Peg Kerr's Journal

The scanner is up and running. Hurrah! You can click on any of the pictures to see it closer up.

The title of this first card is a reference to my favorite poem in all the world, Yeat's The Two Trees. The ravens he speaks of in the poem have come to represent depression for me. I went back and forth as to whether this card is a "Committee Card" (something inside of me) or a "Council Card" (something archetypal). I have tentatively decided (for now) that it is a Council Card, but in fact it may be a bridge card between the two suits.

( The Ravens of Unresting Thought - Council Suit )

( The Bearer of Burdens - Committee Suit )

Here's one to honor one of my favorite authors. It is unusual because I use words on this card, which as a rule I think I will want to avoid when making soulcollaging cards. But this first paragraph is so famous that I couldn't resist using it. (I used the Jane Austen font, which is based upon her handwriting.) These are the table and chair she used when writing her novels.

( Jane Austen - Community Suit )

A lot of thoughts have been swirling through my mind in the past month or so, and I've been thinking about trying to catch them and set them down in a post.

This past year, frankly, has been hard. Rob's layoff, the private medical stuff that Elinor Dashwood isn't talking about, the constant worries about money, and the return of my clinical depression. Through it all, I have done my best to keep the family going and to allow us to thrive, even, and there have definitely been bright spots, too: the joys we experience every day in raising two such wonderful girls, taking my bike outside for the first time in years, the miracle of the karate patron who gave me a scholarship so that I could continue to study, my loving partnership with Rob that has stood the test of hard times and feels stronger and more committed than ever, the support of my family and friends, including you, my dear friends list, my posse who always watches out for my back.

Yet, I still experience day-to-day life as a struggle, and the dementors have been extremely difficult lately. The new job is, hurray! a new job, but it certainly isn't bringing in the return we were led to expect (the recession is affecting sales at Rob's new store), and we are still on the extremely tightened belt budget. I experienced a real nosedive in my mood yesterday and sat down to write about it, to figure out what was really going on. When I actually ennumerated all the factors dragging down my moods, I came up with a list of about fifteen or so. What's more, I realized that many of my usual coping mechanisms for dealing with my depression when it gets bad were not available to me: no cell phone, so I can't call a friend, my computer at home is dead, so I can't easily do the computer stuff I enjoy or email. Dead broke, so I can't go out for a dinner (which I dearly would love to do after all the struggles to feed my family a meal they'll deign to eat) or a movie. I feel guilty of being too extravagent if I buy a lousy cup of coffee for myself. After almost a year of it, this sucks.

So it's no wonder that my mood was so low last night. I dutifully kitted up for sparring and went to the dojo and warmed up--and then I had to leave, because I just couldn't stop crying. I can't spar when the depression gets severe. Crud.

So: the various thoughts I've been mulling over the past several weeks. Some of it came from the retreat, some of it from various things I've read, conversations I've had, or insights that have come, particularly through the soulcollaging. THAT has been a great new tool, besides being lots of fun.

1. One thought I got from an article my sister sent to me. I can't remember the exact train of thought, but it lead to a question: imagine what your life would be like if you were not depressed. What would be your concerns, your goals, your joys, your day-to-day activities? What would you think about and try to do then? Once I started thinking about this, I realized how puzzling and strange this thinking felt. I suppose I feel about my depression as Gregor says Miles thinks about security considerations in Lois McMaster Bujold's Barrayar books: that would be like a fish thinking about water--it just never happens, because the water is always there.

2. Sister Josue at the retreat advised me to start listing my gratitudes every day. I've been doing that, and it has been helpful.

3. I picked up and skimmed a book in a gift shop (too broke to buy it but I took notes) by Gay Hendricks, called Five Wishes (Author's website is here). He encountered someone at party he really didn't want to attend, and they had a conversation which Hendricks called life-changing.

Imagine it's forty years from now, and you're on your deathbed the stranger said. Now, imagine that you look back at what you regret that you didn't get to do during your life. What would those regrets be?

