If I only had a third arm (plus a 'Parkly Deer update)

I realize on my afternoon walks that my crew and are a rather ridiculous sight. 

Snacks -- who still refuses to recognize me as the alpha dog in our pack -- races ahead at the highest speeds he can muster while tethered to 150+ pounds of human and wagon. Jovie in her big floppy sun hat flings toys, sippy cups and apparel out of the wagon whenever I'm not paying attention and Lily -- lately clad in her new Tinkerbell costume -- yells at her "No Jovie!" with the practiced voice of an older sister who is tired of having sippy cup duty foisted upon her afternoon after afternoon. I'm in the middle -- dog leash pulling one hand, wagon dragging the other -- the victim of some sort of modern-day rack (not the kind that gives you rock-hard abs ... the medieval kind that attempts to dismember you by pulling your limbs in opposite directions). 

If it's early in the walk, chances are I'll stop and snap squirrel pictures while the dog practices tackling SUVs; if it's mid-way through the walk, I'll stop periodically to grab Lily's hand to cross streets (she likes to walk now, too, in order to practice hopping, pick up various sticks and talk to the ants); and if it's toward the end of the walk I'll have a bag or two of doggy doo. 

It's no wonder, then, that at least once on every outing someone shouts from their car or declares cheerfully as they're walking by, "Wow! It looks like you've got your hands full."  

In fact, I'm often told this multiple times on a single walk -- especially if it's a really nice day and lots of people are out and about. So, say, I go on three walks a week and I hear it twice a walk ... I'm not great at math but that's, what? Six? Six times a week I hear that I'm overburdened? Six times a week I get helpful reminder that at this point I'm really more of a draft animal than a person? 

I know six is a relatively small number, but it seems exponentially larger when a person with free hands and sanity to spare acts as if they're offering you a really novel piece of information.

"Gee -- you have your hands full!"

I reach deep down into the bowls of my weary soul and extract the sincerest smile I can muster. 

"Yup! I do!" 

So it was a nice change of pace the other day when one of our walk regulars who has a fondness to Snacks saw us and said, "Wow! It looks like you could use an extra arm!" 

"Yes! Yes, I could!" 

Ever since, I've been daydreaming about the possibilities of an extra arm. 

I decided early on that instead of just growing an extra limb nuclear-disaster style, it would be really helpful to have a movable prosthetic. The usefulness of the third arm extends only as far as where it's located on my person. So, for instance, when out on walks, I'd want the extra arm to be on the middle of my back:

What? I never said I was an artist.

In this case, the main purpose of the extra arm would be to pull the wagon so that it would free up an arm to carry bags of doggy do, snap pictures of squirrels (real and stone) or retrieve whatever items Jovie has decided to use in her experiments with gravity.

When it's time to make dinner and the baby is freaking out because she wants to be held, (impossible to do when I'm attempting to chop various items with a large knife or remove super-hot items from the oven) a side arm would be beneficial.

There, there little Jovie.
Just let the creepy animatronic arm
make you feel better so mommy
can slice this tomato
that's bigger than your head.

Then there's the scenario when I have to lug an overflowing basket of laundry and a 20-pound baby down to the basement. I think maybe an upper-back arm to wrap around Jovie half-piggyback style might work (this one I haven't thought out fully ... in fact ... it could end very badly for the baby the more I stare at the picture).

Maybe I should just install a laundry chute.

And, of course, for moments when I'm on the phone and both girls want to be held because they're feeling neglecting and under-loved and in need of undivided (hahahahahahahahahahaha) attention, a shoulder arm to hold the phone would be ideal. 

What did you say? I can't hear you. What was that? 

Since I don't want to have to alter all of my clothes to accommodate a third arm, I'm thinking some sort of vest fitted with various sockets into which you could plug in the arm would be ideal. 

Then again, maybe the extra arm option would be more trouble then it's worth. I don't know about any other moms out there, but I probably already push the boundaries of my multitasking with the two arms I have. I mean, should I really be talking on the phone while doing the dishes, holding a kid who's either pulling my hair or grabbing for the phone, and picking up a dish towel with my toes? Perhaps we were only given two arms because that's the maximum amount of upper-body motor engagement* our brains can handle. 

