Gifts

Because I have a new baby, I am up a lot at night. This is bad and good.

Bad because, well, duh.

Good because I get to think. And read. And after the baby goes back to sleep, sometimes write.

My mom passed away last Friday. It was expected. She’d been sick for many many years with alzheimer’s disease which is a gradual horrible no good terrible illness that she feared all her life. So we knew it was coming but when I got the phone call, after days of sitting by her side with my family, when I got the phone call that she was gone, I felt like I’d been kicked. Hard. It was like a physical reaction and I just broke down.

My boys watched that. I can’t tell if that’s bad they saw me sobbing or okay that they saw me sobbing. In any case, it was much harder than I expected. Not because I wanted her to stay–she was so sick. I know it was better. It was harder because she is my mom. My mom and one of the best people I’ve ever known.

So late at night, I’ve been reading my old journals. Looking through scrapbooks. Trying to sift through my emotions. Sometimes I feel sad because I worry I can’t remember anything about Mom beyond the sickness that overtook her. Then I’ll see a picture or read a journal entry or find a ticket stub that triggers a memory.  Instead of just thinking about that memory, I’m writing it down as fast as I can. I don’t want them to disappear. I don’t want her to disappear.

Even yesterday when I was sorting through my boys’ books I found so many that my mom used to read to me: Corduroy, The Little House, The Funny Little Woman, Ira Sleeps Over, Leo the Late Bloomer. I sat on the floor and cried.

So now more than ever I’m committed to not only writing my own life, but writing those of the people I love. It’s a gift I can give myself, my boys, my husband, my future grandkids, my siblings but most of all my mom. I love you, Mom. I always will and you’ll never disappear.

Stories

I keep writing and then erasing. Writing and then erasing again. I can’t decide what to say–what tone I want to take, what feeling I want to express. This has been a heavy and happy and sad time for me and my family. I am surprised by the spectrum of emotions that I can have in the course of a day (or an hour, or a minute).

I don’t feel like writing very much. i knew I wouldn’t feel like it even before I had the baby but it’s worse than I anticipated. It’s like my writing energy has been zapped away and even when I have time, I can’t make myself sit down and create.

And I still have some small revisions to do.

And just before this baby came and all the other things that have been happening, writing had been my lifeline. It kept me sane and it felt like I had boundless energy to do it. Now . . . I feel empty.

What do you do when you feel empty?

Even when you know writing, pushing through the emptiness, will get you through?

What makes your MC feel empty? What gets them through?

Why is life so hard?

And so good?

And so horrible?

And so funny?

And so confusing?

I think writing a memoir is a good idea. I also think writing our lives is a good idea. I think we should always write our lives. It does come out in our fiction–the questions, the pain, the joys, etc.–but I don’t think that’s enough. We need to write our histories. We need to write down the things that keep us up at night, the things that make us cry, the things make us laugh our faces off. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to our children and we owe it to all people who need stories. True stories. Real stories. Our stories.

Kyra Leigh, Queen Bee

It’s another Wednesday. I’ve been 23 for a week.

So far it’s been one of the most stressful weeks I’ve had in long time.

But I’ve managed to get some writing done. Hoping to get some notes back from Mom, maybe some ideas on where to do with this piece I’m working on.

Does anyone watch Mad Men?

I watch that show all the time. I’m only on like…season four?

It’s a great show. It really is.

But I’m sick of all the cheaters and the liars in it.

I think everyone is a cheater and a liar…so at least they’ve got the whole “real life” crap going on.

But it’s different… because sometimes I feel like in Mad Men, they are excusing all the lies, and cheating, because the main character has had a “rough” childhood.

Who hasn’t had a rough childhood?

Well, I haven’t…but I’m also not a cheater or liar.

Anyway.

I’ve realized in almost all the stories I’ve written…none of the characters have had a rough childhood. Yet they are all kind of bitches. {The MC}

Does that say something about myself?

I need to research that.

Unrelated!

I want to see a picture of Ann Dee’s new baby.

This article is about a favorite band I had back in high school. Pretty awful if you ask me.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/08/showbiz/singer-lambesis-arrested/

Thank You!

Thanks for all the well wishes. We are so happy to have our little man here and he has gotten quite the welcome from his brothers. They are ever so happy to

1. shove a binky in his mouth

2. pull his bassinet around the house

3. sing him LOUDLY to sleep

4. hold him tightly and tell him stories.

We have officially survived the first two weeks and in all seriousness, we are full of joy. There is something very special about having a new babe in the house.

So there’s that. My fourth boy!

And then there’s other things. Like my book. Some of you may know, I’m about done with the revision phase of a book that has been a VERY LONG TIME coming. In fact, the night before I went to the hospital, my editor sent me an email with some scene changes, etc. and asked if I could get it back to her in the next few days.

I stared at the email and thought, I can’t do this. I can NOT do this.

I told Cam, I can’t do this.

He said, You don’t have to do this.

I said, Yeah. I don’t have to do this.

Then I sat there. And I said a prayer. Cam and I said a prayer.

Then I worked for three hours. I didn’t finish, but I got close.

In the morning, when we got to the hospital (leaving my kids with my sisters and father), I pulled out the laptop and handed it to Cam. For the next eight hours, while we waited for the baby to come, I dictated to Cam and he made changes for me in the manuscript. We went down the list, item by item until, a half hour before the arrival, we finally finished and Cam clicked send.

Here are some things I realized through this process:

1. I can do hard things.

2. This actually wasn’t as hard as I was making it in my head.

3. It took our minds off the long wait for baby to come.

4. My kids were in good hands with someone else. It was just me and Cam, hanging out in a room for hours. What better way to spend our time?

5. Writing is fun. Especially when you have someone willing to help you. We laughed a lot.

6. I felt tough even though it really wasn’t tough AT ALL! There weren’t huge changes. I’d done most of that earlier but there were enough minor changes for me to feel a little defeated the night before.

7. There’s no need to feel defeated.

8. I am SO GLAD I did it BEFORE the baby came rather than AFTER he came. I had forgotten how exhausted and achy and demanding being a new mom can be.

9. I love my husband.

10. I am glad I prayed.

So that’s my writing birth story. I could tell you other kinds of stories in relation to this epic thing called childbirth–like how I immediately put on my string bikini right after he was born because I was looking that good, or how I had forgotten about nursing and what that entails and how it made my bikini look so much better/scarier, or how this cute thing loves to blow out all his diapers and the boys think it’s pretty darn awesome and in a way, I do too–i could tell you stories like that but this is a writing blog so I’ll save you the details.

Thanks for all your love and support. xoxox