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Nov 17

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Cathy: Exalted Warrior – or is it ‘exhausted’?

11-13-2008yogablog-006After Miranda’s blog on “Someday,” I began to rethink things. A big thing I began to rethink is how I’ve gone from my daily walks down to nothing in the concept of exercise or taking care of myself. That was number two on my comment list. I’ve noticed a considerable increase in crankiness because of it, too; as well as less efficiency in writing my manuscript. I won’t go into the aches and pains.

Before my past year-plus spent in bed, I had a regular routine of a 20-minute yoga tape I did for years at least three times per week. Before I was in bed, I walked the dog quickly, and mowed the lawn myself with an ecologically sound, human-powered rotary blade mower. I cut down dead bushes, dug out root balls and hand-tilled my gardens by myself. Mind you, none of this was ever easy for me, as I have back issues going as far back as age 12 and bad knees, shoulder, etc, too. Physical strength was never my strong suit.

After my year in bed, I had taken a while to get back on my feet. This summer I started with walking the dog, pushing Baby C in the stroller, because I literally couldn’t stand on my own. I was determined, though, and daily, no matter how much it hurt, how tired I was, how hot it got here — around 100 degrees most days — at 11:00 in the morning, there I was, dog on a leash, baby, bottle of water, canvas bag hanging from stroller filled with books — reading, writing, Wreck this Journal, and camera inside. Neighbors spotted me and waved on the street loop of my subdivision. I swear it was these walks (along with this website) and my recouping meditative sits on the bench by the fingerlake that got me back to a state where I could consider breaking out my old, not forgotten project.

A couple of weeks back, somehow, by rain, cold or sheer sleep deprivation, I fell out of the habit. Co-incidentally, my writing progress fell off, too. Then I read Miranda’s blog post. Several days were spent considering I may be in enough recovery from my super-relaxin hormone problem to start doing yoga again without coming apart at every joint.

Today, I got Baby C to nap, and cleaned out the video cabinet in the search for my old reliable yoga tape. Among other surprises, I discovered a broken shelf held up by the strategic placement of a Raiders of the Lost Ark videotape — need to have a discussion with certain young male family members. But finally, I did the yoga tape. I’m finding long-forgotten muscles creeping up on me a couple of hours later, but I feel much more relaxed, less impatient than yesterday. Maybe tonight I can get through homework with S without the recent dramas — mine, not his. Those are to be expected. And maybe the gears of fiction will grind back on, squeaky and creaky, matching body during yoga, but on nonetheless.

Nov 17

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Mary: Revitalize, Renew, Recreate

Before he died, my father told me that he thought I should keep writing. “Don’t stop,” he said. “You have so much to give to the world. Keep it up.”

I thought it odd that he told me all this, as if it was his way of somehow saying good-bye. He is saying good-bye, I thought with a plunging heart. I hung up and burst into tears.

It was the last conversation I had with him.

His death hit me hard, naturally, but I managed to power through the first few months, mainly because I had a small child who wouldn’t have understood the concept of death or loss, and who merely wanted to play with his stuffed animals, make “cookies” out of old buttons and a handful of pizza dough, and happily socialize with all of the friends and relatives who drifted in and out during that time.

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A few months after that, I sat down and began to write my book. Oh, slowly at first, with intentions of a short story, but it began to take its own shape, and soon I had 2,000 words, than 3,000, than 5,000, then 20,000, and it kept going, on and on. I had never intended to write my first book for children. I had never intended to write a book at all.

But the words tumbled out, arising after a long, horrendous bout of writer’s block (about which I am wont to mention; I will only say that it was a supremely hellish time, all around). The words came, and I breathed an “ahhhhhh!” as if I had been in a stuffy, stinky room for ages, and had suddenly opened the door to a clean, dazzlingly clear sky.

This book. This book. It poured out. It split open and was torrential, I couldn’t keep my fingers from moving, my mind whizzed like snappy clockwork. I wrote at social events. I wrote while driving. I wrote at the dinner table. I wrote at night, begging for release from the insomnia. And I couldn’t always get it physically down on paper. The sheer frustration from this was driving me to want to kick walls. I think I may actually have kicked one or two. And perhaps even a car door. (Or, at least a tire. Is that so wrong)?

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But, for all of this, I was happy, so dad-blamed ecstatic. For here was the moment, when I became free of whatever was binding me before. Free of The Block. Start the celebration. Insert party here.

The startling thing to contemplate is that it started with my father’s death. He, in his ultimate yielding to fate, life, nature, whatever name you’d like to give it, had left me a superlative gift of self-discovery and renewal. In the very suffering I felt from his falling away from all of us, I found a voice.

And it is in this voice that I began to create a story. Not a contemporary, adult story, full of nuance, sophistication, and cynical-yet-kicky phrases — but in a story for kids. A fairy tale, no less. Which I might not have summoned up, had it not been for the fact that I am, or was, a daughter of a brilliant man.

And also, I might mention, I am a mother.

My children provide a certain sense of renewal for me, as I am sure many children to for their mothers. Sometimes I feel as if every day is Christmas.

I have the sensation of being able to click on and off a button that imparts the vision of a child’s mind on life and the world, presented to this older person’s eye. That street corner over there is just a street corner, and then — oh, my, there it is — not just a street corner, but an interesting, alive place, full of wonder and depth, a suitable backdrop for a musical, or a place of magic and potential for all things glorious and shiny. The way a child sees things — or at least how I saw everything when I was a child.

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I must admit, this way of seeing the world can sometimes be altogether disconcerting for a cranky adult, but it makes me so happy when I can get into their world. So I suppose it really shouldn’t be any big surprise that the first book I attempt is one for kids. These little ones have amplified me to a point where I am getting inside their heads, imagining, pretending with them, and this book is a physical testament to the natural progression of my life as it is.

I am assured by this renewal that all things are growing how they need to grow, now. I am slowly, slowly heading in a direction where I am comfortable. One knows that a thing in one’s life is good and real, when the boundaries and restrictions seem to fall away, and a flowing sort of path presents itself.

How superb is it, when a battle full of spurts and stops suddenly concedes and lets in something that, at times, feels like it’s not even being created by me, but by another thing, an entity outside of myself?

That entity outside myself might be starting from me, or might be starting from somewhere else, but it’s stretching way up to the sky somewhere. It’s my dad. It’s my children. It’s the particular way that this humanity has woven itself through my center and threaded in these generations so much a part of myself — as they always have been, and always will be. I’m humbled and honored by this. And hoping — even believing — that it might last awhile longer.

Mary Germanotta Duquette
http://www.ophelia-rising.com
http://www.amapofme.wordpress.com
http://www.maryduquette.com