Balancing Mind Ogre Patterns

On Wednesdays, I get toothpaste in my eye. I’m not sure why this occurs every week without fail. It’s not intentional. Wednesdays are not good days for me in general.

There’s a pattern.

Sundays, I forget to do everything and wind up frantic at 10:00 at night, wondering how I’m going to do it all with no time.

Mondays are like New Years Day. I’m bright and shiny with intention and purpose. It will be a phenomenal day. I will exercise, plow through my pending work, clean the house, volunteer for a charity, and find a cure for the common cold. I wait until about 3:00 to admit none of that happened, but the dream has not yet died.

Tuesdays, I take another stab at it, but it’s like January 2nd. You can’t recapture the magic of that electric determination. By lunchtime, I stop even pretending to be a productive member of society.

Wednesdays are toothpaste. There’s often an afternoon nap involved, too.

Thursdays, I don’t give a damn about anything. I do what needs doing, but it takes effort. If someone asks me to participate in some event or activity on Thursday, it ain’t happening.

Fridays, it’s a toss-up whether I’m even going to get dressed.

On Saturdays, my resolutions come back, only this time I swear to go out and enjoy the world, see art, watch a play, and enjoy life. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing… I’ll just finish this chapter in my book, and then I’ll get going. Yep.

Then I keep reading straight through to Sunday evening.

The pattern of my life is one I would love to change. My therapist would love for me to change it, too. If nothing else, I would get more work done, which would enable me to afford my therapy sessions. It’s a vicious circle.

Every night, I lie in bed and imagine worlds and adventures and people, forming them into stories in my head. Everyone tells me to write them down. I don’t.

When you talk to people about depression, this is not what they would imagine, I think. How it wears you down, dragging at you in whispers that hold you back with subtle force. I’m not sad. Like I said, it’s a beautiful day, the sun, the birds, etc. My mind is just not under my complete control. And yes, it’s frustrating as hell.

There are rare days when I am hypo-manic and can take on the world. Those are the days when work gets done, stuff gets cleaned, and I am the mistress of all I survey. Brimming with focus, burning to explore the world. It doesn’t last, though. I pay the price afterward with an unusual low. This is kind of like a kid on a sugar high passing out when they come back down.

So low is bad, high is bad, and I have to learn to ride the line between the two. My pattern allows this, but I need to change my pattern. How to stay balanced while doing this is a conundrum.

My friends and family want wonderful things for me. That’s great. I want wonderful things, too. And I understand it’s hard to watch from the outside while I continue with the same old behaviors and making the same old mistakes. It’s impressive these people stick around, really. I’m annoying.

There are these voices in my head. (No, not like that. I’m not schizophrenic.)The encouragement, faith, love, and admiration I receive from the people in my life is a quiet chorus, whispering at me over and over to remind me that there is something more, and that I can have it. These soothing voices join together against the loud clamor of my own inner voice telling me I suck in every possible way. It’s hard to hear past that barrage of negativity.

I hear everyone, though. I do. No one should ever think that their words have no effect on me. Often those words are the only weapons I have in the fight to do SOMETHING today, even if it’s brushing my teeth. Without those voices in my mind, it would be a fight I couldn’t win.

Mental illness is invisible. Sure, you can see someone flake out and do some weird shit. You can see cuts, scars, weight gained or lost, mood swings, seizures and meltdowns. It’s below the surface that the true symptoms do their damage, however. Each depressive person’s experience is unique to them, but there are many near-constant similarities. The biggest is that depression has the potential to tear apart everything they care about and want to build for themselves. It’s impossible to do your taxes, wash the dishes, or manage your workload when you’re fighting a sumo wrestler in your head. Your hands are already full.

I’m not sure where this is going, but here it is anyway.

In my case, depression is a fact of life. I’ve never been without it, even as a toddler. There is no “me” without depression. I’d be a completely different person. That means that there is no clear way to unravel its effects from the rest of who I am. It feeds my creativity, informs my decisions, and influences my relationships. So I have no frame of reference for what “normal” would mean for me. I don’t think I’d like it.

