Posts Tagged ‘Anne Lamott’
Cindy on September 16th, 2009
Early last night, I spotted a flock of wild geese flying high above our rooftop, heading south. I was immediately inspired to come inside and share a favorite poem with you.
I was introduced to “Wild Geese” — and the Pulitzer prize-winning poetry of Mary Oliver — while listening to Word by Word, Anne Lamott’s audio CD on the craft of writing.
Lamott explained that she’d posted a copy of “Wild Geese” near her desk for inspiration, and advised all writers to do the same. Read the poem aloud, slowly, and savor each line. You’ll understand why it speaks so deeply to so many creative souls.
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
–from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
Cindy on August 12th, 2009
Irrespective of what she reads, though, when she goes back to sit before the computer, there is the same stubborn emptiness, the same locked door.” — Elizabeth Berg, Home Safe
As soon as I hit the “Publish” tab, I started worrying about last week’s blog post. Not that I regretted exposing my family’s elder-care crises. I know many of you can relate to or sympathize with the heartache of witnessing the decline of aging parents. But later in the post, I got a little too gloomy about journalism, blogging, and writing careers.
I didn’t mean to discourage anyone.
This site was originally designed to keep in touch with my newspaper column readers, and over the years it also morphed into a blog for my writing workshop students. I usually don’t give writing “advice” — but I try to offer some insight on the writing life. Most of my students tell me that getting published seems like a mysterious, impossible thing that other people do. So, I make a point of reminding them that that’s not the case at all. Published writers are ordinary people who grow tomatoes, burn casseroles, gripe about politics, miss their kids when they move out, and wish someone else would wash their cars. People like me.
Until recently, though, I’ve rarely said much about the lonely hours of isolation, the frightening abyss of writer’s block, the times I’ve been annoyed at editors and baffled by agents, or the times I’ve wondered if I’m just wasting time. I’ve avoided discussing all that because I believe my role is to encourage, inspire, and excite new writers — to remind you that your dreams of publication are not out of reach. And yet, with so many newspapers and magazines folding lately, and with the book publishing industry in a major crisis, too, I think it’s misleading to suggest that being a writer is loads of fun right now. When the only ones signing fabulous book deals are loons like Sarah Palin (who can’t even deliver a coherent speech), well, to paraphrase Anne Lamott, you too might be inclined to get “down on your hands and knees and drink gin straight from the cat’s dish.”
Regardless, last week I wondered if it was wrong to broadcast how pessimistic I’d been feeling about the future of publishing. And wasn’t it a bit unfair or mean-spirited to announce that “the magic just isn’t there for me” in blogging — especially when I know that many of you take pride in your blogs? So, I almost went back to delete that downer of a paragraph from last week’s post.
But then I finished Elizabeth Berg’s sweet new novel, Home Safe, and I changed my mind.
In Home Safe, middle-aged novelist Helen Ames is coping with the loss of her husband and her father — and facing a newly emptied nest. Despite all the free time she has, Helen is impossibly blocked, unable to do the writing that has always fulfilled and saved her. I won’t spoil the entire plot for you, in case you’d like to read the novel, but I suspect that Elizabeth Berg herself has endured some of her main character’s career angst. What writer hasn’t?
Like the fictional Helen Ames, I’ve often thought about throwing my drafts in the trash compactor and applying for a “real job” in retail. (I’ve seriously wondered if I’m better suited to a gig at an Eileen Fisher boutique or a cozy independent bookshop with a resident cat.) But along the way, Helen reluctantly tries teaching a writing class, and ultimately learns that she is lifted by coaching others. Just as I’ve been lifted by every hopeful student who’s had the courage to share his or her stories in my classes.
Reading Home Safe, I felt at times as if Berg were holding a mirror to my own conscience. But the real gift in this novel was the permission it gave me to admit aloud that I do get burned-out and discouraged; that no matter how much I’ve achieved, I’m not immune to doubt and insecurity.
Burnout, discouragement, doubt, and insecurity are inexorably chained to the writing life — yet they often precede a second wind or a second act. If you’re in it for the long run, there’s no way you’ll fully appreciate the thrill of seeing your byline under a magazine article or your name on the cover of a book until you’ve battled these demons and gremlins. I wouldn’t be honest, or fair, if I didn’t share that with you too. -- Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on May 17th, 2009
I’m probably just as good a mother as the next repressed, obsessive-compulsive paranoiac.” — Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions
If you could go back and relive your early years of motherhood, what would you do differently? Do you wish you’d used cloth diapers instead of disposables? Made your own baby food? Or stayed home from work a year or two longer? If I had to do it over again, I’d wipe out the myth of The Perfect Mom.
