Doing versus being

I feel that I have been head down in Getting Things Accomplished for the last, oh, several weeks. Getting the gardens in (four of them), working on cleaning the house, trying to get the girls to eat more fruits and vegetables (we've incorporated a Five Servings a Day challenge in our family), filing paperwork, doing Quicken, learning the new Minnesota federal court electronic filing system for work, trying to fit in five workouts a week, critiquing Lois' manuscript. These are all good things, but I realized today, while reading Possession that my inner life, which is so important to me, has become somewhat muffled.

What seized my attention about this, and led to this uncomfortable train of thought was the excerpt from Sabine de Kercoz's journal in A.S. Byatt's Possession. Sabine is a would-be writer, who has been advised by Christobel LaMotte, an experienced poet, to keep a journal:

I began this writing task at the suggestion of my cousin, the poet, Christobel LaMotte, who said something that struck me forcibly. "A writer only becomes a true writer by practicing his craft, by experimenting constantly with language, as a great artist may experiment with clay or oils until the medium becomes second nature, to be moulded however the artist may desire." She said too, when I told her of my great desire to write, and the great absence in my daily life of things of interest, events, or passions, which might form the subject matter of poetry or fiction, that it was an essential discipline to write down whatever there was in my life to be noticed, however usual or dull it might seem to me. This daily recording, she said, would have two virtues. It would make my style flexible and my observation exact for when the time comes--as it must in all lives--when something momentous should cry out--she said "cry out"--to be told. And it would make me see that nothing was in fact dull in itself, nothing was without its own proper interest. Look, she said, your own rainy orchard, your own terrible coastline, with the eyes of a stranger, with my eyes, and you will see that they are full of magic and sad but of beautifully various colour. Consder the old pots and the simple strong platters in your kitchen with the eyes of a new Ver Meer come to make harmony of them with a little sunlight and shade. A writer cannot do this, but consider what a writer can do--always supposing the craft is sufficient.

Sabine goes on to write a lively, observant journal, just as Christobel LaMotte advised her.

I have given this exact advice to many writers over the years. Yes, I am a writer, I have said, and it all started with my keeping a journal at the age of 14. Yet, when I read Sabine's (fictional, of course) journal, and think about my own, I am so struck by the painful contrast that it hurts.

The inside of my mind, and consequently, my journal (my private paper journal, I mean) has become lazy and flabby, a dry recitation of what I have accomplished, perhaps, but not indicative of any kind of thoughtful probing, second looking, or reflective inner life at all. I made a nutritious dinner for my family tonight (not that they ate it, of course), but God, isn't anything else going on in my life? Something about moving my inner life as a writer forward?

I have talked with many creative women who are mothers, who have all assured me that yes, this is absolutely normal, but it does get better, really it does. (Lois talks about the "lacuna" of early motherhood. But she still managed to write Hugo and Nebula-nominated books at the time, dammit. Of course, she didn't have a day job to contend with at the same time.)

I look at this and cannot manage to do much more than feel fretful about it. And inadequate. And even more fretful about feeling inadequate--I mean, I got up at 5:15 a.m. today to do a cardio/abs workout, I put in a full workday, I came home and weeded the garden and made Margharita chicken and Sante Fe salad over spinach (delicious and nutritious) and served it to my family, and read to my girls out of Bridge to Terabithia and folded a load of laundry and read 70 pages of Lois's manuscript. Why the hell should I still feel inadequate? There's something wrong here.

Phooey.