Category: Writing a Book

This is a writing accountability blog. I have committed to publishing a book by March, 2024. I invite you on the journey as I plough through the internal and external obstacles I face. As the great Bette David loosely said in the movie “All About Eve.” “Buckle your seatbelts. It’s (likely) going to be a bumpy (ride.)”

Auld Lang Syne

I think of what I might say to my friend from long, long ago.

When I see her again.

I think of what it will take to get to where she is now. Winging my way back to visit someone I have not spoken with in person for … ever.

The journey-to-be plays out in my head: first getting to the airport, arriving, navigating the checkin counter, the security line, the waiting lounge, the flight to her current there, arriving.

She’ll order a soda with lemon. I’ll have a tonic water with lemon, too. We both turned our backs on mead and the grape some time ago.

I imagine we will gently jog down memory lane.

Trying to look at life and our life as it was then through the microscope of hindsight to recall – inaccurately – what once was and will never come again.

I struggle to remember what it was that tore us asunder all those years ago. What words did I say? How did I act? I writhe internally with discomfort as I recall all the possible friendship-fracturing infractions. I was a troubled child.

Why did she matter so damned much? What was it that created such an impassable gulf between us until now, all those years ago, to arrive back at where we are now: a place of truce and reconciliation?

Age, maybe. Curiosity likely, too. Two friends who knew each other when they were young nobodies. Perhaps we want to test each other and ourselves to see if one or the other of us remembers anything from back then in exactly the same way. Unlikely.

She became a superstar. Her god given talents fully explored in this lifetime and her contributions globally recognized and lauded. It is fair to say, our paths diverged.

Yet, here we are making a conscious choice to reconnect. And to what end, I wonder? For my part, I loved her much. Banishment from her life ate away at my soul for my whole adult life.

So maybe, our reunion is simply that. To be able to tell her how much I missed her. How much less my life was without her to share it as we once had without even touching base occasionally. To give simple thanks for the gift of grace and forgiveness she is giving me for sins which neither of us remembers now with any clarity.

To sit at her fire and hoist a mug again. It truly is only that I seek. To let her know how much she meant to me and how affecting the loss of her presence was. And to tell her how happy I am to see her. One more time.

Up we’ll both stand in whatever social venue we mutually selected and agreed upon to share this ritual of reunion. We’ll hug likely, and share pleasantries and reaffirm that yes, there once was something of substance that mattered between us as friends.

She’ll turn and leave to go back to her there. I’ll turn and leave and head back to my temporary lodgings and start planning the steps needed to eventually fly home.

After that meeting, I expect I will never meet with her in person again. We will leave each other along the way as we once did so many years ago. But we’ll leave each other this time … differently.

No Wasted Words

“No words are wasted. Everything you get down on the page can be considered practice. This means you’re sharpening your skills every time you write, even if you ultimately end up shelving that work.

Today’s Writing Challenge:
Set a timer for 10-15 minutes. Now, write without pressing backspace. Keep your eyes closed if you think you can pull it off. Resist the urge to fix typos!

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The passage above popped up as a daily prompt from one of my writing groups. I often wonder why writing – as opposed to other vocations – is so riddled with angst and insecurities. Perhaps because writing is the activity most capable of getting inside our hearts and minds. Scary stuff.

Of course, we all know “the power of the pen” being “mightier than the sword.” Writing has started and sustained revolutions, after all. Writers and intellectuals are often the first to be shut down and imprisoned by dictators trying to control a population to deflect dissent. One thing is clear: what people think and believe is important.

I am inclined to ask why writing is generally viewed at the same time as commonplace and unimportant. Everyone with a basic education can read and write – up to a point. It rarely pays well. There is no well-defined formula for how to “make it in writing” like there might be, say, buying real estate and using the magic of compound interest to get rich.

My humble conclusion is that people are both intrigued and terrified about what they really feel and think about themselves and a lot of other things. To settle into a groove in life, most people adopt and accept certain assumptions and beliefs – usually ones passed on to them by their parents or culture.

Once made, people usually become quite comfortable with their choices. And once made, people are hard-pressed to alter their thinking. Too disruptive. To gain admission to and survive in a marriage, community or profession, there are unspoken rules to follow to maintain full membership.

But writers? We are often lone wolves. Our writing style and areas of expertise can be very specialized and divergent. Other writers might more often be seen as competition for scarce assignments rather than people to bond with as a group.