Gay Hendricks thought about this. "I suppose . . .I would regret it if I didn't have a loving relationship with a woman who I adored and who adored me, and if I never had the opportunity to build a life of creativity and passion together with her."

And why is that important to you? the stranger asked.

As Hendricks thought about that, and explained, he started to understand what was holding him back, some communication issues that were present throughout all his life.

Good said the stranger. Now, turn that into a goal, in the present tense.

"I . . . want to have a loving relationship with a woman who I adore and who adore me, and to build a life of creativity and passion together with her."

Good said the stranger. Now, where are you on achieving that goal?

Gay Hendricks thought about that. The stranger smiled. Get busy

So I've been thinking about that, ever since skimming the book. I thought about my relationship with Rob and with the girls. No, I couldn't see them as a regret. I have built a loving partnership with Rob, and despite my own insecurities, I truly think that I have been a loving and good mother to the girls. They are turning out well. This dovetails well with what Sister Josue told me to do with my gratitudes. I do realize that I have much in my life to be happy about (which makes the depression particularly insiduous and annoying, of course, that it insists on sticking around, even when all sources of happiness have not been leached from one's life.) Note, the serendipity of discovering this book the same week that I am thinking about trying to visualize a life without depression. Gay Hendricks is getting at the same quality from a different approach: imagine how you can build a life where you can look back with no regrets.

Well, what about the writing? Wasn't I always saying that the fact that I have stopped writing fiction is a big regret of mine?

So I thought about it. No matter whichever way I thought about it, the only thing I could think that I would say as a regret about writing on my deathbed would be, I regret that I never wrote a beautiful book that truly moved people, that changed their lives.

But I don't need to say that. I have written a book I truly think is beautiful, that has changed people's lives.

And that was this week's blinding insight, friends list. It's true: I never wanted to write fiction to make a pile of money or win prestigious awards. It would have been nice if it had happened, but those goals never drove me. Maybe the reason I've stopped writing fiction isn't because I've lost my creativity, or because I'm too busy with the kids or I fritter away too much time on the Internet. Maybe I've stopped writing fiction because I've already achieved all that I wanted to achieve when I started writing.

Let me tell you, that is a very new thought. I will have to cogitate about that for awhile.

4. The last piece in all this is what I learned at the church service about Fiona's Mexico mission trip. The church went to the orphanage Casa Hogar Elim, which is run by a remarkable woman all the children call "Mama Lupita." The orphanage began in 1986 when Mama Lupita took in four children of an alcoholic father who had abandoned them (the mother had died), even though she had four children of her own. She kept taking in more and more children, somehow making ends meet through donations. She has made it her mission to turn these orphans' lives around, giving them food and education in a neighborhood where many children suffer horrible poverty. She never turns any child away. Mama Lupita can certainly look back on her life on her deathbed and honestly say, "My life truly made a difference for so many people."

I need to do some more thinking about the questions Gay Hendricks asks in his book (see his website here). My thoughts are hazy so far, but there's definitely something there, something about helping children, promoting literacy issues, environmental concerns. Something about wanting to travel a lot more. And there's definitely a STRONG message of I would definitely regret it if I spent forty years of my life typing paperwork for attorneys in insurance litigation--that's something I absolutely must address. I need to think more of what it would be like to live a life free of depression. I need to do more soulcollaging cards.

I need to get the damned computer fixed so I can use my iPhoto program to make more soulcollaging cards.

Edited to add: This post reminds me of one of the poems in Edgar Lee Masters' cycle of poems Spoon River Anthology, the epitaph for Fiddler Jones:

Fiddler Jones

THE EARTH keeps some vibration going
There in your heart, and that is you.
And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.
What do you see, a harvest of clover?
Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands
For beeves hereafter ready for market;
Or else you hear the rustle of skirts
Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.
To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust
Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;
They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy
Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.”
How could I till my forty acres
Not to speak of getting more,
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
And the creak of a wind-mill—only these?
And I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle—
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.

Here it is. I can't believe they left off The Shining, Moulin Rouge, Bullets Over Broadway and most of all, my all time favorite, Romancing the Stone:

"Joan Wilder? THE Joan Wilder?! I read your books! I read all your books!!!"

