Tag: passions

We’re All a Bunch of Egotistical Opera Singers….

jamieahughes2 Comments

….singing, “Me, me, me, me, me!” And apparently, we’re lazy and impatient ones at that.

According to the results of The New York Times best seller list labeled “Hardcover Advice & Miscellaneous, ” Dr. Stanley’s new book, Turning the Tide, hit the list at number eleven this week. Not bad at all. However, when I looked through the other books in this category, I saw a disturbing trend.

Aside from the new parody book about sleepless children and the zombie parents who attempt to raise them, Go the F*** to Sleep, every other tome in the top ten made me worry about the future of America. Yes, I am aware it is the “Advice” category, a sort of catch-all for the non-fiction reading types who might not be keen on a David McCullough history or a weighty memoir by an aging politician put out to pasture. I expected a certain number of self help books to be there. Classics such as How to Make Friends and Influence People, Men are from Mars–Women are from Venus, and Who Moved My Cheese? have all done their turn on the wheel of fortune that is the bestseller list. However, the other nine texts ranked above Dr. Stanley’s book all have something in common–they are all about taking the easy way out.

For instance, behind the soon to be canonized classic currently sitting atop the heap,  The 17 Day Diet by Dr. Mike Moreno is another book designed and written to inform another group of overweight Americans that they can change their bodies with just a few changes in their diet and a few hours of walking a week. Granted, this information is not new. Eating less and exercising more will, in fact, leave you a little closer to your ideal fighting weight. However, why anyone feels the need to give Amazon.com $14 of his or her hard-earned money on a book to teach them something common sense could provide is beyond me. According to his author blurb on the aforementioned bookseller’s (and everything else you could even think of ordering online) website, “Dr. Mike takes pride in being viewed not only as a doctor, but also as a friend and confidant.” I don’t know whether to yak or suggest him as a cast member in the reboot of The Golden Girls.

Timothy Ferriss has two books on the list, at number three and number seven, and both of them have something to do with the number four. The 4-Hour Body (currently in third place) actually boasts a much more jaw-dropping full title….The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman. I’m not kidding. Go look it up.

According to the publisher’s blurb on Amazon, by reading this book,

You will learn (in less than 30 minutes each): how to lose those last 5-10 pounds (or 100+ pounds) with odd combinations of food and safe chemical cocktails, to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends), to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice, to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested, to produce 15-minute female orgasms, to triple testosterone and double sperm count, to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks, to reverse ‘permanent’ injuries, to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months, and to pay for a beach vacation with one hospital visit.

Well, heck! I bet we could read this and learn how to solve the conflict between Israel and Palestine, too…and in under thirty minutes! Seriously, everything in that list is pure vanity–physical satisfaction that can only be temporarily attained. I quote Yoda, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.”

Sadly, The 4-Hour Workweek isn’t much better. It is essentially a guidebook that instructs readers how they can quit the 40+ hour a week grind and work remotely from some tropical paradise. In one chapter I am especially interested in reading, he claims he can “eliminate 50% of [my] work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist.”

If Mr. Ferriss’ words were true, we’d all be beautiful, bronzed minor deities with washboard abs who could sling a pigskin over a mountain and be crazy good in the sack. However, anyone who has lost a substantial amount of weight or who has built a company from the ground up will tell you that what he proposes just isn’t possible. Few people are successful in such things because, well, because they’re darned hard. And when something is difficult, few people have the tenacity to see it through to completion.

In truth, his first book sounds a little too Mein Kamph for me….minus the eugenics, of course. The second might work for .009% of the American workforce, which makes it about as useful as nipples on the Batsuit. I also have to wonder, if the man is so over the moon about efficiency, why does his name have unnecessary double consonants? Shouldn’t “Feris” suffice? I might give you the second S, but two F’s is just folly.

