Confessions of a Checklist Junkie

A couple of years ago, one of my younger brothers signed up for a citizen’s police academy, during which he volunteered to be tased. Yes, you read that right. He volunteered. The footage of this epic experience circulated the ranks of our family for a few weeks, and all of us—including him—were both horrified and amused by his electrifying reaction.  

To me, it looked like something out of a nightmare; to him, it was a rush of pure adrenaline, like mountain biking or skiing on black diamond trails. I couldn’t understand it. I’ve never considered myself an adrenaline junkie; the most extreme sport I’ve ever done is paddleboard yoga in the pool. Why would a person seek out that kind of thrill? What is to be gained? 

 

Recently, though, I’ve come to realize that I’m not as different from my brother as I once thought. I, too, thrive on a certain kind of rush: the rush of accomplishment.

 

I’m a checklist junkie. I’ve known this for some time, but I’ve only just caught up with how deep this obssession goes. 

 

For example, I design, print, and bind my own personalized planner every semester. Each daily page has no less than three separate, to-do lists; one for home tasks, one for work, and one for school. I have been known to complete a task and, once I realized it wasn’t on my list, write it down so I could check it off.

There’s nothing like the sense of well-being I get when I look back on the day and congratulate myself on all the stuff I got done. I’d say it’s even better than reading comments or counting likes on social media posts for me. It feels good, it’s how I measure success, and it’s sometimes the only thing that keeps me going.

 

My husband calls me hyper-productive, and I guess that’s true. And he means it as a compliment. But over the years, I’ve noticed being a checklist junkie comes with significant challenges, particularly for the people who have to live with me or be my friend.

 

It’s easy for family members and friends of hyper-productive people to feel lazy or incompetent. They’re not! But no matter how much I emphasize this fact, they often feel like they are. When I make a long list and then run around trying to check everything off that list, people around me feel indolent by comparison, no matter how much they get done, and no matter how much time they spend getting things done.

 

Another drawback of being hooked on checking off to-do items is that I tend to overdo it. I do too many things for too many people, and it robs them of the opportunity to do what they can for themselves. I’m so anxious to get a task done that I often forget to ask myself who should really be doing it. I need to remind myself that it’s okay to let some items remain undone, and it’s okay to let other people do things, but I often forget this in my quest for the particular adrenaline rush tied to checking off tasks.

 

So what should you do, if you, like me, are a hyper-productive, over-enthusiastic accomplisher of tasks? And what should you do if you spend significant amounts of time in the company of someone like me?

 

The first step for us checklist junkies, I think, is to be deliberate and mindful about the tasks we put on our lists. Just because it needs to get done doesn’t mean we are the ones who should do it. Perhaps, instead of listing “fold laundry,” we could try something like, “help Sam fold his laundry” or “kindly remind Amy to put away her clean clothes.” If you think about it, it’s selfish of us to keep all those good feelings of accomplishment to ourselves. We can share the tasks and share the euphoria of checking them off.

 

Another way we can prevent our hyper-productivity from overrunning others’ senses of competence is to include self-care items on our list. Tasks like, “take a bath,” “read a book,” or “watch a mindless (but wholesome) television show” are more likely to get done if they’re on the list. So while we’re enjoying the rush of accomplishment we thrive on, we’re also giving our family and friends permission to relax in our presence, and that is truly a gift.

 

If you are on the other side of this relationship, however, as a person who lives with or befriends a checklist junkie, might I suggest you try to understand what makes us tick? We’re not hyper-productive because we’re trying to make everyone around us feel bad, and we’re certainly not trying to show anyone up. We just like crawling into bed at the end of the day with the feeling that it was a day well spent, that we accomplished what we set out to do. I’m telling you, it really is an adrenaline rush.

 

And if you want to help out, if you get the feeling that there are too many tasks on our lists and you worry that we’ll burn out before we check them all off, well, you may be right. But here’s a secret: the rush usually comes from checking off the task, not doing it. So if you find one of our to-do lists lying around, maybe read through it and see if there’s something on that list you can do. When it’s done, we’ll feel just as good about checking off that task as if we’d done it ourselves. And who knows? You might even get a taste of what it feels like to be a checklist junkie.

Poem on Contemplating Policy

It’s hard to fend off
the vertigo of a constantly
shifting
perspective.
But is there any other way
to see?
Sometimes the ten thousand foot view
is calm and clear
while trouble
brews below.
And sometimes a moment
resolves as it should
for one single, significant person
while blackening storm clouds
gather overhead.
Who’s to say
what the weather really is?
And how can the needs of the masses
mean more than the one?
It’s a delicate tightrope
we walk,
when we try to say what matters
and to whom.
It all depends on who’s looking
and from where.