My imagination walks hand in hand with my illness, giving me words and images and characters to bring to life in my writing. The books I read come alive, dynamic and immersed in detail. That would be hard to give up.

Having been judged and marginalized all my life, I am much more accepting and accommodating in my interactions with others. I embrace the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. (Metaphorically. I’m not a hugger.)

It makes me want to help others, support those who are suffering, particularly when their circumstances are more heartbreaking or perilous than mine. I want to fix all the problems in the world, even though I can’t fix mine.

Depression gives me those gifts, but it keeps me from using them. And that’s a dilemma that makes me run around in mental circles day and night. I want to use the talents and strengths. I want to achieve my potential. I want to tap into the creative spring inside me. If only I manage to be strong enough to fight the ogre who lives in my thoughts and tears apart my confidence.

My ability to feel any self-worth is significantly impaired. I can’t accept that it’s not my fault, because I’d get past it if I didn’t suck. I can’t defend myself against criticism, because it’s true that I suck. It’s hard to believe that anyone really loves me because I suck. There’s no point in working to become healthier, since I’d suck regardless. Every time I meet someone new, they can tell right away that I suck. No one will ever read my books because they suck. I will never, ever be good enough, because I’m not good at all.

This is the ogre that lives in my head. This is the voice that I hear ALL the time. It’s constant. It’s there right now, telling me to stop typing and just go back to bed with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a spoon to mourn the loss of my dignity.

I may not be dignified, but I did write this. The quiet voices of hope helped me write this, and so even this small step is an accomplishment.

Suck it, mind ogre.

Time Machine

My mother fell today. She got hurt but not badly, and it got me thinking. She’s seventy-two now.

It wasn’t a doddering-old-lady accident. She just tripped. I do that all the time. We Lawrences are a graceful bunch. All the same, I couldn’t quite put it out of my head. This is where we are now. As an only child, I have always known that the day would come when the balance of our relationship would shift and I would become the caregiver. There is still a bit of a shock when you find that long-anticipated day has arrived. My mind went automatically to whether she needed a doctor, how to get the kids home from school, whether my father needed me to be there, and on and on. This is a woman who used to run a department of a major corporation with such laser focus that I swear she only came home to sleep. She got a PhD at fifty because she just wanted to. She learned Italian in her sixties. She knows exactly which lines were cut from that Shakespearean production and can recite them on demand.

My father, whose mind has always been brilliant and whose composure has always been coma-like, is seventy-six. He’s started to forget things. He’s started to make mistakes. It’s disorienting to see such a razor-sharp intellect lose the edge my mother and I always relied upon. It’s a bit sad it happened gradually enough for me to become accustomed to having to double-check with him. I couldn’t even tell you when “reminding Dad” became standard operating procedure. The change snuck up on me like a ninja. We’re talking about a man who wrote out the grocery list in order of where the items were located in the aisles. From memory. In pen.

It shouldn’t have surprised me. I’m forty-two. But frankly, it’s still way too early to start talking about my parents’ twilight years. People in my family tend to hang around quite awhile. It may be another twenty years before we’re really talking about “The End.” However, my parents are no longer comfortably nestled in that catchall period known as middle age. The scares will become more frequent, the list of doctors and specialists will become longer, and my separateness from them will shrink.

Shorty is turning eleven this week. Seven more years until society labels him a legal adult. My time as the parent of actual children is coming to an end, but I will continue to be a caretaker. If family patterns hold, I will only stop when my parents have gone, and it becomes my boys’ turn to worry about my aging body and how much longer they can cling to their independence before the separateness from me is no longer possible. I’d hoped that by having two children, neither would have to shoulder that alone. It may not work out that way, but at least I gave it a shot.

My teen is fast approaching his seventeenth birthday, and our recent conversations have revolved around driver’s ed, college searches, and potential careers. Never have the sands fallen so quickly through the hourglass. I’m nearly out of time, I think. Now I frantically bombard him with all the life lessons and tools I hadn’t gotten around to yet. I’m cramming for the exam, although he will be the one tested. I hope that if I forgot an assignment, he will call me and ask for my notes. I try to trust that he’s ready, and I remind myself to let him fail.

