Theme of the week: the free trial
This week’s unoffical theme has been the free trial. In order to fill holes in my exercise life, I tried out two different classes at two different gyms/studios. It was all about trying new things. I lifted kettleballs. I took an aerobics class. And my specific conclusion is that aerobics classes are not for me. Swinging kettleballs just might be. My more general conclusion is that trying new things is really not that hard. You just show up. You accept that you’re the newbie. You might be wearing the wrong shirt (a touch too flashy for this morning’s t-shirt-style aerobics class). You don’t know where to stand. And apparently you can’t get your arms to coordinate with your legs (aerobics class again; really really not for me). You look awkward. At least a little bit.
And that’s okay. Just make the appointment, set the alarm, and show up. If it’s a fit, you’ll know it, and if not, it was a unique experience you’ll never have to repeat.
What I learned in this morning’s aerobics class is that looking fit and toned is not a powerful enough goal for me; I kind of looked fit and toned even before I was. The luck of genes. Nope, what motivates me is the desire to stay sane, to take the edge off, to channel my nervous energy and competitive nature toward semi-useful ends like marathons and triathlons. It is also a way to inhabit my body and to get out of my head.
Which I need. Pretty much daily.
A photographer came this morning to take a shot to accompany yesterday’s interview (it will run a week from Saturday in the KW Record). He seemed slightly disappointed by my ordinary setup: desk, computer screen, chair. He said he’d imagined me scribbling into a notebook reclined in a comfortable chair. He did pose me with pen in hand, which happens next to never since I can’t read my own printing. It got me thinking about how the writer gets imagined — when you think writer, what do you see? Tortured soul? Drink in hand?
Running may be my version of drinking. Here’s hoping kettleballs will suffice too.
Big sky over empty lot
This morning I had my first interview related to The Juliet Stories. Because the book is so new, because I am not a workshopping writer, because these words have really only been read by my agent and by editors up to this point, I am awfully terribly anxiously hungry for responses. The interview was an early response, a hint at what might come.
And it was a kind response, and a generous one, and I am grateful.
Writers don’t get to tell readers how to read the book; that’s not part of the deal. But I can’t help wanting to hear — to understand — how it’s met a reader. What happened at that intersection. How the words were received.
Walking home, I passed this empty lot not far from my house. I saw how much sky there was over the lot, and how blue and clear it was. I don’t often carry my camera outside with me. I wonder, will I see this empty lot differently for having seen it through my lens?
Over the past few nights and mornings I’ve watched the moon wax to fullness and begin to wane. In the evening, it stares in the back window of my office as it rises. It is setting as I drive to wherever that morning’s exercise is occurring. I get to see the same moon twice, on different days. It’s felt like an odd little miracle.
I’m not pulling my thoughts together this afternoon. I’m just writing them down.
And in that vein of randomness, good news to share: Yesterday, my sports doctor cleared me to start running again. Slowly. And in very small doses. I would have high-fived him but he was too busy impressing on me how short short is: ten to fifteen minutes, three times a week. Now that’s short. I’m planning my first run tonight, during goalie practice. I will wear a watch. I promise not to push it. I can’t promise not to high-five anyone who crosses my path during those fifteen minutes, however. You’ve been warned.
Momentous
this morning
yesterday
this morning
yesterday
This morning a very loose tooth came out — the first baby tooth lost from my little girl’s mouth. She was thrilled and yet it was strange. When would the new tooth grow in? When would the next tooth come out? What to do with the teeny-tiny tooth? After some deliberation, she went back upstairs and put it under her pillow.
I felt something the same yesterday. My new book arrived in the mail. I wanted to celebrate. I took goofy photos. I was thrilled and yet it was strange. Part of me didn’t want to read the words on the page. So final. So done. I think that publishing a book is the end of something. It’s the end of what the book could have been (because isn’t there always room for tweaks and improvements? though tweaks and improvements can so easily spin out of control and become hacks and confusions). But, still. It’s the end of that singular imaginative process.
This morning, my little girl lost her first tooth. Momentous. This morning, I stood by the stove, hair wet from my morning swim, and I opened my book and I started to read the words on the page. Momentous. I didn’t want to stop reading and the porridge was late getting made. I read with trepidation and some distance, wondering what the words would reveal that I never intended them to, wondering how to let go. Part of me wants to take the book upstairs and put it under my pillow. Oh, for the simple and magical exchange of tooth for coin, old for new. Gentle passage.
If publishing is the end of something, it is also the beginning of something else. Like Fooey, I am asking: What happens now? What happens next? What does the tooth fairy do with all those teeth?
Where I’m at, Tuesday morning
muddy Sunday in the woods
Quiet house. Beans soaking on the stove. All children at school or nursery school. Empty coffee cup. Just breathe.
Every day holds so many in-between moments. January felt like an in-between month. February has the same feeling. Is it because I’m not working on a definitive project that will box up the scraps and tie things together? Last night I dreamed we owned two houses, an imperfect one in which we were living, and a perfect one to which we were thinking about moving. The catch was that the perfect house would take us away from our friends. In the dream, I kept listing off the perfect qualities of the perfect house — on a lake; huge sweeping lawns; quiet street; a separate guest house — but it always came back to not wanting to leave the imperfect house we already had.
Nothing about this year so far has been perfect. But it’s a frivolous aim anyway, isn’t it? Perfection. When I look at the photo above, taken on Sunday afternoon, I see an in-between moment. And I see the potential of the in-between moment. Balance is fleeting, but not elusive. Lift arms. Pause. Breathe.
Can you see this? Click on the link!
It’s my finished book!
Apparently it’s in at the Anansi offices. Um, I really really really want to hold a copy. Suddenly Monday feels a whole lot less Mondayish.