Like June Cleaver’s apron strings, the myth of The Perfect Mom won’t unravel easily. But as a woman with more than two decades of maternal experience, I’m here to tell you that we need to stuff this exhausted fairy tale in the place where all the dirty disposal diapers go.
I only wish I’d realized it sooner.
My husband and I were married five years when my ob-gyn’s office called with the happy news: I was pregnant with our first and only child. While I knew from the getgo that I wasn’t perfect-mom material, I wanted to get everything right. Which is another way of saying I worried too much.
I worried about my Lamaze breathing techniques. I worried about the quality of my prenatal vitamins. And while waiting in my ob-gyn’s office, I’d manage to find every magazine article listing the awful things that could happen to your unborn baby if, say, you accidentally swallowed your eye shadow, consumed bacon fat, or picked up a weird rash at the community pool.
Of course, the pursuit of mommy perfection got even more intense after my son was born. And so did the worrying. Was my baby sleeping too much or too little? Was his relentless wiggling a symptom of hyperactivity or something more sinister? Had I stopped breastfeeding too soon? Worse yet, by the time the kid was in kindergarten, I’d already started berating myself for providing store-bought cupcakes in lieu of homemade treats.
Seriously, I did loosen up by the time my son was in Cub Scouts, and realized my parenting skills were no worse (or better) than the other moms I’d met. Regardless, it shouldn’t have taken a vast library of childcare guides to get me through the early years — but there you have it. What I needed more than anything was a permission slip to be human.
I also wish Anne Lamott had written her memoir, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year, eight years sooner. Her candid recollections of early parenthood have relieved thousands of nervous first-time mothers.
“One of the worst things about being a parent, for me,” Lamott wrote, “is the self-discovery, the being face to face with one’s secret insanity and brokenness.” Finishing Lamott’s book, I sobbed with the realization that I hadn’t been alone in my fear of being an imperfect mom – or being a mom, period.
Even today, the cultural pressures on women never seem to let up. Whether we stay home with our kids or work in an office across town, we’re expected to perform flawless balancing acts in the circus of family living.
Instead we ought to be reminded that there is no foolproof, one-size-fits-all method of parenting. Motherhood is something we learn as we go along, and we’re bound to fall short from time to time. Meanwhile, I wish we’d all stop comparing ourselves to other moms, including the fictional Donna Reed “role models” embedded in our collective psyche. Parenthood is no place for card-carrying perfectionists.
Ever since the first family set up housekeeping in a fire-lit cave, moms have been devising ways to protect their kids from real or imaginary monsters. That’s not such a bad thing. Still, it helps to temper our worries with common sense — and a little humor. We need to lighten up on ourselves.
Things have a way of working out, after all. My son, the once-wiggly toddler, graduated college and moved into his own place last year. Despite my inevitable parenting slips, he grew up to be a sturdy, independent guy who loves his imperfect mom — and often reminds her not to worry so much.
Cindy on January 27th, 2009
“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” – Joseph Chilton Pearce
It’s just a simple garden plaque, but I knew I had to order one as soon as I saw it in a mail-order catalog. Handcrafted from terra cotta, it announces in plain bold letters: EMBRACE IMPERFECTION.
I bought it to hang on a brick wall near the patio. But somehow, it looked out of place with the other ceramic plaques my husband and I had collected from summer art fairs. It was a little too perfect and needed some crafty touches — a few dabs of paint here and there to make it look old and weathered. Never one to argue, my artistic husband gave the plaque a nice patina and hung it where I would see it from the garden room window.
Now that I think about it, I should have ordered several to post all over the house. I’ve battled perfectionism most of my life, and while it has served me well at times, it usually makes me miserable. Sometimes it makes others miserable, too.
Perfectionism is the snarky little gremlin hissing in my ear when the floors are littered with muddy shoes and old newspapers. It tells me I’m a lousy housekeeper and that I shouldn’t even think of entertaining company until everything is spotless. It also likes to remind me that my table settings never look like the ones in Martha Stewart Living, anyway.
Perfectionism is the critical woman looking back at me in the mirror — the woman who thinks I need to lose more weight, or that the shirt I am wearing wasn’t ironed properly. She seems to suggest that I’ll never be as cool as Jamie Lee Curtis or Lauren Hutton.
Perfectionism is the imaginary editor looking over my shoulder while I type. She nags when my sentences are weak, and tells me that I’m not really a writer. If I really slip and misspell a word or dangle a modifier in one of my columns or articles, I brood for hours, convinced that my readers have lost faith in me, and that every English teacher in Oakland County has ripped my offending piece from the paper and waved it in front of her class. My imaginary editor never lets me forget.
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people,” warns novelist Anne Lamott. “It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.”