That is not to say that writers are not collegial. Of course they are. But discussing the basics of medicine is far less open to interpretation than who the greatest writers were and why. To say nothing about the proper time and place to use a semi-colon.

I remember once being part of a unionizing effort by magazine writers in Canada. We were nearly laughed out of the building by editors and magazine management with our demands for contracts and equal wages and reasonable kill fees if our stories didn’t run.

I was stunned to read in a recent Psychology Today article that facts don’t do much to alter people’s established beliefs anyway. Not to wander too deeply into political territory, the 45th US President freely committed crimes “in plain sight” through much of, and after, his administration. This behavior was clearly old hat and pro forma to him. He was, and remains, unchastened.

That may be the allure and terror of writing. No one wants to tell the emperor he is wearing no clothes. It will be left to future writers to dig into the facts and analyze their context to create an accurate account of all that has transpired in American politics in recent decades. Sure glad I won’t be one of them. Not my circus. Not my monkeys.

I write about healing and the human condition and my musings about making the best use of our time here on planet earth. That exploration and the people and stories it has exposed me to have always been infinitely more interesting to me.

Politicians, in order to survive at their profession, sadly seem to play the same old games and sing the same old songs. In perpetuity it would seem. The unspoken rules of their community.

So, This Happened

The draft post I’d originally written for today was eaten. I changed a page before the text was saved and voila! The post vanished. Unrecoverable. Unsaved you see.

So this is an event I suspected might happen long before this. And it is telling.

My post was about how my nerves are bowstring taut with the incessant demands of moving house. A process that started in earnest several months ago is now in process in earnest. If you catch my drift.

So this type of mistake was inevitable. Annoying as hell and time-consuming. But it is the very thing that happens when the mind and body are overloaded. The message is that it is time for a time out.

I have a small, handmade banner in front of me while I work on this blog every day. It asks: “What do I need right now?” It is more helpful than I thought it would be when I taped it on my bookshelf.

Reading it forces me to check in with myself and take a minute. Make a cup of tea, maybe. Pop outside for a breath of fresh air. Basically, anything to move and change my position.

Stress always did a number on my body. My shoulders would creep up to somewhere just below my ears. My back muscles would become tight. I remember an exam period bursitis that cropped up as regular as rain under my scapula.

The bursitis presented as a hot and painful spot midway down my right scapula after sitting in exam rooms for days. That likely seems quaint. Writing exams in the days when we actually “wrote exams.” No multiple choice tests or computers allowed. Take-home exams always amused me but they were not as easy to muster as I originally thought.

The research problem I always had was “”When is enough?” If that wasn’t enough pressure when writing papers, it was hydraulic trying to cram all you knew into an exam you had to hand in 72 hours after receiving the questions.

I was about 6 or 7 when my Nanny tried to teach me knitting. After working away at knitting and purling on her scrap balls of yarn, the stitches would get so tight, I couldn’t continue my square. Nanny would have to take the needles away from me to loosen the tension so I could start again.

An early symptom of the what I’d later come to understand was post-traumatic stress. Stress management has been a lifelong obsession. Years of yoga, meditation, deep breathing exercises and talk therapy have helped. Somewhat.

But like most humans, I have limits and I am encountering them full-on lately. Part of a healthy stress response is knowing what to let go of and then learning to let that go. That is so much easier written than done.

So what I need right now is to chill. Have that cup of tea. Maybe go for a short walk. Bye bye for now. The next few weeks are going to be a bit of an uphill slog. As I’ve done countless times before, I’m going to hold on and see where this adventure in moving lands me.

The Grave Marker Maker

Where I came from, country people had a wry and realistic view of death. They had to. As farmers and stock keepers, the cycle of birth and death was up close and personal in their every day lives.

Roast chicken for dinner? No supermarket down the street where it was easy to pick up a roast chicken – cooked or uncooked. The hungry farmer sought out the poorest layer in the flock and headed to the butcher block. Off with its head.

I came from a small and mostly rural Canadian province. Stories about birth and death were awash in myth and mystery. And, occasionally, ridiculousness.

As a television reporter in the 80s, me and my cameraman were assigned to investigate a tiny graveyard nearly an hour’s drive outside the booming metropolis of Fredericton (population: 44, 000+).

CBC TV had been invited by a local historian to investigate a smattering of bespoke headstones in a small local cemetery. We were met at the cemetery’s entrance by a local woman who looked clearly discomfited at the arrival of nosey city folk.