Another diet book, The Dukan Diet, graces the list at number four. It, too, promises to provide a foolproof weight loss system (primarily geared towards women) that can help us get the bodies we crave by using a diet French women have followed for decades. (Because when I think of good nutritional health, the French are the first group of people who come to mind….) Apparently, the plan involves unlimited lean protein and an oat bran galette for a few days, followed by what I’m sure is an indecipherable combination of veggies, proteins, carbs, and other food groups until the perfect Hollywood starlet’s body has been achieved. Unlike diets in the past that involved jump-start days filled with only boiled eggs and grapefruit juice or vitamin pastes spread on Wasa crackers (I’m not making that up…I remember those days well), dieters are also “allowed two weekly celebration meals to stave off boredom.” Isn’t it pitiful that we have become slaves to entertainment to the point that our diets must also refrain from being lackluster? Man, how did the native tribal cultures of America manage without food that tickled their fancy after they’d hunted it down? :-/

And now for something completely different…

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell ranks number five on the list. I have not read this “Christian” book in its entirety; however, I have read enough of it and discussed it with other Christian apologists to the point that I feel comfortable saying that this book is utter nonsense. Bell, a pastor with a large and ever-growing following, tells readers that hell is really something we suffer on earth, heaven is a place we can all reach regardless of whether or not we have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and that Jesus “is bigger than any one religion.” I would argue that Jesus is bigger than any denomination, sure, but those who bow down and worship other gods are not followers of the Risen Lamb. I am sure that there have been other claims as outrageous as his in mass media before, but I can tell you that, in my lifetime, I’ve never seen anything so close to the warning in 2 Timothy 4:1-5:

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

The other “Christian” book in the top ten, ranked just one spot above Turning the Tide, is One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp. Thankfully, this one is more on point with the Christian method than Mr. Bells, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily perfect. It is a book that encourages readers to see God’s amazing grace around them every day, learning to live for daily joys and find contentment even in sorrow. In the immortal words of William Shatner, “I can get behind that.” The sample chapters I’ve read are a little, shall we say, florid for my taste…as overpowering emotionally as my grandmother’s gardenia scented perfume once was in the confined space of the Chrysler on the way to church each Sunday.

However, I couldn’t read the entire book, and according to a reviewer named Cindy from the blog Books and Chocolate, “I was also wary of the mystical/contemplative spirituality/emergent church references, as she quotes those of the contemplative movement and recognized mystics such as Brother Lawrence, Henri Nouwen, and Dallas Willard. In addition, I was uncomfortable with the chapter on making love to Jesus in which the author speaks of seeking communion with God in what can only be termed as sexual language, taking it to a level that I personally don’t believe scripture intends” (emphasis mine). That entire concept reminds me of the song by Kari Jobe I used in a previous blog to discuss what was wrong with modern praise and worship music, and it just gives me the huzz. God is God after all—not Buddy Jesus, my homeboy, or my BFF.

One spot up from the love-fest that is One Thousand Gifts, Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness,  looks to be one of the most practical of the ten. In it, he explains how a few simple steps such as working hard, paying for things in cash, and staying out of debt can lead to financial freedom. It seems fairly obvious to anyone with a modicum of what Southerners call “good raising,'” but in a Hot-Pocket-eating-instant-gratification-I-can-download-that-book-in-one-tenth-of-a-second world, being told to save your money and to live within your means is pretty revolutionary. I think the book itself is a wonderful thing, but I have to worry about the mental fortitude and general willpower of a culture that has to buy a book (AKA spend money) to tell them how to save it.

The last two books on the top ten list, The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and The Secret  by Rhonda Byrne are also both books that jump up and down like a Jack Russell Terrier that got into an open bag of espresso beans shouting, “Hey, hey, hey!!!! Pay attention to me!!!!”

Granted, the first was written by a college professor who died of pancreatic cancer and who delivered a “Last Lecture” that was just that, a lecture of information he wanted to impart to the world before he left it. I haven’t read it, but I’m sure it is a touching book. However, it is focused on the temporal–what can I leave behind, and why do I matter in the grand scheme of things? You can actually watch him give this lecture live and judge it for yourselves. He does say that he isn’t there to talk about religion or spirituality and refers to his “Deathbed Conversion” that involved not finding God but rather finally deciding to buy a Mac. It’s more concerned with childhood dreams and the self-realization that comes with finding what you really want.