On a totally unrelated note (and as teased to in the title) the 'Parkly Deer are gone!!! They were out within the past two weeks along with the rest of my neighbors' Christmas decor, but on our last walk they'd disappeared! No more Christmas in May. I wonder what prompted the sudden spring cleaning? I'm kinda sad about it. I was really hoping they'd hold out until ... well ... next Christmas. And just add more decorations. 

*That's right. Upper-Body Motor Engagement. That's a thing I just made up. 

"This is Water" and attempting to relocate out of the center of the universe

If you haven't seen it floating around the interwebs yet, please watch "This is Water" the commencement address late novelist David Foster Wallace delivered to Kenyon College in 2005. Chances are, you've probably already seen it, as I am perpetually behind hip interweb happenings. But if you are like me, here it is:

You can read the unabridged version, too. I wish I had heard this or read this after I graduated. I can't even remember who delivered the commencement address when I graduated from Penn State nine years ago*. 

Anyway, my 22-year-old self would've benefitted mightly from a reminder that I was, in fact, not the center of the universe. That I wasn't some glowing paradigm of success, education and wisdom just because I had a diploma. That my youth and education weren't evidence of my superiority. That I wasn't any more deserving of exemption from the annoyances of day-to-day existence than anyone else.

Of course, given my 22-year-old self's self-centerdness, I probably wouldn't have heard the message. Or maybe I wouldn't have thought it could ever apply to me. Wallace says it's critical that we transcend our natural state of self-centeredness, that we make an active choice not to get stuck in the mud of our own ego

"If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important - if you want to operate on your default setting - then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: the only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship."

Yes. YES! 

He's not saying anything new, really. We can't control what happens, but we can control how we react to it. But Wallace's interpretation is clothed in this wonderful and relatable imagery of our everyday drudgery -- it's a message that we can hear because we've all been in that grocery store. 

Life is full of ongoing conversations. This video seemed to be the next installment in a conversation I've been having one with myself and with others on breathing and acceptance and humanity. 

In fact, just the other day I was on the phone with my sister Laura discussing empathy and how hard it is to practice with everyone you meet and how it can be even harder to practice with the ones closest to you. We decided that we'd known we'd reached a higher plane of empathy when we could bestow the gift on our husbands -- our nearest and dearest who frequently fall victim to our unwillingness to transcend our day-to-day petty ugliness. 

But like Wallace says it takes practice.** Breaking the habit of judgement and assumption about others*** may be a life's work. But a worthwhile one, I think.

I suppose given the calamity of the world, that it's pretty indulgent of a stay-at-home mom in one of the wealthiest countries on the planet fret over how people can be nicer to one another. Or more patient or understanding or whatever. It seems an oversimplification of a problem that's plagued humans since the beginning of it all. 

I'm a self-centered being afterall, so I don't write anything without a huge amount of self-conscious. 

 But then I re-read what Wallace had to say: 

"...The most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude - but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance."

* I think it was the CEO from Pepsi -- the only reason I think that is because Penn State had some sort of contract with Pepsi so that only Pepsi products were available on campus -- including, in this case, commencement speakers. 

** Not to keep bringing up yoga -- but I think it applies. My instructor says frequently that the great thing about practicing yoga is that there's always room for improvement, always something new you can do to better yourself. In that way, there's never a point when you're done -- when the work is complete. When all that practice results in your best self. I think it's hard for us, aware as we are of our own mortality, to look at life as practice. It's the only one we have -- this is it! But when you're looking at becoming more than you are today, I think the word practice is approachable and doable. Every day doesn't have to be winning the game. Every day can be about improving our technique, and in that way it's something we can all do without fatigue or exhaustion or fear of failure.

***So, I've been trying to practice empathy while driving. I make a lot of assumptions about people when they cut me off or drive too slow or take up three parking spaces with their brontosaurus-sized SUVs. But I don't know. So when I find myself starting to yell, I also remind myself of my own driving ineptitude. A few weeks back I was driving near dusk and I was waiting for a light to change when some kid shouted at me from the backseat of his car "Turn your lights on asshole!" (actually, I couldn't hear him, but the sentiment wasn't too hard to lipread). The kid was too young to know about driving laws, so I'm assuming he was just repeating whatever it was the driver had just uttered. I don't think of myself as an asshole (an at-times absent-minded driver? Yes). It kind of sucked that based on just his driving by my car this person had formed an opinion about me. I'm trying not to pass on that suckitude to others. It's taken a lot of practice.

