Resurrection

Resurrection. How intimidating.

What can I say? Sorry I’m inconsistent and unreliable. Except I’m really not. So maybe my natural abilities to be consistent and reliable will show themselves here once again.

A catch-up post, just in fairness. I must say, when you’ve let your blog wither like a crunchy little worm over nearly a year, there’s a freakin’ lot to cover.

I just reread Giving, from last February, and I could hear the hopeful goodbye in it even now. I don’t think I knew how to say it outright, but I can see I had been writing myself into it for a while. Isolation is my go-to place. When I’m uncomfortable or embarrassed or hurt or afraid, my natural instinct is to retreat. At 20 years old, feeling all of those things for about a million reasons, I hid in my parents’ basement. Seems like it was for at least six months, but in recognition of my lying nature, it was probably more like two or three weeks. Isolation was pretty much a guarantee that no one would be hurt any more than they’d already been. I just needed to lick my wounds for a while, gather my strength, get some distance and try to figure things out while watching as many John Hughes movies as possible. It’s actually a pretty good plan if you ask me. In cyberspace, I guess that looks like abandoning your blog.

Some time for reflection was in order, and, to be frank, some time to get my shit together. Even though rejection sucks, especially in comparison to acceptance, it’s really not that big a deal. I’ve kind of come to appreciate it. I mean, at least something’s happening. Movement of some kind. And, as a lovely person once said, each “no” gets me that much closer to the “yes.”

It’s the waiting place that gets me. For me, trying to sell myself, trying to make someone notice me, to be constantly seeking, yearning, grasping is soul-destroying. Yuck. Yuck times 1,000. I hate grasping. It took me a little while to put my head back on and feel comfortable walking around, knowing it was going to lead me in the right direction. Until I was able to do that, I stopped writing. Not intentionally. Like I couldn’t. Eventually I got to the place where I had to admit, sitting on Bestie B’s couch in the middle of the night, that, yes, in fact, I was. . . blocked.

How disgustingly average of me.

The past 10 months have been all about surrendering and writing and surrendering and writing. Basically. With some kindergarten and guitar lessons and dance classes and laundry thrown in there and maybe bleaching a bathroom or two. Also, the Kings’ new album came out. So that was good.

The first book has been placed on the backburner of someone’s house in Antarctica, completely and mercifully exiled until very recently. It’s been a breath of fresh air for us both I think it’s safe to say. I don’t know what’s going on with it, if anything is going on with it. The results aren’t up to me. I’m so good with that right now, it’s not even funny.

For the 400th time, what is up to me is the writing.

And for a while, a long while, that was not happening. Like maybe six or seven months. I had very good excuses that made a lot of sense. (see previous paragraph re: kindergarten, dance class, guitar, et al.) And the only one that ever called me on my crap, besides the occasional salt-in-the-wounds question about “The Book,” was Bestie B. Whenever my dark degeneration showed its ugly head, regardless of where it looked like it was coming from (i.e. fighting with my husband, mother, self), she would always bring it back to the writing. So many times that I sort of wanted to punch her in the face. Or, at the very least, never speak to her about anything ever again.

Thank God for consistency in besties.

Eventually, I met the inevitable end of the road. Turns out it didn’t look that different than any of my other end-of-the-roads. I was curled up in my mommy’s lap on her basement floor, crying my eyes out because it had been six months since I’d written a word. I could feel the atrophy inside of me. I was probably scared it was permanent. She is an amazing mother and she said the exact right thing, which in this case was, “Go get your laptop right now. You’re not going to do anything else but write for the next three hours.” Then she grabbed my face in her hands, like a good Jewish mother ought, and said, “You cannot neglect your gifts. You. Cannot.” She looked at me really hard. Do you understand me, her eyes said. If I hadn’t been so desperate and scared, I might have blustered my way out of it. Thankfully, I was desperate and scared. So I nodded my head in affirmation. Lip quivering, snot running, I listened to my mother.

I started writing again. I don’t think I would be exaggerating if I said that since then I have been focused and committed to Novel Deux, even though I don’t have a whole heck of a lot to show for it, comparatively speaking. The writing hasn’t been the whirlwind romance I’m used to. It has been slow and steady, which isn’t all that bad. I love these characters and I love the story and I think it’s funny and smart and heartbreaking and really, really yummy.

I got to this place where I had enough distance from the first book, from my experience with the business side of things, from my expectations and disappointments and from my SELF-WILL and OBSESSION to really see the truth.

“Okay, God,” I said one morning a couple months ago, “I’m not going to do that again. I’m not going to go through any more of my life healing up from the rejection/yearning/seeking/trying to get myself an agent/get published/make something happen thing. If this is how I feel when I’m trying to make something happen, then I’m not going to do it ever again. Like for real. No matter what the consequences. Even if it means it never happens. Just so long as I don’t lose the ability to write again. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen through You, not me.”

Here’s the hilarious thing:

I could almost hear God say, “Finally! Yeesh! I’ve been trying to get my hands on this thing for months, but you just wouldn’t let it go! Now, get out of my way.”

That very morning little reverberations started in the Universe, breezes left by movement. I’ll tell you about it next time.