My husband and I have begun to realize we need things to talk about outside the kids and our careers. We need to remember how to hang out. How to just sit and shoot the shit for hours about all sorts of nonsense, like we used to back when we were young and had all the time in the world.

This is why people have mid-life crises, I think. I’ve always been aware that time was passing, but never before has such a sense of urgency been tied to it. The next steps along the path are all big ones, but none of them are mine. This gives me a sense of powerlessness that I am having trouble adjusting to, even though I know that control has always been an illusion. My life now has a different flavor, and my mind is reacting the same way the world did when New Coke was introduced in the 1980s, with a loud cry of “What the hell is this nonsense?”

Time is passing, and there are no guarantees. So I sit and wonder, in the midst of scheduling SAT prep classes and learning about end-of-life care options, what about me? Am I content to just bounce back and forth from daughter to mother to daughter to mother to (perhaps) grandmother? What about my writing? You can prepare for some eventualities. Get life insurance so your family can pay your final expenses. Get health insurance so the life insurance won’t be needed prematurely. Get auto and home insurance so your assets stay around as long as you do. But there isn’t an insurance company out there than can protect against untapped potential.

I’m weirdly comforted by that. It doesn’t give me the sense of anxiety that other things do. It’s nice to know that there are some things that will only exist if I create them. There’s a footprint only I can leave behind. This is an excellent reminder to me that the things I love best, beyond the family and friends I cherish, need me to give them life. My writing is mine, and it is me—independent of my health, my appearance, my social skills, my number of friends, even my self-esteem. It is mine in the purest sense possible.

Somewhere in between being a daughter and a mother, a wife and a friend, I am a writer. I will be a writer the next time my mother falls and the next time my father forgets. I will be a writer while my children take their first steps into their own slice of the world to learn who they will become. I will be a writer when my husband and I are left to our own devices, when we suddenly notice that we’re still seeing each other as twenty-three and so clueless, even though the world around us calls us “Ma’am” and “Sir” and our children have started worrying about our falls and forgetfulness. I am so, so fortunate to have this gift I can carry with me always, and now I am taking the time to remember that what I have to share with the world is just as important as my other roles.

November is National Novel Writing Month, and (shocking, I know) many of my friends are writers. I have heard nearly every one of them in the past ten days question their abilities. The words won’t come, the story is stupid, the characters are jerks, the world will laugh (or worse, ignore) their paltry offerings. Each of these friends has real talent. No one of them could write the story any other has written. Their uniqueness is remarkable. The qualities I see in each of them, the reasons I call these people friends, come across on the page. I know they can’t see it. I know they are frustrated, maybe a little scared, feeling foolish for even trying. But they are so, so brilliant. They have so much wonder and truth and heart that I want to scream at them, “Can’t you see how totally remarkable you are?” So this is me, yelling at each of you. Use your time. Create something new. No one else can tell your story.

Secret Handshake

It is the late 1970s. We have just moved to Cleveland, and my parents have started taking me to church every Sunday. In our new home, my father is suddenly no longer an atheist, and he follows my mother back to the religion of her childhood. I’ve been in the choir of the Methodist church, and I’m confused about why we can’t join that one instead. They are nice to me there. The rituals of this new church make no sense to me, and I observe the routine with a mixture of skepticism and bewilderment.

“What are they doing?” I’m whispering, because that’s what you do when you’re a child in a big room.

“They’re making the sign of the cross.”

“Little tiny ones?” I’m really confused now.

“Yes.”

They want me to be quiet. They want me to fit in and play along, but I don’t understand. “Why?”

A suppressed sigh. Everything is like that now. Muted, so the world won’t hear and judge. “So that God is in their thoughts, on their lips, and in their hearts.”

