Then in college I experienced what it is really like to take care of a baby and try to write. It isn’t easy. Babies are unpredictable, weak, and need tons of nurturing to make them healthy and strong. Babies wake you at 3am demanding nourishment and attention and even though you are tired you pour all of your love and thought and caring into these many demands. Ideas for poems are unpredictable, weak, and need tons of nurturing to make them healthy and strong. Poems wake you at 3am demanding nourishment and attention and even though you are tired you pour all of your love and thought and caring into these many demands. And wouldn’t you know the kids and the Muse never worked out a schedule. They work in concert — ALL THE TIME.

Sometimes — many times — the baby will cry while you’rE holding a particularly inspired image in your head. Sometimes — many times — the pressing urge to drop everything and write will show up while you are holding and caring for a beautiful and wonderful child.

Baby wins for me every time. I push down and ignore the urge to write… the urge to hide away and ignore everything and fill pages and pages and pages. I know it is the same for artists. One of the reasons why Sam and I work so well it that we understand the urgency and immediacy of the need to create and we understand how frustrating it is when we have to stopper that urge to deal with work, or laundry, or babies. Don’t get me wrong; I adore my children, but parenting the way I parent means a certain amount of stoppering myself. They are only little once and I’ve been okay with waiting.

Until now. My children are first, but when I do get those little bits of time to myself I am desperate and furious trying to get it all down in the little time I have. I really need Woolf’s “room of one’s own” and Plath’s schedule of writing at 4am. I also need a friend to tell me it will all be okay and that I am in a perfectly manageable position. Anne Lamott has just become that bestie to tell me everything is okay and will work out fine.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life is a realistic, helpful, comforting letter from one writer to another. Unlike the pedantic yammerings from the ivory tower that are so prevalent in many writing guides, Lamott’s book is not only an example of exquisite writing, but it is filled with helpful hints, strategies and encouragements for burgeoning writers.

Lamott divides her guide to writing and life in four different sections: writing, writing frame of mind, help along the way, and publication and other reasons to write. Each section is divided into small chapters that are brimful of helpfulness. A few of my favorite ideas and truths:

• Just write. Just get it all down.
• Work on short assignments and scenes.
• You will write shitty first drafts and that’s okay.
• Quiet those voices of distraction and seek out the still small voice.
• Read dialogue out loud.
• Character trumps plot. Develop and listen to your characters; the plot will fall into place.
• Keep index cards with you. If something pops into your head write it down or at least some key words and you can revisit it later.
• Writing groups and someone to read your writing is pretty much essential.
• Publication isn’t the only reason to write. Write to express truths. Write for your children. Write for you friends and family. Write because you need to.

When I am searching for that still small voice or I am scrambling and out of time or when that panic bird starts flapping her wings I will return to Bird by Bird — that kind, rational friend — and my worries will be quelled and I will write because I must and forget all the rest.

You would have been reading a logical, rational, and most likely smug smack-down on sugar and my plans for a regimented, invigorating cleanse.

I didn’t get a chance to blog yesterday (because I was watching Star Trek with Sam) so I started on my sugar-free journey today without announcing it to the entire internet. Lucky you.

Sweet Mary Mother of God this sucks.

It sucks so badly and I felt so awful and I’ve decided to completely re-jig what I’m doing.

The Original Plan

Eliminate every scrap of sugar. Meaning all cane sugar products, high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners. I have some local honey for my morning oatmeal and the some agave nectar for coffee. Oh, yeah I was going to cut down from three cups of coffee a day to one.

Hahaahahahahahahaha! What the hell was I thinking?

By 11:30 I was tired and shaky. Then I started thinking maybe I was being too over the top with my endeavors. I go from one extreme to the other. Last week I consumed: coke, ice cream, candy bars, donuts (several times), iced lattes, sweet tea, cake, brownies, and cookies. I had 2 servings of junk food just about every day. Partly because it is readily available for free in our breakroom at work and partly because I didn’t give two shits about my health.

Now going from sugar binge to no sugar was dramatic to say the least. I absolutely think it was setting me up for failure. If I continued I would get worn down and I would fail in some insignificant way (hello teaspoon of sugar in my coffee) and say oh well and eat a dozen donuts. Sugar was not my only health concern; I had also strayed onto that dangerous path of eating tons of bread and dairy and not getting in fruits and vegetables. Bad vegetarian.

What I need to do is focus on moderation. Drink my coffee, but have plenty of water too. Have a sandwich for lunch, but see to it that my plate is filled with plenty of healthy vegetables.

