What is My Daisy Buchanan?

I haven't written for the past couple of days, mainly because I felt uninspired, but also because I was busy doing other things and didn't make writing a priority.  I know this is a no-no.  Every writer who's going to call herself a writer needs structure and discipline.  I just seem to lack those two things.  I know what they are, and I know what I need to do to get them, but when it comes right down to doing what's necessary, I choose "other" from the drop-down menu.  I think about my goals and my lack of discipline quite a bit, so much in fact, that I've begun to think that if I put as much energy into my memoir and poetry as I do into thinking about what I lack, I'd be finished with my current projects, well on my way into other projects, and already forming ideas about projects looming on the horizon.  So, what is my problem?  Do I simply have too much time on my hands, as some would suggest?  Or am I one of those people, prone to procrastination and overwhelmed by her own meddlesome ADD?  Or may the culprit be something else altogether?

Earlier today, while my mind was performing its routine flips of analyzing/wandering/chastising/ justifying, I began to think about Jay Gatsby.  Now there was a man who knew discipline.  He could stick to a schedule better than a fly to flypaper.  Here is his boyhood schedule:

Rise from bed - 6:00 AM
Dumbbell exercise and wall scaling- 6:15- 6:30 AM
Study electricity, etc. - 7:15- 8:15 AM
Work - 8:30- 4:30 PM
Basketball and sports- 4:30 -5:00 PM
Practice elocution, poise and how to obtain it- 5:00- 6:00 PM
Study needed inventions- 7:00- 9:00 PM

That's quite a full day.  When I look at this schedule, I shake my head, first, not because it's ridiculous to think that I would study electricity, but because there simply is not enough time here for showering, blow-drying my hair, and applying my make-up.  Also to think one could prepare dinner, eat it, and clean up the mess in only an hour is preposterous.  And only 30 minutes to exercise in the afternoon with no shower afterwards?  Just who did this Gatsby think he was?  The answer to this question is very important.  Gatsby believed he would make something of himself, but that it would take a lot of self-discipline to get there.  Actually, even though this particular schedule would not be my own, if I were to sit down and write one, it's not the activities or the allotment of time that would cause me the most turmoil.  It's the sheer idea of having to stick to a schedule that nobody is holding me to but myself that propels me into rebellion.  This is a recipe for failure.  For disaster.  For self-loathing and binge-eating and bulimia and bad hygiene and social withdrawal and...Well, you see where I'm going with this.  As soon as I tell myself what I am going to do, and there's no wiggle room, and nobody cares whether I do it but me, I'm done.  This is the strangest thing.  I am a workaholic--when I have a job.  I am a perfectionist--when I'm creating something (dinner excluded--that's a hit-or-miss, and I've come to accept it).  So what is my problem?

Clearly, Gatsby had his youth when he made his schedule.  That's one strike against me.  I've already met some of my really important goals, like becoming an All-American basketball player.  And getting my master's degrees. And traveling to Africa and Europe and French Polynesia and New York City.  And getting remarried.  But life is hardly over.  So, for a woman like me who's not planning on having children, what's left?  Sure there are all those little things I'd like to do, like learn how to play the guitar, or learn how to use a sewing machine, or learn how to paint.  Or whatever.  But those things are not my Daisy Buchanan.  Those things do not keep me up at night; they did not cause me to navigate the waters of my life differently than I would have did they not exist. 

My Daisy Buchanan is my writing--my memoir. 

I have spent a good part of my life working towards her.  I lived the childhood that created in me the desire to write about it.  I became educated in poetry and literature, which ultimately led me to her front door.  And after all these years, here I stand, a nervous, awkward suitor, who does not know quite what will happen when she answers my knock. 