I can appreciate the desire to leave something of oneself behind, the human need to leave a sort of mark that will stand as a testament to the fact that you once converted oxygen into carbon dioxide and that you were more than a social security number or a blood type. It’s the reason cavemen painted on walls and why prisoners carve their names into the concrete of their cells. I was here, these messages tell the world, I mattered enough to be remembered. Yet, at the same time, I find the idea nauseatingly self-serving. What’s the purpose of leaving something behind, or teaching/enabling someone else to, when it’s all nothing but shadows and air? This world is a temporal, ephemeral thing, as easily discarded as a flyer in the mail. We should be more concerned with spending our time here growing closer to God, serving Him with all our mind, heart, soul, and strength, and making being used by Him to lead others to Christ. THAT, my friends, is something that lasts.

And then there’s The Secret. Oh my stars and garters, that book makes me want to kill myself via listening to Fran Drescher sing the role of Cio-Cio San in Madam Butterfly. From what I’ve heard from misty-eyed acolytes, the nugget of wisdom in the book is “life changing.” Granted, I might be simplifying a bit. Now, pay attention or you might miss it.

Think REALLY HARD about what you want = You get it.

That’s it. THAT’S “The Secret.” No serving a cause greater than yourself, no finding joy in simple things….like making love to Jesus (which still makes me twitchy)… and certainly no working diligently for what you desire. Simply wish non-stop for what you want and it will manifest itself like the Red Rider BB Gun that always seems eager to shoot one’s eye out. Who knew!? Imagine, I could have gotten that Albert Pujols autograph I’ve always wanted if I stood there and shook, my hands clenched in tight fists, and thought of nothing but Pujols signing my virginal, white baseball. Like someone trying to play a telekinetic superhero, all I have to do is grit my teeth and look like something cerebrally mind-blowing is going on between my ears, and it will magically appear like that lollipop that came down the chute when I was a good girl and didn’t cry at Fantastic Sam’s.

And to think, I schlepped through three years of graduate school for nothing!

When did we become a herd of self-serving, lazy nitwits who want all the joy and success life has to offer without putting forth a single iota of the effort? Why is the upper echelon of “self help” chock full of books that only show why we’re in this mess in the first place? Gracious sakes, people! If you want to lose weight, eat less and work out more. If you want to have money, earn it and save it. If you want to be happy, realize that the world does not revolve around you and that it is instead God who is at the center of everything! The answers are so simple, yet they sit untouched while the world trudges along looking for the path to wisdom and the route to enlightenment by picking up and looking under every rock on the side of the road.

The Rainbow Connection

jamieahughes5 Comments

As a proud member of the small but mighty, idiosyncratic group of people called Generation X, I’m a middle child of history. Unlike my cousin, a child who’s always had the Internet, handheld video games, instant downloads, and GPS, I remember life before technology. I remember VCRs, answering machines, and being my parents’ remote control. I remember the method by which we would contact each other in high school, without the aid of cell phones and texting,  if our plans went awry at the last minute. (Remember phone trees and cruising?) If pressed, I could still locate data and create a research paper without the help of a computer. I liked waiting on pictures to be developed to see what I’d captured. I enjoy actually buying CDs to read the liner notes and experience the CD visually as well as aurally. I honestly miss getting letters in the mail.

Suffice it to say, sometimes the world that is opened by the Internet is something that can, at times, cause me to marvel. For instance, with The Herscher Project, my online writing group, I am what I consider to be good friends with a good many people I have never met. In fact, the group’s founder, James Bowers, and I have had many discussions about writing and life in general, and I have confided things to him that I reserve only for friends. I’ve never physically laid eyes on the man, but he’s part of my inner circle despite that fact.