Maybe instead of taking a negative approach of not having this and avoiding that I should think of positive things to do.

New Plan

- Focus on whole foods instead of processed junk

- Fill my plate with fruit and vegetables instead of loading it with bread

- Ensure I have protein with every meal so I’m not tired and reaching for sugar

- Drink 12 cups of water a day rather than worrying about my coffee intake

Now I feel motivated to have a hot date with reality and health tomorrow. Positivity for the win!

Last night I finished Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life at 3 in the morning. It was lovely to be half-dazed by insomnia and drinking in all the words and images and I really felt like Lamott was there beside me and tutting encouragement. I will do a more thorough review at some point, but suffice it to say that I am devastatingly hungry for words. I want to write them. I want to read them. Books are haunting me. In the shower last night I suddenly felt like I should re-read The Mists of Avavlon. Today, while doing ILL business, I thought of a certain Thomas Hardy novel I keep meaning to read. Upon watching a certain bit of comical madness in the library I decided I was living in a Barbra Pym novel and should begin transcribing everything.

All the words.

Having my book mojo back is infinitely delightful. Maybe this means I will actually get some work done on various reading projects. Let’s take a look at where I stand on reading projects:

• TBR Pile – I finished Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath and you can read that review here. I’m on my second TBR book, Barbra Pym’s Civil to Strangers and Other Writings. Of course it is classic witty Pym.
• Which leads me to Pym week! I’m cohosting with Thomas a week of celebrating Barbara Pym. Join us June first as we begin the festivities! Bring your cardigan!
• My Classics Club reading is going about as well as can be expected. Okay, scratch that… it is happening at a molasses pace. I’m still reading Vanity Fair and I cannot decide if I like it. I hate Becky and Amelia and so the book is painful in parts. I’ll post a more thorough review when I’m done.
• Next up is an 18th Century English Literature event wherein I attempt Fanny Burney!
• In keeping with my Classic Clubs endeavors, I’ve decided to participate in the Classics Spin #2. I will list 20 classic books and on May 20th a number will be chosen at the Classics Club and I will read the title that corresponds to that number in the list. Below is my list:

1. The Warden by Anthony Trollope
2. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
3. He Knew he Was Right by Anthony Trollope
4. The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
5. The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
6. Jenny by Sigrid Undset
7. A House and Its Head by I. Compton-Burnett
8. No Name by Wilkie Collins
9. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
10. Dianna of the Crossways by George Meredith
11. The Shorter Fictions of Virginia Woolf
12. Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
13. Mr. Fortune’s Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner
14. East Lynne by Mrs. Ward
15. The Go-Between by L P Hartley
16. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
17. The Judge by Rebecca West
18. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
19. Hunt the Slipper by Violet Trefusis
20. The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

Loads of wonderful bookish stuff this spring! Now, to dig back into that Pym novel…

They found her body 24 hours or so later. My heart absolutely broke. I wish I had been there for her more. I ache for her children.o

Last week things got worse for those kids. I wish I could make all the hurt and loss disappear. I cannot.

This Mothers Day my heart is full of grief. I feel ridiculously lucky that I have my kids and my husband. I am also happy they have me. I don’t know what the future holds, but right now I have love, happiness, and peace.

I am so very blessed.

Yesterday we were talking about this time five years ago which involved gallons of coffee, staying up all night, endless conversation, and loads of kissing.

Today is a bit different. Up at 5, dropping Hope off for a field trip, grocery shopping, sweeping, dishes, a sick toddler, a nursing baby, a lawn that desperately needs some care, and moths flying out of our wallets.

Although we stay up all night for very different reasons, everything else is still there:  gallons of coffee, endless conversation, and loads of kissing. I wouldn’t change anything about our life. Sam brings me happiness, peace, security, and laughter.

I love you, Sam. I cannot wait to be one person to annoy you for the rest of your life.  Our Future Anniversary

Seriously…. GALLONS OF COFFEE

Last Saturday Persy turned 3 months old. I cannot believe my sweet, cuddly, laid-back little girl is already a quarter of the way through her first year.

If you’ve read my blog for more than five minutes then you know that I’m a bit of a Plath fanatic. My love of Plath has manifested itself in many different ways since my first discovery of Plath when I was about 11 or 12 years old. It was about 1992 and my mom and I were in a gutted department store at the giant, annual library book sale. It was fire sale day. For $5 one could fill a giant paper sack full of books. And fill bags we did… lots and lots of bags. As a bookworm with a love for the classics I threw in every stinkin’ book that even looked enticing or if I sense an author name was familiar into the bag it went.We went home — the day was rainy — with the car trunk loaded to the brim. It took us several weeks to get the books inside; we’d smuggle a few a day and add them to the shelves in an attempt to avoid a lecture on “too many books in the house” from my father.

