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What do a writer, bagpiper and Muppets have in common?

Life lessons crop up, emerge, or even squeal in the most unlikely places, an everyday gift to each of us. The fine print that our logic often ignores is being open to the lesson, even when the cold sting of rejection and churn of duty urges us to close up, sign off, and pretend it didn’t happen. I nearly did that this past weekend but there is no ignoring bagpipes, especially when the piper is peeved. It went something like this. I spent the day at a trade show with a couple dozen other authors and several dozen avid readers, and it was terrific. For this solitary vocation, it was a necessity: getting out of the house, meeting other authors face-to-face, perfecting the pitch as visitors browsed for hints and swag. But in the glare of the house lights, fuelled by coffee and chocolate and recycled air, doubts emerged with each passing hour. Clearly I was the worst writer there, the least interesting, the lowest in sales, called ‘author’ not because of talent or promise but because I paid the fee and showed up. Now the warm goodbyes of strangers-turned-colleagues, some fresh air and a nap sent the doubts on a bit of a hike, but it took the Muppets to send them packing. More about that in a minute.

While I was flogging my wares down the street, my preteen piper was on Halifax’s awesome Citadel Hill wrapping up a four-event competition in which she earned two firsts, a second, and a third, taking the overall award for her grade. It was a great accomplishment. But. That second place, it was to someone she knew, on a tune she thought was solid. That was all she could think about, not what she won, but what she lost. The good-natured teasing from her peers, meant to show their pride in her accomplishments, threw fuel on the fire and by the time she got home frustration was waging all-out war on her outlook. Now the only folks more competitive than those swaddled in kilts are, perhaps, writers. Called by maternal instinct from the ooze of my pity party, we sat on the couch and shared miseries. Yes, we took pride in our work. No, it didn’t seem that was always recognized. But did we believe we did our best? Yes, we did. We repeated it over and over, until the black cloud melted and our stomachs unclenched. We can be our top judge or our worst critic: which will it be? A judge, we agreed, and a good one, who tells it like it is with constructive comment and encouragement, not insults or doubt. We will hold ourselves to our highest standard, and not tear ourselves or others down in the process. She hauled out her instrument and began to practise. Her final song was Danny Boy, described on the page as a Londonderry Air. When she read it aloud, though, it sounded like London Derriere. She giggled, we cracked up, and we hooted until we were sore. Then we watched this clip from The Muppet Show, with The Leprechaun Brothers, aka Beaker, Animal and Swedish Chef, and their rendition of this classic song. No awards, no medals, but clearly a winner:

Who were we kidding? Life is so much more than a competition. So, what do a writer, bagpiper and the Muppets have in common? We all share the same Derry Airs. Thanks for reading.

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From the mouths of babes and their favourite shirts

It was a Sunday morning fight I just didn’t need. Morning comes too early anyway, and the battle between my warm cozy nest and the rigid hardwood of a church pew was raging in my head long before Youngest Daughter twirled proudly in her self-made Sunday best: jeans and a T-shirt. Now, I have accepted that my willfull third-born will no longer tolerate the sweet dresses and matched outfits of toddlerhood. Main goal today is to get her to church with a Christian demeanour still intact. The Lord doesn’t care how you look as long as you show up, echoes in my head. Jeans I could live with. The shirt, however, was another story – a tiny pink tee with Tootsie candies proclaiming Let’s Roll!, guarded defiantly by its eight-year-old owner despite its faded fabric, cracked decal, and seams meant for a torse two sizes smaller. Bravely, I suggest another shirt. Eyes darken and lips extend in a pout that will ease only after someone cries. With a single bead of optimism, I align three lovely shirts on the bed, extolling their virtues as an auctioneer wooes his audience. This one has a butterfly, see? And this one is purple; you love purple. A glimmer of hope, and the pout relaxes. Maybe purple would be okay. It is my favourite colour, and the Advent candles are purple.

She wriggles out of the Tootsie Roll into a long-sleever with the word PEACE descending on its front. “You know,” she offers shyly, smoothing her hand over the letters, “the other shirt was getting a bit small. I just didn’t want to tell you.” I know, I reply. it is your favourite shirt. it’s just that you’re growing, and things change. She gazes at me. “This feels a lot better,” she chirps, eyes bright now in relief. You can keep the other one for play, I smile. She dashes to her room, then calls to me: can I put it in the bag to give away? You bet, I reply. We have pictures of her in her favourite shirt. That’s what is important.

What I saw in her lithe little body, adorned in polycotton that respected her new size, was relief not from the fabric but from the secret. To admit her shirt didn’t fit would mean to lose it. Say nothing, and no one would know. But her body knew and in our moments tgether, her mind realized it as well. In the safety of our conversation, she could reveal her secret, and learned that good things come when sharing a burden with someone you trust. Our mother-daughter relationship has been growing since she was conceived, and touchstones like these tell me we’re doing okay, and life is that much easier when we have places to share.

The author-reader relationship can also be an important arena for sharing. As writers, we help characters share their secrets and in the process, share a little bit of autobiography as well. As readers, we often shed our secrets in the safety of pages, in other people’s homes, lives, and realities that mirror or remind us of our own. As authors and readers, we find success when we build and protect that trust and strengthen the ability to share. We write and we read because it is important to us. It takes time, costs money, and insists we invest our feelings as well as our thoughts, but we continue to do it. We write and we read because as painful as it can be, it feels oh-so-good when it’s done. The secret is shed, our trappings swapped for something that fits and feels better.