Facebook, despite its many faults and its tendency to brainwash anyone using it who’s under the age of eighteen, has allowed me to connect with people from all the schools I’ve loved and lost in my long journey as a Wal-Mart refugee child. People I’d thought I’d utterly lost track of now inform me about their children’s daily victories and the fun up-and-coming events in their lives with the click of a mouse. It’s like watching a scrapbook being made digitally.

The same goes for this blog. I’ve had people visit here to read my two cents on a given matter, and many interesting things have happened as a result–some positive, others less so. I’ve begun to read the thoughts of others, too. For example, I enjoy the blog Francopolis, written by Michael Franco, a fellow English teacher who is slogging through life like I am, trying to do the best he can with what he has. I root for him, identify with him, and give him support when I leave comments. All this with a man I’m never likely to meet! However, I think my life would be far less rich without knowing he’s out there.

I love the posts from Lovely Shades of Nostalgia written by a young lady who, like me, takes joy in things that aren’t technological. Yes, I see the irony in using technology to write about what technology is missing, but that’s part of the joy, too. Kids like my cousin, those who don’t remember the absolute, make-your-colon-want-to-explode excitement that came over you when The Grinch Who Stole Christmas came one (because it only aired once each Christmas season, not on demand or on DVD) or just how cool having a pen pal in Brazil can be, can read her blog about “the good old days” and understand a little more about a world they never knew existed.

One of my favorite blogs is Accidental Stepmom, a hilarious look at life raising five stepkids when you never expected to have any yourself. The author, J.M. Randolph, is an honest and altogether awesome quirky gal who manages everything with humor and a wry wit that never fails to amuse. I look forward to her updates, and although she and I are fairly dissimilar in lifestyle and ideology, I have found a kindred spirit in her, someone I can look to and learn from.

Here’s where the Kermit playing the banjo bit comes in.

Last week, she had a “photo caption” contest on her blog, and I entered it. You can read all about it here. Well, my caption won first prize, which happily happens to be a $10 gift card to Starbucks. I received it in the mail yesterday, and it even came with a lovely note!

I now have something written in her handwriting, something from this amazing person I might never meet in the flesh but who I know well through the thoughts and stories she takes time to share online. In it, she tells me about her passion for stationary and how she buys too much of it, knowing she can never use it all. The same irrational need to buy it comes over me when I’m in a bookstore. She informed me that she’s been to my new town, Atlanta, and remembers it fondly when the show she was working for played the Fabulous Fox Theater. Most of all, she thanked me for a laugh, something that cost me nothing to provide and gave me great joy to do.

This connection, the exchange of information and happiness, would have been impossible without the technology we have available to us today. While I shun a great many technological trappings such as Twitter because it is impossible to have any meaningful conversation in fewer than 140 characters, I still marvel at things like blogs and vlogs that allow people who might never have otherwise know the other existed the chance to say hello, exchange information, and even send an artifact or two to one another to make that connection tangible. That’s what makes it so amazing to the lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Real Hope & Change

jamieahughes4 Comments

I have a love/hate relationship with change. The thrill of self-discovery comes with it, but more often than not, change brings uncertainty and difficulty. For me, the last two weeks have been a combination of the two extremes, both mentally and spiritually.

Several months ago, I began looking for a new place of employment, one where my talents could be put to use in a new field. I came across a posting for the Woodruff Arts Center titled “Director of Educational Outreach” or some such hyperbolic nonsense. Essentially, the job involved working with the Atlanta Youth Symphony Orchestra as a coordinator and public relations specialist. They needed someone with people skills, a good grasp of the English language and written/oral communication, experience working with professionals, parents, and students, and a background in instrumental music among other things. I looked down the laundry list of required qualifications muttering, Check, check, double check, double plus check, to myself, wrote a perfectly tailored cover letter to accompany my curriculum vitae, and sent it in.

For weeks, nothing happened. The job remained on the center’s page, and no one contacted me for further information or to set up an interview. To date, they still haven’t. In all likelihood, they never will.

