While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Sam, in a funny room in a museum in Rochester
two springs ago.

My older son, Sam, is playing guitar in his room.

Frankly, there is a not a day that's gone by in the past few years, that he hasn't... that there isn't the sound of his guitar (or, sometimes now, a banjo) being strummed adeptly from behind his closed door. And when he is -- it is -- there's not a time that I don't stop whatever I am doing to listen intently, filled with the music, with his ability, and grateful for the fleeting chance.

This is one of the best small joys in my life, in a life blessed with small joys, to eavesdrop on my son making music.

In a few short weeks, the room will fall silent.

He will pack his guitar and his clothes and head off to college, and the next phase of his independent life.

That fact is like the funny room in the museum in this photo to me. No matter how hard I stare at it -- the words encapsulating it on the screen -- I can't make sense of it,
or find my balance.

Yesterday, my younger son and I were watching our dvr'd episode of America's Got Talent while we ate lunch together picnic-style on my bed (my room has the big-screen TV), and in a rare moment of joining in, Sam came in and watched the entire episode with us. He never does this. Or, at least, rarely.

During it, a commercial for that new Michael J. Fox sitcom came on and we were all talking about how good it looked, and I gleefully said, "We can all watch it together in the fall."

As soon as I said it, I realized.

In the fall, we will be three in the evenings, not four.

And even though his door is so often closed with him behind it, how I will miss his presence and the weeping, strumming of his guitar.

-gae

Not One of those Weepy Moms

This is Sam a mere 5 or 6 years ago...
it's a trick - no way on earth it can be more... 

Today, my oldest son walked across stage to get an academic award, the lead up event for his high school graduation in two weeks.

As he crossed the room and walked toward the stage, I could see my husband looking at me, waiting for the tears to flow.

"Gonna cry?" he asked.

The truth is, I thought I would.

It's not like I'm not one of those weepy moms.

Trust me, I am. There's no one weepier than I.

But the problem is, I can't actually internalize that this day -- this moment in time -- is here.

I keep tossing around words like "unfathomable" and "impossible" and "surreal." The truth is, it does feel, very simply, impossible.

I don't know how the time flew.

I don't know how seventeen years can feel like five. Six, tops.

I don't know how time can be so cruel.

There is so much I love and admire about this child, and so much I worry about -- have worried about -- day after day. He's never been easy.

Darling? Yes!

Fascinating? For sure.

But he has always been a conundrum and a challenge, and so often I felt I didn't know how to rise to the occasion as his mother.

He's the cliche of the brilliant kid who has little sense of self, and less self-motivation.

He is in no way the child I imagined having when I fantasized about motherhood, when I walked around with him in my belly, when I read and sang and danced with him nonstop when he was a toddler. In many ways he was way more difficult, way less family-oriented, way less manageable. In many ways he was quietly disruptive, constantly forcing me to accept and rethink my idea of what and how my family would be. At times, he has been a disappointment -- NOT in who HE is, but rather in MY utter inability as a parent to figure him out -- and to figure out how to nurture him in the best way, which is truly what every child deserves.

If anything makes me weepy, this does. This I can feel, this I have internalized, day after day and year after year, in the very marrow of my bones. The fact that there are no do-overs, that there's not more time to try to do it better, to figure out the puzzle of this child. To hold his hand more, and read and sing and dance harder, to unlock for him everything he is and can be.

Alas, whatever I haven't done right, done well enough, done to my own satisfaction, he went to school this morning and walked across the stage to get an award. He's graduating. And he's going to a good college.

That's something, I remind myself. "He's done okay," but the word "done" feels utterly unfathomable,

impossible,

and wholly,

surreal.

 -gae

Persistence

My older son takes his road test today.

It is a man-boy who sits in the driver's seat next to me, intermittently chatting nicely and sharing his life with me, and barking at me and shutting me down.

This, I know, is normal.

In the driver's seat, he is not in control yet, grasps for it where it waits, intimidating and unsure, right beyond his fingertips.

He asks me for guidance as he changes lanes, merges, makes lefts against the un-coddling traffic.

Yes, it has all become a metaphor for his quest forward, and that limbo space where he still exists, between needing me and having to do it all on his own.


My older son takes his road test today. I am both essential and unneeded, at times merely a crutch. Pass or fail, he is moving on without me.

In the shower this morning, water ran down me in sheets, melted shampoo in my eyes, and slipped time beyond my reach.

The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali, 1931.

I have never been a huge Dali fan, but suddenly this image appeared, The Persistence of Time, its clocks useless, liquid mercury slipped through desperate fingers. I never noticed before how there is water in the background. Now this makes sense to me.

My son takes his road test today. Still, somehow, I managed to shower, dry off, brush hair, put on makeup, get dressed. Now, I stand at the computer, writing. What else is there to do? There's no holding on to time.

I know he is driving away.

- gae

Two Old Love Poems

photo credit: Rick Kopstein
(with added help from the simians at Pic Monkey)

So, it's World Poetry Day, and my good friend Jim King got me thinking of the old poet in me.