 The thought of finishing my memoir brings happiness, accomplishment, satisfaction.  When those pages have been perfected and I hold the completed manuscript in my hands, I will sigh in relief and gratitude.  However, the thought of finishing my memoir terrifies me.  It's as if I know that once I'm finished, "my mind will never romp again like the mind of God," just as Gatsby discovered when he first kissed Daisy.  From that moment on, he chased the dream of her, and even though Daisy Buchanan was an honest-to-God real life person, the Daisy he knew and fell in love with just five years earlier was not the Daisy he had spent his life pursuing.  Everything he did, he did for her.  His life became a facade, and the man merely a shell encasing a very fragile, romantically hopeless soul. 

When I finish my manuscript, whether I publish it or not, my dream will be complete.  I will no longer have this love to keep me going.  And I fear that the memories of my childhood, my biological mother, my brother--everything that made me who I am--will slowly slip away from me like a mermaid back to her watery home.  The more I put off finishing the book, the longer I keep the past open, own the possibilities of its transformation, and live in its world of magic.  You see, I've been pursuing this dream for longer than I've pursued anything, and while it's truly time to let the dream go, just as Gatsby learned that fatal day in his swimming pool that Daisy would never truly be his, coming to terms with this reality is something I am not fully prepared to do.  I know I have to be strong.  There is no vengeance-crazed George Wilson lurking in the bushes who's about to make things easier on me.  And I would not wish this to be so.  But sometimes, I wish I could see him, flashing his mighty weapon in the glistening end-of-summer sun as a reminder, holding me accountable for this great work that I've begun.  I wish that, even if for just one moment, I could hear a voice that was not my own.  It would breathe through the warm air and echo something about how "[I] beat on, [a boat] against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." 

A Wish

Today, I woke up at 11 a.m. and spent much of the day in sublime lethargy.  Yes, it is nice to be in charge of my own time.  However, I miss having a set schedule dictating my meaningful moves.  I had friends, and a mother, who warned me (lovingly) that this would happen if I quit my teaching job.  I knew it, too, but I welcomed it, because I was a hamster in a wheel, running out of breath, and I saw that my chance to jump from the spinning madness was now or never.  With eyes wide open, and a big, soft pile of spousal support to land on, I leapt, and I haven't looked back.

I've been feeling a little antsy, though--like I am supposed to be doing more than writing a blog (which is good writing practice, and so much fun I could let out a little squeal of jubilation right now if my husband weren't two feet away from me), and finishing my memoir, and finishing a poetry manuscript.  I've come to terms with the fact that I "deserve to take time off" and I "should just enjoy it," but I can't help feeling a bit...strange in my new wings.  I guess I should feel more like a butterfly than I actually do.  Maybe I could effect some change by actually getting dressed every day.  I'm not cut out for the reclusive habits relished by most writers; at the same time, if I don't have a "good" reason to leave the house, I become a comfortable little hermit, and it's only after darkness falls that I feel the disgust and remorse of my couch potato ways.

A big day for me is making it to the grocery store.  And if I'm already out, I can probably manage a trip to Target or the dry cleaner's. Some of my friends have assured me that this is temporary and I'm still recuperating from the hectic, crazy, frenetic habits of my former self.  Perhaps.  Others tell me, "See?  That's why you need a job!"  Maybe so, wise ones.  Maybe so.  I've had a hard time seeing writing as my "job" because 1) I'm making absolutely squat, and 2) there's nobody holding me accountable but myself.  The result isn't that nothing ever gets done; the result is that things get done at a caterpillar's pace.  So I'm not quite a butterfly at all.  It would do me some good to work on my progressive metamorphosis, lest I actually transform into a caterpillar (a la Kafka!), soft-bodied, furry, and foul-smelling.

To fight the lethargy, I convinced my husband to take a walk with me.  It was nice to have some time together that consisted of more than eating a meal in front of the television.  Don't get me wrong!  I love me some good, old-fashioned mindless boob tube, but I hate the thought of my husband and I growing old, achy, and ill together.  We walked to a little park that's about a half a mile away from our house, and we played Smashball.  Remember that summer paddle game where the objective is to hit the little blue ball back and forth to your partner without letting it hit the ground?  It's a beach favorite, for sure, but we had fun smashing the ball back and forth to each other, hitting it too far, missing it with the paddle when we thought for sure we'd had it, running for the ball and still missing it because we are S-L-O-W.

