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a journal |
 This book is intended as a place to blog about my life and things I'm interested in and answers to prompts from various blog prompt sites here on WDC, including "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  and "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" I'm not sure yet what it'll turn into, but I'm going to have fun figuring it out. |
| Write a blog entry about what happened in your life today. Well, starting with the past. Eleven years ago yesterday, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Three years ago today, Rachel's youngest was born. This week in general has been interesting. After a long, drawn out process which involved two weeks worth of airports, my sister Madeline got into town with her children. They've been doing the standby mode USAF flights because her husband is stationed in Germany. So, a week ago last Sunday (the 14th) they got here. And we've been having a good time, mostly involving the kids on Netflix (she has 3--a girl and two boys, 10, 7, and 3--the youngest is amazingly articulate for a 3 year old) and Madeline talking about everything. With everyone. A few shopping trips. It was her oldest's birthday (June is 10 on July 2nd--yes, I know. Confusing. Apparently June is a family name) so Grandma got her a 14 in doll because she wanted to make 14in doll clothes (my Mama knits and crochets). Lots of fun has been had. Sunday (21st), Maddie headed up to her husband's parents house so that they could have time with the grandkids. In the mean time, Rachel (who is 5 months pregnant with twins at this point but handled the trip beautifully) came up for a visit so that cousin time could happen. So, we had one day of peace before Rach and her 4 with additional two guinea pigs overtook the bedroom again. Lot's of fun. Swimming, going to restaurants with play areas, watching the girls (June and Hayley, who is 12) have their first experience with press-on nails (I think they both thought it wasn't worth in) and a birthday party with cake and singing and presents for the other two who have recent birthdays (Two of Rach's--Eddie was 6 at the end of June and got a hot wheels race track and Charles, who's 3 today, got a train with gears that doubles as a pull toy) and a bonus package for June with a crocheted doll dress in a yarn she'd picked out. Lots of fun. But we were talking about today. Today we met for lunch and then brought everyone to Grandma's house to pack Rachel's car and send her home (without a dvd which her 8 year old apparently misplaced under the bed). Maddie and her family stuck around for a while but headed home at about dinner time because they have a pool at Gigi's house. And then, I spend the rest of my evening resting. I might recover soon. Apparently, Madeline is going to start trying to get home tomorrow because there's a potential flight that could get her home. And school starts August 12 in Germany. Of course, if she doesn't make this hop, Joy is coming to town on Saturday to visit and see niece and nephews before they head home (their daddy's on deployment now for the next few months). I just need to sleep more. But I wouldn't trade my day (even though it involved a trip back to the restaurant because June forgot she'd stowed her purse under the booth where her Mama wouldn't see it. sigh. |
| Sometimes, life overflows with complication. Maybe that should be always. I guess I'm fortunate that my recent complications have more to do with happiness than otherwise. A few months ago, my sister and her husband announced they were pregnant. This is Rachel, my sister who lost a baby at five days, who got an infection behind her eye which resulted in a detached retina and loss of vision in her left eye. They have five babies, four living. Hayley, the oldest, was twelve in January. Danny is eight. Caleb, who died, was born third. Eddie was eighteen months old when Rachel went half blind turned six last month. The youngest, Charles, is about to turn three and never knew his mother when she had full vision. Charles was a breech birth delivered in a rush at home (in fact, all but Hayley were born at home)--no major trauma except to her husband's nerves which were shot when he had to catch. So, a big family already. With a lot of trouble in their past. A few weeks ago, they called again to say that they were expecting twins. Both girls. And we were excited, of course. And nervous. There are twins all over a bunch of branches of the family tree. Ed's (Rachel's husband) mother is a twin, my mother's grandmother was a twin, my father's grandfather had twin sisters. So, we know that twins can come with health complications. Major ones. And then, a few days ago, Rachel called. They'd gone in for another ultrasound and determined that while one of the girls was a normal weight and appeared healthy, the other was small and was displaying signs of several potential complications. Signs of the potential for spina bifida. Signs of underdevelopment in kidneys and bladder, signs of lack of movement in legs. They were able to see her brain, but signs of potential fluid on the brain. Of course, there's the chance that the baby will be born healthy, but a greater chance that she will have some developmental issues that will make life difficult for her. And I know that my sister is capable of anything. I know that she is a wonderful parent and would be able to provide a loving environment for any child. And I definitely hope the little girl is born alive because losing Caleb was hard. On everyone in the family but especially Rachel and Ed. I feel sick with worry about her and about my sister and brother-in-law and niece and nephews. And I feel so angry that this is happening. It feels--you know, when you are starting to write a story and you start feeling sadistic because in order for things to work, you have to throw things at your characters until they break? You push them to the edge and give them sorrow and joy and trouble until they ache with it because only then will the story function correctly? Well, I have to tell you, I hate living in a story. It infuriates me that we might lose her even though, in some ways, she's not even real to me, yet. I hate it that there's nothing I can do. I probably won't even be able to go down and help when the twins are born because something about birth makes Rachel hole up in her cave, not letting anyone in to hold the new baby until she's good and ready to put her down. I'm lost. And this is something I can't talk about with my family because I need to be one of the ones who remind Mama that she shouldn't talk about the little one as though she's already dead (Mama is a worrier and she automatically goes to worst case scenario) because she might be fine and the twins are only at about 24 weeks so we have four more months of waiting on the precipice, wondering what is going to happen and if we're all going to fall again and wondering how painful the landing will be. And so I brought this here. sorry. I guess I should really get some sleep because that might stop the insane spirals in my head. |
| Much ado is made about stretching the brain and writing or reading outside our comfort zone. Do you think this is helpful? How much fun is it for you to read and write outside your usual genres or your comfort zone? Any kind of stretching encourages growth. So, I can see that this is a good thing. I read and write a lot in various genres and various levels of comfort. I've written about people who are nothing like me. I've written people dying and mothers and people in fear and lovers . . . in other words, people who live lives that are outside my personal experiences. However, that doesn't mean that it's necessarily out of my comfort zone. I don't need to experience a mother's loss of her child to be able to extrapolate from my own experience as an aunt who lost a nephew and the witness of my sister who lost her son. In fact, in some ways, when we are so close to a tragic happening, it becomes more difficult to maintain the objectivity to write a story about it. Going back to the loss of a child, when it first happened, I wrote essays and poems, but I have been unable to write it as fiction to my personal satisfaction. That's because it feels too close to write well. Does that mean that I avoid the topic in my fiction? Absolutely not. I approach that experience like an accident victim probing the edges of a wound, trying to get close enough to know whether the scab is ready to be peeled away to witness the healing underneath. It may never happen. I may be reduced to writing badly about this topic for the rest of my life. But there are other places and topics that I can go to which are informed and strengthened by that experience as is all my writing. After all, as writers, we bring everything that we are into the words and our characters. So, yes, I feel that it's important to stretch my own boundaries and write close to the edge of being where stories live. And yes, it's fun to do it. Even if it is sometimes painful. |
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