What we saw at first glance was a field of small, boxy headstones, mostly lopsided and irregular in shape. Upon closer inspection, we saw that someone had carefully spelled out the name and birthday and date of death of each deceased person. In twigs.

It was evident the maker wanted to remember the deceased and grant them the dignity of a grave marker. In a spirit of love and generosity, he – I am assuming it was a he – had made over three dozen headstones, each painstakingly crafted by hand.

He had laid out the names and vital statistics in twigs in a wooden box and then poured concrete into them. Alder was the wood he used, I imagine, as it was plentiful and its’ young branches were long, thin and pliable. Two problems: the grave marker maker was a dreadful speller and had little sense of proportion.

The twigs didn’t cooperate very much with his aesthetic efforts by staying fully in place. What should have been straight lines were a little wavy. When the deceased’s name was too long, the grave marker maker simply rounded the corner of the box and finished up the name down the side.

The end result looked a little less than professional. More like the work of an earnest kindergartner to be accurate. Grave markers to be sure that were filled with misspelled and misshapen names and dates. Lots of them.

We didn’t do a story that day. I sensed that while the historian had a professional distance from the comical stones, the local who took us to them was clearly uncomfortable. There is a fine line between poking fun at someone who is in on the joke and someone who has inadvertently attracted ridicule.

Years later, I heard all of the stones had been replaced by more staid and suitable granite headstones. With the names spelled right and lines as straight as arrows.

Still, it is poignant to think of the hours invested by some earnest and well-meaning member of the community to properly remember his kith and kin. We pick where we choose to invest our labor on this earth.

It is sweet and a little sad to think that, in spite of the odd and disastrous products he produced, this chap felt he was doing sacred homage with his labors.

Then and now, I felt a little sad that his work did not survive. It is said that it is the effort we should praise and not the outcome. I can’t help thinking that the poor man’s efforts might have lasted a little longer on this earth than they did. And remembered with kindness, not ridicule.

Heaven on Earth

I have no traditional beliefs or hopes about going to an “afterlife” once I die. I do believe I have a spirit incarnated in this body at this time in the history of this world.

I also believe that my spirit might be reincarnated when this body I currently inhabit gives out. Shy of any solid, indisputable evidence, the jury is actually still out on that.

I do believe heaven and hell are here on earth. It makes sense to me that if your present living circumstances are such that belief in an eventual heaven helps you get through your days, go for it. Whatever gets you by.

That belief that so many people hold makes me a little sad though. It has allowed powerful and not-so-well-meaning people to suppress and keep people subjugated for centuries. Not naming names, but religious leaders are particularly culpable in this regard.

Advertising that you are in possession of an exclusive hotline to, and relationship with, the creator-god almighty is a pretty powerful cudgel. Combine that with limited access to education and even the ability to read and write, religious leaders have had a pretty easy row to hoe keeping people in line.

I once went to Rome and witnessed a papal audience. I worked in marketing at the time. My overriding thought at that event was that with the leverage of that storied history and artifacts shrouded in mystery and money, I could sell the Catholic party line to just about anyone. Over the ages, the Catholic Church has done just that.

It is fair to say that the Catholic “brand” has been undermined and tarnished in recent years. Widespread sexual abuse of children and a hierarchy devoted to preserving the mythology of “godliness” meant that internal corruption and coverups were almost preordained.

As priest after priest fell under the knife of justice for their unholy transgressions, I watched many lifelong Catholics go through the now-well-known stages of grieving. First, shock, then denial. Then anger when the denial defrosted.

I believe many Catholics were and are still stuck in the stage of depression without acceptance of their spiritual leaders horrific crimes. A belief system inculcated in you from infancy and supported by your culture is hard to throw off.

So there were justifications and diminishment of the grievous transgressions galore floating about in Catholic circles and out to the wider society as “the sins of the fathers” started coming to light.

“Think about all the good he did for the community,” I heard about one particularly unctuous Father. That priest had preyed on altar boys for years. He was convicted and died in prison. Devout Catholics from his parish shook their heads in disbelief and devastation for years after.

The appeal of an afterlife is understandable. In the face of individuals feeling powerlessness, having something better to look forward to after you depart this mortal coil is likely comforting.

It is also true that creating your own heaven on earth can be a daunting exercise. Life throws so many variables at all of us. Choosing the right path or pushing the right buttons often feels like an insurmountable challenge.