I want to ask what it means, but I don’t. We’re right under the priest’s nose, and I don’t want to upset him. He’s wearing a wide robe that shines with crimson and gold. I want to ask about that, too, but I don’t.

My mother has dressed me up, and the pleats of my skirt are gauzy and sharp. I gather them with my fingers, a slippery pink accordion. My mother puts a book under my nose, and the fabric falls away.

“Follow along.”

It’s a small book, white plastic and inexplicably puffy. Jesus is inside. He has children on his lap, and he’s laughing. Everyone looks relaxed and happy. I want to find the right words in the book. I want to understand what is going on up on the massive table. If I can find the words, God will put me on his lap, and we can laugh together.

I don’t find the words. I’ve kept quiet, because all of this is new. This city speaks differently. The children don’t want to play with me. My accent is weird, and they don’t like the things I imagine. “Idea” has no R at the end. I can’t have a frappe. I can’t ride the swan boats.

We played in Boston. Back in Boston, I was the Queen of All Seasons and the Captain of the Kissing Girl Team. Here, I am not. Not heard. Not seen.

It’s hard for me to understand why suddenly it is a sin to sleep in on a lazy Sunday morning. The priest tells me that I can go to hell if I don’t go to church on Sunday. No, the Sundays before don’t count. Starting now, though. My concepts of right and wrong are absolute at this age, and I can’t understand what has changed.

I’m going to be Catholic now. Hell is something I need to worry about now. I ask the priest why people believe, if they can avoid hell just by not knowing any better. He sighs.

When I’m sad, I tell my father I want to go home. All the way back, to before church, before Ohio, and even before Boston. My family is in Kansas. I want to go home. I want to understand the words and the gestures and the rules. Nothing here makes sense. I want to pet my grandfather’s dog, play with my cousins, and be far away from these mystifying people and their strange words and gestures that no one ever explains.

My father tells me that Kansas isn’t home. He tells me that if we went back, the place I want still wouldn’t be there. He tells me home doesn’t exist, so I need to be happy here.

I want to be where I belong, but I’m out of sync here. I don’t know what to say while the rosary beads slip through my fingers. I don’t understand what the other kids seem to. I stay silent.

When we all go to high school seven years later, one of the girls speaks to me. She hasn’t before, except to tease on the playground, but now she is new. I am familiar.

“Aren’t you nervous?”

“No.”

“How do we figure out where to go?”

“Just follow everyone else. It’ll be fine.”

“How can you be so calm?” She’s demanding now, unsettled that the misfit is now stronger than her.

I shrug and move away. This is nothing. I can do this. It’s an even playing field because we’re all new. We’re beginning at the very start of the process rather than being thrown into the middle of the machinery like a wayward screwdriver. This time, we all have to learn these new rules.

How hard could it be? The skirts are polyester, and the pleats are sewn in like the Will of God. My imagination slips out in my words now and then, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not confused, so they like me here. I’m not the awkward girl who doesn’t understand.

I still want to go home.

College comes, and I go. It’s Pennsylvania this time, but by now, I am used to this. The school is a microcosm that I soon carve into, making my place. I have friends, and a boy who says he loves me even though my words aren’t what he wants to hear. I let my imagination out of its box a bit more, I experiment with words, and I say goodbye to the boy. Another boy loves me, and I let him.

I don’t want to go home.

I come back to Cleveland, bringing my boy with me. At first, there is the dream of the next adventure. We can go anywhere, be anything. I consider Alabama. England. Boston. Kansas. And then I look around at where I am.

I may not have understood the motions in church, the unwritten rules of Catholic school, or the ordered suburban lives of my peers back then. But now I find myself in Cleveland, and I understand. There is Playhouse Square, where I saw Yule Brenner and Beverly Sills. I learned to change the theater lights and lace up toe shoes at the Beck Center. The Cleveland Institute of Art showed me that hair is more than just one color, and Severance Hall showed me how music feels when it reverberates off your heart and into your bones. I’ve learned to sing, to paint, to dance, and to write here.

(The violin was a disaster, and I never learned to cook.)