P.S.***** Happy Mother's Day, mom. You were first and best role model for how to treat others with compassion.

*****Wait can you have asterisks and a P.S.? Isn't that tangent overkill?! 

Squirrels in sombreros and notebook paper letters

I only have a limited amount of time before it's May 6, thus making this week's squirrel installment late to the Cinco de Mayo party (but fashionably late, I'm sure you'll agree):

This poncho is keeping my paws cozy.

I snapped this picture during a walk on Thursday, which also featured this living-and-breathing baby squirrel*:

I wish I had a poncho to hide under.
Maybe that lady will just think I'm part of the tree.

Looking at this squirrel now, he doesn't seem very remarkable. But, he was quite small and having a lot of trouble climbing the tree, so I'm pretty sure he was just a kid in need of some parental supervision (I made surely Lily got to say hi to this squirrel, but I tried to redirect her attention from the street where one of his siblings was definitely not living or breathing ... Her little soul floating away to squirrel heaven -- a place I imagine to be filled with trees, acorns and scores of eager, but dimwitted beagle mixes ready to be mocked for their rodent-hunting ineptitude). 

On a non-squirrel-related news, I got a letter in the mail from my sister Laura the other day. It was handwritten on a sheet of notebook paper and made me feel nostalgic for the pages and pages and pages of letter writing and journaling I used to do on notebook paper. The gliding of a pen across a crinkling piece of paper just feels less sterile and calculated than clicking away on a keyboard. Maybe because there's less revising ... so the soul of your writing is purer. 

It wasn't a long letter, but it was lovely. And I especially enjoyed this part and thought I'd share (hope you don't mind Laura!):

"I look forward to our vacation, to the momentary blips of greatness, to the wind blowing through my hair making me feel fresh and clean and ageless. To the sand squishing through my toes, which always makes me feel perpetually about 7. To being surrounded by the faces I love most on this planet. And maybe I'm looking forward to the juicy gloriousness of not cooking and cleaning all week, at least not alone."

My sister is such a poet. Even her texts and e-mails are filled with rhythm and heart. She inspires me to be more thoughtful in my day-to-day writing -- to approach my corresponding with the world as if I'm sitting down at an old desk with a pen and a piece of paper and no white out. 

Of course, if I took this more romantic writing route in the environment I work in now, well -- my novel would've long since become covered in spilled chocolate milk or water color pictures of "Blueberry Cat" (Lily's latest muse) or random pen scribble. 

So for now, I'll be practical. 

*I had no intention of this blog becoming so squirrel-centric. I guess it really is true that you never know where your story will take you.

A random act of carrot

The weather was gorgeous yesterday. Bright blue skies, slight breeze, warm sunshine. So I was looking for excuses to be outside. When Jovie woke up from her nap early I wandered out to grab the mail and scanned my various neglected flower beds noting a pretty sizable weed that had sprouted next to some to the wily holly bush that when we moved in had just been a stump covered with mulch (it's a pretty amazing shrub. It was literally buried, mostly dead under a thick layer of shredded hardwood and it was all, like, "Aww HELL no. You think you just cover me up and pretend I'm not here that I'll just go away. I'm bringin' that prickly Christmas cheer back. No doubt.") 

Anyway, I hadn't dealt with the weed previously because it didn't look like any of the other many weeds sprouting around my house -- it had nice, bright green frilly fronds (like the filler stuff florists use between the roses and carnations) and kind of looked like it had been planted intentionally. So I let it grow half out of laziness an half out of a hope that it would sprout some really pretty flower and add a little color to that sector of the yard.

Well yesterday, I decided to be a responsible gardener/homeowner and dispatch of the obviously invasive plant (in my mind any plant in my yard that looks large and healthy without any sort of extra attention must be a weed ... which pretty much means that all of my most strapping greenery are actually weeds). I set Jovie down to play with (and probably eat) the the fluffy ball things that drop off of the tree in our front yard and yanked the weed.

I ended up with a handful of fronds. 

See. Pretty, right?

