Monthly Archives: May 2009

carry that weight

Posted by lorie on 5/11/2009 3 comments

I knew I needed to write today, but I hadn’t written anything yet because I was having trouble deciding between two topics that seemed very different.

Today should have been Frank’s 39th birthday. It’s been a hard day, and I have been sad. With the exception of today, I haven’t cried much lately, but the weight of missing him seems to make my steps just a little slower, the effort of living my life just a little heavier. I guess over time I’ll get stronger, and the weight will be easier to carry. But some days it just feels unbearably heavy.

I was going to devote an entire post to Frank, but I was torn because some other things have been happening that are worth writing about, and I could not choose between them. In a weird way, I’m writing about both today.

This weekend I met Seth’s kids – Mira, who is 4, and Niomi, who is 12. They spent the entire weekend with us and so the four of us spent that time feeling out what I’ve been calling my practice family. We had a super time. We went to the playground, we blew bubbles, we ate too much junk food, we watched movies and TV, and we went roller skating. I used to live in roller skates, but it’s probably been 15 years or more since I skated. I still know how, but it was kind of frustrating that I’m in such lousy shape these days that skating wore me out quickly. Towing a flaily 4-year-old around the rink surely helped me tire out faster, but mostly it’s just that I’m lame and out of shape. It was okay, though, because we all had fun even if skating was a big fat fail.

It was nice, and strange at the same time. I realized that I know exactly how to do this mothering thing, that if I ever have kids of my own I’m going to be really good at it. I think that’s a combination of instinct, growing up the oldest of four girls, and watching my own mom’s phenomenal example over the years. Whatever it is, if I have the chance to bust it out full-time, I’m so on it. At the same time, I felt like an impostor the entire time, and was convinced that someone was going to bust me trying to be a fake mom to someone else’s kids and they’d drag me away to rot in fake mother prison.

There was something amazingly wonderful and right about what we were doing, about our little sunburns and our bubble-sticky hands, our sweaty roller-skate feet, our lazy Sunday morning with Spongebob and Lucky Charms. There was something joyful and giddy about giving a girl time to play laser tag with her dad, about hooking her up with a billion computer games and watching videos with her. There was something so peaceful and pure about dozing on the couch with a bath-fresh little girl sprawled on me, all arms and legs and sweet-smelling goodness. It was right. I was ready for it.

After we handed off the girls last night, Seth and I were walking back to my car in the cool fading light and we both realized that we felt lighter, almost more limber. Even though I ate junk food all weekend, even though I’ve been carrying this immense weight of sadness in my heart, I felt lighter last night. He thought it might be roller skating. I’m pretty sure it was the late spring sweetness of our time with his girls.

the best cure for writer’s block

Posted by lorie on 5/4/2009 2 comments

Hey, kids. Need a way to perk up your languishing blog? Might I suggest a terrible tragedy, or, hey – a month full of melodramatic sorrow and pain? It’ll bring that blog right back like gangbusters!

Seriously. I guess it’s a coping method. Bad things happen, and all I want to do is write. Actually, I should say it’s all I can do. I have to write it out. I write my sorrow and confusion. I write my pain and my rage. I write my questions and my worries and my musings and my what-ifs and my bizarro world trains of thought. I write it all. My eyes and ears and fingertips are brimming with the things I must write. I write on napkins, on post-it notes, in emails to myself, in Word documents saved without titles. I write into the doodles I’m doodling at meetings. I compose bits of text in my head while I’m watching TV, showering, driving, trying to fall asleep. Some of it’s crap. Some of it’s really damn good. A lot of it I don’t feel like I can share here in this public place, for lots of reasons. It’s overkill. It’ll make you question my sanity. It’ll hurt the people I love. It’s not as good as I think it is. Whatever. I’m holding back, is all. You should probably be thankful for that. My brain will not turn off. It churns and churns and churns while I try to process everything that’s happened, and all I can do is write.

It would probably be good if I could channel this energy into something like cleaning house or going to the gym or whatever, but I’m a writer and I recognize that, right now, writing is what I must do. It’d be great if I had this burning urge to write when things were going well. I would love to find a way to harness the creativity and need I feel when I’m in turmoil, so that I could write the same way of happier things, in happier times. Because things are going to get better. Things can only get better. Howard Jones said so.

But let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. I get a really hard month of my life, and you all get fresh content. Sad and oftentimes overblown and melodramatic content? Well, yeah, but it’s content. So take it for what it’s worth.