I Don’t Want to Wait

Paula Cole at Edmonds Center For The Arts, north of Seattle, 10-23-09 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“I don’t want to wait
For our lives to be over
I want to know right now
What will it be
I don’t want to wait
For our lives to be over
Will it be yes or will it be
Sorry ” (Paula Cole)

That song, made famous by Dawson’s Creek, has been playing in the soundtrack in my brain for the past few days. When the show and song began (1998) I was hooked. Yes, I realize it was about high school students, but it spoke to me. I had just graduated with an MFA in Theatre Directing. Although I was 30 years old, I felt like life was just beginning, and I was taking steps toward achieving dreams I could hardly imagine. I had moved in with my boyfriend, when I never though I would find anyone to love me. I had directed shows, and I was going to storm the world of theatre.

Except that I found myself lost, and not sure of what my next steps were.

So, I resorted to my comfort zone, after only a year in the real world and went back for another (useless) degree. I hoped that somehow that would give me more clarity about what I wanted to do with my life.

Nathan followed me, and a week after we moved to Arizona where I would get my doctorate, I was engaged to be married.

Since then life has been a speeding train heading for destinations unknown. I finished my doctorate in three years while planning a wedding and getting married in the middle.  After graduating, even though I had no plan or intention of continuing in academia when I first started in the program, I found myself falling into a series of adjunct faculty positions as our life took over and in some ways I was just along for the ride.

Now, 14 years later, I feel like I’m still waiting because I have no idea what happens next. I still don’t know what I want to do with my life, and I don’t  want to wait for my life to be over before I understand it.

Back then, everything seemed possible. Now, I find it even difficult to name my dreams.

I’m still on a speeding train, but I have no idea what my destination might be.

I’m still just along for the ride.

I am trying to be patient and see where life takes me, but sometimes it seems life won’t take you anywhere unless you have a clear idea of where you want to go.

I don’t.

I guess I’m still waiting.

 

The New “Normal” or What is Normal?

I just read a comment on another blog that made me think about language again, and this time I want to discuss the concept of “Normal”.

The comment was this:

What annoys me deeply in many cases is the effort of (some members of) the LGBT group to convince the world that theirs is the “normal” way. What do I mean with this? Male + Male = No Procreation. Female + Female = No Procreation. No Procreation = No Life Renewed. And I don’t speak of modern artificial means — I’m talking about human nature, which has not changed.

I don’t want my child or other people’s chidren get brainwashed into thinking that homosexual is “right.” Homosexual just exists in this world and we have no reason to be mean and dictate to others how they should live their lives.

I get what she is saying in the idea that the laws of nature require a male and a female for procreation. However, in this abundant natural world variations occur, naturally.  I’m not a scientist. But, just my basic high school biology taught me that there is variation depending on genetics. Using the fun and completely nerdy website Wordnik, I found this definition of normal in terms of biology:

. In biology, a species or race considered as a fixed standard which individual organisms may approach by heredity and from which they may recede by variation. The conception of a normal is statistical rather than biological, for there is no evidence that an exceptional specimen of a species differs, as such, from an average specimen in any essential or qualitative way. The notion of a species as a fixed standard belongs to the pre-Darwinian period in the history of biology.

(Click on this link for the many definitions of Normal)

So, if I am reading this correctly, variation is normal.

Yet, there are many people in our world who seem to want to define the NORM as one thing and one thing only. In those minds Normal=Right, and Different=Wrong.

The terms are not synonymous. Right and wrong are moral terms, based off of our individual interpretations of the world. Yes, we can probably agree on some basic tenets of right vs. wrong, but we break those every day. That’s evident.

Normal and different are not related to morals. The are just ways by which we can communicate how we perceive the world, which again relates to our individual interpretations of the world.

There is no truth. There is no norm. There is just perception.

I am the first to admit that I don’t have a”normal” life, whatever that might be. My life, at the moment, seems more like a confusing mess– a carnival ride gone out of control. But, despite my ups and downs, the craziness is part of my normal.

My norm lies in difference.

Perhaps we need to get rid of the term “normal” and use something else. I don’t know what term can replace it, but there has to be a way to celebrate diversity rather than try to make everyone and everything the same.

I would love diversity to be the face of the Norm.

Things I Don’t Understand

Confusion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every day I just get more confused. I don’t understand . . .

• why who someone loves and chooses to spend his/her life with makes any difference to other people
• why it matters more who you know than who you are
• why money means more than who you are
• why women are still perceived as not equal
• why men are so afraid of women’s power
• why we are forced to “opt out” rather than “opt in”
• why my body, and what I do with it, has anything to do with anyone but myself and my family
• why there are so many women who support the subjugation of other women (as long as their individual power is not touched, of course)
• why poverty is blamed on the poor, when the system works against them
• why the rich get richer and the middle class disappears
• why racism still exists in a world where the only difference between races is color of skin
• why being different is seen as something bad
• why certain beliefs should be seen as more right than others. I simply don’t believe that. What I believe is what I believe. What you believe is what you believe. And as long as those beliefs don’t hurt each other, that shouldn’t be a problem. But now, it seems that in some belief systems it is perfectly acceptable and encouraged to hurt anyone who believes differently.
• why all the foods that are bad for you taste so good
• why I usually like my nurse practitioners more than I like my doctors
• why I can accomplish more when I have more to do, and I can’t seem to write when I give myself a break from blogging daily.