Thoughts on Health Care Policy debates

 In what I often think of now as a former life, I spent a decade or so in academia. I earned a BA and an MA in English Literature, reading primary works of authorship as well as critical analyses of those works, and writing my own analyses for contribution to that storehouse from which I drew interpretation. I taught composition and literature at three different universities, first as a graduate teaching assistant and then as an adjunct faculty member. I could wax eloquent on any number of themes, characters, plots, and lines from prose and poetry. And I thought I was making inroads into expanding the creation and appreciation of the literary arts in the world around me.

Then my family grew and my husband’s obligations in medical school and then residency increased, and I dropped out of the academic world to pursue full-time domestic and matriarchal obligations. I also started writing my own “great American” novels, and what I discovered was not pretty. It’s much more difficult to write a novel than it is to critique one. I have written and revised three full-length novels. And I’ve had ample opportunities to use my editing skills to polish and hone the prose of multiple authors. The creation process is far more difficult than any amount of critical analysis I’ve ever done.

And while I’m not saying that critical analysis has no place in problem-solving, I do wonder if it merits the high value we seem to place upon it. Take the Donabedian model for measuring quality care, for example. I read about this model during my outside research for my substantial writing paper, I found an article in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine titled "Direct Primary Care: Applying Theory to Potential Changes in Delivery and Outcomes" by Evan S. Cole, PhD that attempted to evaluate Direct Primary Care using Starfield’s adaptation of Donabedian’s Struc- ture-Process-Outcome conceptual model.

My impression, after reading about Danobedian’s model in its own words, was that it was a lot of abstractions designed to sound impressive but without adding anything of real value for innovators trying to solve problems in the field of healthcare. It reminds me of the Confucian proverb about lighting a single candle versus cursing the darkness. I often get the sense that critics, scholars, and committees spend their time measuring and analyzing the darkness, weighing the pros and cons of hypothetical solutions (LED vs. halogen vs. CFC vs. incandescent) and making suggestions for what changes should be made but not actually doing anything about the problem. Meanwhile, the few innovators in the field light candles and listen to criticism from those critics, scholars, and committees because their solution isn’t big enough, doesn’t light up the space enough, and has downsides like using nonrenewable resources or adding to air pollution.

But every society and civilization has limited resources in terms of intellectual capacity and time, not just money. Has anyone ever scrutinized the committee and scholarly methods of solving problems? There’s a saying about a camel being a horse designed by a committee, and I don’t think it’s that far off base. Where is the study comparing solutions designed and implemented by pundits against solutions designed by the boots-on-the-ground? All the research and thinking and talking and designing represents non-renewable resources. In those terms, the cost of these solutions is astronomical, but does it produce better results?

I’m not saying we don’t need people to do studies and look into this incredibly complex and far-reaching problem. I am saying that if the results of those studies will be to place the vested players under a microscope, maybe we should examine whether the studies themselves are valuable. Could all of the time they spent gathering and analyzing data, reporting back to one another, discussing and producing reports, and creating models for measuring quality care be better spent on something else? Like actually doing any one of the many things they suggest other people do to solve the problem in the first place?

The further I get into academia, the more I feel that sometimes—maybe even often—it is part of the problem. It’s a misallocation of resources that ends up costing the system it’s designed to ameliorate. And I wonder if the cost to the system is greater than the gains it produces. I think maybe someone should look into that.

A Time to Every Purpose

On late summer evenings,
I straddle the edge between awake and asleep,
lights all out and
windows open wide.

The wind,
tired of lining out leaves and branches that refuse to stay straight,
sidles into my bedroom,
knocking around the blinds and
checking some papers on the dresser
before wandering back out.

I know these nights are not the time to make plans.

They are only for listening --
to the faint, minor tones of a near wind chime, and
to the plaintive chirrup of a nearer cricket.
Listening to the rustled whispering of dreams queueing up.
But mostly, listening to
tomorrow settling in to wait until dawn.

For hope is a morning bird,
but peace hides in the shadows of dusk.

A Flash of Insight On Being The Writer

Dear Writer,

I've been thinking about this for a long time -- years, actually -- ever since I started down the road of pouring my energy, my ideas, my whole soul into a manuscript I hoped would someday blossom into a real, published novel. I've spent decades opening myself up, like you, to judgment and criticism, exposing the dearest parts of myself and my dreams to strangers and critics. I've been a critic myself, as a writing teacher, as a beta reader, and now as an intern. But I am absolutely convinced that

the writer's job is the hardest of them all.