Needless to say, I was more than a bit nonplussed by this. The only thing that could have put this job more firmly in the perfect category for me would have been if the phrases “must love baseball,” “must be willing to bring pets to work,” and “must be able to perfectly quote films old and new” were listed as preferred qualifications.  So why no call? Like the true resting place of Jimmy Hoffa, the depth of the Masons’ influence over the founding of the United States, or even the true name of the man who put the “bomp” in the “bomp-shoo-bomp-shoo-bomp,” it’s something I’ll never know.

Fast forward a month or so.

I get daily emails from job websites offering me part time blogging gigs for websites like the Examiner or technical writing gigs that I’m missing one qualification for, and I often delete them without exploring the full posting, wasting time that could be spent keeping my head above water in the job I currently have. However, one came through two weeks ago advertising for a copy writing position with In Touch Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia. For those of you who don’t know the name, In Touch is the printing and publishing ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, the head pastor of First Baptist Church Atlanta. They manage a massive website, publish a monthly magazine, and, in essence, create all the printed matter needed to translate and transmit Dr. Stanley’s message to people around the world.

I read the qualifications for the position and knew that I had to apply. This was why the orchestra gig hadn’t panned out. I desired change, but my first attempt at it had been aimed in the wrong direction. I need to be using my talents not to enlarge myself, but rather to magnify Him. Well, unlike the symphony, In Touch did call, and an interview has taken place. It was a wonderful time for me, to be able to share my testimony and my desire to be used in a way that will allow me to fulfill my ministry, whatever it might be.

Now, I’m being tested. I’m being asked to be patient, something I don’t do very well. (Although, praise God, I’m markedly more patient than I was just a few years ago.) A week has passed, and the elation that came with the thought of moving into a new field in a place where my faith can be nourished and my talents used and honed has been tempered with a cold, hard week of silent days. I’ve carried my phone with me in hopes that I’ll receive the call that beings with the phrase, “Jamie, it’s my pleasure to tell you that….,” but it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve prayed daily asking God that His will be done in this matter if this place is where He wishes me to go next. If not, I’ve also prayed for Him to help me understand why His perfect plan might not include it. The answer will come when He wills it, not a moment before, and as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers once sagaciously stated it, “The waiting is the hardest part.”

In past years, I would have been tempted to say “God is cruel” or “God doesn’t understand my problems,” but that is so far from the truth that I’m embarrassed to say that I actually once thought it. The truth is that God knows the desires of my heart; He knows me even better than I know myself. Seeking to understand the silence, I went to the book of Psalms.

David’s songs to the Chief Musician vary in subject matter—some praise His mighty works, others beseech him for deliverance from enemies both outside his kingdom and within it, and many celebrate His divine judgments, praising them for their righteousness, mercy, and grace. Portions of three of these divine songs speak peace to my situation and help to settle my soul.

The first is Psalm 144:3-10, which reads:

 LORD, what is man, that You take knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that You are mindful of him? Man is like a breath;
His days are like a passing shadow. Bow down Your heavens, O LORD, and come down; touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. Flash forth lightning and scatter them; shoot out Your arrows and destroy them. Stretch out Your hand from above; rescue me and deliver me out of great waters, from the hand of foreigners, whose mouth speaks lying words, and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood. I will sing a new song to You, O God; On a harp of ten strings I will sing praises to You, the One who gives salvation to kings, who delivers David His servant from the deadly sword.

This has always been one of my favorite psalms because of verses three and four. David asks an often overlooked, but essential, question—Who is man that You even concern yourself with him and his piddly problems?  In the scope of His creation, we are tiny, a finite speck in the scope of God’s infinity. However, we are also the beings He came down to make. Unlike the heavens and the earth, the sky and sea, and the birds and beasts and creeping things He created, He came down to craft us with His own hands from a lump of lifeless clay and made us in His own image. It is His breath that fills us with life and makes us living souls. He created us for fellowship, and that is why He is mindful of us. It still amazes me that the God who created the universe and the beautiful planet we call home knows of my struggles and seeks to direct my life. I am hardly worthy of such attention, yet He loves me enough to give it. That alone is cause for celebration. This possible new job, so small in the scope of eternity, falls under His purview as well. There’s no cause for concern on my part. He will handle it as surely as He does the changing of the seasons or the conflicts between nations.