A title that left the car on the first evening and found a home on my bookshelf headboard was a yellowed and battered copy of The Journals of Sylvia Plath (the Hughes-approved McCullough edition). I devoured the book. At this time I was hitting puberty, I was angry, I read voraciously, and I wrote poems that made no sense and usually involved ridiculous amounts of blood. Plath’s journals — at least this version — focused on Plath the writer and Plath the Depressed. I believed these things had to go together if you’re a girl. As Bikini Kill sings in Bloody Ice Cream Song:

 The sylvia plath story is told to girls who write
They want us to think that to be a girl poet
Means you have to die
Who is it
That told me
All girls who write must suicide?
I’ve another good one for you
We are turning
Cursive letters into knives

 My middle and early high school self worshiped Plath as a poet and as a mentally ill person. I truly believed that the sadder one was the better ones poetry (and we all know that isn’t true). In fact, my mom would take away my Plath and Sexton and other women poets because she said they made me maudlin. I don’t think they “made” me depressed, but it made it okay for me to be sad and angry and smart in a world that wanted me to be complacent and pretty and Christ-like.

In my later high school years my perception of Plath altered slightly. As a burgeoning feminist I was dismayed by Plath’s death and personal life seemed to over shadow her genius as a writer. Other women writers I loved had the same issue: Anne Sexton, Shirley Jackson, Edna St Vincent Millay, and Virginia Woolf were all “broken.” It was implied that this brokenness or illness caused these women to write or at the very least had a hand in the genius of the writing. On the contrary, Dylan Thomas and Ernest Hemingway and other “writers with issues” were primarily writers with personal lives, mental illnesses, and suicide seen as a mere footnote. To say I was pissed would be an understatement. I resolved to only adore my favorite authors, Plath was one of them, on the merits of the writing.

And then I had a baby my freshman year of college. I was pursuing creative writing and had plans to go to graduate school and travel and write books of poems and be a single mother to the most perfect little girl. And I was going to do all of it perfectly. Now Plath was back to being a writing role model and I felt a great personal affinity with Plath as a mother and a depressed woman. I understood her anger. I understood how goddamn hard it is to write and mother. I understood how greatly stacked the world still is against women – especially women who want everything. Yes, Sylvia, the Fig Tree spoke to me, too:

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.  From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.  One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.  I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose.  I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.  

~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 7

 Now let’s jump ahead to myself as a 33 year old married mother working in an academic library and, yes, still writing (although I don’t share poems anymore). Having perspective and looking back on my life has allowed me to view Plath as an entire person. She wasn’t just a sufferer of mental illness, or a scholar, or a writer, or a mother. She was a human. Her life had sadness and hardship and ended in an awful manner, but among all of that was happiness. Love. Kids. Success. Life. A whole lot of life.

Paul Alexander’s biography of Plath, Rough Magic, is the first biography I’ve read of Plath that paints her as a human. Not totally good and not totally bad. Sad and ill at times and yet joyful and well other times. His discussion of Plath’s last year was also incredibly balanced. I’ve heard academics argue that Plath died because of Writing or Being a Woman in that Time or Ted Hughes being a Douchebag.

Guess what? Plath died for many reasons. Her death is the culmination of pretty much every reason one would have for dying. Of course balancing life as a mother and a writer is one aspect and Hughes did behave badly which didn’t help things. But there is also a family history of depression on her father’s side and she may have had postpartum depression which wasn’t recognized as a mental illness at that time, and actually mental health care wasn’t all that great back in the day, and she had been ill with sinuses infections and the flu for months, and she was worried about money, and due to the awful weather the electricity kept cutting off and her flat was horribly cold. Alexander turns Plath from Poet-Goddess-Martyr into a flesh and blood human with a death that was sad, but not some fate-ordained ending. I even think he aptly portrayed Plath as fighting to live; her introspection and writing, her reaching out to friends and family, and her personally seeking therapy and medical help all point to Plath trying to fight against her illness. This romantic notion that madness begets poetry and of the Poetess “indulging” in sadness is bullshit. Alexander gets it right with his portrayal of Plath as a real person and not an icon of  “insert movement” or a victim of a particular “-ism.”

I highly recommend this book to fans of Plath and those who enjoy well-written, non-fanatical biographies.

This book was read for my TBR Challenge!