That's right. Sure, it's difficult to develop the taste, the skill, and the sensibility to identify what's wrong with a manuscript and to offer that kind of criticism. It's hard to judge someone else's work -- or, at least, it's hard to do it well. It can be challenging to find exactly the right words to describe what's not working and why. It's also hard to just say no without offering a querier any feedback on what's going wrong. But no matter how difficult it is to identify the flaws in someone else's work,

it's harder to actually write a good book.

So when you feel judged and critiqued and mistreated because so many people standing between you and your publishing goals seem to be looking down their noses at your efforts, when you wonder who died and pronounced them the gods of taste and literary refinement, when the last shreds of dignity and pride bristle at yet another form rejection in your inbox, remember this: their critiques may be spot on, they may be exactly right about what's wrong with your work and what you need to fix, but that doesn't mean they're better than you or they can take anything away from you.

You are still a writer. You are doing the hardest job of all.

I have played the piano since I was a child and the organ for almost as long. I have had numerous occasions to play the organ for large groups of people: 500 to 800 church-goers in one room. I love playing the organ because it has all kinds of stops and associated sounds. There's something satisfying about feeling (not just hearing) the sound reverberate under your fingers, especially if you turn on the great bass coupler. Have I ever made mistakes while playing the organ in front of those 500-800 people? You bet! But one thought provides all the solace I need to move past those mistakes and keep playing: I'm the one on the bench. None of those 500 to 800 people are playing the organ. 99.9% of them wouldn't even begin to know how, and of the .1% that do, none of them are volunteering to take over for me.

So it is with you. You're on the bench, pounding out your story with all the stops open. Your job is the hardest of all, but you're still doing it. Props to you, fellow writer. No matter how much the critics rage or rave, you're still doing the hardest job of all. And don't you ever forget it.

Love,
Shaunna

Thoughts on Reading Queries

I've found myself in a most unusual position this summer. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. I know of more than one published author who started out interning for a literary agency and then used what s/he learned to write an effective query letter (and manuscript), land an agent, and get a book deal. I don't know of anyone who started out querying and then became an intern. Until now.

In the course of my work for the ELA (Excellent Literary Agent) this summer, I've been tasked with sorting through her query inbox and reading partial and full manuscript submissions. It's enlightening to be on the other side of the query stream.

When I wrote my first novel (over ten years ago) and started learning about publishing, agenting, and querying, I didn't know what I was doing (of course). And even though I haven't exactly come full circle, I do have some valuable thoughts on the subject that might be interesting to...nobody actually. I don't think anyone reads my blog anymore, given my two-year radio silence, but I've started posting again anyway, mostly for my own amusement.

So here is a thought: sorting through incoming queries is like taking a standardized test. That's something I know lots about, actually, because I taught LSAT and SAT prep courses for the Princeton Review (in what feels like another lifetime), and because I'm very good at taking standardized tests.

When you take a standardized test (if you wish to do well on it, that is), you have to approach it from a certain frame of mind. If there are five answer choices, four of them will always be the wrong answer. If a test taker approaches each answer choice by looking for how it could be right, she'll never get through the test. The only way to succeed is to look for something that's wrong. After all, there's an 80% chance that any given answer choice is wrong.

When you take a standardized test looking for what is wrong with each answer, you chug through the questions before the time expires, and you usually do very well. I have found that the same frame of mind applies to the intern reading queries.

If she spends her time looking for what's right with a query, she'll probably find something about 80% of the time. The world is full of writers, and each person, as a unique child of God, has a different story with a unique set of strengths. While it would be truly heartening to request to read the full manuscript for every query in an agent's inbox, the intern would never get through them before the time expired. Just like a standardized test, see?

So the smart intern who has an inbox of three dozen queries to sort through in less than an hour does what any good test taker does: she looks for what's wrong with the query so she can quickly weed out the ones that aren't going to work. And like any good test taker knows, some wrong answers are easy to spot. In the world of queries, here are some good ways to eliminate a query without reading it twice:

1. Character soup
The intern doesn't need to know the first and last name of your main character and his or her five best friends. If you want to include those characters, you can simply refer to them by their relationship(s) to the MC. So the MC's mother doesn't need a name, just a designation as the MC's mother. You don't need last names, either. Those just take up precious word space. We populate our books with characters we grow to love almost as much as our own children, and we don't want them to feel left out of anything. But the query is not the place for them. Here, as in Coco Chanel's world of high fashion, less is more.

