I live in California in a sunny valley full of avocado and citrus orchards with my husband and child, a dog and a cat. I’m 5’5”, red hair, brown eyes, enjoy long walks on the beach. Actually one time I went to this beach with lots of waves crashing and I went for a long walk but then started feeling like throwing up and for a while I was really confused, like, was it something I ate? Am I getting the flu? Until I realised that it was the combination of the movement of the waves coupled with my own movement and that I was, in a word, seasick! I felt like such a loser. How can you get seasick from the land? So, maybe let’s edit that to “enjoys short walks on the beach.”
I love to read. I like to write. At night I generally read really really great books and think despondent things like “holy shit this is so good why do I even try?!” and resolve to give up writing FOREVER. In the morning though, I find myself trying to write again. Blame Substack: since I joined I’ve been so excited to have found a place to read and share writing that I just keep going.
I started writing for real about 10 years ago. Before that I just dicked around. So to speak. Because I was between husbands. I mean, not between my husbands. But between …you catch my drift. It’s just something people do sometimes. Get your heads out of the gutter. Stop being so immature. At some point I published a book of bad poetry about butts and farts. It is my pride and joy. Astonishingly, it didn’t sell, so I just started leaving copies on the backs of toilets in public restrooms. Best place for ‘em.
But seriously, when I first started writing for real, I immediately began to use it as a kind of *cathartic, writing about traumatic events, etc. (*In medicine, a cathartic is a substance that accelerates defecation.) I began to notice that when I did this kind of writing, I was almost guaranteed attention. Wait a minute, was I exploiting the bad parts of my own life? I wasn’t sure, so continued to write down the things that needed working out, but stopped sharing them, because I had become suspicious of my motives. Nowadays I do my damndest to avoid trauma writing, which I think should be differentiated from writing from trauma, which comprises a lot of writing, whether or not it’s traumatic to read.
I try to avoid reading much of it either. My whole aim in life since I’ve become a mother is to stay cheerful and positive and reading so many sad stories can make that hard sometimes. Maybe I’m trying to create a protective bubble in reaction to raising a young child during the pandemic while dealing with my own health problems. I tried to explain to someone recently that I stopped reading the news because it was just making me cry all the time and how do you play with your six year old if you’re crying all the time? I got reprimanded for it, told it’s my responsibility to stay aware, but I think I can stay plenty aware without reading the news every day. I guess I’m a little defensive about it, about what can be perceived as avoidance, but you know the adage, “peace begins at home?” I feel the importance of it more and more these days. Peace in me, my child, the world.
Since becoming a full-time mom 6 years ago, and until I joined Substack, I wrote very rarely. When my son was a toddler I cobbled together a couple of manuscripts from what I’d been working on before he was born. One of the manuscripts was funny, light-hearted. The other was a memoir (ew!) about a divorce (double ew!) I eventually self-published it, but the self-pitying tone drove me crazy so I scrapped it. You can do that, if you self-publish. Phew! Good call.
These days, I’m mostly writing funny stuff, which is way more …fun. But I’m also rewriting the gooey divorce memoir—this time, from the long view. Always take the long view, if possible, something I couldn’t have known when I was closer-up.
The whole story is about falling in love with an alcoholic while trying to avoid being an alcoholic myself. Then I blew up the marriage by having an affair, then I did some stuff involving oats, wild ones, the sowing of, then I went grain-free and met my husband, then we adopted a baby, all the while staying friends with my ex-husband, who is sober now. He’s helping me with the memoir, helping me remember stuff, chatting about the good old days, or just the old days, with all of the insight and perspective that time and distance can give to memory. My current husband is helping too, reading, thinking, talking about it all. That they are both involved is to me one of the most touching and wonderful things ever. My husband refers to the characters (one of whom is me) as sympathetic or silly, depending on their behavior—or if he wants a good dinner.
The main thing, though, is that this time, the story has a happy ending.
I’m a slow writer. Partly because I’m lazy but partly because I’m often sick. I have multiple autoimmune diseases, which, besides their myriad weird symptoms, also fuck with my immune system in that I just get sick a lot. I spend a lot of time in bed. To be fair, I have a very nice bedroom. Don’t tell anyone, but it is largely pink. In between illnesses I’m full of beans, dancing and hiking and being what my kid calls “fun mom.” I don’t want to misrepresent myself. My apple watch says I’m very strong. But I do wonder how many other writers are writing from illness, or feeling less-than, or some kind of incapacitation, without ever letting on.
Sometimes I have a thyroid complication that I wouldn’t wish on my own worst enemy. I asked my fancy thyroid specialist why this happens to me. It’s a rare syndrome. I don’t love being so special. Why me, Doc? Why is my thyroid doing this? I don’t know, she said, the thyroid just does shit. Those were her exact words and I found them oddly comforting. And, like everyone keeps pointing out, because it is true, a lot of good things can come from shitty things: via my efforts to soothe my anxiety about illness I discovered yoga, meditation, breathing techniques, and, more important than anything else, the ability to be gentle with myself when my body is betraying trying a little too hard to protect me. (Being gentle with myself generally includes saying embarrassing affirmations, binge watching shows, and a lot of potato chips.)
The flare up is horrible when it happens. Thankfully it doesn’t last more than a few weeks, but when it happens all I can do is ask myself if anyone could possibly deserve this.
No one, I answer.
Not even Donald Trump?? I ask.
I’ll think about it, I say.
Well??
Nope. Not even him, I say. But ask me again after the next election.
But mostly I feel good. Or great, actually. I love where I live, my family, and just dicking around. My parents instilled a pretty strong philosophy in me that life is mostly about feeling pleasure, or should be, if you can possibly make it be. Without the use of hard drugs, ideally. So I try to make it be. Mostly I just suffer from menopause and motherhood, for which I blame the government. Yes, the government. It’s summer “vacation”, you see? Or as my six-year-old likes to say, “Capiche?”
Great piece, my friend! I so agree about the distance piece. There are certainly some subject matters I can write well (in ways I’ll continue to feel good about) while still close to them. But much of it (life turned memoir) is better wrought from a distance for me.
I too share the autoimmune “fun.” Thank you for sharing. Lots of 💙 your way.
It was great knowing more about you! I’m looking forward to reading the pieces of your memoir you’ve published here. Maybe this summer I can find a little more time and dig into it. Glad you’re staying strong!