It is why I appreciate time alone. When I occasionally sink under the covers of my own busy external environment, that is where I have resolved some of life’s thorniest and most painful issues. I lived alone for many years.

Self-imposed isolation helped me gain my own clarity about many things in favor of other people’s dictates about what heaven and hell or a good life or bad life was. It also shaped my perception of what success is and isn’t.

With time and a little luck, we eventually grab the pebble out of the master’s hand. I was helped to articulate this position in a post I saw today. “When we are young we blame our parents for our troubles. When we are adults, we learn they are also just human beings and learn to forgive them. When we finally learn to forgive ourselves, we have become wise.” – Alden Nowlan

The goal of living is to tip the scales in favor of goodness and right. Bad things and injustice will fling themselves at you throughout your life with astonishing regularity. Your job is to hold fast to the mast of your own core beliefs. To become certain of your own values and to live by them.

I can’t say emphatically that heaven – if there is such a place – is here on earth or awaiting us after death. But I believe that if you stick to your guns and live what is true for you, you’ve got a much better shot at living a version of heaven here on earth than those who don’t.

As for an afterlife, I’ll get back to let you know if there is one when I get there.

Hot Cockalorum

One of the pleasures of adulthood is looking back and savoring certain childhood memories. Trying to figure out why they were so much fun at the time can be a joyful sentimental journey.

I practically lived inside the covers of my World Book encyclopedia and companion Childcraft books when I was a little girl. I remember they were bought from a traveling door-to-door salesman. I believe their purchase caused some consternation in the household as Dad accused Mom of buying something “impulsive and unnecessary.”

As irony would have it, when Dad died, I retrieved the World Book encyclopedia from his house, not Mom’s. Who knows what happened there. Divorce collateral damage.

For my part, I am glad Mom bought them. The story below I first discovered in Childcraft. The nonsense of it and the twisting around of words in my head and mouth were delicious to play with and read out loud. It was the same sort of rolling around of words in your brain as you might do in your mouth with a caramel toffee candy or dessert confection.

This tiny tale was no doubt partially responsible for igniting my love of words. For reasons unknown, I hung on to “hot cockalorum” over the years.

Do not expect common sense here. It is a silly story. But I am still impressed now, as I was back then, by how quick and clever that young servant girl had to be to remember all the crazy words the old man taught her just hours before.

Girls – including servant girls – rock.

Master of All Masters

https://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/eft/eft43.htm

“A girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last, a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her, and took her home to his house. When she got there, he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things.

He said to her: ‘What will you call me?’

‘Master or mister, or whatever you please, sir,’ says she.

He said: ‘You must call me “master of all masters”. And what would you call this?’ pointing to his bed.

‘Bed or couch, or whatever you please, sir.’

‘No, that’s my “barnacle”. And what do you call these?’ said he, pointing to his pantaloons.

‘Breeches or trousers, or whatever you please, sir.’

‘You must call them “squibs and crackers”. And what would you call her?’ pointing to the cat.

‘Cat or kit, or whatever you please, sir.’

‘You must call her “white-faced simminy”.

And this now,’ showing the fire, ‘what would you call this?’

‘Fire or flame, or whatever you please, sir.’

‘You must call it ‘hot cockalorum”, and what this?’ he went on, pointing to the water.

‘Water or wet, or whatever you please, sir.’

‘No, “pondalorum” is its name. And what do you call all this?’ asked he, as he pointed to the house.

‘House or cottage, or whatever you please, sir.’

‘You must call it “high topper mountain”.’

That very night the servant woke her master up in a fright and said: ‘Master of all masters, get out of your barnacle and put on your squibs and crackers. For white-faced simminy has got a spark of hot cockalorum on its tail, and unless you get some pondalorum high topper mountain will be all on hot cockalorum’ . . . That’s all.

Time and Place

There was something I did not know when I was young but know very well now. In our lives and usually beyond our bidding, there is a time and place for everything. Finding out what works for you in whatever time and place you are in at the moment is the challenge. 

There are distinct phases in our lives but they don’t present as some kind of script to follow. Something about the zeitgeist shifts around us as we come up to and pass certain milestones. High school graduation, as an example.

In the weeks and months leading up to that event, there is much activity and preparation. Not only for the exams and essays required to get you past the graduation finish line but much thought and preparation has been invested into what you will do afterward.

Take the summer off or work to earn some coin in the local supermarket? Take a whole gap year and travel the world before you settle into full-time studies or an entry-level position in the career of your choosing? Or spend your time sowing some wild oats and grabbing what little is left of childhood freedoms before the responsibilities of adulthood kick in?