2. Word Count
A first-time author with a YA Fantasy clocking in at 200,000+ words is a first-time author who hasn't spent any time researching what sells and what is traditional. If you want to write a 200,000+ word YA Fantasy, you can. It just can't be your first. Plus, it feels like it's only 200,000+ words because you're too in love with your babies to kill them, and no agent wants to hold your hand through chopping your novel in half. Not going to happen.

3. Theme v. Plot
Wordsworth said literature should both delight and instruct. It's fine to put themes in your writing. Don't point them out in a query, especially at the expense of detailing the plot. The plot is the delightful part of a book; the theme is the instruction. Leave the theme analysis to those stuffy college professors who have nothing better to do than publish papers in literary journals that nobody, not even the intern, reads. Use the query to tell the intern who the MC is, what choice s/he has to make, and what's at stake.

Of course, if you haven't read the QueryShark archives, you should do that first. But I think it's valuable to consider the query process from the intern's point of view. If you realize that your query is read, not for what's RIGHT but for what's WRONG, you can pass the first hurdle by making sure nothing is glaringly wrong.

Ode to Dirt or How Do You Vacuum a Vacuum?

O Dirt! Where do I find thee? Let me count the places.
Under my children's fingernails and in the folds and grooves of their ears,
In the washing machine where the water doesn't reach and the lint collector where the crevice tool won't reach either,
On the window blinds (of course) and the tops of the baseboards,
In the bathtub after draining the water to find each rubber duck traced in dirt on the porcelain,
Ground into my carpet and tracked across my kitchen and (after a rousing wrestling match) sprinkled like salt on my sheets,
In all the places I clean daily and weekly and monthly and never, and even in places I thought were perfectly sealed.
You sly exfoliant, you!
I lay awake at night, conjuring schemes for your eradication, my critical thinking skills taxed to the utmost at the contemplation of your demise.
And yet, without you, where would I be?
What would I do with myself, had I no dirt to clean?
How would I sleep at night, not knowing how to fill the endless hours of the next morning, frozen in the suspense of a spotless day?
And so, I salute you, devil though you may be, in your red and dusty glory, for because of you, I have learned.
Because of you, I am strong.
And also, you can vacuum a vacuum with another vacuum or with a husband willing to give you a hand.

For Posterity

Seven years of facebook from ShaunnaSanders

Living Deliberately

I've been thinking about how to live more deliberately—about how to get as much as I can out of life while I still have time.

There are a lot of options. I could abandon my family and live in a cabin in the woods that I built with my own two hands. But I love my husband and children and hot showers and indoor plumbing.

I could build a well, install solar panels, disconnect the internet, and go off the grid. But I'm not Amish, and I don't know how our landlord would feel about that.

I could sell or give away everything I own and join a minimalist commune. But my family members must reach their own conclusions about the value of material goods; I can't do it for them.

I've decided that, rather than follow some extreme, transcendentalist measure, I can simply make more conscious deliberate choices about what I consume, especially what I consume online.

This leads to my decision to abstain from participating in two of the largest social media outlets: Facebook and Instagram. Of course, since Facebook bought Instagram, it's just THE largest social media outlet.

I haven't really been active on Facebook for several years. I deleted the app from my phone two years ago and only logged in to post something really significant—such as notice of my acceptance to law school and the fact that we were moving.

When Facebook bought Instagram, however, and started using the FB algorithm to order my Instagram feed, that was the last straw for me.

You see, I like having choices. I don't believe the companies who run these social media outlets should decide which of my friends' posts will interest me the most, which ads will be most likely to make me pause in my scrolling, etc.

When a computer algorithm chooses what to display, and when a company accepts marketing dollars in return for filling my newsfeed with ads, I no longer have a real choice in what I consume. If I open my account and look through my Newsfeed, I've already consumed all those ads and all those "relevant" posts, even if I didn't want to.

I know that opting out of social media is not a realistic solution for everyone. For me, however, it feels like the right thing to do. I'd like to take more care of how I spend my time and attention. I want to live deliberately and consume modern culture deliberately.

What about you? Any ideas on how you can better "suck all the marrow out of life so that, when you die, you do not come to find that you had not lived?"

Fall

The trees are tired
in this wild rush of fall,
tired of the leaves
constantly clamoring to be up
and bursting into brilliant flame,
tired of being awake.

They feel the frost nibbling at both ends of the day,
sense the coming of winter
when sleep and death
hover peacefully in the air
and all the leaves are silent.

This last effort is not for them,
the straining of the colors
and the trembling against the wind.