The crazy thing is, I know better. And oddly enough, I’ve always appreciated quirkiness in other people and the things they own. Distressed furniture, thrift-shop finds, overgrown cottage gardens, non-pedigree pets, freckles, and crooked smiles intrigue me. The people whose style I admire tend to be rule-breakers or different drummers. Even the saints were social misfits.
Years ago, on a photo shoot for a travel magazine, I learned that early Mennonite quilters stitched a “humility patch” –- a deliberate mistake — into each of their prized quilts. The patch served to remind the circle of quilters that only God can create a flawless masterpiece. When I can’t seem to get things right, I try to remember those intricately patterned quilts.
Like most card-carrying perfectionists, I began my career as a people-pleaser. As a kid I was told that if you can’t do something exactly right, it’s not worth doing at all. Looking for approval from teachers, I never colored outside the lines. As a teenager, I dressed to please my peers but avoided upsetting my parents. Finally, by the time I reached my forties, I realized the pursuit of perfection was futile, not to mention exhausting.
I know, now, that to embrace imperfection is to let go of the need to be right, or look good, all of the time. It’s never easy. But as Anne Lamott advises, I keep telling myself that messes and mistakes are proof that real life is being lived here. And even when I can’t fully embrace imperfection, as my garden plaque urges, I try, at least, to shake hands with it. — Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on January 12th, 2009
“I take rejection as someone blowing in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.” — Sylvester Stallone
This week I’m filling out entry forms and taking photos of my work for an art competition. I’m new at submitting my artwork to gallery competitions — and nervous about subjecting myself to a brand-new form of rejection. Here’s a column I wrote a few years ago about learning to deal with rejection as a writer. . . .
The Slings and Arrows of Rejection
I meet them every time I attend a cocktail party or a business function. They’re the stressed-out professionals who’d love to quit their jobs and try “something more fun.” Most of them want to get published. I was cornered by one of these aspiring authors at a seminar last month. A colleague of my husband’s, the man works as a designer for a high-profile architecture firm, but he really wants to be recognized for his byline.
The colleague said he wrote essays occasionally. He had experienced the fleeting thrill of seeing a couple of his pieces in the local paper — “a real high,” as he put it. He wanted to publish more often in Sunday newspaper magazines, and he wanted to earn some money for his writing. But after receiving several rejection slips, he was ready to give up.
“How do you handle the rejection?” he asked. “I just hate rejection.”
“Well, I deal with it the same way architects do when their designs get shot down,” I told him.
“Oh, no,” he said. “That’s not as personal.”
Rejection and its evil twin, Criticism, are part and parcel of the writing life. I don’t care much for either of them, yet both keep in touch with me periodically. And while it’s true that rejection letters can sting for a few days, eventually you get used to them. You learn to accept that you can’t hit the editorial bull’s-eye every time.
A fellow writer once offered this consolation, and I believe she’s right: If you’re not getting rejection letters, you’re not aiming high enough or sending out enough material. You have to toughen up, get busy, and hold your breath every time you open the mailbox. And you must start the process all over again.
As I reminded the guy from the architecture firm, “personal” rejection is hardly the sole province of publishing. Anything you dearly hope to achieve, including love itself, holds the possibility of loss. That said, I’ll admit that the very word “rejection” dissolves bone marrow and turns warm blood to ice water. On a really bad day, it can make even the most aggressive self-promoter drop her best ideas and run home.
That’s why I often share a favorite story about Madeleine L’Engle, whose award-winning children’s book, A Wrinkle in Time, was rejected by more than forty publishers before it finally went to press. “Every rejection slip was like the rejection of me, myself,” L’Engle wrote. But she believed in her book, believed in its power to inspire children, and absolutely refused to let it die. Today it remains a beloved best-seller for young people.
It also helps to remember that the craft of writing offers second and third chances. As Frank Lloyd Wright said, “A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.” Thankfully, redemption is so much easier for writers. We can reorganize, revise, revamp, and send our stuff out into the world again.
But the real secret to coping with rejection – aside from keeping faith in your own abilities — is to enjoy the process, the work itself. You have to fall in love with words and take pleasure in the way you string them together. And it’s essential to remember that publishing, as novelist Anne Lamott once said, is an addictive drug. Your last hit will never feel like enough.
Still, the small victories are sweet. Not long ago, one of my favorite pieces was rejected by a regional magazine. Several postage stamps later, it was accepted by a national publication for more money than I’d expected — and I hadn’t changed a word. That doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, of course. Just often enough to fuel my hopes and make my work more fun than architecture. – Cindy La Ferle
*This piece was first published in The Daily Tribune, Royal Oak, MI, then in my book, Writing Home. Last year it was excerpted in Sixty Candles: Reflections on the Writing Life, published by the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