David then lists the mighty powers that are God’s, powers that know no limits. It is He who can move a mountain, separate waters, and scatter a seemingly insurmountable foe before His servant. It is God who “gives salvation to kings” and keeps them in His hand. No matter how great our power may be here on Earth, it pales in comparison to that of the Most High. David recognizes it and celebrates it because it frees him from worry, and this why he sings this new song to God.

Psalm 37: 3-8 is focused on trusting God in all things, not only with those things that seem impossible. It reads:

3 Trust in the LORD, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.
7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.
8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath;
Do not fret—it only causes harm.

The message David seeks to transmit with this psalm is one of trust and patience. He asserts that we should dwell always in Him, speak to Him about the desires of our hearts, and maintain a constant fellowship with Him. If we give all that we are, our “way” to Him, He will “bring it to pass” in His time. We are not meant to worry or to compare ourselves with those who “profit in [their] way,” which is wicked. I may never be as wealthy or as powerful as those who scheme and who get ahead in this world under their own steam, and that, I’m coming to find, is the best way to be. After all, if I spend all my time and energy worrying about what others have or what I don’t, I run the risk of falling into anger, wrath, and worry—all of which damage my fellowship with Him. I must always delight in His judgments and His righteousness, even if I don’t yet understand them.

Also, if I worry and try to solve this problem on my own, that is as good as admitting my lack of trust in His power. It is me saying, “God, you aren’t strong enough or wise enough to manage this situation, so I’ll handle it.” This kind of change tests my faith, refines it in fire, and makes it all the stronger, but I have to be willing to undergo the forging. This is why I must always remember the words of the sacred song, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” to keep my heart and mind focused on the right thing. After all, if I can “Look full in His wonderful face, …the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

The same message is contained in Psalm 40: 1—5.

 1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the LORD.
4 Blessed is that man who makes the LORD his trust,
And does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
5 Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.

However, unlike the previous psalm that claims the certainty of a future blessing, this one states the message in the past tense. “I waited patiently,” he begins. As a result, God “inclined” to him, “heard” his cry, and “brought” him up from the mire clay in which he was trapped. David is praising a blessing received in this song; he is not simply claiming “God will.” Instead, he is telling us “God does.” It is a song of a promise made manifest. He sings of the amazing blessings from God, and insists that the praise from his mouth, his testimony, will bring others to a lasting trust in God. And David asserts that his are not the only prayers answered or the only blessings given. Instead, David asserts, “Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works” and that “Your thoughts towards us Cannot be recounted to You in order” because “They are more than can be numbered.”

What do I learn from these three passages? Simply this—I matter to God. God promises. God delivers. It’s as simple as that. He does so in a way that is necessary for us and, more importantly, brings Him glory.

Change, as I asserted earlier, is hard. It requires us to step outside our comfort zone and trust in His will for our lives, knowing full well that His will may not coincide with our desires. However, His will is perfect and His judgments righteous. I will continue to pray for His will to be done in His time safe in the knowledge that I am His child and that He guides me rightly.

Playing Phone Tag With My Muse

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Norman Vincent Peale once said that, “The cyclone derives its powers from a calm center. So does a person.” Mayhap that has been the root cause of my difficulty behind the keyboard as of late. For more weeks than I care to count, I’ve been, as my grandmother might say “riled up” about one thing or another. Struggles at work, time management problems, issues of over-commitment to various projects and groups–the list goes on and on. In fact, it often feels impossible to have a “calm center” anymore when life has its thumb on the scales and keeps them so unbalanced.

My novel, Paint by Numbers, was begun just prior to NaNoWriMo, and as a first time participant in that grand experiment in madness, I emerged victorious. Yes, I wrote over 50,000 words in thirty days, and I had a ball during every single minute of it.

