, more cultural capital, parents who were educated, money. It didn't dawn on me that I was still struggling with the central idea that “Either you have it, or you don't. Either you know it, or you never will.” I couldn't seem to learn, perhaps because I was afraid to make mistakes and then try again.

My professional life didn't work out much better. Again, people saw potential in me, and again I felt incapable of translating that potential into something concrete. I began to see myself as a failure, and stopped seeking career-level jobs. Instead, I worked clerical jobs that frustrated TEG, and others, who couldn't understand why I wasn't blazing some sort of creative trail.

Short answer: Because if I had to try, that very attempt would be an admission that I had no talent, and thus would never succeed.

My mindset changed briefly after Madam was born. Not only did motherhood come with its own steep learning curve, but the tasks were immediate and vital. I had to learn to feed her, soothe her, change her. I had no choice. And because I didn't have any weird beliefs about needing to be a “natural” mother, I was able to learn what I needed, for Madam's sake.
I don't think it's any surprise that the first year and a half of Madam's life were the most productive, creatively, of my life. The growth mindset carried over, briefly, into my writing. I started blogging and began to write fiction again for the first time in years.

But soon, I felt like I hit a plateau. How did I know if I was getting better? So many people were better than I was! And the worst part was: I could see good writing all around me, could even articulate what pleased me about it, but I couldn't learn it myself. I would see people turning their blogs into books, stretching their stories into novels, and I had NO idea how to do it myself. How to start, even. Because if I couldn't envision every step of the process, and couldn't come up with perfect ideas before touching fingers to keyboard, well, then...I needed to forget it.

Yep. The fixed mindset was back.

And so I've kept laboring under this desire to be prove brilliant, without taking the risk of actual work. I've read books and been unable to see past my own sickening envy.

Well, goodbye to all that. Goodbye to a rotten tooth of an idea that has spread its poison over my life for a good three decades. Goodbye to the idea that talent is uber-alles. After all, what really happens if I write a terrible novel? I waste my time? I waste finger energy? I'll be killed for Crimes Against Fiction?

So what?

I'm going to go slowly, and write without inspiration or pleasure until the inspiration and pleasure inevitably appear. I'm going to rewrite even when I am unsure exactly how to fix something. I'm going to be wretched, no doubt.

I cannot wait.

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Ponderings...

One thing that I have been thinking about is resolving my competing commitments. I long to be a writer, more than anything, I want to write novels and publish them and move past this crippling doubt.  And I know I DO want those things. My desire manifests itself constantly every time I wander into a bookstore and feel myself pulled towards to those talismans of the writing life—writing books. Books on plotting, planning, creation, starting, finishing, revising and revisiting. Invariably, I pull off the shelf, flip through the pages, searching, always searching for that one perfect phrase, that formula that would pull me out of myself, and replace me with the writer I've always dreamed of becoming. 

But I always find myself disappointed. Because the books, inspirational though they can be, can't do the work for me. They can't put fingers to keyboard, they can't pull the words out of my often clenched mind. They can't write the book for me.

And that leads me to the other competing commitment. The commitment to NOT writing, to NOT exposing my dream to the harsh realities of my limited ability. The commitment to protect myself. Because if I really try, and if I see that I am no good, then I will be forced to give up. I will never be a writer. What will I dream about? What hope will sustain me then?

The book I just finished reading said that I should test my big assumption (in this case, the total belief that if I try, I will realize that I will never be good enough or know enough to write, and thus I'll need to give up) with small, safe experiments. But what kind of experiment would that be? Because even writing a few words towards my novel unleashes that fear that the worst is already true and cannot be changed.

This is what I need to discover.

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2008

(great fireworks picture from here.)

In 2008, I watched the life of my dreams and the life of my days move further apart.

It didn't start out that way. In a burst of enthusiasm, I joined Jamie's first Circe's Circle group. I wanted to take myself seriously, to give myself the support I needed. I created a preliminary plan for my novel-in-progress, worked through Jamie's fabulous exercises. And I waited to catch fire.

Instead, I caught a serious case of cold feet. Everything felt uncertain. Was my idea worthy of being a novel? What did I really know about my characters? Did I want to devote myself to this?

While I dithered, my MIL grew gravely ill. TEG flew off to care for her.

I still attended all of my Circe's Circle calls, doggedly, but my nascent novel was abandoned. I was still looking for something, but now I wasn't quite sure what it was. The calls were my lifeline. I bribed Madam with the choicest snacks, the best DVDs, anything to keep her quiet while I was on the phone. I used the “mute” button a lot.

The calls were my connection to that life I was still sure I wanted; the life that now seemed further and further away. I watched as the other amazing women in my group caught fire.

Meanwhile, Madam and I spent a lot of time at home, as TEG's time with his mother lengthened, and winter dragged into...more winter.

I was afraid to admit how depressed I was. I didn't want TEG to worry. And I knew that I was all Madam had.

So I learned to face each day as its own entity, with its own pleasures and tasks. I couldn't see to the end of the month, but the end of the day? Somehow, that always came and brought its blessings (at least Madam would sleep; maybe TEG would call). And there was always YouTube.

My own writing slipped further out of my grasp. I couldn't even think like that. I couldn't access those words anymore. I regressed—watched a lot of television, grew addicted to a soap opera. I gave up.

Then TEG returned...and we packed up and moved in with my in laws for the summer. No writing. No thought. Lots of time at the playground as I tried to give a fun shape to Madam's days while TEG concentrated on his mother's therapy and health.

I suppose I could have blogged about this, but weirdly, I grew increasingly self-conscious about sounding unhappy and negative here. I watched my once-robust readership dwindle (the fact that I all-but-stopped updating and reading may have had something to with it too, but I couldn't quite make the connection). I wanted to preserve this blog as a place I could come back to, when I returned to myself, to my own mind.

Unfortunately, blogging and writing, like everything else, is a habit—a habit I lost in 2008. This only added to my profound sense of having become someone else-someone I didn't like very much.

Did I mention that TEG moved into a different, far more precarious job position?

So. Kind of a wild, down year, but one where I learned some of the most important lessons of my life. About how much I love my daughter, my husband, my family. About how anything can be endured with the help of good friends, and a determination to face one sunrise and one sunset at a time. I watched Madam blossom into a confident, joyous, dramatic preschooler with a penchant for storytelling. It all fills me with a gratitude that I almost can't bear. A gratitude I can hope I can learn to express, someday.

All the same, I want 2009 to be very different. I want to come back here full time, whether anyone reads me or not. I want to make the choice to practice my writing everyday, regardless of my life situation. I know I am starting again, but hopefully this year wasn't a complete waste. My words aren't back yet—the words that make me feel like a writer...but these words are. This moment is.

I won't denigrate that again.

PS: I've been dipping my toes into blogs again, and I am buzzing with the desire to post a Mondo Beyondo list. And I will...soon. :)

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