It's a lost cause, 
as they have always known, 
and all they care for now
is a still night with a pale moon
and the starlight
singing them to sleep.

Thursday, 9:15 p.m.

She was tired.

She sat on the couch, legs crossed (right over left) and arms folded (left over right) and stared at the silence.

She heard the hum of the refrigerator and the soft whoosh of the heater and a strange buzzing in her ears, as if her brain could not process the absence of children's voices and the sound of bare feet slap slap slapping on the stone floors. As if silence wasn't good enough, so it had to make up something else to hear.

She leaned her head to one side and her mind wandered into tomorrow, next Tuesday, three hours ago, a year from now.

She knew she ought to get up and do something, anything. To sit idly was more than frivolous, it was more than wasteful and wanton and wicked, it was heavenly. And it made her tired — at least, she accused it of making her tired, because what else could it be?

But the longer she sat, the louder the humming and whooshing and buzzing became, until it consumed her and she couldn't think of anything else and she didn't want to.

So she leaned her head further to the side, and closed her eyes and (just like that!) fell

into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Summer in the Desert

Excepting snakes, the desert makes night creatures of us all.

We wait the long day in languid silence
while the sun burns across the sky.
We hide in dark corners, fighting the madness,
until the evening drops, the light fades, the earth exhales.

When the night winds blow like the whispers of dryads,
when stars pierce the deepening blue,
when cicadas set down their bows and crickets pick them up again,
then we come alive.

We feel our old strength returning.
We have only been sleeping these hot, dreary hours,
until the sun went down
and we could see:
the lingering twilight
the bird shadows measuring the sky
the clear light of a rising moon.

True love

The flutters and excitement
Were pleasant while they lasted--
The pseudo imitation
Of a deeper kind of grace.
Though we pursued intently
After passion's bright illusion,
We were only chasing shadows
That dissolved without a trace.

After all the sparks went out
After all the flames died down
After life was back in route
Then we fell in love.

Ode to Facebook

I like to believe that
I will save the world from
certain destruction if
I immediately repost this
 - illuminating comparison of the similarities between two presidential assassinations,
 - thinly-veiled criticism of the current administration's platform disguised as an economics professor
   failing his entire class
 - little-known fact about ATMs that can help my friends thwart the next gun-toting thief to accost them
 - potentially life-changing article about how baby carrots are REALLY made.
Alas, but for snopes, I could truly make a difference.

I want to change the world.
And if I could cause five years of good luck
to rain down on the heads of thirty of my
closest friends, just by sharing with them
the most adorable picture of
 - a kitten snuggling up to a pig
 - a field full of organic, non-GMO, cage-free wildflowers (no animals were harmed in the taking of this
   photograph) with an inspiring quote from someone unknown but obviously wise and eloquent person
 - piles of money,
I would share in less time than it takes my heart to beat.

But I can't give what isn't mine.

All I have are poetry, stories, and (some would say) useless thoughts.
They're not airbrushed or photoshopped or perfect.
They're not anti-bacterial or peer-reviewed or politically correct.
Sometimes they're not even polite.

But they're mine, and they're true, and they're all I have to give.
And in some way, I hope they help.

Madame President

Mira stood in the hallway outside her father’s room and looked around.  She had passed a couple of nurses, but the floor was otherwise deserted.  The scene was utterly different from the last time, when it had been her mother dying in the next room.

That time, the hallways had been crammed with people -- media correspondents, government officials, aides, consultants -- all waiting for something to happen.  She and her father had barricaded themselves in the room, but it was still unnerving to have to face the whole world every time they wanted a cup of coffee.

And now? A couple of junior reporters had come by earlier, but they only stayed long enough to drop off their cards.  After all, her mother had been the first female president.  She had brought up the entire nation, while the only person her husband had brought up was Mira.

But Mira was not a stranger to Bethesda Naval Hospital.  Her first visit had happened just after the assassination attempt, sometime during the middle of her mother's first term.  And it was the only time she remembered her father losing his temper.  She had arrived just in time to hear him yelling.

“She’s my wife,” he’d shouted, his hands clenching into tight fists.

“Yes, sir,” someone said, “but she’s also the President.”

“It’s my job to protect her.  Don’t you get it?”

Someone must have, for shortly thereafter, her father had filed for a concealed weapons permit and took a few special courses with the secret service.  It had taken Mira a lifetime to understand the full import of that conversation, and, to tell the truth, she was still a little angry -- but not at him.  Never at him. 