I remember the subtle but significant pressures that kicked in at various stages and with every passing year when I was young. Family members can say tons without saying anything much of anything at all. “So, how’s your love life?” the jovial uncle might ask when you are obviously still very much single.

“I hope your parents live long enough to become grandparents,” the jovial uncle’s wife – my aunt by marriage – chimes in with a chuckle and the mildest hint of a harumph. 

I felt a subtle shift and FOMO (“fear of missing out”) kick in when my younger sisters had children and I had none. Let me emphasize here that FOMO is an extraordinarily stupid reason for choosing a mate and having children. I believe many do it though, but call it something else.

Shortly after my marriage imploded, I opined that I had put more thought into choosing carpet colors than choosing my children’s father. In my defense, I didn’t know then what I know now. But damn. Take about hasty and flakey decision-making. At that time, generally, I was paying more attention to others’ expressed needs and wishes than I was to my own.

Life set out to teach me fundamental lessons after that which, up until that point, I had blithely ignored. More telling, I believed certain expectations didn’t apply to me. I mentioned before the messages we got as children about being “special.” The rules that applied to mere mortals didn’t apply to me. Hubris is an ugly and limiting affliction.

I got schooled. Big time. I didn’t understand what this strange yearning was that in the weeks leading up to delivery that made me want to create a safe and orderly home for my infant child. And so I learned about nesting. 

So while I went through most of the so-called normal benchmarks of adult life, it was never on a path I felt that I was choosing freely. That’s a great form of denial and I was pretty good at that. 

I had missed out on the steady guidance of healthy female role models I assume other women had. My mother abdicated her role as a mother early in my existence and struck up a close relationship with pills of her choosing. 

Other potential role female models in my life died too soon or otherwise faded from my life. In any case, when it came to the finer points of parenting, and specifically mothering, I was woefully unprepared.

I do not recommend entering parenting without some sort of stable and viable support system. Independence is great but its allure tanks dramatically when a helpless human being needs you 24/7. I believe people couple up as much for someone else to cover diaper duty as for the deep emotional and social satisfaction of having a life partner. 

In a similar way, subtle hints come along in life’s journey to move you forward. Time to go for that promotion or look for another job. Time to move house or even move out of your community. Time to move on from any unsatisfactory situation, whether personal or professional. A wake-up call behooves you to focus on your health and well-being above all other considerations. If we aren’t here on the planet, or struggling to physically make it through our daily lives, all other considerations are moot. 

By a certain age, we start to look back and see how our own lives were shaped by variations on all of these themes. Choices we did and didn’t make. Opportunities we did or didn’t accept. I once read that we all must make most important life decisions with insufficient data and limited foresight. And sometimes we deliberately choose to abandon reason, flout the rules, and go with our gut.

A favorite saying of mine is about second (or third or fourth) marriages. They have been described as “a triumph of hope over experience.” There are certain variables that even the most carefully laid out life trajectory can flout: love and longing and desire. The heart wants what it wants.

If the allure of “the road less traveled” appeals to you on some deep level, you may understand what I’m talking about. Or if, in fact, you have taken an alternate path in your own life, you understand what that means in your very bones. And you may be happier than many.

Whatever the outcome, choosing to live life at your own speed and at your own pace may land you in a place of your own making. That can make a significant difference in how you see your life looking backward. And forward, too, if you are brave enough to follow that path.

There is no time limit on courage regardless of the time and place you are in at the moment.

Beautiful Chaos

According to the Urban Dictionary, beautiful chaos means someone whose life and/or personality are hectic or chaotic. When you have long defined yourself and your output as a “hot mess,” this positive reframing is welcome.

Tidiness and order do not come naturally to me. I am sure this deficit in me is attached to a trauma-filled childhood. Parental modeling has to be another. My mother’s aunt raised my mother to believe: “If you don’t learn how to do housework, then you’ll never have to do it.”
That view seemed fairly short-sighted on great-aunt Grace’s part, then and now.

I believe my great-aunt Grace was preparing my mother to live a life above her birth station. What it accomplished was a domestic incompetent who was inordinately proud of being so. Mom may have secretly suffered for her lack of housekeeping and cooking skills, but like many other things, she made a joke out of it.