What movies would you add to the list?

I've been rather quiet on LJ lately because we do a lot of family get-togethers in the week between Christmas and New Years. Our last hurrah for the holidays is our annual Twelfth Night breakfast; we'll probably take the decorations down after that. (I'd like to make this Twelfth Night cake, but alas, the girls will probably veto it since (horrors!) it has fruit in it. I'll have to come up with something else.)

It turns out Rob's new job will start next week; it took awhile for all the paperwork to get processed. Meanwhile he's getting stuff done around the house that he's been promising to finish for months now.

I've been thinking about New Years and resolutions, as I do every year. My weight took a real jump this past month, partly due to the holidays, of course, and partly, I suspect, due to stress eating--I was really worried about the unemployment coming to an end. I'm not being too hard on myself about it, but I've decided to start tracking my calories again on SparkPeople, and upping my exercise program again, including adding the weight-lifting back in (I'd let it slide when I started biking and especially after the gall bladder surgery, and I never really picked it up again). I think I'll be able to get back down under 150 before too long.

But about self-assessment in general: Kij has been talking to me the past couple of weeks about needing to take a hard look at her own life, trying to figure out what she needs to do. Something she said stuck in my mind, the need to be honest and to face the stuff you've been avoiding. I've been thinking about that this week. What about me, what have I been avoiding facing?

I think the truth that I've avoided saying is that the conviction has been growing in me that I don't think I'm ever going to write a novel again. I don't know why, but the fire I used to have in me to write fiction has gone out. Kij and I talked about it this morning; I said that for so many years I thought of myself as a writer (and for me, that meant specifically a writer of published fiction). Facing this realization means facing the fact that the way I use to identify myself must change--even as I acknowledge a point that several people on my friends list have made to me repeatedly (cakmpls I think, specifically)--that what I perhaps need to do is to quit thinking of myself in terms of what I do (I am a fiction writer, I am a karate student). It's less mind messing is just to accept myself as myself--I am Peg. There are various things I do--I wrote novels in the past, right now I'm studying karate. I may or may not do these various things in the future, but I don't need to let that cause a corresponding upheaval in my own identity.

This realization feels quite sad, although I am, of course saying never say never. Maybe a great novel idea will mug me when I'm in my mid-fifties that I'll absolutely have to write.

But where I am right now, I don't really see it happening.

So I'm putting it out there. The most absurdly neurotic part of myself wonders if there will be a mass unfriending as a result ("Peg says she's not going to write fiction anymore??! My god, why have I have been wasting my valuable time reading her stupid blathering journal? *Defriends immediately*") But fortunately the wiser and mature part of myself realizes that this fear is neurotic; in fact it's absolutely ridiculous. If you were going to defriend my journal because I'm not producing publishable fiction, you'd have done it months ago. Heck, it's been blindingly obvious for months now that's not what this journal is about anymore anyway.

So we simply continue on as we have before. I write essays here. I go to karate. I try to cook dinners my family will deign to eat. I garden. I face the dark and try to reach for the light. I make wry observations. I natter on (and on! and on!) about my extremely silly obsessions. I try to be a better person--wiser, more empathetic, more thoughtful, more politically aware.

I live my life. And it's a pretty good life. I tell you about it. Or as least as much about it as Elinor Dashwood wants to share.

You read. Or not.

Your choice.

This is a story I sent out via email to my circle of friends and family back on February 3, 2000, before I was on LiveJournal. I think it is a story worth telling again. (Fiona was almost seven at the time this was written):

Here's a story, just because.

Last night, I went into the girls' room to turn off the night light about twenty minutes after I had put them to bed. "Put the books down, girls," I told them. "Lights out."

"No, pleeeaase!" they begged. "Five minutes more?"

"Okay, five more minutes."

Five minutes later, I came back and made good my threat. Delia contentedly put down her book, snuggled into her bunny blanket, and rolled over to go to sleep. But Fiona burst into tears. "I need more time. Another few minutes, pleeeaase?"