The root clung to the ground (it'd been spending too much time with that holly bush). The size of the root bulb was kind of shocking:

I shoulda put a quarter or something next to it for comparison.
FYI, it was larger than a quarter.

Anyway, obviously, I got kind of suspicious about my weed after I got a good look at the root (I normally don't document any weeding I do. Let's be honest, I normally don't weed!) It was round and orange. The fronds had juicy, orange chunks stuck to the bottom of them that smelled vaguely familiar.

At this point I got kind of excited. I grabbed a shovel and started digging and unearthed this:

Meet the world's ugliest carrot.

A rogue carrot! In my front yard! From whence did this edible taproot come? 

As regular readers know, I'm no stranger to stray produce popping up in my yard. But at least I knew the pumpkins were a result of my own half-assed composting techniques. This carrot is a total mystery.

And it reminded me of other random floral invasions:

I didn't plant these either.

These tulips popped up in my yard last year. No, they aren't remnants of my house's previous owner (we've lived here four years with nary a tulip to be found until last year). Over the years I've planted daffodils, Black-eyed Susans (I know, so vain), poppies, irises, crocuses and mums (so many mums ... I run over them often). But no tulips. So how did they get there?

I'm now all but certain I've been targeted by a modern day Johnny Appleseed (Johnny Carrotseed? Johnny Tulipbulb?) Someone with a green thumb is sneaking garden contraband on to my property for unknown reasons. I guess if we're going to be the victim of pranking, then we're pretty lucky. I mean, the tulips make me smile (even more because I have no idea where they came from) and as for the carrot, well, I threw it on a salad (Brad was very skeptical about the malformed carrot, noting that it's flavor stood out amongst the other salad items... and not in a good way).

I run into people who read my columns or blog or whatever and comment about how they'd like to write, but never know what to write about. And I always put on my cheerleader pants (well, skirt I guess) and tell them to write. That if they feel the need to write, then they should write and it doesn't matter what it's about. 

When I found the carrot yesterday, I knew I had to write about it. Not because it was an extraordinary, life-altering event that taught me some sort of lasting life lesson. I knew I wanted to write about it because it was odd and made me laugh and gave me something to speculate about (also, the opportunities for metaphor were endless!!!). And I thought if I started writing about the carrot, that it would uproot* other ideas (like now I kinda think it'd be fun to have a character in my novel or some future novel who likes to sneak into people's yards at the dead of night and plant flowers). 

Writing -- or any art for that matter -- does not need to be a climb up Everest every time. Sometimes you unearth** simple truths by tackling simple topics -- like what happened today. And each time you sit down to document these happenings, I think you dig*** deeper into yourself. What you believe. What you dream about. What you hope for. What you hate. What you wish would change. It rounds you out and helps you make sense of the world. 

And it gets easier the more you do it.

So if it's in you to write, then write. 

And whoever's out there rescuing my garden from my own black thumb, thank you.

* See what I did there? 

** And there?

*** And there? ****

***** I'm shameless

Breathing, Boston and brighter futures (also, bossy babies)

I'm sore again today. 

Yesterday I revisited Down Dog Yoga -- the scene of my original yoga crimes -- to practice some more heated vinyasa flow. My legs are moaning about it today. But the rest of me feels good.

I've actually been taking classes at the Y a couple days a week, too.  They're shorter, cooler and not quite as ... intense ... as the Down Dog variety, but have been a really fantastic introduction to Yoga. (The Y is also lacking one important element to yoga fun: My sister Sarah to giggle, grunt and oooooommmm with.)

I've already noticed changes. It's helped relieve the lower back pain that comes with toting a 20-pound person on my hip every day. I feel more balanced and limber. 

But more noticeable than the physical benefits are the mental ones. We spend a large part of classes taking deep breaths and being conscious of how we're breathing and making strange breathing-related noises and using our breathing to move into different positions. I always thought that breathing was supposed to be, you know, easy. That one thing I do without thinking*. 

As it turns it, thinking about breathing is actually really helpful in life. Especially if your life involves a 2 1/2 year old and an almost-1-year-old. 