Even more important than playing the game was rediscovering fun together.  I've been enjoying some time off work, but my husband's schedule has picked up quite a bit, and he's just plain exhausted when he gets home from work.  Often, he is unable to unwind, and he's strung up so tightly you could pluck him like a guitar.  As a result, our quality time together suffers.  But today we captured some of that childish playtime that's been so hard to come by.

We live in a paradoxical world.  Technology allows us to multi-task more than ever, and we are expected to do more, buy more, and be more.  At the same time, we are bombarded by messages that scream about balance and how to be healthy.  Work demands that we spend hours upon hours producing and performing.  To raise a happy family, we need to juggle a million things.  Where do we draw the line?  How much is enough?  I have heard of so many people whose lives exhaust them.  It's not that they don't love their children or their jobs, but is it really necessary to keep grinding away when every day a little bit more of the self falls away, too?  Is it really possible in our society to slow down, struggle less, and breathe a little more?

Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and Nobel Prize winner, acknowledged, "How wonderful that we have met with a paradox.  Now we have some hope of making progress."  Maybe the better life is the simpler life.  For you, that may mean phones are not invited to Sunday family dinners.  For others, it may mean one stays at home while the other works.  Progress demands a discussion. 

As I continue to think about my role in society--as writer, teacher, wife, other--I hope I will be able to strike a healthy balance between madness and the mundane.  I hope I can help my husband--my wonderful, supportive, loving husband--do the same.

A Girl and Her Grandfather

Yesterday I went to visit my grandfather.  Our visits go like this:  I arrive between 4 and 4:30 p.m., and he calls his "lady friend" Winnie, who comes over, guided by her caregiver, and the four of us walk to the dining hall.  (They live at Morningside, the fabulous assisted living facility in Fullerton).  We wait to be seated, and often, we sit with another friend of theirs, Shirley, and the caregiver leaves.  The conversation at the table consists mostly of repeating things Shirley or Winnie have already asked, either a few minutes prior or on some previous visit.  Both of them are so lovely, saying things that make me feel lovely, like "Aren't you just so beautiful?" or, "Isn't that ring you're wearing just so lovely?"  And my grandfather dotes on Winnie, calling her "Sweetie," ordering a glass of chardonnay for the two of them to split, giving her his French fries even though she didn't order any for herself because she didn't want any and so ordered the spaghetti instead, which she did not eat.  I sit there and try to take it all in, because I know, that even though some of what's happening amuses me, there will come a time when my grandfather will be gone, and I will long for those silly moments with these lovely people at this square table with the white tablecloth and a little vase of fake flowers in the middle next to the salt and pepper shakers--in this room where elderly people congregate for their evening meals--where I must repeat the things I say two or three times, and where the pace of life is much, much slower. 

This place, not just the dining hall, but this whole place, from its man-made lake and water-spouting fountain and its fifteen-foot putting green to its heated, gated pool and newly built recreation hall, is a microcosm of its own--a world within the world we know so well that races past us in a flash of busy schedules and multi-tasking measures.  This place has brought me much solace because here, my grandfather has found a safe haven in his sunset years.  My grandfather and grandmother moved to Morningside in April of 2004; they had been wait-listed, and I remember worrying that they would not make it in.  My grandmother had had a nasty fall and was not recovering quickly.  Morningside's policy is that in addition to being able to afford entrance, you must physically "walk in."  They will not take you if you are bed-ridden or so far gone that you immediately need to utilize their skilled nursing wing, Parkside.  Once you're in, you can render yourself paralyzed in a minute and they will take care of you till the day you die, but you have to be ambulatory when you arrive.