All these questions and more floated through my head today as I had a sort of surreal medical experience. (Sorry guys, if you don’t want to read about women’s issues, stop here).

I lay on the table at the OB/GYN, legs in stirrups, as my wonderful new Nurse Practitioner exchanged my expired birth control for a new one. Now, that’s not unusual, except that this was happening in the environs of what I assumed was a Catholic hospital.

“Is this a Catholic hospital?” I asked.

“Yes it is.”

“So how are you able to do this?”

“We got special permission. These things can only be done within these four walls,” she said, indicating the small suite of examination rooms we were in. “If you wanted it done in the greater hospital, it couldn’t happen. We don’t even have access to hormones there.”

Surreal, isn’t it?

I suppose the battles between religion vs. science, common sense vs.  faith,  believers vs. non-believers, owners vs. workers, powerful vs. powerless, etc. will continue on ad infinitum until humankind destroy’s itself completely.

I suppose that makes sense, but I still don’t get it. Can anyone explain?

Fiction or Non-Fiction? Finding My Voice

“I am a writer.”

I forced  encouraged myself to tell someone that for the first time yesterday,  when I went in for an eye appointment with a new doctor and they were getting my background information.

“I am a writer.”

“You’re a writer? ”

“”Well, I’m trying to be a writer?” (my inevitable self-deprecation). ” That’s the first time I’ve claimed it out loud.”

“And that’s good, isn’t it?”

I thought it was good except for my  backtracking, diminishing my belief in myself as a writer. Why is it so hard to say and believe? After all, a writer writes. I write, every day. So, I’ve only been paid for a couple of articles and that was long ago. That doesn’t mean I am not a writer.

A writer is, after all, someone who writes. Of course, I want to be a writer who writes as my profession. I would like to make a little money for my words.

First, of course,  I have to produce good work.

Part of the reason that I am (sort of) taking a break from blogging (which really means giving myself permission to blog when I feel like it, rather than feeling an imagined pressure to post every day) is so that I can focus on other writing, on Works in Progress. Up until now, I’ve had a lot of Works but not a lot of Progress.

If I want to be a writer, I have to write and complete something. Yes, I technically have two books under wraps (a dissertation and a fiction novel for middle grader readers) but they remain objects of times past,  hidden in the depths of my overstuffed bookshelves where they will probably remain, unread by any new eyes.

It is time for me to move on and practice the art of writing. If I want to be an author, then I must treat author as a verb. I must author books.

So far I have written between 5000-6000 words on both of my current full-length fiction projects.  A lot of it has been character exploration, or the wanderings of my mind as I try to figure out the actual stories I am trying to tell. Some of it may make it into the books, but some may just live on as an exploration in time, place, history, character and background–all the things I need to know to make these character’s come to life for my readers. If I ever finish them enough  to have readers.

Over the past week or so, I have discovered that I can focus more on these projects by leaving my home office for part of the day. When at home, I’m more tempted to distract myself with computer games, or books, or a little tv. When in a public place, like a coffee shop, even if I have my computer I am less susceptible to the easy access available on my screen. I may check e-mail, but I focus on my goal. I have also discovered the joy of going for walks and then exploring character or story in handwritten pages on a yellow pad, which I then transfer to my computer (with edits) when I return home.

Today, however, my journey to an outside workplace  threw challenges in my writing path. First I stopped at the office supply story to buy index cards, since they helped me plot my last writing ventures. From there I headed to the coffee shop next door, only to find after purchasing my Chai Latte and a healthy snack that there was no place to sit and plot. Not a single spot.  I didn’t want to return home, so I decided to be naughty and bring my purchases to one of my other writing haunts, a nearby Barnes & Noble. I figure I spend enough money there that bringing outside food and drink was acceptable once in a while.

While driving in search of these various possible writing locations, I listened to NPR. I only caught snippets of talk shows but they were each interviews with authors. The first was with Ruth Richardson,  an expert on Charles Dickens who wrote Dickens and the Workhouse: Oliver Twist and the London Poor. While I am not an avid Dickens fan, I love hearing authors discuss their work, and I am really fascinated by history and non-fiction in general.

Should I be writing non-fiction? The question popped into my head.

The second interview was with David Rees, the author of  How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical & Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening for Writers,  Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, & Civil Servants.

I kid you not. That is the actual title.

Now, I know I am not the most comical writer in the world, so perhaps I’m not the best person to write the follow-up book of HOW TO ERASE MARKS COMPLETELY AND FULLY  AFTER USING THE PERFECTLY SHARPENED ARTISINAL PENCIL. But, the reality that a book like that exists speaks loud and clear to a fact that you can write non-fiction about anything.

Again the question, should I be focusing on non-fiction?

I can write non-fiction. I’ve been doing it almost daily in this blog. I have done it in hundreds of pages of academic speak. I have plenty of non-fiction books in my idea pile.  You know, the ideas that are works without a lot of progress.

In a publishing market where the big sellers seem to be Young Adult or non-fiction, why am I pounding away at two books that I can’t quite even classify yet? (They both lie somewhere in the realm of fantasy meets contemporary literary fiction, social satire).

In many ways I believe that part of my struggle with saying “I am a writer” relates to a general struggle I have had surrounding my life.

I cannot label myself in a single word.

Well, I can describe myself in two words: Renaissance Woman.

Perhaps I should be writing about that?