“Cooking,” she would say, “is like murder. You only have to do it once to be one.” In her back pocket, she had but a handful of “go-to” recipes on the few occasions that I remember her making a homemade meal. “Joni marquette,” for example.

Joni marquette was an elevated moniker for a tasty dish of ground beef, macaroni, and a can of stewed tomatoes. Easy to throw together and admittedly tasty. In moderation.

But if there was a meal to be made and Mom was the only person available to do it, joni marquette was likely the main course. I later discovered that “joni marquette” was actually based on a US-Italian recipe called Johnny Marzetti. The Wikipedia article on the origin of the dish is an interesting read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Marzetti

The joni marquette entree was occasionally followed up with a dessert dish Mom was fond of making. We weren’t especially fond of it, but no matter. If dessert was called for, floating islands are what we got. That dish was prepared much like one would make meringues.

You know the crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside cookie confection of soundly whipped egg whites, infused with sugar and vanilla, and baked to golden brown perfection. A French derivation and specialty made popular by French cuisine superstar Julia Child. In French, they are called oeufs-a-la-neige. (eggs on clouds) https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/19050/floating-island-oeufs-a-la-neige/

Mom’s variation was to make the beaten egg white base with sugar as directed. She would then carefully ladle individual “islands” into a warming milk bath in a frying pan to cook. And voila. Floating islands.

To me, there was something vaguely off-putting about floating islands. It may have been their squishiness. Sort of like marshmallows but not nearly as firm and awash in milk. They felt funny in your mouth as if you were chewing on sweet foam. Maybe they weren’t so bad when I think back. Maybe it was their frequency as Mom’s “go-to” dessert that rendered them vaguely unappetizing.

Mom’s lack of domestic skills was a great source of humor for her. She often touted Dad’s skills around the house as being well above her own. He had been a bachelor practically forever when they met and married so was well familiar with domestic necessities.

Dad could cook and enjoyed it. He was also a little guilty of overdoing the “one-dish I’m good at.” In his case, it was cod au gratin. He would buy a large piece of cod – preferably fresh – and mix it with what I now know as roux. That is a flour, milk, and butter-based white sauce that he made extra thick and seasoned with salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.

He would pour this mixture into baking dishes I now know are called ramekins. He topped each ramekin with about an inch of sharp shredded cheddar cheese. Then he popped the ramekins in the oven until the cheese melted and the fish and roux had heated sufficiently. Pretty good eating.

But a little like Mom’s joni marquette, Dad’s cod au gratin was served excessively. Seems the mindset was that if you have a winning recipe, why deviate from it? A generational thing maybe.

My cooking adventures have been a combination of both parents’ approaches. I have a few “go-to” standards but take great delight in experimenting a little more than they did.

Of course, now if a new dish I am making doesn’t work out exactly like the picture on the New York Times recipe page, I am happy I no longer have to describe it as a “hot mess.”

What you have in front of you, I will say, is my own self-curated special dish, Beautiful Chaos. Would you care for some more?

The Birthday Box

Today is my birthday. A milestone, so that narrows it down some. But I am not going to share exactly how old I have become today. The reason is old-fashioned and likely a little vain. For my mother, it was a survival strategy. Especially in the workplace.

Mom used to talk about “the box people put you in.” Once people knew how old you were, she reasoned, they made assumptions. Often erroneous. Inevitably “limiting.” It is still the way it is “out there.” A 19-year-old singer on America’s Got Talent is viewed more favorably than a 27-year-old. Longer-term marketability, the younger they are.

In Mom’s case, she was a woman in a profession dominated by men. Truth be told in her generation, every professional field was dominated by men. There were a lot of truths about living in that reality, shared as sly witticisms that most women could relate to.

“To do as well as a man in the workplace, women have to be twice as good and work twice as hard as men do. Fortunately, that isn’t difficult.”

Or a more veiled reference: “It is hard to soar with eagles when I am surrounded by turkeys.” I remember a cartoon that circulated in Mom’s workplace. A down and dejected bald eagle is in the center of a group of blank-looking turkeys. The point hit home.

I knew the frustration of being expected to be a “hard news” reporter when that was the predominant role respected in our TV newsroom. If your strength was current affairs or my wheelhouse, human interest, you were clearly of less value than the ambulance chasers or political analysts.

Never mind that I actually enjoyed doing human interest pieces and that they were well-received. They were never going to grant me a shot at being a war correspondent or a bureau chief or heading up a newsroom.