That novel now sits at just under 56,000 words. Yes, since the NaNo binge, I’ve written next to nothing in it, about two chapters. Part of that problem had to do with the chapter dealing with faith, one I hadn’t anticipated having to write in a book about self-discovery and reclaiming one’s life. It feels awkward, stilted, and altogether slapdash, and I don’t want that to be the case. I got stuck there for quite some time, much like Artax in the Swamp of Sadness, and only recently did I return to the book. The larger issue, however, has to do with my time schedule and my motivation level as well as the requirements of my Diana Ross-like muse.

I work four days a week, which sounds pretty choice. However, those are ten hour days. Add the thirty-minute-each-way commute, and that means eleven hours of my day are spent doing things that are, for lack of a better term, cerebrally exhausting. I teach English at a technical college, so my days are a constant battle to motivate and aid students in everything ranging from technical questions to ones of subject matter, and after getting home at 6:20 or later most of those days, the last thing I’m ready to do is sit down and create a new chapter. In fact, I rarely have the wherewithal to read a book written by someone else. How pitiful.

In addition to being a teacher and a writer, I am also a musician (albeit not a very talented one). This means that I enjoy playing as well as writing, though I must work more diligently to be successful at it. Currently, I’m involved in my church’s orchestra, and that means Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings are off the table as far writing time is concerned. (However, I wouldn’t change that for anything. I love serving with my talent and spending time with the other players!) I’ve also recently joined a local wind ensemble to get more time behind the mouthpiece and to make friends in the area who share my passion, so Monday evenings vanished as well. Playing for pit orchestras and other events have also cut into my time and sapped some of my creativity, but I don’t want to give them up because I enjoy them too much and because it is something my husband and I can do together. We met in college in the music program, and it is something that always serves as a common denominator in our relationship.

That leaves Tuesday and Thursday evenings as well as the three day weekend. Writing on Fridays was working out for a while and served to help me fill up pages with words, but I’ve been using Fridays these last few weeks to recover from long weeks filled with work and multiple performances. (For example, with the Cinderella pit I mentioned in my last post, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings were devoted to pit as well as a 3:00 PM matinee on Sunday. This past Saturday was a double header. There’s no time to write when you’re flipping pages or trying to grab a meal between shows.) Add onto this the need to buy food, keep a relatively clean house, and spend a little time with family, friends, and pets, and my time for writing grows slimmer and slimmer. I tried to cut working out totally out of my schedule, but I can’t really do that much longer. Caring for my body will again become another thing that I need to get in at least three times a week.

So now, we come to the heart of my writing dilemma.

I have been writing as of late. Oh yes, yes I have. I’ve written several poems and a handful of short stories for various projects and groups I’m involved with, and two of the stories have been pretty darned good. However, I want to finish Paint By Numbers so badly it makes my teeth ache, and every time I have time and energy enough to devote to it, I sit down and nothing flows from the tap. At least not the way it did during NaNo. The difference was that I was focused utterly and completely on that book. My writing group suspended work for the handful of us brave (and/or stupid) enough to take on the challenge, and I could put aside all my other activities without guilt.

I didn’t care that I wasn’t working out and that my body was losing out a little, I wasn’t concerned with community bands or pit orchestras, parts of the house went to seed, and I was down to eating dry cereal and applesauce by the end. That was an acceptable lifestyle for me for a period of thirty days, but I couldn’t stay there forever, refusing to grow up like Peter Pan and his Lost Boys in Neverland. Some level of compromise must be attained to live a life worth writing about and having the time to actually write about it. I have yet to find that balance, and I don’t even know where to begin. I just know that I the book can’t stay in writer’s limbo indefinitely. Unlike the millions of zygotes “chilling out” in fertility clinics, I think this baby of mine has a limited shelf life. I don’t want to lose something that has real potential to the malaise of time.

 Ray Bradbury once said, “You fail only if you stop writing,” and I can happily say that I haven’t stopped in a very long time. I lost the fire years ago, and for far too long, that part of me lay dormant and almost dead. But she’s alive and awake and demanding attention now, my muse. I just have to figure out a way to appease her on a limited schedule, which is hard to do with a diva.