Breathing was instrumental in me maintaining composure as I tried to convince Lily to eat one (ONE!) carrot at dinner tonight. The standoff (which lasted at least 20 minutes) went something like this:

Me: Lily, you need to eat some of your dinner.
Lily: I want to watch cartoons!
Me: We're not watching cartoons right now, we're eating dinner.
Lily: NO! I'm sleepy!
Me: We'll go to bed after you eat some dinner.
Lily NO! I'm not tired! I want to watch cartoons.
Me: OK, you can watch cartoons if you eat one carrot.
Lily: NO! I don't like carrots.
Me: You just have to try one.
Lily: NO! I don't want to.
Me: Please try it. It's sweet like candy -- like nature's candy**!
Lily: NO! I'm sleepy.
Me: How bout this, if you eat one carrot, you can watch cartoons and have a piece of chocolate***.
Lily: I want chaw-cut! Yummm.
Me: OK, you can have it. Just try one carrot.
Lily: NO! I don't like it.
Me: OK. Then no cartoons and no chocolate.
Lily: Puts carrot on tongue.
Me: Yay! Good job! Now chew it up.
Lily: Spits carrot out on the floor.
Me: Lily, that's naughty. You have to chew it up and swallow.
Lily: Puts second carrot in her mouth and chews it up. Then spits it out on the floor.
Me: OK, dinner's over.

These interactions happen all day long. All day. But lately, when I find my blood pressure rising, I remember to mind my breathing. That is I take deep, meaningful, toddler-neutralizing breaths. And, like magic, I don't lose my temper. It's amazing. Seriously, all new parents should be given free yoga classes (or be required to watch videos on cleansing breaths ... the same way we had to watch videos on car seat safety and shaken baby syndrome).

Now, of course, I'm by no means even within the same continent of perfect. Especially when I'm overtired, stressed or generally pinchy (which happens frequently). When the situation is already out of control, it's difficult to then mind your breathing on top of everything else. Which it's why it's important to just be mindful of your breathing throughout the day, cuz then it's more of a second nature thing. You know, like breathing. But in this case, it's Breathing. 

Here's a sunset off my parent's deck in Colorado.
No, I don't talk about sunsets or Colorado in the remainder of this post.
But I thought I should break up the text.
And sunsets are kind of reflective ... which is where we're headed next. Reflection.
Here's your chance to watch that video of the baby seals you've been meaning to check out.

This week, I was thinking about other things that seem to becoming second nature to me. To all of us. In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent made-for-TV-stranger-than-fiction manhunt and arrest, in the wake of Newtown, in the wake of Aurora, in the wake of Tucson, in the wake of Fort Hood, in the wake of Virginia Tech, in the wake of 9/11, in the wake of all of it -- all the ugliness -- grieving, rallying, moving on has become second nature to us. 

I feel like I don't have the benefit of years and years and years on this Earth to know if all of this ugliness is just the natural order of things, or, if we as a society, we as humanity are just becoming more violent. This week, it feels like the latter. 

I don't know how to solve the problem of world peace. But I'm learning how to Breathe, and I feel like there are answers somewhere in there. In yoga, you use your breath to help you reach farther, go deeper. With each breath you sink a little more into whatever stretch. You sink a little more into introspection, too. 

While talking to my neighbors and others about Boston, I've heard the sentiment that nothing surprises us anymore. Almost as if we've come to expect these things to happen. Given the past decade or so, that's understandable. Sept. 11 set the stage for my generation. Or was it Columbine? Or Oklahoma City? 

Rather then just accept this heartbreaking violence as a part of our existence though, I was wondering about how I could use that process of grieving, rallying and moving on in the same way you use Breathing in yoga. Can I Breathe in the sorrow and use the breath out to push me to joy? Can we do this as a country? as a planet?

Now, I know I'm talking some new agey shit that I don't even understand that probably doesn't even make sense to anyone but me and my own weedy brain. And, I feel like I'm also some how implying that we actually need the violence to reach a higher plane, which I don't believe is true. And don't want to believe is true. 

I guess I'm just kind of tired of feeling powerless in all of this sorrow. I'm tired of feeling angry about it. I don't want to just grieve, rally and move on, I want things to actually be better. I want to lessen the likelihood that my girls will be having the same conversations with neighbors over and over again. 

