Strength Between The Pages
Max and I made a horrible discovery today. We saw something no human should ever have to see. Especially humans who rarely come in contact with meat-type items. I got flea medicine for the animals today and the one for the dog now comes in a chewable tablet form. My dog will generally eat anything and when I say that I mean to say that an open litter box is her candy store. However, for some reason she was suspicious of these tablets so I got out those meaty soft chewy thingies you can put dog pills into so that they will take nasty medicine. I pulled one out. But it looked wrong.
It looked wrong somehow. So I looked in the bag and almost hurled right there and then.
Oh god.
So I made some kind of choking noise and held the bag away from me and Max asked what the noise was about and I told him there were worms in the dog treat bag. So he had to see.
Maggots.
Maggots.
He decided not to eat any more food until someone invents a brainwashing machine so he could get that image of the maggots out of his head. I totally understood. I am squeamish about them too. I would have made a terrible sailor in the age of salt pork and maggoty bread.
Our computer caught itself a nasty little virus that could have (but didn't) result in us having to shut down all of our credit card accounts. Watch out for any insistent button that shows up on your computer suddenly claiming you need to buy the windows 2009 version of the spyware that will get rid of the virus your computer has supposedly just caught. That is the virus. Don't buy the spyware. We didn't. Because it seemed suspicious. Because it was.
Magic has happened that I think cancels out the maggots and the virus... my kid has said he loves reading. MY KID. The one who resisted it for so long. The one who's main passion is video games and playing spies. He treated reading like a chore until this past summer when he was staying up to read his TinTin comics. He got into Calvin and Hobbs too. And then Bone. And then he and Philip read a chapter book together. Of course, most of the books he loves the best are comics and graphic novels. I don't care. That's not what matters. What matters is that he'll bury his restless head in them and get lost. Like I did when I was his age.
In so many ways parenting hasn't been what I expected. Things I thought were going to be easy have nearly wasted me and other things I thought would be hard have turned out to be nothing. My kid is who he is and nothing I can do is really going to shape his most decided spirit. Yet I can see the influence of love and care in him. I can see him finding his way but also finding ours. I can see that he is discovering the magic of books and it's something that gives me a great deal of reassurance. If the kid loves to read, is there really anything he might not be capable of? Or anything he can't get himself through?
It reminds me of all the time I spent reading while I lived by myself in the upper tenderloin with a brick view. I worked hard all week and then, lacking a social life, I would read all week-end. I would get so engrossed in books that I would put off peeing until it nearly became a medical emergency. I would drink about a billion cups of coffee (before I got old and developed delicate problems like heart palpitations) and not eat much food. Reading got me through loneliness and fuelled my imagination so that I had a very rich life just on my own.
I was still trying to write fiction back then too. I try to be kind to myself. Every writer starts off thinking that the only way to legitimize their calling and prove themselves is to write the great American novel. At that time I didn't realize I could write creative non-fiction. So I typed out really bad fiction after reading books that set me on fire. I knew I had the language in me, I just didn't realize I lacked the stories. Self and words are same. I can't write a character who isn't me or someone I know.
What is still fresh for me is the urgent need to always be writing. All the time. I would be thinking of what I could be writing if I wasn't at work while I worked. Poetry would sift through my brain as I packed boxes full of funky lycra garments. For some reason heavy manual labor sparks my need to write more than most other things. That's the only way I can explain why I seemed to drift into words whenever I used the industrial steam iron to the point where I couldn't really hear whatever else was going on around me.
I also wore boots. I think work boots are magic and maybe that's what's been wrong with me for the last few years- I haven't worn work boots in a long time.
I haven't been reading much. My reading life has been mostly limited to non-fiction and mysteries in the last few years. If and when I actually read. You might say I'm stuck in a desert. Or maybe for the first time since I was a kid it's important not to pollute my head with too much influence from other writers. Maybe this is the moment when I really find my way, my reason (if there is one), why I come here every single day, sometimes two or three times, to write.
I long for more conversation with other writers. I want to get into their heads and know what moves them, stops them, and what kind of an island they've built for themselves. I wish I could ask some of my favorite authors questions. Questions that interviewers either never ask or ask but then don't pursue in detail. I want to have dinner with a room full of writers.
Who are writers? Anyone who writes? Anyone who keeps a journal?
Anyone who has to write or else burn up like onion skin and float away into the atmosphere. A writer is someone who, above all other things, must write.
A person who coughs words.
I've learned not to take anything for granted in parenthood. It is often a dark place for me but seeing my kid devour new words, understand irony, and forget I'm in the room because he's so absorbed in a printed story is like seeing him get baptized. For a lot of people out there God is the direction you turn to in tough times, but for me it has always been the public library. It has always been to books. Books and the buildings that house them. So hearing my kid say he loves reading is like watching him find something greater than himself, that he can turn to for his whole adult life.