"Honey, I told you five more minutes and I meant it. It's time to go to sleep."

"But, I'm not FINISHED yet!"

I looked at her in affectionate exasperation as she bounced up and down on her mattress in fury, tears rolling down her face. Obviously, she is her Mommy and Daddy's daughter, unable to bear putting down her book. "Sweetheart, look, you're getting to be a better reader, so you're reading longer and longer books, now. You won't always finish your bedtime book every night. That's to be expected. Mommy doesn't finish her book she reads at bedtime every night, either. I have to put a bookmark in it and put it away."

"But it's not fair!" she sobbed.

I sighed, gently but firmly took the book away, and guided her to lie down. I covered her up and began rubbing her tummy, and I suddenly had an inspiration. "Let me tell you a story."

She quieted down immediately.

"Once upon a time there was a rich and powerful king, who had a wife he loved very much, but she betrayed him." (I decided to skip the details.) "Now, since this king was very proud and very angry, he ordered that his wife should be killed. And he made a vow, saying that he would from then on wed a woman every day, but after she spent one night with him as his wife--" (again, we skipped over the details) "--he would have each new bride killed in the morning and then marry a new woman in the afternoon. Finally, it came the turn of the Grand Vizier's beautiful daughter, Scheherazade, to marry the king. The Grand Vizier was overcome with grief, but Scheherazade told him, 'Don't worry, father, I have a plan.'

"In the evening after Scheherazade married the king, Scheherazade's sister came to the king and begged a favor. 'Let my sister tell me a story.'

"'Very well,' said the king. 'And I will listen, too.'

"And so, Scheherazade began to spin the most marvelous tale for her sister and the king. The king was fascinated, but right at the most exciting part of the tale, Scheherazade stopped. 'I will tell the rest tomorrow night,' she said."

Fiona began to smile.

The next day came, and the king thought about killing her, but then he thought, 'No, I want to hear the rest of the story.' And that evening, Scheherazade finished the story, but immediately began telling another, even more exciting than the last. And once again, she stopped, just at the best part.'

Fiona smiled even more.

"Night after night, Scheherazade told part of a story. And day after day the king let her live, because he wanted to hear the rest. Finally, when she had entertained the king for a thousand and one nights, the king had fallen so deeply in love with her because of her stories, that he declared she would live with him as his wife for the rest of their days. The stories that Scheherazade told the king we call the '1001 Arabian Nights.' 'Aladdin' is one of them."

"Aladdin?" Fiona said, brightening. "Really?"

"Mmm, hmm. What part of the story do you suppose Scheherazade stopped at when she told that one?"

Fiona pondered. "Maybe when Aladdin was trapped in the cave?"

"Maybe. She must have been a very clever woman, to think of a thousand stories as exciting as that one, don't you think?"

She nodded.

"Do you see, Fiona? Books, to you, are like Scheherazade. You are like the king. You will simply have to wait until tomorrow to find out the rest of the story, just as the king did. Okay?"

She nodded, finally satisfied.

I leaned forward and kissed her forehead and then turned to go. She reached out for me again. "Stay with me, please?"

"No, this is my writing time. I have a story to tell, just like Scheherazade."

I went to my office and wrote for a while. And then I went to bed and read until very late. I hadn't yet finished the book when I put the bookmark in, turned off the light, and went to sleep.

Boy, I'm really spamming LJ today.

Sensei gave me these links featuring an English teacher on a poetry slam program:

This one's inspiring: ( What Teachers Make )

This one's funny: ( Like--You Know )

And this, extremely funny, which I point out particularly to the copyeditors on my list (some bad language, all in the nature of Freudian slips): ( The Impotence of Proofreading )

Enjoy.

I am still trying to come up with a proposal for Fantasy Matters.

Okay, for once I really am looking for advice. Amazing, Peg's actually asking for advice! I just have to get them 250 words of a proposal by Friday, something that looks half-baked enough that they might actually accept it.