The truth is, before I ever wrote books, my first love was poetry, though the last poem I wrote was probably in my mid-twenties.

After that, there was the law school phase and then the lawyer phase that I'm fond of saying, "sucked the creativity right out of me."

Then there were: marriage and kids, and the practice of law, and, ultimately, when I returned to writing, it was with the (daunting) hopes of writing a novel in mind.

There was The Jetty (agented, but never sold), Swim Back to Me (agented but not sold, with new life breathed into it -- maybe, maybe not, The Pull of Gravity (sold!) Frankie Sky now The Summer of Letting Go coming Spring 2014, etc.

But before all that, I wrote poetry.

It was my first love, and my friend Jim has sent me into a bit of a reverie. . . (bear in mind I was only 21... ;))

Verging 

I breathe
heavy air blankets the up-down rhythm
clocks and other night noises
float to me
here            aah, settle
to Autumn patterns
                   play and remind
                   (play and remind)
and, hey, you're too big for my heart
these days

                   The fan
and hot covers stifle
as somewhere water drips
slow            one, two
the radio and other sounds turned on to drown out
the constant, hollow fall of wet

but the man tells:
                    gunfire where you are
like he's reading from cue cards through static

Somewhere, between dark and mourning
I wake to call you
through dry cracked lips and no sound
only your name in my ears
                     swelling
and, hey, you're too big for my head.

-gae, 6/21/85


Temptations in Blue

(when you close your eyes, he said,
                           think only of blues)

so tightly I do
that I am at once surrounded and carried off
to where we can be.

there, I float as sea upon sea takes me
                             (though I tell no one, I recognize it is the blue of your eyes)
                              and I am safe to fall back where
somewhere, between childhood and pain
it begins to break
                            and scatter
into icy-cold marbles that tease and elude my uneasy hands
the fingers left groping at angels' wings
then
air.

I drift,
          where I resurface I am lightheaded and weightless
                             flooded by turquoise so brilliant it pulls me

I do not follow but hold
                             to the edge of a peacock's tail
its cobalt center
                             trembles and bursts
                             and silently folds
                             into green.

There
          where I cannot remain
but try to
anyhow.

- gae 8/13/85

The Fear Age

Say goodbye to me. I'm dying.

Well, at least according to WEB MD, I could be.

This is what happened.

Last night, I looked down and the skin on my shins was peeling. Like, flaking off completely. Both legs.

Now, sure, I might have gone to Florida a few weeks ago and overdid the whole sun thing. But my arms peeled weeks ago. This was not from that, was it?

Also, my right shoulder has been hurting like a motherfucker.

And, yes, I typically swim a bunch of miles per week and, yes, swimmers notoriously have shoulder issues.

Add to that the yoga I've been doing a few times a week. Those chaturangas can be bitches on your shoulders.

But I've taken a FULL WEEK OFF and I'm still hurting.

Come to think of it, my left shoulder is hurting, too.

And, there's still the hip bursitis that's now lasted for a few years.

In fact, all my joints are aching.

So, back to my peeling legs.

What the fuck?

I do the prudent thing. I go to the computer (my mind screaming, DO NOT GO TO THE COMPUTER!!) and I google skin peeling on legs.

It asks me (via my further search choices) "in sheets?"

Jesus, no.  

It asks, instead:

"skin peeling and dry eyes?"

Why yes, my eyes have been dry. Just the other day, I was complaining to my husband . . .

and,

I have Lupus. Or at least, four other symptoms that match that disease.

Or, you know, some other tragic disease.

Now, the good news is, a. I have a dear friend with Lupus and b. she is, for all intents and purposes, an Iron Man. Okay, well, she's a half iron woman. But, she can do, and does do, anything. So, you know, if that's what it is, I will survive it.

But what if it's something else? What if . . . I'm dying?

We're all dying, I remind myself, trying to stop that snowball from rolling. From the moment we're born, we're dying. 

BUT, what if I'm dying NOW??

where I swim to find my calm. It's been four months since I've found my calm.

Just so you know, so you're prepared, if I am dying, I'm not going to be one of those graceful, positive people I wish I could be when faced with some tragedy.

I'm going to be a blathering, disastrous mess. Tears. Puking. Panic. Passing out. It's a well known fact that I'm a passer-outer.

I'm sorry. I'd like to believe otherwise, and I guess we can hold out hope. But we should be otherwise prepared.

And, I know I'm not alone in this fear of dying thing. My brilliant writer friend, Amy Ferris, has documented her own Post-WEB MD spiral hilariously and poignantly HERE.

In fact, I remember a neurologist telling me that it's quite common with mothers . . . that overwhelming fear we develop that we will die and leave our children too soon.

In good humor, I've had many a facebook friend confirm their own, daily morbid fears.

I also know it's not mothers alone. My dear friend Jeff, a father of four, jokes about the goodbye videos he's made for his children, with every WEB MD self-diagnosis he's made. In fact, he's made me promise to keep them, and dole them out year after year.

And, yes, I've agreed. Of course, of course, I have agreed.

Look, we laugh about it. We joke. But the truth is, we're all terrified.