A lot of the old places are gone, but the old places are being made new. The people here shine, and they open themselves to the idea of what a city, a neighborhood, or one old building could be. There is life here, and instead of a secret handshake, a hand is thrust out to pull you into the chaos and wonder of it all. You can be one hundred people here and live every life imaginable.

So this is home now. I came home, but I’m not in Kansas anymore.

Conversations in my Life

I recently came across a little log I was keeping of strange little exchanges I had (or overheard) throughout the course of my days. It's a couple years old, but some of them made me laugh, so I thought I'd share.

May 7, 2012

Shorty: "What does the S in 'socks' stand for?"
Me: *guzzles more coffee*

May 13, 2012

Teenager: "Mom, Shorty is messing with my room's protons."
Me: "Shorty, no messing with other people's protons without permission."

May 15, 2012

My mother: "You can't be a maverick when you're married with kids."
Me: "Watch me."

May 17, 2012

Board of Education employee (all excited): "Do you write children's books?"
Me (choking slightly): "Um... no."
Awkward pause.
Board of Education employee: "Oh."

May 27, 2012

92-year-old great aunt (and Joplin, MO, resident): "I haven't been going to church since it blew away."

Me:  "Way to get off on a technicality!"

May 29, 2012

92-year-old Great-Aunt: "I go to the beauty shop, and all the magazines have articles on how to lose weight. It makes me mad. Where are the articles on how to GAIN weight? I don't even have anything to sit on anymore!"
Me: ---

Mother's Cousin: "He got up from the dinner table to go to the bathroom, and he showed up a week later in Mexico."
Me: ---

Mother: "I miss Daddy. There's no one to say 'There's where the poop goes' when we drive past the water treatment plant."
Uncle: "I don't think Dad ever said 'poop'. He wasn't a 'poop' kind of guy."
Me: ---

Driving through area of Joplin destroyed one year ago by a tornado:
Mother: "If you think it looks bad now, you should have seen it a year ago!"
Me: *biting tongue*

June 10, 2012

Teen's friend: "I got $120 bucks for graduation!"
Teen: "So? I got a sonic screwdriver, a TARDIS USB hub, and a Minecraft t-shirt. That's WAY better."

June 14, 2012

Shorty: “Can I go to Grandma & Grandpa's?”
Me: “No, they're meeting with the President today.”
Shorty: “The President of what?”
Me: “The United States.”
Shorty: “Okay. How about tomorrow, then?”
Me: “You are a hard kid to impress, you know.”

July 2, 2012

Shorty: "What are dogs' armpits for?"
Me: ----

July 5, 2012

Me (to cat): "Aw, who's my precious girl?"
Hubs (raises hand): "ME!"
Me: ---

July 12, 2012

My Teenager: "The worst part about being in the Legions of the Undead is that you get killed quickly."
Me: "Okay, but did you do the laundry?"

July 14, 2012

Me: "I really don't want you playing violent games."
Shorty: "It's not violent. It's just guns."
(pause)
Me: "Wow. I really am a crap parent."

July 15, 2012

My Mother: "We have a present for you. Your father and I had a portrait done, and we got you a framed print."
Me: "Um... okay..."
My Mother: "It's too late to bring it over tonight, but we'll get it to you as soon as we can, okay?"
Me: "No rush, really."

July 18, 2012

Teenager: "Mom, your accent is slipping again."
Me: "Damn."
Teenager: "You have a real problem with that."
Me: "Oh, shut up."

July 30, 2012

Me: "Hey, I need you to watch Shorty tomorrow for a bit. I'm going with Aunt Sydney to get a tattoo."
Teenager, without even blinking: "Okay."

August 8, 2012

Me: "Okay, quiet please, because I'm working."
Shorty: "Okay."
(Pause)
Shorty: "Hey, Mom - guess who the king of the beavers is!"
Me: *sigh*

August 18, 2012

Shorty: "Mom, where's my Doctor Who backpack?"
Me: "I ordered it, but it's not here yet."
Shorty: "When's it gonna get here?"
Me: "In about a month."
Shorty: "?!?!? Whyyyyyyy? That's no fair!"
Me: " 'Gee, I sure am lucky my mom will get me cool stuff from halfway across the world. I'll have to wait patiently to show my gratitude.' You are really spoiled, you know that?"
Shorty: "But Moooooom..."
Me: "Oh, go blow something up and leave me alone. Brat."