My grandparents lived there together happily for seven and a half years, and then my grandmother got sick and died.  How often do we hear about couples who've been together forever dying within weeks of each other!  I was terrified that my grandfather would go downhill quickly without his lifelong partner by his side day-in and day-out.  But here he is, two years later, thriving.  He is sharp and smart as ever.  He knows what blogging and texting are.  He doesn't do them, but he knows!  He has macular degeneration, and he hears with the help of an aid.  He's had several skin cancers cut out of his face.  He now uses a walker...sometimes...as a precaution.  He still makes himself toast for breakfast, and some fruit and cottage cheese for lunch.  He still shops at the grocery store, and up until about a year ago, he walked to Stater Bros. himself to pick up a few things (now, he uses the ride service that Morningside offers, and they assist him somewhat).  He makes his bed every day and gets dressed every day (which is more than I can say for myself).  He keeps my grandmother's ashes in an urn on a shelf in his headboard; every time I visit, I go into his room and say hello to my grandmother.  I tell her I love her and I miss her.  Yesterday, my grandfather told me he still does, too, every day, tell her he loves her and misses her.  It is the tenderest thing I've ever known.  It doesn't get any easier for me.  Even though days and years pass, when someone I love passes on, I wear their absence on my heart like a barnacle.  The memories still exist for me, too, and I suppose that's really what the feeling is--a strange mixture of nostalgia and loss.  And I suppose the fact that I can feel this is what makes me cherish the time I have with my loved ones even more. 

Yesterday, I started writing a little biography of my grandfather.  A while ago I bought a little book that has some questions in it and space to write the answers grandpa will give about his childhood memories and his life.  After dinner, instead of going to Winnie's, which he usually does, to watch television and keep each other company (like he and my grandmother used to do), he sat with me, he in his blue Lazy-Boy, and I opposite him with my laptop.  I asked him questions like, What was your childhood home like? What are some memories you have of your mother and father? What hobbies and pastimes did you have? Were you a good driver? Did you have a nickname? At first, he had some difficulty retrieving memories, but then, they flowed more freely, and he smiled a lot, laughed easily, relished the opportunity to extract the past and spin nostalgia. 

We made it a little more than half-way through the questions, satisfied to resume another day in the near future.  But he wanted me to read through the remaining questions as a teaser of what was to come.  He listened intently and responded to each question with "I can do that one," or "I think I can do that one, too."  I was so tickled (a word my grandmother would have used) to think that I actually set this thing in motion, and I would not someday look back with regret for all I should have taken the time to do.  My grandfather will turn 92, and I like to tell myself he has many, many years left.  When I previewed the last question in the book for him, which asks, "What's next?  What do you have planned in the next chapter of your life?"  He looked at me for a moment, almost as if he didn't think he heard me right.  "What's next?" he said?  This is it.  This is the last chapter!"  Indeed, dear grandfather!  And if only every one of us could be so lucky to feel so content and to possess such wisdom, dignity and humility!  We laughed at his honest acknowledgement, and we kissed and hugged good-bye.  I left him feeling so full of love and light, so blessed to know him in this life.

A Correspondence...

For today’s post, I decide to share an email from a former student and my reply.  Sometimes it helps to know we are not alone.

Mrs. Ferg,

     I'm going to start with a quote that made me think of you when I read it. I have read this book about seven times, but have always failed to read the conclusion… until the last time I read it. I found this gem on the very last page of Tuesdays with Morrie:

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

  "Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine? If you are lucky enough to find your way to such teachers, you will always find your way back. Sometimes it is only in your head. Sometimes it is right alongside their beds.

     The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week, in his home, by a window in his study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink flowers. The class met on Tuesdays. No books were required. The subject was the meaning of life. It was taught from experience. 

     The teaching goes on." 

     I finally got the chance to sit down and read your blog posts. I myself have been wanting to start one since forever, but have not come up with the courage to because of fear that no one would read it. The heart and soul that is put into every word on that page, written and rewritten until it is perfect- but even still, is not perfect because we feel it could always be better. I have tried to convince myself so many times that I wouldn't care if only me, my mom, and some random stranger from Norway kept up with my blog- leaving the same bittersweet comments: "So true, Honey!" or "Good job!"  