I recently found a poem I wrote almost 20 years ago (with apologies on behalf of my 12-year-old self for the forced rhyming): 

"A Brighter Future' 

One wish that I hold, one wish in my hand,One promise to keep in this wonderful land. 

We don't have to fight, Please help find a light.

It takes all of us to find a better day,Let's join our hands and say ... 

I don't want to live in this decay,I want to find a better way.

Then solving our problems in this manner, If we have to, let's fly a banner.

We must all unite as one nation, By working together in complete concentration. 

To seek and find a way to stop this crime,That has tried to be solved since the beginning of time. 

And will go on 'till the end unless we make it cease,We must find peace.

Right now I'm embarrassed by the earnestness and naivety of my 12-year-old self. Of course, reading this post I guess I should feel and embarrassed by the earnestness and naivety of my 31-year-old self. 

When I saw the picture of 8-year-old Martin, my heart broke because I was 8-year-old Martin. We all were at some point in our lives. Even, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan. And then at some point many of us lose that earnestness. And then a small number of us lose our hope, too -- I think that loss leads people down a darker path.

Plenty of people (like Leonard Pitts, Mike Argento and James Martin to name a few) have written wonderful pieces about how we cope, how the evil element is much smaller in number than the good and how in the end, we all need each other. 

And we do. And that's another thing I like about yoga. It's a community of individuals who lift each other up. 

At the end of class we all put our hands together over our hearts, close our eyes, bow and say "Namaste." 

The divinity in me recognizes the divinity in you.

It's a simple gesture and it would be naive of me to say that it could fix all the world's problems.

But it's worth a try.

* OK, that's a lie. There are plenty of things I do without thinking. For instance, forgetting to turn off the oven. Or turning on one burner and putting the pot on another. Or, accidentally eating half a container of peanut butter cookies.

**The nature's candy trick worked one time -- when I was trying to get her to try sweet potatoes. It was a short-lived victory in the world of vegetable eating.

*** Yes, I realize the health benefits of one carrot are far outweighed by the health detractors of one piece of chocolate. I was desperate. Also, I was hoping if she just tried the carrot, she would realize how awesome they were and then eat more of them. Hahahahahahahahahahaha. And. Ha.

Wanted: Some conflict (also, squirrels gone fishin')

Whelp - I missed the opportunity to shoot the squirrels in their baseball getup. 

Actually, that's not quite true. I passed them twice and they were perfectly photogenic, but inertia carried my little caravan right past both times (stopping involves quieting the dog, dropping the wagon and the bag of doggy No. 2, and trying to hold my camera hand steady while the unquiet dog tries to leap after every passing car. I just wasn't in the mood.) 

I figured I had more time, but as always the squirrel ladies don't let the rodent fashion get too stale. Today they're in full fishing regalia -- pants, vest and rod. 

So lest I get too far behind on my squirrelly responsibilities ...

Got one! Even if it is smaller than the lure.

Actually, I just realized you can check out the baseball squirrels from an earlier post -- sure they were in honor of the playoffs, but they look the same.

Also, speaking of inertia, today it's the scapegoat for the lack of progress on my novel. As they say, a writer at rest stays at rest (until, of course, she opens the story file and adds one or two or three words in an effort to get the train moving). This train has been at the station, too long. 

Last night I was hiding behind a pillow on my sofa (as I'm apt to do when I'm attempting to escape the sinking feeling that whatever endeavor I'm ...endeavoring on ... isn't going well or when there's a scary movie on ... or when I'm embarrassed to be watching "The Real Housewives") and I acknowledged (out loud!) to Brad that the real problem here isn't time, it is conflict. As in a lack of conflict. I have characters, plot, a setting but I'm struggling to figure out what the heck the conflict is. What are the stakes? Where's my rising action? What will the resolution be? Where the heck is this locomotive going? 

By now you're thinking I'm the Ralph Wiggum of storytelling.

"Me fail English? That's Umpossible!"

What have I been doing this whole time with my characters and my setting and my plot? I think I was kind of hoping a solution would materialize if I just kept going. Maybe it's already in front of me and I'm missing it. I've been thinking about this problem a lot. Like, I've known it was a problem for months. And today I'm admitting it (cuz the first step to fixing the problem is acknowledging you have it, right? Or, something like that? Have I been eating too much paste?) 