We're all laughing through our fear and our tears.

So.

In the middle of the night, I woke up hurting, all dizzy and reeling too. This has happened on occasion, too, over the past two years.

So, I've called the doctor and made an appointment. Hopefully, she'll tell me it's all nothing but age and fear and dry skin. The good old process of "getting old."

And, if that's what she says, I swear -- I mean, pinky promise, girl scout's honor, signed in blood -- it's the last time I'll google WEB MD.

- gae

Is it Spring Yet? (and a ballsy writer's story)

Me, wind-whipped

I was in Florida last week with my family.

It was a nice reprieve, if we only got
a whopping two days of sun out of five.

And even on the sunny days, the wind was whipping.

I mean, 30 mile per hour winds.


Still, I lay at the pool,
grateful to soak in the sun and relax.

self portrait in bathingsuit

I swear, if I could, I would do little but swim and lie in the sun. . .

Alas, I am back, and have a shitload of writing stuff on my plate:

"Frankie Sky" is finally on it's way to copy edits which puts me in the throes of doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff -- getting permissions, fretting over my author photo ;\ , and mulling over new titles, because my editor has concerns about "Frankie Sky."

Next will come cover ideas and the dreaded, dreaded jacket copy. How can that be so hard?

In the meantime, remember my women's fiction? Well maybe not since it's yet to be published. :\

But it's never far from my mind.

So, I did something ballsy the other day and it paid off, if only in the quietest "validation" sense of the word.

What happened is this: Looking for something else, I inadvertently pulled up an old email rejection letter from an editor who had read Swim Back to Me in 2009 (when I was with my first agent), and it filled me with the kind of longing that only that manuscript (and its history) can fill me with:

I know that one doesn't look like a rejection and it isn't. It was this one that had followed:

Well, especially if you are a writer reading, you can see how it was hard to let go of this one after feedback like this? And, I will tell you that I had at least three other close-but-no-cigar encounters with major publishers like this one. . .

So, anyway, back to my balls. Turns out I had this editor's email and I reached out as politely as I could, starting with the fact that I had no idea if she'd remember me or the ms, but that, if she did, I had done a subsequent rewrite with my next agent that had left the manuscript just the tiniest bit less (in their words) bleak.

I figured that was the end. She would write me off as a crazy stalker-writer-girl and change her email address as fast as she could. But instead, she wrote back to me within the 1/2 hour, told me she remembered me and Swim and asked if we could to talk.

I've seldom been as blown away -- or felt more validated -- in my ten-plus years as an aspiring writer.

Anyway, we had a great conversation and if nothing else comes of it, that was enough.

What she told me was that she had -- and still does -- love the book as is, but that she could not ever sell it this way. . . but that, if I wanted to try to tackle a few of the other editors' concerns in a rewrite, she would look at it again.

So, that's what I'm doing. I'm attempting a rewrite, which, as always, is way harder than I thought.

But whatever happens, that? That was a good writing moment.

In other (and final) book news, The Pull of Gravity is now out EVERYWHERE in paperback and I would surely love you to go out and grab a copy from Barnes & Noble or your local indie bookstore. It's also got a spiffy new trailer that was made by a 15-year-old kid named Jude Bourke.

He's the son of a friend and his dad, Karl, did the amazing original drawings. If you like it, leave him a note, and please, please, please pass it on.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Come on, Spring!

xox gae

The Grass, Softer and Greener. . .

me, a few, brief years ago. . . 

I look at this photo and I think: wow, look how much younger, sexier, bolder, skinnier, more entertaining I was.

I crave her. I miss her.

I wonder how she drifted.

I forget that she was also depressed,
anxious,
lost,
wanting, waiting, wishing, and, um,
not eating much.

I forget how she stumbled through the dark house trying simply to hold onto things.

My life since then is happier,

less on edge,

more content.

And, this is a good thing.

But sometimes, I look back on her -- that me from a few short years ago -- with longing.

me, the other day, shorter hair,
more shadows and lines,
a bit less longing,
and yet. . . 

Maybe that's just how I am.

Maybe I am made up of longing.

So that, if I'm not longing someone,

or something,

I am just longing for that old me.

Maybe it's a writer thing. Maybe we must keep scratching at the surface, picking, turning over emotions, until we hit raw nerves.

Maybe we're afraid we'll be stale and staid (boring) if we're not in some glorious state of pain.

And the truth is, it's not hard to get there -- stay there -- wanting,  wishing,

fretting,

longing.

Life obliges,

makes it easy to feel unsettled,

by making it all so tenuous and fleeting.

Face it.

In front of you, it's all a blur,

whooshing by faster than you can catch your breath.

So, behind,

back there,

you,

then,

"ago"

seems stretched out,

heightened,

nearly gilded.

The grass back there is softer, somehow,

isn't it?

Younger,

and greener.

gae

*post script: this blog post has been resonating with friends -- both on my facebook page and in my email -- it made me remember this other post of similar theme, with this beautiful  "green" poem by my friend, and poet and artist, Lori Landau. You can see it HERE.