While her mother served in Congress, Mira's father had taken her to her first day of kindergarten.  He had helped her shop for school clothes and decorated her locker while her mother campaigned.  When Mira started her period, he raided the cupboard under the bathroom sink and brought one of everything.  Her mother didn’t find out for a week.

And then the analysts had said, “The time is ripe for the first female president in America.”  So she campaigned for months, while Mira and her father smiled and waved.  When the time came, they moved into the white house.  Eight years later, they moved out.  By then it was too late.  Mira was already grown up.

But now her father lay dying on the other side of the door, and neither of them could save the other from the truth.  

Mira pushed opened the door and walked into the room.    

“Bethany?”  He was finally awake.

“No, Dad.  It’s Mira.”

“Turtle.”  His first name for her.  Mira had turned out thick-skinned and introverted.  “It’s coming,” he said.

“I know.  Are you afraid?”

“Only a little.”

Mira sat down and took his hand in both of hers.

“I love you.”

“Me too, Dad.”

He tried to laugh, but he was too weak.  “I loved your mother, too.  Almost more than I love you.”

With his dying breaths, her father was trying to tell her what she’d known all along -- the reason he had sacrificed everything: he had loved her mother.

Only, he wasn’t finished.  He squeezed her hand, and she leaned in.

“I loved her,” he said again, his voice strained with the effort of talking, “but I never voted for her.  Not even once.  You should know that.”

Mira stared at him, and he smiled with his eyes.  Of course not, she thought.  Of course he didn’t.  

He was gone within the hour. 

A little bit of literature in your news feed

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook; I suspect most people do.  On the one hand, I love keeping up with friends who would, in a non-Facebook world, get lost in the distance and time separating us.  On the other hand, my news feed is often so clogged with reports of the games my friends play, political rants, pseudo-inspirational forwards, and pictures of dogs and cats looking cute that I log out of it before I can read the stuff I like to hear about.

I think the technological revolution has had the unexpected byproduct of an increase in literacy.  We read much more than we ever did in the past, partly because the written word is that much more accessible than it ever was.  The down side to this, as I see it, is what we read -- Charlotte Mason called it twaddle.  You know what I'm talking about.  But it doesn't have to be this way, and I've been thinking of a better way...

People post photos on Facebook all the time.  I have friends who are blessed in the visual arts.  They post photos of their paintings and drawings (and photos, of course).  Some of my friends post songs they like for other people to listen to, or youtube videos of great musicians playing wonderful music.  Lots of my friends forward inspirational thoughts or famous quotes they like and agree with.  But, at least in my news feed, there is a shocking absence of the literary arts.  And I've decided to try and remedy that.

I'm not a photographer or a painter.  I am a musician, but I don't really have the time or inclination to record musician and share it on Facebook.  I hope someday.  What I really am is a writer.  I craft poetry and prose.  Some of it is good; some not so much.  Either way, I'm practicing my art, keeping it alive as well as I can, amid the chaos of four children and a mostly-absent husband.

So I am proposing the following: I am going to write something literary every day.  It might be a poem. It might be a very short story.  It won't be a cute aphorism or a diatribe against the evils of sugar, GMOs, the current political debates, the rise of autism, or anything else serious and concerning.  It'll be fiction in all its delightful, instructional glory.  It won't be short enough for a tweet (because I don't), nor will it be long enough for a blog (because nobody else does anymore).  It will be perfect for a Facebook post, though.

If you want to receive a bit of literature (high or low remains to be seen) in your news feed every day (or as often as I can), friend my author page, linked somewhere on this blog (as soon as I figure out how to add it).  Tell your friends.  Feel free to forward anything you like or repost it.  It's not much, but it's what I have to give to the world, so if you want it, it's yours for the taking.  If not, I understand.  Some people just really like pictures of dogs with funny expressions on their faces and cute captions.  That's cool, too.  I'm just saying...

On Running

My dear friend, Fiona Ostler, recently posted a question on Facebook asking friends what helps them find peace and balance in their lives.  Up until the last year of my life, I would not have answered, "running."  I always thought runners were a little crazy.  Running was boring and hard and I never enjoyed it.  I don't know what changed.  All of the planets must have aligned perfectly at the exact moment to tip me into this new world, but, because I am me, I have to write about it.

Running helps me find peace and balance because it is boring.  And I don't get enough of that kind of simplicity in my life very often.  So here's a list of reasons I run:

1) It's me time.  I don't take the kids running with me.  I have a double jogging stroller, but I rarely use it to train, except in the most dire of circumstances.  When I run, nobody needs anything from me, and I love that.  It's rare and precious and not to be discounted.