It's in moments like this that being a parent is exciting. I can relax for a brief while and watch my kid find his words and his feet. It's at these rare junctions that I feel like it all might turn out alright after all.
It looked wrong somehow. So I looked in the bag and almost hurled right there and then.
Oh god.
So I made some kind of choking noise and held the bag away from me and Max asked what the noise was about and I told him there were worms in the dog treat bag. So he had to see.
Maggots.
Maggots.
He decided not to eat any more food until someone invents a brainwashing machine so he could get that image of the maggots out of his head. I totally understood. I am squeamish about them too. I would have made a terrible sailor in the age of salt pork and maggoty bread.
Our computer caught itself a nasty little virus that could have (but didn't) result in us having to shut down all of our credit card accounts. Watch out for any insistent button that shows up on your computer suddenly claiming you need to buy the windows 2009 version of the spyware that will get rid of the virus your computer has supposedly just caught. That is the virus. Don't buy the spyware. We didn't. Because it seemed suspicious. Because it was.
Magic has happened that I think cancels out the maggots and the virus... my kid has said he loves reading. MY KID. The one who resisted it for so long. The one who's main passion is video games and playing spies. He treated reading like a chore until this past summer when he was staying up to read his TinTin comics. He got into Calvin and Hobbs too. And then Bone. And then he and Philip read a chapter book together. Of course, most of the books he loves the best are comics and graphic novels. I don't care. That's not what matters. What matters is that he'll bury his restless head in them and get lost. Like I did when I was his age.
In so many ways parenting hasn't been what I expected. Things I thought were going to be easy have nearly wasted me and other things I thought would be hard have turned out to be nothing. My kid is who he is and nothing I can do is really going to shape his most decided spirit. Yet I can see the influence of love and care in him. I can see him finding his way but also finding ours. I can see that he is discovering the magic of books and it's something that gives me a great deal of reassurance. If the kid loves to read, is there really anything he might not be capable of? Or anything he can't get himself through?
It reminds me of all the time I spent reading while I lived by myself in the upper tenderloin with a brick view. I worked hard all week and then, lacking a social life, I would read all week-end. I would get so engrossed in books that I would put off peeing until it nearly became a medical emergency. I would drink about a billion cups of coffee (before I got old and developed delicate problems like heart palpitations) and not eat much food. Reading got me through loneliness and fuelled my imagination so that I had a very rich life just on my own.
I was still trying to write fiction back then too. I try to be kind to myself. Every writer starts off thinking that the only way to legitimize their calling and prove themselves is to write the great American novel. At that time I didn't realize I could write creative non-fiction. So I typed out really bad fiction after reading books that set me on fire. I knew I had the language in me, I just didn't realize I lacked the stories. Self and words are same. I can't write a character who isn't me or someone I know.
What is still fresh for me is the urgent need to always be writing. All the time. I would be thinking of what I could be writing if I wasn't at work while I worked. Poetry would sift through my brain as I packed boxes full of funky lycra garments. For some reason heavy manual labor sparks my need to write more than most other things. That's the only way I can explain why I seemed to drift into words whenever I used the industrial steam iron to the point where I couldn't really hear whatever else was going on around me.
I also wore boots. I think work boots are magic and maybe that's what's been wrong with me for the last few years- I haven't worn work boots in a long time.
I haven't been reading much. My reading life has been mostly limited to non-fiction and mysteries in the last few years. If and when I actually read. You might say I'm stuck in a desert. Or maybe for the first time since I was a kid it's important not to pollute my head with too much influence from other writers. Maybe this is the moment when I really find my way, my reason (if there is one), why I come here every single day, sometimes two or three times, to write.
I long for more conversation with other writers. I want to get into their heads and know what moves them, stops them, and what kind of an island they've built for themselves. I wish I could ask some of my favorite authors questions. Questions that interviewers either never ask or ask but then don't pursue in detail. I want to have dinner with a room full of writers.
Who are writers? Anyone who writes? Anyone who keeps a journal?
Anyone who has to write or else burn up like onion skin and float away into the atmosphere. A writer is someone who, above all other things, must write.
A person who coughs words.
I've learned not to take anything for granted in parenthood. It is often a dark place for me but seeing my kid devour new words, understand irony, and forget I'm in the room because he's so absorbed in a printed story is like seeing him get baptized. For a lot of people out there God is the direction you turn to in tough times, but for me it has always been the public library. It has always been to books. Books and the buildings that house them. So hearing my kid say he loves reading is like watching him find something greater than himself, that he can turn to for his whole adult life.
It's in moments like this that being a parent is exciting. I can relax for a brief while and watch my kid find his words and his feet. It's at these rare junctions that I feel like it all might turn out alright after all.