     No. 

The thought of that brought chills up my spine. I am a writer. We are writers. We want people to read what we have to say and be affected by it because that's what writers do! They impact people! They make people think, reevaluate, cry, or laugh. Writing is not meant to be hidden away, even if it is something personal- because someone, somewhere is going to think, "Yes, this person understands me." 

     Do not be afraid. 

Writing is your soul. Writing is what gives us a legacy. Writing is something permanent and personal and beautiful because it will be there forever. When we pass, people can still read our thoughts. Our own words on a piece of paper, a napkin, a word document, or newspaper.

     They can never take away your thoughts.

      I sit here, at my mother's house (in the bathtub actually), where the water tastes like metal. I cried for quite a while thinking about needs. What do we really need? I am often distraught about materials- about how I still don't have an iPhone, or a car, or nice clothes. However, although see [sic] are materials.  I also think about how a car is more than a vehicle. It is a vessel for transportation to people and places that we love. I cried today because my dad's band was playing a show in Huntington, but I don't have a car to take me to him, so I was left powerless. 

     What's that? Ask my mom to take me? HA. 

A few hours later though, I realized that it was not the car that I was sad about- it was the fact that I was not able to be there to support my father. What happens when ****'s band is going to play their first show? Will I be able to make it? Lord I hope so. To me, the idea of letting someone down is bigger than any material possession. The idea that I do not have transportation to see my mom, my boyfriend, my dad, my friends, my church, or my youth group whenever, is scary to me. I am bound by the chains of the world. My heart is in the right place, but my resources are limited. Granted, I have more than most. I am truly blessed that I have food on the table every night, clothes on my back, and a roof over my head. So that is why I feel like scum when I complain about things like this, because some people don't even know when the next time they are going to eat is. A friend of mine is on a mission trip and he told the story of three babies he rescued from across a vast river who were dying of starvation. These small souls shouldn't know what struggle is, but they have seen more struggle in their first year of life than I have seen in nineteen. So is it my place to complain?

     I am starting my second year of college at the end of this month, and although the road seems so long I know that in reality, it is going to be the blink of an eye when I look back on it. I have had plenty of panic attacks, long cries, and feelings of doubt going through my first year... but somehow I made it through. And now when I look back, I realize that I am tired of holding back. I am tired of failing to take opportunities because of fear, doubt, or lack of motivation. I am tired of letting little issues grow like ivy in my head. I am tired of letting people's self centered attitudes make me feel like dirt. For I am a strong warrior on a mission to fight conforming to this world's ugly standards. I am better than that. You are better than that. We are better than that!

     As for your blog, do not be discouraged. Do not be afraid. For I am reading- thinking, reevaluating, crying, and laughing along with you. 

Fondly, 

*****

___________________________________________________

    

*****,
Thank you so much for your heartfelt email.  I loved reading it...Yes, you are a writer!  It is interesting that you have not started a blog yet because of certain "fears."  I struggled with this, too.  I thought, who will read it?  Doesn't it have to be about something?  And then, I woke up.  As always, it is better to start, even if you are uncertain where the road may lead.  I realized that, at least right now, my blog is for myself.  I think most writers start that way.  Writing is a calling, and they must write.  Whether or not there is an audience waiting with bated breath is not the issue.  I, too, thought, even if I am the only one who gets enjoyment from writing this thing and only my mom and some "random" person follow my posts, I will be satisfied because I followed through with a goal--a desire to do something beyond nothing.  I am going to let my blog evolve and become whatever it wants to become.  And it was the fear that my blog would become nothing that kept me away for as long as it did.  Now, I can happily say that I have a blog!  Is it everything I dreamed it would be? No.  But that's not because it is flawed or inferior or readerless...It's because I don't have any expectations of the blog itself.  My only expectations are of myself.  I must keep it going.  I must write every day.  I decide what that means...weekdays for now.  I must strive to make my writing strong and to use my blog as a tool for always improving my own voice and my writing.