There will be more shirts, and always, there will be memories.

Thanks to the reminder of a smart little girl, I’m pumped for more words as well.

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No time to talk, my brain is getting a massage

That is what I told myself the other day when a crowbar couldn’t wedge another event into my calendar. Massage was the most soothing word I could think of to keep my brain from dissolving into quivering globs of gelatin.

The rush began before sunrise, when my children descended from their cocoons sleepy, hungry, and demanding. I have no clean gym pants. Sign this permission form. Where is my clarinet?  By the time the yellow bus appeared I was ready for wine but the teenager needed a drive to school, across town and through road construction that has been half-done for six dog years and costs an extra half-tank of gas, each way, before heading into a publisher meeting where over liquid breakfast (tepid coffee) we generated a to-do list for me that outnumbered his list four-to-one, including item 5. Write next book. Then, it was off to a job that actually pays money, where I spent two hours listening to a new government program that could do great things if – yep – I started another to-do list. Lunch was at the junior high as an in-school mentor to two eighth-graders.   Still swallowing my sandwich, I dashed to afternoon crafts with a lovely group of ladies set to sip tea and stitch holiday pillowcases, until I had to leave mid-stitch to meet the yellow bus and refuel the youngest for dance.  Then pickups, supper, dishes, laundry, baths and an hour of TV before the house was finally quiet and I collapsed into bed.

As much as I yearned for sleep, my creativity flowed like sap from a maple tree. I longed to write. Why?

The day replayed again, except this time instead of a horror movie I saw a documentary and before I knew it, I learned something.

The time lost sitting in road construction was gained in conversation with my teenaged son, who chatted about music and braces and his excitement about the Christmas holidays.

The publisher’s coffee was lukewarm but our conversation was sizzling with the release of our new book and the possibility for our new ideas to take shape.

The government meeting: there was money and the will to use it. Time to propose a marriage of groups who for the first time are seeing the value of working together?

Mentoring: teen girls giggling with hopes, fears, and compassion for my attempts to master my new iPhone.

Craft afternoon: the generation gap really does shrink with age.

Immersed in sunshine then chilled in darkness, sap from the maple tree flows watery and colourless, with only a hint of the sweetness within until boiled and bottled, it becomes liquid gold.

Immersed in the moment, chilled in the air of transition and boiled by the constraints of time, the brain is massaged to savour each experience and reveals its sweetness in a flood of inspiration.

There is a point to the busy schedules. It just may take some boiling to find it. And a whole body massage or two, just to be sure.

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What I Missed in 24 Hours

… And how I made peace in my battle of solitude vs. parenthood

I enjoy travelling, always have, but it was a nice-to-do rather than a necessity. Once my first child was born, I didn’t set foot on a plane or foreign soil for over a decade. Two things have since happened to rekindle my travel opps: our increasing ages and my increasing awareness as a writer. My three children are now school-aged, intrigued by the world around them and fun to travel with (seriously), so our family trips have expanded from day trips to month-long treks west and a week in the sunny south. At the same time, with hands and time freed from diaper bags and baby carriers, I discovered that solitary travel -be it for an assignment, conference, or self-imposed retreat – provides a focus and rejuvenation that can complement but cannot be found in the daily grind of life.

With an empathetic and capable spouse at home, I can leave my family for brief periods with a clear conscience. My husband travels for work as well; we function as a team, whether home together or pinch- hitting in the other’s absence.  However, even though my children at 13, 11, and 7 are increasingly self-sufficient, a recent overnighter for me brought home how much can change in their young lives in a mere 24 hours.

I left home on Friday afternoon. That night:

  • My teenager played a piano sonata flawlessly, after struggling with the ending for  two months
  • My tween and her dad put the finishing touches on her costume for the school play, transforming her into a 19th century country schoolgirl and cementing her love for the performing arts. They emailed the picture, her grin wider than the brim of her straw hat. I smiled, stretched languidly in my pillowy queen bed, and then wished I was home.

On Saturday:

My youngest got to be, and I quote: “Door-Holder Girl, Put-the-Chairs-on-the-Deck Girl, (as they unpacked and set up our outdoor furniture), Miner Girl (crawling under the deck for the plant pots) and then,” her voice lowered for effect, “Senior Miner,” where with bike helmet firmly fastened, she tunneled under the deck again to help attach the cords for our outdoor fountain. She was still beaming at 9 p.m., when I hefted my suitcase through the door, home at last.

A few moments in time, affecting no one but those in the room. But, these were also milestones for three young lives, a perfect moment for each of them  in which their entire purpose in life was realized: milestones in which I was a participant, not as Drink Fetcher or Site Boss but as an audience. “Sometimes it’s good to be in the crowd, ” my son said to me once, when his theatre troupe got the night off to watch another cast perform. “You learn a lot being on the other side of the curtain.”

I didn’t miss the pizza: two slices were waiting for me in the fridge.  And I didn’t miss the point right in front of me. As inspiring as lush B&B rooms and seaside vistas and writing workshops can be, so to are the myriad of tiny little mundane moments that I spend a large portion of my days trying to cope with or work around. I can’t see the forest of aha moments for the trees of “I need …” and  “When’s supper?” and “Where’s my ballet skirt?” until I leave the forest. But just for a little while. The trees still need their mom. And I will always need their words of wisdom.

Do you have a need for solitude? How do you balance it with the demands of life? I look forward to hearing from you.