Me (to Husband): "You're such a jerk."
Hubs: "Thanks. I practice in the mirror."
Me: --- (Can't speak because I'm laughing too hard.)

August 22, 2012

Shorty: "Look what I found in my pocket today! A missile!"
Me: .......

August 27, 2012

Shorty (to his father): "Dad, do me a solid."
Me: "BWHAHAHAHA!!!"

Hubs: "Hey, get Shorty some orange juice."
Me: "I gave him life - can't YOU give him orange juice?"

September 6, 2012

Shorty watching the last episode of Doctor Who 2005 season: "He just left Jack behind?"
Me: "Yes."
Shorty: "That was rude!"

Shorty: "Is the sun ever going to expand?"
Me: "Sure, eventually."
Shorty: "What day?"
Me: "How should I know? We'll be long gone, so it's not like it matters."
Shorty: "LONG GONE! YAY! WEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
Me: ----

September 8, 2012

Teenager: "But, Mom, I can't go to bed yet! Somewhere out there, someone is being wrong on the Internet!"
Me: "Fine. Two more hours."

September 25, 2012

                Me: “No one takes themselves as seriously as the young and the rich.”

Flirting with Poetry

In recent months, I've written a handful of poems. While they may not have much merit, they're mine, so I thought I'd share them here.

We Were Green

It was green.

We were flying and the sun-dappled wonder

Became our hearts while our minds

Clasped hands to burn sunlight

The wonder so hard to reach and the blue

So far away.

But the wisps of dream colors would stay

Until the breeze carried thickening down

To the sparkling dark-diamonds of farewell.

We were young.

The warmth kept us safe

So that hearts could pound

Arms could reach

Feet could dance

Songs could soar

Until the day when they couldn’t anymore.

But I recall how it felt back then

When it was green.

More

I loved you so much more

When you were waxy and gray

And the whole world stood on you

While I whistled

Now you are golden and untouched

And it’s all very sad to me

The only thing that I like

Is your plinth

And only because of the word

Plinth

Rolls off the tongue

And if you rolled

Your perch would be precarious

And you might say

No more rolling for you because

Even if you fell

I don’t think I’d love you anymore

But I would still enjoy saying it

Plinth

Won’t you miss it, though

The bombastic abuse

And the unicorn-fiction

Of your hopes that someday

I’d stop whistling

And they’d see you

Waxy and gray and so lovely

The way you were to me

When I whistled

Boarding House Requiem

When open, the eyes do sing aloud and long and shimmer

But closing, bend the weight of care along forgetful paths

So, too, must I go before you to open, close, and fade

The garment worn when open still is shed and shreds and shatters

Your persistent face I think will stay upon my path the longest

Though mine was a shadow to you even before we met

And my garments now bear the print of your eyes

Can I walk this way without your hands having laid the very stones

Or do my works mark the measure of the steps of your own

Sight unwavering though I fail to blink and blush and stammer and hold

Because if I were to lose myself now…

Where would you go?

There is a requiem that has played since that birth

We together constructed these worlds, these hearts, these pains

The children of our hearts did sing so loudly for a time

Until clasped hands unclenched and the clock advanced

Eyes close even as the cloth wraps more tightly

My lips form the truths that I cannot speak aloud

I know you; I know you; I know you—

And that truest heart for which we both mourn is the one we created together.

Bound

I am selfish and childish

Out-of-turn, wildish

And still, here I stay at your feet

Your vanity is apparent

But my devotion is inherent

The balance clings you to me

Cruel and so brittle

Bitter and uncivil

Cold was the day we did meet

Trapped and constrained

In love have I changed

There is no will in me to be free

If you were kinder

Or if I were blinder

Two different people we’d be

So I worship your claws

You adore all my flaws

And in mutual pain we do cleave

Parisian Mime's Lament

I could hold you close, but you’re gone

I’ve lost any hope of you, and you’re gone

And I’m miles away from who you are today

I could have held you once, but you’re gone.