So, I've thought a lot about what you wrote regarding your lack of materials...I am sympathetic because I have a certain fondness for you that must be akin to the fondness one has for a sister or a daughter.  I don't want to think of you suffering at all.  Ever.  And I do not think, by any means, you should be regarded as "scum" because you feel an emptiness where you lack some of the common modern conveniences you see people possess all around you.  Come on!  I do get your point… Sometimes when I hear myself complain about how my brand new touch screen laptop doesn't quite work like my MacBook did, I want to throw up.  I mean, really?!  Some people are starving in this world!  In this country!  In this city!  But then I have to check myself before I wreck myself.  To me, this is a reminder that everything in life is relative...I certainly want show genuine gratitude for all of the wonderful conveniences and luxuries in my life.  At the same time, I think it is important that I feel good about what I have; how else can I show gratitude?  Are none of us to benefit from luxury or opportunity ever?  That seems unrealistic, self-punishing, and simply ridiculous.  What is equally important, though, is to maintain a sense of humility and understanding. 

The fact that you are so self-aware and world-aware is astounding.  You are so young, yet you see so much.  Your sensitive spirit is a gift, but one that comes with a price.  Often, you may find yourself weighed down by the injustices you see around you.  This weight triggers a depression that can only be felt by the kindest of souls.  In Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees, the character May has built a "wailing wall," and in it she stuffs papers that hold others' suffering.  Other people's pain and misfortune burdens May so much that the only way she can function normally is to write down these sufferings and physically remove them from herself by placing them in the wall.  The wall is a symbol of strength--the strength May does not have to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders.  If she did not have the wall to absorb these burdens, May would be an emotional wreck; she is a true empath, a highly sensitive being who is keenly tuned in to the suffering of others.  It seems that you, like me, and like May, possess this emotional personality type, at least to some degree.  If you allow yourself to empathize with others too much, the pain becomes heavy, almost as if it were your own, and you wear it like a second skin.  It is almost as if you intuitively absorb others' sadness as a way to ease the burden for them; the problem with this sort of "intuition" is that it is literally impossible for us to relieve someone of their pain by transferring it to ourselves.  We can commiserate.  We can help by volunteering time and money to good causes.  We can endeavor to always be understanding, loving, honest, and kind.  But logic will tell us that we can only help others if we remain healthy.  We can only save a drowning victim if we do not drown in the process. 

I encourage you to stop berating yourself for wanting things you want.  I also encourage you to stop kicking yourself because others are worse off than you.  You have integrity, honor, and courage.  These traits do not disappear because you wish you had the money to buy a car so that you can commute.  We live in a commuter society.  You are simply wishing for a simpler life, and more opportunities.  This does not make you greedy or selfish.  Everybody has a wish based on their own situation.  This is nothing to be ashamed of.  You want to feel more normalized in a society that values certain things...this is not a moral crime.  It is quite understandable that you feel saddened by these thoughts.  So, feel saddened!  And let your feelings drive you.  You deserve every good thing that comes your way.  When you finally get a car, a shopping spree, an iPhone, or whatever it is the material part of your heart desires, you will surely appreciate it!  There is something to be said for going without...and you know this well.  You are getting a college education!  Your life is going to be whatever you want it to be!  I am so proud of you!  Not just because you are in college! Ha!  But because you are so beautiful in a world that can be so ugly.  Your spirit is what makes you rich, and I know you know this.  I realize it would be that much better if you could drive your rich spirit wherever it wanted to go!  In time, you will have all you desire.  (I know that sounds like something I ripped from the inside of a fortune cookie).

****, I have missed you terribly!  I hope we will continue to be email pals.  I hope we can get together for lunch--maybe before you go back to school.  I want you to know that you can always come to me if you need anything.  I might not be able to buy you a car!  Ha!  But, seriously, I am here for you, always.

Sincerely,
Ms. Ferguson