BJ's Blog

One month away from returning to teaching, and I’m feeling okay with my accomplishments. I completed my chapbook manuscript. Here’s the synopsis:

Unraveling disentangles the strands of the narrator’s life in order to reveal a woman’s capacity to unknot pesky relationships and unsnarl nasty situations. As she unravels the troubling bits, she knits together a freshly-pressed fabric of hope, joy, and love.

And here’s the full list of stuff I did:

July

1. submitted VCEL article to Metropolitan Journal (7/7)
2. connected with writing group
3. compiled list of journals & deadlines
4. researched chapbook publishers

August

1. applied to artist residencies
2. read various essays, memoirs, and books re: writing
3. submitted “a rip in the fabric” (8/15)
4. began The Artist’s Way 12-week course (8/24)
5. submitted “Why I get up early” (8/31)

September

1. met with memoir chat group (9/6)
2. submitted three shorts: “black coffee,” “disorganized,” and “mouse” (9/9)
3. attended Creekside Arts residency in Eureka, California (9/21-9/28)
4. read three works (“Unraveling,” “Three Shorts,” & “Bubba”) @Creekside Arts (9/25)
5. published “Why I get up early” on Brevity Blog (9/26)
6. read various essays, memoirs, and books re: writing

October

1. met with memoir chat group (10/21)
2. submitted “a retreat to advance” (10/24)
3. received acceptance for “three shorts” from Rathalla Review (10/30)
4. read various essays, memoirs, and books re: writing
5. started Write Your Memoir Month 2022 self-guided class (10/31-11/25)

November

1. submitted Unraveling chapbook (11/11)
2. completed The Artist’s Way 12-week course (11/16)
3. submitted “cousins” (11/20)
4. outlined memoir, Fanning the Flame
5. drafted first chapter of memoir
6. completed Write Your Memoir Month 2022 self-guided class (11/22)
7. submitted “between” (11/22)

December

1. began weekly blog posts (12/9)
2. read various essays, memoirs, and books re: writing

Classes completed

1. Personal Essay (April)
2. The Artist’s Way (August – November)
3. Write Your Memoir Month (October – November)

Chapbook completed

Unraveling (November)

Essays published

1. Why I get up early – Brevity Blog
2. three shorts: black coffee, disorganized & mouse – forthcoming in Rathalla Review
3. a retreat to advance?
4. cousins?
5. between?

Residency attended

Creekside Arts (September)

You didn’t make it to 60.

I’m still in shock that you’re gone, though it’s been 2 months. Poof. Gone from the world. Nothing left. No children, no pets, no written words, very few photos and none recent, no sounds of your warm and infectious laugh, no lingering smile or mischievous grin, no witty rejoinders, no affectionate nicknames (Lux, Researcher Ray, Engineer Ed, Biology Bob), no dance moves to the Cure, no late-night chats about our love lives, no birthday emails exchanged, no visits to catch up on all the minutiae of our lives, no more hockey matches or swim meets or guys to obsess over, no more love to spread across your sphere. But perhaps I’d lost you long ago, in 1999, when you married and moved to Maine.

The slow, not so slow, march to death. I can see why Carolyn Heilbrun chose to leave early, though she delayed her departure by almost a decade. Go before someone parks you some place and you have no power to leave. If Georg was smart he’d have a plan to to end it. If he cannot function without you, however, he probably doesn’t have the means. Hard to imagine being so utterly dependent on another person. Did you like having him so vulnerable, so needy? Did it give your life purpose?

As I’m working on my own sense of purpose I imagine that having someone so reliant could at least give you a reason to get up every day. Then the equation changes: one of the components is removed. So what happens with the remaining one? Kind of a dumb analogy. But there it is. I often wonder about my parents–who will fail first, how will the other one respond–and about me and Dave. Surely a clean exit without any entanglements would be best.

All the time runs out and then it’s over 10 years since your sister-in-law saw Georg, and she has no idea how to help him. The sister says he has Stockholm Syndrome. What about you? Were you abused? Did he hurt you? Why didn’t I reach out to you more often? More than once a year for our birthdays. And maybe I should have visited, tried to be involved in your lives. So much I don’t know–and will never know–about your relationship. I can barely understand my own.

I wonder what you’d hoped to do today…were you and Georg planning a party, a trip, a dinner out?

Cause of death: obesity hypoventilation syndrome.

You couldn’t breathe. Your heart gave out.

Happy to have this post up on Brevity Blog.

Today I am 60 years old. I’m tucked away in a cabin amidst the redwoods halfway between Eureka and Arcata, California. I slept for 10 hours last night. Only waking when the flickers pecked at the side of the house. The sun emerges between the trees and warms the floor while I stretch my old body on the yoga mat. Then just as I imagine sitting on the floor to do my morning reading and writing, the sun disappears. The floor once more cold. I’ll take myself to the shore, find some sand to walk on, hope for a sunny spot to contemplate life.