I could face your fears, but you’re gone

Those battles you lost, and you’re gone

And my arms reach out to soothe your doubt

I could have helped you once, but you’re gone.

I could kiss your lips, but you’re gone

I tried but missed, and you’re gone

And though I ache for you like I expected to

I could have loved you more, but you’re gone.

Regrets are like Roses

Regrets are like roses,

Their tender thorns

Do prick and wound

With beautiful scorn

And e'er the soul know discontent

The flower blooms and soon is spent.

Why

If I asked

Why

Would you even

Try to find

A lie

That might quiet me

Make my question

Silent

As my words so often

To you are

Unheard

Refracting off

Diamond-hard conviction

That your reasons are

So much better than mine

But you still

Will not even say

Why

My Love is Like

My love is like a red, red rose

My hate is like a garden hose

And all the spaces in between

Fertile with words I didn't mean

Setting: Selection and Significance

By definition, every novel must have at least one setting. Even if a science fiction author were to write about a character floating around in a great abyss of nothingness, that abyss is still the place where things happen (or don’t happen, as the case may be). So how do writers choose the location for their story? How much does that choice matter to the story?

In my first novella, My Apple Tree, the setting was never specified for the reader. It could have been any town, really. The reality was that in my own mind the story was set in Joplin, Missouri, my mother’s hometown. The setting in this case was more important to me than the reader, and it definitely influenced the way I felt about the story and the choices I made concerning the plot and characters. After a devastating tornado leveled a third of the city, I went to visit my family there. What I saw had a profound impact on me, and that overwhelming mix of grief and rebirth was transferred to the story and my characters. So in that instance, the setting was very significant, but not in a way that the audience would necessarily be aware of. Normally, I would post pictures to illustrate my point. Although I do have pictures of the affected area, the devastation and loss these people faced is too personal to broadcast. However, the cover photo was taken at a nearby cemetery where much of my family is buried, and so that, too, has deep personal significance for me.

The significance of setting was flipped around for Wishing Cotton. For this story, the setting I envisioned was entirely fictional. I just needed a summer resort on a beach, with isolated cabins and a nearby funfair to suit the needs of my story. In other words, the setting was determined by the demands of the plot rather than the other way around. Beyond its function to support the story I wanted to tell, the setting has no further significance to me as a writer. Because of this, the only details I provide are ones that are necessary in order to present each scene clearly. Otherwise, the characters could be anywhere else and the plot could remain largely unaffected.

Setting again became important when I wrote my historical romance, The Truth Seekers. For this novel, I used a real-life location as the foundation for the story. Although I employ a great deal of artistic license, my protagonists Geoffrey Hawes and Miranda Claridge meet for the first time in an unnamed fictional community that is based on the very real Chautauqua Institution in New York State. 

Athenaeum Hotel

The grounds of this historic community preserve a great deal of the world that Geoffrey and Miranda would have inhabited, and the focus on philosophy, art, music, and learning lends itself to a novel of this type. It was simple to imagine two Victorian lovers debating the merits of different social and philosophical principles in such a setting. While I did change a number of minor details, such as turning the very real Packard Manor into the governor’s mansion, the architecture, landscape, and pace of the location are kept very true to life.

Geoffrey first encounters Miranda in the Hall of Philosophy, which not only is a real building on the grounds at Chautauqua, but also is the source of the book’s title. 

 

The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle is the longest continuously running book club in the United States, and for many years, each year’s theme was preserved in mosaics running along the floor of the Hall. Visitors to the Hall of Philosophy can easily find The Truth Seekers mosaic.

