Garden Party

This is what my new flower garden looked like in the sun. In the summer. When we had summer. Apparently it's over. Today I called the pellet stove repair guy and we turned the heated floor back on. It's really cold here. Global warming? Don't worry about it. Come to Seattle.

Moving on from my little moan...I'm quite proud of the garden business. My cat Uncas (you'll notice him in the corner) is thinking that he would have liked the dalhias a little farther away from the heather. Okay, I'm making that up-- I don't have dalhias or heather but I can't remember the names of the real plants.

Just for some perspective, this is what the place looked like before the purchase went through.

Really.

I've been working very very hard.

Slow Start

Good morning, good morning. Well, the weather has turned and it seems we’re done with summer already in the Northwest. The clouds have rolled in and gone are the sunny, clear, hot days. I’m feeling fortunate that I finished some gardening while it was nice. Being a novice and all, I was able to enjoy my first foray into digging around in the dirt in sunny sunny weather, moving plants from one spot to the next, trying an orange beauty next to a pineapple mint. Even though the instructions said “full sun”, I put it in “partial” & hoped for the best. (There’s no such thing as full sun in these woods.) It’s cloudy days and shade for you, verbena, if you’re fortunate enough to come home with me. In the last week I’ve moved nearly a ton of rocks and gathered driftwood from the beach, sculpting the land into beautiful, welcoming grounds. I believe I’m addicted. The cats too were enchanted by the weather in the last few weeks, sprinting back and forth from one patch of grass to the next, chasing each other, and leaving gifts of dead vermin on the path.

Today we all sit inside the studio, pouting at the early change in season. They cry, looking up at me, as if I could stop the rain. “It’s not my fault,” I say. I walk to the window with the little one and contemplate the gray, gray sky. Will I still manage to ride my bike to work? It’s hard to keep good habits when even the sun is hiding. Maybe, I think, I’ll just go back to bed.

Almost a year later, she has something to say.

This morning, I’m going to write about the cycle, the ebb and flow of the writer’s psyche: the elation, the depression, the fantasy, the misery, the accolades, the criticisms, the swell and the drain, the yin and the yang. God, I’m tired of (but am going to have to embrace) the fact that I’m a sensitive, moody artist—one who is extremely affected by the opinions that other people have of my writing. When they tell me I’m good, I’m on top of the world, imagining life as it should be, imagining I have finally come into my own. Then one critique too much, one slip of the rug under my feet, and I’m unbalanced. My first reaction (particularly to someone who may or may not be a husband and who may or may not be writing at this particular time), is to say: “why don’t you write something better, then?”

The cycle:

I finish a story I don’t feel particularly good about, but am happy to have finished as it’s taken several months, off and on. I don’t expect anyone to think the story really works, but deep down, deep down, I think, wouldn’t that be nice if someone did.

I give the story to "someone" (who may or may not be a husband) to read, just as a first impression. He’s normally a good reader, has insightful opinions.

He reads half the story and thinks it’s amazing, says I’ve found my style, best thing I’ve written. I’m elated. I’m delighted. Maybe I can't recognize my own talent.

He finishes the story, says “wow, that was creepy,” then turns over to go to sleep. Hmmm.

I can actually feel the joy drain from my body. I’m quiet for a time, then finally have to ask, “What, you didn’t like it?”
Why? Why did I have to ask that question? Why couldn’t I have left well enough alone?

He proceeds to list some pretty major issues: my favorite scene might be too much, certain characters' language was not believable, the ending doesn’t satisfy, it’s over the top. Then he says I just need to “tighten it up a little”. He sounds condescending.

Confidence stripped. I proceed to spend the next couple of hours tossing and turning, stewing, trying to find a way to blame him.

There’s no getting around it. Writing is hard. I’ve chosen a difficult, often unrewarding vocation (today it does not feel like an avocation). But here’s my remedy: I’ve got my butt in the chair and I’m doing my time. That’s the only thing to do. There was a day when I would have closed the computer and found something else to do, believing there was no point in continuing. I would have stopped until inspiration or encouragement or a good mood hit me again. But not now. Now I’m hoping that sitting through this pain, this disbelief, charging right through the center of the insecurity is going to dispel this particular depression. Maybe the act of putting in the time, maybe that alone will make me a good writer.