My C-section scar started itching in Reno. By the time I got here, it was raw and red. Why would it be hurting now? Have I gained so much weight that the skin stretches and strains the scar? Over 22 1/2 years since anyone emerged from the abdominal cut. Why pain now?

The sabbatical moves along, the writing not so much. I’m working through the 12-week course of The Artist’s Way, which makes me feel mildly productive. And I read lots of books. Perhaps the scar signals an upcoming spurt of creativity. A birth of some kind.

from sometime in July:

well at least up early-ish, compared to every other day in July thus far. it’s been a struggle to shift from work mode to sabbatical mode this time around, though honestly I cannot remember the last one–the last sabbatical, that is–because it was so long ago (8 years), and I was in such a different place: physically (living with my teenagers on Tyler Avenue and pre-menopausal), emotionally (still recently divorced), professionally (no longer assistant chair but not yet all the other administrative roles I took on since 2014), and spiritually (attending al-anon meetings and drinking very little).

today:

it’s been a struggle–motivating to write. the reading is no problem. I’ve torn through several memoirs and books about writing and mysteries and articles and magazines. plus I’ve compiled lists of submission prospects (journals, deadlines, etc.), books I’m reading, and tasks + timeline for my sabbatical. today I’m sorting notes and drafts–copying, cutting, pasting, formatting–into potential essays. but then I happened upon a saved document from 2015…a series of texts exchanged with my ex about attending a wedding. so much anger and pain expressed there. I need to process it before any kind of creativity will blossom again. I need to own what I did during my previous publication spurt seven years ago.

Title

“Unraveled; or the Unraveling accomplished”

Abstract

My third sabbatical brings to fruition my creative non-fiction collection, Unraveling. A compilation of twelve previously-published essays and several unpublished ones, this book unravels the strands of a life spent “working it out”— climbing in, moving out, hosing off, carrying on, mopping up, and calming down.

Friday morning: I had blocked out 3 hours on my calendar to write, so drove downtown, found a rare parking spot in front of Grounds for Coffee, ordered a 16-ounce latte, perched at the bar upstairs, opened my laptop, logged into my Catapult account, read through the Introduction to the Generating New Ideas for the Personal Essay online independent study class with Lilly Dancyger, created a list of experiences & identities that define me, moved to Exercise #1: Your Unique Perspective, tried to generate interesting pairs from the previous list, and realized I had nothing unique to share. My life is boring. Then I realized I’d had too much coffee: 2 cups at home and 2 shots of espresso at the coffee shop. Now what? Jittery, agitated–why hadn’t I paced myself?–impatient for inspiration. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS ANYMORE! So I check email, download some files, organize folders, write on my blog. Sigh.

After eating my breakfast, I unroll the sleeves of my LL Bean flannel robe, tugging them to cover my arms, and notice a give in the fabric on the left side–a give in a place I haven’t noticed a give before. I suspect that I’ve simply had a moment of weirdness, a moment when I perceive reality differently than usual, an out-of-body sensation, but I glance at my elbow and discover a hole. The fabric has ripped. I hadn’t imagined it. There’s now a gap in the otherwise intact flannel. Is there a spring sale on winter robes? If I order now, I could have it delivered by Tuesday. Only $79 + shipping + tax. I pause before adding it to my cart. Do I need a new robe? Is this one repairable? Apart from one elbow, the robe is intact. Better than intact. Soft, warm, comfortable. Eunice likes to play with the tie belt–not to be confused with the modesty ties, attached inside. Of course I could keep the tie, toss the robe, and get a whole new Scotch plaid flannel robe by next Tuesday. But where would my old robe go? Could it be recycled? My mother would cut it into strips and make blankets or rugs. I could send it to Savers and hope that someone would buy it, patch it, and wear it for a few more years. I roll up my sleeves and decide to think about it tomorrow.

I’ve been rolling around this word, plucking it out and placing it at the center of conversations since the beginning of the new year.

So yeah, it’s my usual feeling in January. Post-holiday blues, inversion sick, state legislative session angst, all of that stuff. But piling on the pandemic–with omicron cases propelling Utah to #4 then #3 in the nation–coupled with the ban on mask mandates, combined with not enough tests available to enforce “test-to-stay” policies in schools, and the weight feels unbearable. Even when I repeatedly test negative on my rapid at-home kits, I question the results. What about all of those false negatives? Perhaps I caught the virus yesterday, and it hasn’t yet had time to manifest itself. Maybe I’ll catch it next week. I don’t care. But I do.

I just can’t. I just can’t make the effort to do anything better, different, more meaningful for my long-term health and well-being. I just can’t. 2022 enters with a sigh, which is better than no sound at all. I suppose. I had hoped (expectations) that I might have reason to care more about my neighbors, global warming, then pandemic. But I care less about everything: my health, my friends, my family. Resolutions? For the faithful, the worthy, the ones with energy for the future. I have none; I am not; I have none.