One Little Elephant

But apparently it offends others so the original post for this title has been removed while I consider whether it is more important to be honest or "nice".

Something that is helping me write today: (or perhaps keeping me from writing?) How honest should I be in my work? And what responsibility do I have to others if my 'truth' makes them uncomfortable?

I worked a temporary job this summer: long hours, good money, sent the oldest off to college without going into debt (Yay!). But the job left little time to write, keep house, or be the doting wife and mother my family is accustomed to. Consequently, the entire family was adamant that they wanted no permanent job in my future.

Cool by me!

So following some time spent digging out of the mess caused by the housekeeper/errand-runner/life-coach/woman-of-all-jobs being busy elsewhere, I'm finally back to writing. After being away from it a while, writing again feels a bit wobbly but still just as delicious.

But it's not honey unless it attracts flies...

I keep running into people who claim to heartily support my choice to stay home to cook and clean and write, but then shoot tiny guilt-inducing arrows at me for doing so.

Is it because in their minds writing isn't real work, that the words "writer" and "housewife" are really secret code for "woman on perpetual holiday"?

Is it because they see my joy and wish they felt that way about how they spend their days? Very possibly. But they chose their own path, so why begrudge me mine?

Is trying to understand their motivations even worthwhile? Regardless of the whys of their behavior, beyond asking them to stop loading their bows, I have no control over the arrows they choose to loose. What I do have control over is my vulnerability to those tiny guilt-dipped arrows. In the end, their poisoned barbs can only pierce what's already been weakened by my own insecurities. So I suppose I'll simply work on me.

Something that's helping me write today: This absolutely gorgeous September day and the knowledge that, generally, even if I had the power to alleviate another's unhappiness by giving up my own happiness, doing so wouldn't be healthy for either of us.

I am a Dr. Pepper addict. So today is a bad day for me. You see as I sat enjoying a Dr. Pepper while watching the evening news I saw something on the screen which means I won't be buying my beloved Pepper for a long while to come - if ever again.

The Dr. Pepper Company is making record profits. Yet they are soooo greedy that they are cutting the wages and benefits of the very folks who produce their products. This impacts not only the families of the workers who lose a portion of their income, it affects the entire economy of the community to which they belong.

If the Dr. Pepper worker can no longer afford to take his family to a Friday night ball game and buy his kid a hotdog, the guys vending the hotdogs, cleaning the stands, taking the tickets, and manicuring the field earn less. SOOOOO when those vendors/cleaners/ticket-takers/groundskeepers go to church on Sunday their tithes are less, their Sunday suppers are more frugal, and they may be driving home on threadbare tires. That means the town's mechanics, grocers, and pastors all have less as well. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people suffer the consequences of the Dr. Pepper execs' greed. And I suspect those heartless execs congratulate themselves on causing all this pain by giving themselves fat bonuses from their enormous profits.

It makes me SICK!

So here's to you, Dr. Pepper Company. Thanks for curing me of my Dr. Pepper addiction. Not one more dime will I knowingly spend on your product until your execs grow a conscience.

So what does this have to do with writing? I don't know. Anyone care to stretch for some sort of meaning?

Something that's helping me write today: The boiling of my blood caused by a monumental sense of betrayal that the company I have spent so many dollars, days, and calories on has turned out to be a villain of the highest order.

My previous temp job called me back to work a 2-3 week contract. So I'm putting in long hours to tuck away a little back-to-high-school-and-college stash for the kids.

But if you dropped by I didn't want to send you away empty-handed. Here is a must-read article by Stephen Ransom, PHD. His predictions about the future of Publishing's Big Six and what it will mean for writers and why are definitely food for thought. Read it all. He doesn't get to the more interesting points until several pages in.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17243194/RansomStephens-FutureOfPublishing

So what do you think? Is he right or wrong?

Something that's helping me write today: A notepad and pen. Even when I don't have time to sit and write for long stretches I can still plot storylines in my head and jot them down during odd free moments.

“You’re going to regret planting all those trees.”

She stands before the floor to ceiling windows that march across the back of my house, looking past the stretch of lawn to the dense stand of greenery beyond. It’s a ritual, this Condemning of the Trees, repeated each time she visits. I say nothing, forever bewildered at her inability to savor the dignified majesty of the oak, the colorful flirtatiousness of the crepe myrtle, the gentle serenity of the redbud, and the mysterious promise of wondrous autumn color secreted away in the green leaves of the maple and elm.

Blue jays and cardinals dart between the birdfeeder and birdbath. Their smaller less flashy cousins flit among the trees, alert for a chance to dive in for a bath or a meal when the more aggressive fellows are distracted.

She scowls at the trees, the birds that ornament them, and the beagles that loll in lazy comfort beneath their shade. “If one of those trees falls it’ll damage the house. Then you’ll be sorry.”

Again I say nothing, thinking of the mighty twin oaks felled by a spring storm last year. They missed the house, but as my husband said as we stood in the yard together grieving them, he could have fixed the house. Eighty year old trees are harder to replace.

“Trees are trouble,” she states firmly, then wanders away from the window. I sigh, relieved that the ritual of the Condemning of the Trees is nearly over.

She’d once had trees in her own yard, some even larger than my twin oaks. But after her husband died she’d removed them, one after another, glowing with relief as each was cut down, smiling with satisfaction as its dissected trunk was hauled away, its glorious branches fed to a shredder. I remained silent. Her yard is none of my business. But her elation at the sterile expanse of grass remaining baffled me.

When the trees were no more she removed the bushes and flowers as well, razing the flower beds.

Time passed and she began to complain about her neighbors' trees, fretting over their very existence, annoyed that each autumn her large fenced yard, now unprotected by a tree canopy, became a collecting basin for the leaves falling and blowing from the suburban forest beyond her fence. The leaves blanketed the grass like multi-colored snow, inches deep in some places. They piled in yellow and orange drifts against her shed. It was the one time of year her yard looked pretty. To me.

“Trees,” she says reproachfully as she settles on my couch, her back firmly to the glorious display beyond the window.

I take a seat facing the birds and beagles and beauty. And we talk about subjects on which we can agree.

So what does this little tale have to do with writing? Each person has their own version of what is pleasing, beautiful, and nurturing to them. Create for yourself, from yourself, what is pleasing to you. Share it with those who appreciate it. Don’t be disconcerted by those who do not.

Something that’s helping me write today: the coo of mourning doves.