In many ways, my love of Chautauqua influenced my handling of Geoffrey and Miranda’s story, but at the same time, it would not have been possible to envision their story in the first place without having experienced the setting beforehand. This is a place where it is easy to picture what life must have been like one hundred years ago, and it is also a place where one can feel the passage of time and the natural continuity of life and love and time. A great deal of the grounds have remained largely unchanged and are teeming with artists, authors, poets, dancers, musicians, theologians, and thinkers. It would be near impossible for a creative person to be in such an environment and not be inspired. Because of this, The Truth Seekers became not only a love story between two people, but it is also the story of an author’s love for a place. I hope that by bringing Geoffrey and Miranda’s world to life, I have also captured in some small way the magic of this small, precious community.

Miller Bell Tower on Lake Chautauqua

In these three examples, you see how differently setting can be used to shape and influence a story and its characters. For writers, it is important to consider the role setting plays in a piece so that the handling of locations and environments complements the tale you are trying to tell. For readers, it is often a subtle influence that can color your perception of the world each new character inhabits. Either way, settings are something to enjoy and explore, even if only in one’s imagination.

On Failure

I am a failure.

(Stick with me. My story gets better.)

February has always been a miserable month for me, and this one was especially so. Now that it’s (thankfully) the final day of that month, I’ve been thinking about all the ways I’ve fallen short over the course of my life.

In grade school, I stopped doing my homework because it was uninteresting, unchallenging, and silly, and I’d figured out that my grades at that level weren’t really going to impact my future enough to worry over. In high school, I did do my work, but I didn’t actually try. I made no effort to excel or distinguish myself. The after-school clubs were left unjoined, and papers and projects alike were completed like a recipe in the kitchen—one cup of hypothesis, three tablespoons of salient points, a dash of reference material, and bake. I was not engaged; I was a mass-production line.

It had always been assumed that college would be my time to shine. While the classes were far more interesting, I still did not put anything close to my best effort into my work. I dated a thoroughly unsuitable boy, bringing him home to meet my parents and ensuring many sleepless nights for them while they worried I’d keep him (I didn’t). My performance at school was perfectly adequate, but that was all. There was nothing on paper to show that I was intelligent, unique, and had something to offer the world. I did not go on to graduate school as I’d wanted, and I did not land a decent job when I graduated. It was several years before I had anything even remotely resembling a career, and I was only brought to it out of necessity rather than ambition.

While the official reason for my departure from that career was my children’s special needs, there will forever be a voice in the back of my head adding that another reason was that I sucked at it. It never felt real to me, and I was incredibly unhappy. I couldn’t be one of those moms who juggle everything, keep lists, vacuum more than once a year, and get up at 5 a.m. to do Pilates. In a lot of ways, when I quit my job to stay home, I felt like I was bailing on adulthood.

Since then, I’ve edited a pile of novels and published my own work. My royalties are abysmal. I do nothing to change that, make no effort to really market and promote. I even am seized with the impulse to apologize to those who have spent money on my books.

Sorry I suck. Better luck next time.

However. If I hadn’t lived the life I’ve led, so many things would have been lost. I never would have dated my husband if I hadn’t been so determined to date my ex’s opposite. I never would have been a parent who could respond to her children’s social and academic anxiety with compassion and understanding. I never would have been able to support my friends without judgment when their lives fell apart. I never would have learned how to engage and really try when the object is genuinely important to me.

I have unpaid bills, holes in my carpets, and missing plaster on my walls. My house will never be on the historical register. I may never be a successful author. My kids will definitely never be entirely “normal.” My middle-age spread has evolved into what might be called a hostile takeover of neighboring space. I frequently forget to floss. In the eyes of the world around me, I am a failure.

When I’m with my husband, it still feels like we’re dating. I still get butterflies in my stomach when he smiles at me. When I talk to my children, I see whole worlds in their eyes that no one else can access but them. When I help an author understand how to tap into a manuscript’s full potential, I feel a huge sense of accomplishment, as well as gratitude for the opportunity to be a part of that process. When I write, I am happy and focused and learn to know myself better. I stretch and challenge and grow.

Being a failure is pretty damn fantastic.