Does this happen all the time to fiction writers or am I just a wannabe novelist/idiot savant minus the savant part? (So a wannabe idiot novelist...)

Another walk through the wardrobe

I've been feeling more nostalgic (nostalgicer?) the past couple of weeks. 

The other day while driving home from some errand or another,  I was trying to keep Lily awake (if she falls asleep for even a minute then, in her mind, that counts as an adequate nap and I get to spend the afternoon with an aggressive 2-and-1/2-year-old and my evening catching up on work I wasn't able to do. So you can see, naptime are of critical importance). Methods for keeping her awake in the car involve singing loudly, telling her to keep an eye out for cows and other livestock, plying her with fruit snacks, shaking her feet and -- when all else fails -- pulling up this creepy app on my phone where she presses different letters of the alphabet and an animal or mythical creature that starts with that letter pops up. Her favorite letter is U for unicorn*. It's creepy because there's creepy music that plays in the background and the person who says "U, unicorn" sounds like an alien who learned English in preparation for a hostile Earth takeover. 

Anyway, as I was handing her my phone with said creepy app ready to go, I got this flash in my mind -- a vision of road trips from my childhood -- long hours often wedged between siblings spent staring at the countryside, scouting for cows or (even better!) horses or falling asleep to my dad's music (usually a Windham Hill Sampler) and my parents talking about work (snoozefest!!). When I wasn't counting or sleeping I was reading. I could miss entire states lost in books (when I said long car trips, I meant driving from Virginia to Maine ... so lots of states). I suddenly missed those days. My pillow leaned up against the window (or my brother) and a good book. 

These days I'm still often wedged in the backseat between siblings (well, not my siblings, my kids). If I'm reading anything, it's "Dr. Seuss's ABC" or "Stay Safe With Dora" or something like that. It's a different sort of happy.

Books have always been a part of my life. In piles at the foot of my bed when I was a kid. Toppling over on my nightstand (or filling up my Kindle) as an adult. And I'm realizing more and more how much they've shaped me and the person I want to be (obviously) and how they're shaping my girls. Lily regularly points out things out in the world that's she's heard about in stories and Jovie loves flipping through pages and gnawing on them (well... at least she's doing something with them...). 

I think they might have even made me buy my house. 

See, exhibit A:

Ack! It's a naked squirrel.

This is a very random light post in my backyard. Oddly enough, it features a squirrel. I love our house for many reasons, but this is a big one. Because my first thought when I saw it was Narnia -- and the light post that little Lucy Pevensie stumbles upon after wandering through the wardrobe. 

“This is the land of Narnia,' said the Faun, 'where we are now; all that lies between the lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea.” - C.S. Lewis, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

My dad read me the "Chronicles of Narnia" when I was growing up. And I read them again myself over and over. I was kind of obsessed. In fact, for a long time I was pretty convinced I could find a closet that would lead me to a magical world (and I was probably too old to be dreaming about such things, but I did nonetheless). 

While sorting through some old stories I came across one I'd written in fifth grade about a down-and-out handmaiden who stumbles through a magic tapestry and ends up in the made-up world of Varn.

I've always hated drawing profiles ... but I love trees!

As it turns out, she's actually Queen of Varn and had been spirited away to England years before when her own world was under attack. When she returns to rule, she meets some old friends, a dwarf named Garlin and a pegasus. 

No people profiles! More trees! A merry dwarf!

Attached to the final copy of the story are several drafts and a map of sorts:

It's a plan of my story, including the setting, plot, characters, conflict, rising action, climax and falling action. 

I had grand plans for this story. There was going to be an evil wizard who my protagonist was going to have to defeat in order to reclaim her throne. The wizard never materialized -- nor did any conflict really. 

It seems I have a long history with getting stuck in a story. It might be time to pull out Mrs. Lynn's handy story map and come up with a plan. 

Maybe I should re-read "The Chronicles of Narnia," while I'm at it. Maybe what my story is really missing are mythical creatures and a little person. There are plenty of trees in it anyway.

(On an unrelated note, here's my latest column -- it's about being a bad parent sometimes. Or just being a normal parent who has a bad day every once and a while).

*It's funny to see Lily develop an interest in unicorns and horses and 2. What is it with girls and horses (or horse-related creatures? See pegasus).