Mom’s challenge was even harder in the 60s. There were distinct “ladies’ pages” in the newspaper business. And ladies, of course, were expected to “cover” issues of interest to other ladies. Teas, weddings, and significant births and deaths in the community. The social pages. Writing obituaries was clearly women’s work.

Mom fought for a “beat” like her male colleagues. After much cajoling and complaining she finally got her wish. She ended up covering the port of Saint John, New Brunswick with the comings and goings of major vessels and reports on the cargo they carried.

To my chagrin, she liked to announce to all and sundry when I was too young to see the humor that she had a job “working the waterfront.” The conjured image of my mother in fishnet stockings and too-high heels made me writhe in discomfort when she shared her little joke with my friends.

Today is more of a day of stock-taking for me. I look back on the other birthdays of other significant decades. I think about what I have and haven’t accomplished. Most poignant, of course, have been challenges that I did and those I did not overcome. Loss became a constant companion if not exactly a friend.

My dear friend Ursula Wawer, MD became a forensic psychiatrist. On a trip we once took, she seized upon a piece of art. It was a drawing of a maze of sorts with many paths but all leading ultimately to the same destination. She said at the time it was much like the healing path many of her patients took.

Not everyone comes to the same desirable destination of love, peace, and fulfillment via the same path. Ursula concluded it doesn’t matter how you get there. What does matter is that you keep putting one foot in front of the other. Do the work to eventually arrive where you want to be and not where others deem that you should be. That journey can take a lifetime.

And so it has been for me. Lots of learning along the way and many lessons I would rather have read about in a book instead of learning about them firsthand. Life isn’t fair and that is one of the biggest and most important learnings of all.

When you land at a point of your life at a destination you only once dreamed about, that feels like a life – if not consistently well-lived – then at least you can say it has been a life of some value.

As I “celebrate” my birthday today, just as you might be celebrating yours today or soon or certainly someday, that feels like the greatest present of all.

My life to date has been valuable to me for all the challenges, children, lessons, dear friends, adventures, and romantic experiences along the way.

I greet the upcoming decade with a warm welcome. Intention being about 99% of the success of any endeavor – another lesson I’ve learned. Bring it on. Happy birthday to me.

Margot’s Chateau Margaux

Oh boy. Some things pop up on the Internet and you just gotta shake your head.

Book merch, for example. It’s a thing.

Check out this Esquire article.
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a44449495/book-publishing-influencer-merch-explained/#%F0%9F%8D%BE%F0%9F%8D%B7

I’ve often bemoaned the widespread dereliction of words and literature. Increasingly, consumerism trumps education and literary exploration as a leading social value.

And why does that matter? Because good literature gives us insight into the human condition and the amazing range of roles we play as humans on the planet.

Text speak has reduced “what were once words” to a series of acronyms and emojis. So now, whatever we’re feeling, we just have to match it to the closest emoji to convey our feelings to the world. Hoo boy.

As a former professional “marketer,” I hold my nose over the introduction of book merch. Umbrellas with a favorite author’s new book title on it? Galoshes and raincoats and book covers and whatever else to show your allegiance to the words of whomever? Seriously?

Here in my blog, I have written about the rampant “commodification” of book writing and publishing. Book coaches. Book retreats. Book writing challenges. Book webinars (pick a genre, any genre). I note there is no industry accreditation for any of these purported “experts.” Just plenty of chutzpah.

The book publishing industry has gone way, way, way beyond satisfying the simple ego motivations of self-publishing, or encouraging impatient authors to utilize the so-called “vanity press.” Sadly, like cultivating love and friendship and a career “calling,” the mystery of writing as a gift of the fates and happenstance has also evaporated.

“Find your ideal life partner by following these five easy steps!” “How to make 20 friends in 20 days!” (with a money-back guarantee! No, I was just kidding about getting any money back). “Fifty ways to leave your lover.” (No, wait that was by someone else about something else.) No matter. You get my drift.

I am first to admit guilt in the realm of needing a fairly swift kick in the ass to have me consistently put pen to paper. In full sentences. Mostly.

But I never see myself giving in to the marketing claptrap of “book merch” to claim I am “successful.” I simply define success (as most writers I respect and admire) as just putting your bum in a seat every day and cranking out something. Anything.

Then again, hold up. The possibilities are undoubtedly endless for a Chateau “Margot” Margaux. Jeesh, I am a soft touch.

But seriously. Ptooey!! As if I have anything to say that is going to change or “influence” anything ….

Old school values die hard.