2) I get to take a break from thinking about things too much.  Once I get my body in motion, my legs keep up the running on their own.  For some reason, that continuous movement settles my brain and quiets that voice in my head that is, otherwise, almost constantly churning thoughts.  Funny, though, how much more I sense when I'm running.  I hear insects, birds, wind, traffic, leaves rustling, water flowing, sirens, people talking.  I feel the pavement or dirt beneath my feet, the sun on my back, the wind on my face.  I smell the most delicious flowers, fresh-cut grass, car exhaust, dust, but only when I'm running.  I am part of the outside world almost without being sentient, and I love losing myself in it.

3) I need the daily sense of accomplishment when I finish the run.  It's not just an endorphin rush, although it is that.  I feel like I've done something worth doing.  I've used my time well.

4) Sometimes it hurts and it's hard.  I plan a run that's too far or I get tired halfway through.  Sometimes my clothes chaff and I have to pee and I can't swallow because my throat is so dry from running.  I still get side aches occasionally, although my friend, Kristy, told me they would go away if I kept at it, and she was right 99% of the time.  Sometimes it's too hot or too cold, the wind stings my face and makes my eyes tear up and my nose run.  Sometimes I use up all my energy on the way down and then I really struggle to get back up the hill.  But just because something is hard doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.  Running is a good reminder that the good things in life require a lot of sweat and tears.  Well, I sweat a lot.  And I cry some, too.  And all of that brings me peace.

Baby Steps

       She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.  At the threshold, she began to worry.  The knob felt heavy in her hand.  She couldn’t remember it being so difficult to turn.  Only by gathering all her courage could she twist it just enough that it popped open.
       The mechanism of the door-hinge surprised her.  Who could have guessed it would open so willingly?  She dropped the handle, and the door swung slowly inward, eased by a gentle wind coming down off the mountain and pushing its way past her into the house.  Some papers on the piano rustled, and one sheet fluttered onto the floor.
       She froze at the sensation of wind on her face.  It was a timid wind -- just strong enough to tease the flyaway strands of her hair into brushing across her forehead and cheeks.  It smelled faintly of rain.
       The first step was like walking through water, chest-high, the current running against her.  At any moment, she expected her feet to slip out from under her; then the wind would carry her away.  But the current ebbed as she took another step, and by the time she was out the door and standing on the edge of the front porch, she wasn’t in the river at all.
       She was, in fact, out of the house for the first time in twenty years.  The sun shone down on her white arms and the smooth skin of her neck above her shirt-collar.  She felt she had never known a warm spring sun on her bare skin, or if she had, it must have been someone else in some other lifetime.
       Nobody goes inside with the idea of never going back out.  But one bad day had led to the next until it was far easier to just stay home.  Soon she couldn’t fathom how other people managed the gargantuan tasks of grocery shopping or visiting the laudromat, when, for her, greeting a neighbor required such Herculean efforts.  It was better to avoid them all -- until today.
       She had picked up a thin, worn paperback lying dusty on her bookshelf for ages.  As she opened the front cover, a folded piece of paper slipped out.  It was a letter from her mother, written to her father while he was in the war.  She would have been six, maybe seven.
       “I wish you could see our little Grace,” her mother wrote.  “She is always moving -- from the garden to the tree to the sandbox to the porch.  She never wants to come inside!  I have the hardest time convincing her to eat dinner, take a bath, go to bed.  She is insatiably curious.”
       Did she know that girl? And if she did, then who was this fifty-year-old woman, creeping around the house all day, startled by her own shadow or the sound of footsteps coming up the walk?
       So, in a momentary fit of bravery, Grace had stepped outside her home after two decades of reclusion.  She’d pushed past the current of fear wrapping the house like wood siding, ignored the scorching sun on her cheeks and the wind tugging at her hair and clothes.  But with each step she took, her feet grew heavier and her ears began to ring.
       She made it as far as the mailbox before turning around and scurrying back inside.  And for a year and a day afterwards, she could never pass by a window but the ghost of a warm, spring sun rose up to meet her.

More Reversible Poems

So at this very moment, Janet Reid is hosting a writing contest on her blog using a suggestion I sent her for a reversible poem (plus an example of a poem I wrote). You can check out the contest here for a limited time only. However, I thought it might be fun to read some of the other reversible poems I wrote, so here are a few more:

Shipwreck

LIVE:
She wanted to
send a message to the world.
She bottled it all up.
She took a paper and,
on its side,
listed:
the boat,
the house,
the kids.
She just wanted a vacation from
the dull life.
She had escaped,
that time she came
over,
worked
the vessel so.
She had not thought.