Hearts of flesh and stone. Gee, I want to do something about this, because I've been chewing over it for so long, but right now whenever I attempt to corral my thoughts on this, they scatter unhelpfully in all directions like skittering mice, refusing to coalesce. Perhaps its the lingering effect of anaesthesia on the brain. I'd prefer to think it's that, rather than rank stupidity. However, whatever the cause, the problem remains the same: I need to come up with something!

Thinking about: The Snow Queen (the mirror cracks, a piece of glass lodges in Kay's heart, making it cold and frozen). I could re-visit A.S. Byatt's essay "Ice, Snow, Glass" in Mirror, Mirror on the Wall which I ran across while researching the ice palace book, and it really impressed me at the at time. But then I'm kinda pissed with A.S. Byatt at the moment (see "A.S. Byatt and the Goblet of Bile").

I've been thinking of my earlier essays on Heart of Flesh/Heart of Stone. I'm thinking about the afterward to Tam Lin, which started my whole obsession with this subject (although pameladean said the book was about the study of literature, and how that prevents the heart of stone, rather than about fantasy per se. But why did she choose a fantasy to tell the story? Other than the fact that, duh, she's a fantasy writer?) I've been thinking about George MacDonald's "The Light Princess," which is kinda getting at sort of the same stuff, sideways (using "gravity" and tears as the metaphor for the stamp of humanity, rather than the heart of flesh). Can people name other stories or tales which feature a heart of stone, or that explore this dichotomy? Esp. fantasy stories? Here is a pretty cool story that gets at what I'm struggling to articulate: "The Girl With the Heart of Stone." I've talked about seeing the theme in fiction in general (i.e., in Austen and Dickens) but what does fantasy in particular have to say about this theme?

Throw me a lifeline, anybody, help! Any thoughts that this sparks in you. I'll be ever so touchingly grateful.

Peg, hopefully

Thank you, Friendslist! You're the best! I knew you would come through!

I am now feeling much more confident.

Love and kisses,
Peg

cupidsbow has a fascinating essay here, regarding women, poverty and fanfiction, considered in light of Joanna Russ' classic How to Suppress Women's Writing. Highly recommended to all my readers who read and/or write fanfiction. Thanks to matociquala for the link.

I need to re-read the Russ. It's been a number of years. Perhaps I need to re-examine my writers block in light of some of the stuff she talks about.

The White List is a listing of writers, editors, and other publishing professionals that have LiveJournals or LJ RSS feeds. Not all are pro, but all have one thing in common: a love of writing.

A-M

N-Z

The holiday letter I always always always look forward the most to receiving each year is sent out by my college buddies, Jon and Lisa Lewis. Lisa was the matron of honor at my wedding. They are very good friends and screamingly funny people. Here is the first paragraph of this year's letter:

The question is, when you tell the story about the dead body on the beach in Costa Rica, do you lead with the dead body, get the horrified gasps, and then the requests for additional detail? Or do you start slow? Do you first talk about the hermit crab in the shower and the decision to release him into the wild? Then do you follow with the walk to the beach early in the morning, the rocks exposed by the ebbing tide? You can then introduce a note of suspense by mentioning the large object on the rocks and the speculation about whether it was a seal, and then segue into an extensive discussion of whether they even have seals in Costa Rica. Then, when their eyes are glazing over with boredom, you wallop them with the body--metaphorically speaking, of course. Walloping them with the actual body would be difficult, especially given the condition it was in. At first, we favored the slow approach, and embellished substantially on the details. Now we just say, "Vacation was great. We found a dead body on the beach." Been there, done that. No one has been able to top it, however, which is the mark of a great vacation story. No matter how nice the hotel, how great the meal, how friendly the natives, someone else has always had it better. Or even worse, when you tell your tale of woe, someone has always suffered more. "Yes, I remember the trip we took to Paris. We were set upon by pygmies, tied up, smeared with honey, and forced to watch the Indy 500 while listening to a kazoo band." Kind of takes the wind out of your sails when all you have is the story of your lost luggage, a lumpy mattress, and some mimes.

And that is just the first paragraph.