A Time to Every Purpose

So, it’s 4:30AM and here I am, writing this blog post.  For nearly a week, I have been trying to put pieces together into something coherent and meaningful.  But the words will not behave.

It’s not writer’s block, exactly.  Do I write about the joy of libraries?  About my favorite childhood authors?  About the need for more female protagonists in children’s books?  Or do I write about my idiosyncratic appraisal clients, such as the one who left a bag of figs dangling from my mailbox just yesterday?  Do I “cheat” and fall back on a piece about my bad “car karma,” including Migo’s first ride in a tow truck last week?  I have plenty of material.  My little notebook is full of paragraphs going in a variety of directions. 

Which is, perhaps, a reflection of the rest of my life. Since I have come home (and been blessed to realize that Cape May is home), my life has been exuberantly full.  I have a pleasantly nagging backlog of appraisal work.  When I can’t DIY in This Old House, I have been trying to corral the “Cape Maybe” contractors that gave Carol the title for her second novel.  Then, time for line dancing class, fitness class, even Migo’s obedience class.  Time to catch up with friends.  Time to feed my “Amazon Prime” addiction.  I have been giving my life 16 to 18 hour days, and I have no trouble falling asleep!

And I still write every day.  Journal, Facebook, garrulous texts…in addition to appraisal reports and my notebook musings.  I notice that my voice is starting to change, and I wonder where that will take me.

Because my return to "Kansas" has also made me keenly aware of time. I see the winter months not too far ahead of me, both literally and figuratively, and realize I may be moving much more slowly then.   I am still a bit scattered, getting it all back together, but I do have direction. 

So, when I awoke and embraced this morning’s gift of time, I found myself thinking of The Byrds’ “Turn, Turn, Turn.”   

I believe the pieces will come together in their good time.

February Is the Cruelest Month

February 2014.   

            A nor’easter is churning the back bays and thrashing through the tree branches.  A robust 35-mph wind is singing in the electrical wires outside my bedroom window.  Migo, my dog, is buried beneath the covers.  Friends in PA, MD and NH are buried beneath snow and ice.

            But I guess I should be grateful that I woke up today.  I still have all my underwear.  I still have a roof over my head.  There are no parakeets in my oven.  My house has not been burgled. My car has not been stolen.

            Of course, the month isn’t over.  I still have a healthy respect for Murphy’s Law:

           

            Nothing is as easy as it looks.

            Everything takes longer than you think.

            Whatever can go wrong, will.

            All of the above happens to me in February.

            Actually, like its weather, February for me is really a month of extremes.  I met one of the loves of my life in February, at Cardinal Dougherty High School’s Valentine Dance.  Although we eventually went our separate ways, he probably saved my life that night:  the very next day I had the courage to break up with a very abusive young man.

            But February is also the month when my sisters and I awoke to discover we had no underwear.  I can still remember all of the Fox girls popping out of our bedrooms simultaneously and shrieking, “ Mo-om, I don’t have any underwear!”  My mother’s skepticism sent my sister Diane and I to check the laundry in the basement, where we discovered to our horror that the basement window had been broken and the door left ajar.  We learned later that a disturbed adolescent boy in the neighborhood had perpetrated his personal panty raid on all of the families with teenage girls.  But that was a small matter:  on that same day the following February, I didn’t even have a home!

            February brings nasty weather, blizzards, and other natural disasters.  I was 22 when my roommate (for whom I had innocently advertised in the Philadelphia Inquirer) decided to stop taking her medication and had a bipolar manifestation, which included her attempt to put my parakeet in the oven. While that incident eventually engendered my compassion for such illnesses, at the time I was only scared to death.  Yet, that same week, the CYO play I directed came in First Runner Up at the diocesan competition.  See what I mean about extremes?

            Because February – Valentine’s Day to be exact – is also when I was matched with my Little Sister, Rosie, through Big Sisters of Philadelphia.  Over 30 years later, we are still sisters (Happy Anniversary, Rosie!).

            Of course, February was the month when my house was burgled.  Lucky for me, Walnut, my German shepherd mix,  met the burglar at the top of the stairs and sent him out the back door.  With nothing to show for his effort but an obsolete pocket calculator.

            In an attempt to avoid the month’s cosmic mood swings, I have often vacationed in February.  Or tried to. I returned home one year to find my car had been stolen from the airport parking lot.  Then there was the year I decided to spend the entire month of February in Hawaii under the naïve assumption that the Furies wouldn’t find me there.  However, that January  I broke up with the man with whom I had made the plans.  Because both of us were too stubborn to forego the trip,  we spent a month in Hawaii barely speaking to each other.  Does that trump the February vacations I spent traveling with another boyfriend…and his mother?

            So, as I watch the trees throw fits outside my window, I accept the fact that, in February, nothing that happens will surprise me.

            Now, if you will excuse me, I think I will join Migo under the covers.  I am just grateful it's not a Leap Year!

(Top photo courtesy of Getty Images:  "Car-maggedon"  coined by KYW newsradio broadcaster for 100-car pile-up on PA Turnpike 2/14/14)

JUST FOR TODAY – LIFE ON PAUSE

After a few hefty nudges from Jim, family, and friends— it dawned on me that it might be time to take a few deep breathes, put my Type A+ just-get-it-done life on pause . . . and celebrate the publication of CAPE MAYBE!

Putting life on slo-mo may sound easy-peasy, but if you know me, you know slowing down is not my strong suit.

The last two years have been a whirlwind of working with editors, rewriting, revising, proofreading, learning book design, self-publishing, social networking, book marketing, and in less than nine months publishing PEACE BY PIECE and CAPE MAYBE. Oh, and in between, I left one job and started another, because writing is NOT my day job, it’s my “hobby.”

To say I’ve spent more than a few days on fast-forward is an understatement, but Carol on fast-forward is nothing new. It hit me that it might be time to pause and take stock when I noticed others viewed CAPE MAYBE’S publication as a huge accomplishment while I treated it as one more thing checked off my long to-do list with so much more to do!  

It reminds me of a time about 20 years ago when I was a Human Resources Director in a four person H.R. Department. We were simultaneously doing the due diligence for a merger, closing one pension plan and creating another, installing a new payroll system, going through our annual employee benefits open enrollment—and all while our benefits coordinator was on leave. At a staff meeting the day after our near flawless payroll go-live, I said something like, “Go-live yesterday was almost perfect which means today we shift gears and focus full-force on the open-enrollment deadline, auditing the pension plan, blah, blah, blah  . . .”

My secretary meekly waved her hand, asking if instead of diving head first into the next projects, we could take a one day breather and celebrate bringing up a new payroll system and everyone getting paid right.

See? Carol on fast-forward—nothing new.

So, just for today--and if Jim has his way, tomorrow, and the next day(s)--I’m trying to put my over-achieving-self on pause.

It has been more than half my lifetime since the first time I said out loud that I wanted to write a book.

Just for today, I will try to pause and bask in the realization that after 15 years of writing and rewriting, in the last nine months, I have finished and published TWO!