She had not thought
the vessel so
worked
over
that time she came.
She had escaped
the dull life.
She just wanted a vacation from
the kids,
the house.
The boat
listed
on its side.
She took a paper and
she bottled it all up.
Send a message to the world.
She wanted to
live.


Harvest Time

For these young ones,
the world is not long --
a midsummer evening.
The rain falls on and on,
flowers blooming
as violent as
the deep, blood-red river,
as heavy as
the fragments of a soul.
In swift strokes,
the reaper cuts them down.

The reaper cuts them down
in swift strokes,
the fragments of a soul,
as heavy as
the deep, blood-red river,
as violent as
flowers blooming.
The rain falls on. And on
a midsummer evening,
the world is not long
for these young ones.

National Talk Like a Pirate Day?

DISCLAIMERS: Sorry about the skipping lines. I wish I could figure out a good way to indent on my blog, but so far, no luck. Also, I am not making fun of people with Turret's Syndrome. Aquatic Turret's doesn't even exist.



Isaac’s vacation ended the moment his tires crossed the city limits. He hadn’t even breached the suburbs when his cell phone rang.

“I’m fifteen minutes away,” he answered, not bothering to check the caller ID.

“I need you here in five,” Strickland said, “because that’s when I’m leaving.”

Isaac sighed and hung up the phone. His boss’s vacations almost always coincided with homicide investigations. Isaac suspected he had a weak constitution.

Ten minutes later, he walked into the office. The chief was talking to Isaac’s partner, but it was clearly not going well.

“I don’t care how you do it,” Strickland said, shutting his briefcase with a loud click, “just get him to talk.”

Steven shrugged. “That’s not the hard part, sir. The hard part’s getting him to make sense.”

“What? Is he an idiot?”

Steven shook his head.

“Crazy?”

No.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“It’s complicated,” Steven explained. “He’s got this obsession with--”

“With what?” Strickland was not generally patient, especially when he was trying to leave town.

“With the sea, sir,” Steven said. “Actually, with everything nautical.”

“What the heck?” Isaac blurted out.

Strickland threw up his hands. “Go on,” he said to Isaac, “have a crack at him. I’m out of town starting now, so make sure you have this report finished and on my desk by Monday.”

“Yes, sir.”

Strickland walked out the door without looking back, and Isaac turned to his partner.

“What’s with him?” he asked.

“Who? Strickland?”

“No, the witness.”

“He’s got SIATS,” Steven explained.

“What?”

“Stress-induced aquatic turrets syndrome.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I wish I was.” Steven sighed. “It’s got to be the only reason he’s still alive. The killer must have known there was no way this guy could squeal.”

Isaac strode over to the interrogation room and opened the door. A thin, slightly balding man wearing blue jeans and a polo sat on the chair. He looked up when Isaac entered.

“Good morning,” Isaac said. “I’m Detective Kramer. How are you?”

“Fine,” the man said.

“I’m just going to ask you a few questions, alright?”

“Sure.”

“First, for the record, what is your full name?”

“Quincy Gerald.”

“And where do you work, Quincy?”

“At the library.”

“Were you working at the library last Friday night?”

“Yes, I was.” Quincy shifted in his chair, but his expression remained undisturbed.

“And did you see or hear anything unusual that night?”

“Spongy, pants-fouling bilge rat!” Quincy yelled, his face growing red and bits of spittle flocking at the corners of his mouth.

“I beg your pardon?” Isaac asked.

“Up the yardarm, you rogue!”

“I see. Well, have you ever seen this woman?” He slid a picture of the victim across the table toward Quincy.

“Walk the plank!”

He decided to try a different tactic. “Have you ever met me before?” he asked.

“Nope.” Quincy said, his face a picture of tranquility once more.

Steven opened the door and stuck his head in. “Isaac?” he asked.

Isaac nodded in Steven’s direction. “What about him?” he asked Quincy.

“Just today,” Quincy answered.

“Chief Strickland wanted--” Steven began, but Quincy interrupted.

“Scurvy cur!”

Isaac twisted around to stare at Quincy for a moment, then turned back to his partner.

Steven tried again. “Chief Strickland--”

“Your mother was a mayfly and your father smelled of whale blubber!”

“Just gimme a couple a minutes.”

Steven backed out of the room and shut the door. Isaac faced Quincy again.

“Chief?” Isaac said softly.

“Landlubber!”

“Strickland?”

“Dogfish!”

“Murderer?”

“Villain!”

Isaac closed his eyes. He knew, without ever taking the case to trial, his ship was sunk.