More Pages, Fewer Screens

I want to start and end my day with pages, not screens.

One of the best things about being away at a month-long writing residency was having my studio (and by extension, my laptop) in a separate building from my living quarters, which had no WiFi connection. Here at home, I live, work, and write in the same space. I spend a lot of time on my laptop while sitting on my couch or at the dining room table. I use a spare bedroom as a studio, but it's mere steps away from my own bedroom. And even if I put the laptop away, there's still my phone, with it's oh-so-easy access to email and all manner of social media.

Like so many others, I get sucked into the whirl of the online world and lose minutes and hours. Don't get me wrong: I love the Internet, including email and social media. These things connect me to people all over the world, inspire me, and enable me to run my business. There's also loads of wonderful reading to be done online. For all of this, I am grateful and delighted. (I even keep a few Pinterest boards with links to books I want to read, great writing I find online, and all sorts of resources for writing and living the writing life.)

But when I spend 40 minutes on Facebook reading dozens of comments from people I don't know about an acquaintance's personal drama-trauma, what the hell am I doing? Or when I click over to watch one of those viral videos and end up clicking through to watch five more of them. Really? Is this how I want to spend my time? I'm not so Puritanical as to eschew all pleasure and mindless activity, but when it starts to suck the life out of me instead of making me feel rested or energized, it's time to stage a personal intervention.

So I'm trying to stick my face in a book more often than I get stuck on Facebook.

I want to start and end my day with reading, which, as a writer, is more of a wonderful necessity than a luxury. I must remind myself of this all the time. Apparently I'm just Puritanical enough to think that something that gives me pleasure must be bad for me. But reading is essential to my work as a writer.

So I'm practicing opening a book before I open my laptop in the morning. At night, I hope to get to the point where I close my laptop at least two hours before I go to bed. And then I want to step away from the TV, turn the lights down lower, and read. I need to give my mind time to calm down. I'm tired of spending my days feeling overstimulated and underachieving.

I'm doing this not just for my mental health, but for my own writing practice, as well. As I've written about before, my creative work requires time and quiet. My month at Vermont Studio Center has helped me to tap back into my desire to live a life of letters and to make writing a priority. One of the best parts of my month there was sitting in a cozy armchair, reading a book with no where to be, looking up every so often to watch the trees sway in the wind above a half-frozen river.

So really, this whole "more pages, fewer screens" campaign is about several things. For one, it's about being mindful of how I spend my time. For another, it's about stepping away from the glowing light box and letting my body and mind rest from the constant onslaught of electronic information. (Plus, research indicates that the kind of light emitted by laptops and televisions screw with humans' circadian rhythms.) And yes, it's about reading more and writing more (even if I choose to write on the computer a lot!).

From time to time I hope to share with you what I'm reading, both in print and online, because it's not that pages are inherently any better than screens when it comes to quality content. There's a wealth of wonderful work online, and if I can just learn to stop frittering away my "screen time," I'll be reading more of it.

In my next post, I'll share some of the pages I've enjoyed reading lately.

Giving In to the Spinning World

I gave in a day early this year.

Thanksgiving Day is my holiday music demarcation line. No a-wassailing or fiiiive golden rings before the fourth Thursday in November, please. But Thanksgiving fell later than normal, and the weather had turned wintry, and I was tired of resisting the pull of holiday sparkle. So I gave in, all at once and happily.

But I'm slow to change with the seasons. I usually feel like I'm about a month behind. Just as I'm settling into menus of garden fresh tomatoes and sweet corn, the back-to-school commercials remind me that it's nearly soup time. I finallyfeel ready for fall at the beginning of November, when the splendor of autumn leaves has waned. Then it's Thanksgiving and already the world is on to Christmas. I look up and see that we're a week into December, and I realize we still haven't brought in the patio furniture, despite swearing we would this year before the first snowfall. As I write this, snow covers the table and the patio umbrella resting on the deck floor.

My birthday arrives at the end of next week (Friday the 13th!, which are good luck days for me). I never feel truly ready to think about Jesus' birthday until after I've celebrated my own. By then, there are only 12 days before Christmas, and then it's New Year's and the grey of January and bam: Happy Valentine's Day.

I'm trying to keep up with the turning of the seasons and calendar pages, this spinning wheel of a planet that flings us from month to month, year to year, closer and nearer to the sun, round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows. This is how we grow older: gradually, then suddenly*. I've been worrying about running out of time for awhile now.

But what's to be done about it? We spin with the world whether we want to or not. So I try to give in and go with it.

*This wonderful phrase is attributed to Hemingway, who answered thusly when he was asked "How did you go bankrupt? 
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly."

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If you enjoyed this post and are interested in writing about the big questions and the small moments that shape your life, you may be interested in One-moment Memoirs, a step-by-step process to guide you through discovering and telling your life's stories (big and small) in bite-sized pieces (perfect for blog posts and short essays).

If you'd like to be among the first to know when One-moment Memoirs launches in 2014, please join The Word Cellar mailing list.

Hello, Ohio (an everyday essay)

Hello, Ohio, the back roads

("Ohio," Over the Rhine)

Somewhere west of the Pennsylvania border but east of Columbus, the tree-dense slopes on either side of the highway started to ease themselves down to the ground. It was subtle enough that I don't notice it at first, but eventually the mountains shrunk to hills shrunk to fields, the way icebergs of plowed snow in parking lots melt and melt in the spring, until one day there's nothing but a puddle where once stood a dirty white mound. Out on the highway, maybe an hour from Columbus, the treetop vistas and the cradling valleys gave way to farmland flat as paper.

Last month I drove to and from Ohio twice in eleven days, and each time that I hit the edge of the heartland, an unexpected unease set in. The same thing happened a few years ago when I drove from Pennsylvania to Indiana for the first time. Somewhere around Sandusky the landscape changed, and I understood why Ohio is part of the Midwest. In all three cases, when the foothills of the Appalachians melted away into that plains carved by ancient glaciers, my internal compass went haywire. I felt twitchy. Overexposed. As though I were suspended in a perpetual state of waiting.

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In a grocery store parking lot in Ashland, Ohio, I saw an Amish family: Mother in her bonnet. Father in his beard and suspenders. Son in his little-man hat. They climbed into their black horse-drawn buggy and drove away. I was eating baby carrots and hummus inside my blue RAV-4, having a quick snack before I started the 190-mile trip home. With one or two rest stops along the way, I'd be back in my driveway in three and a half hours. The same trip in an Amish carriage would take nearly 24 hours. That's without stops and going full-tilt at a buggy's top average speed of eight miles an hour. If the horse is slow, you're looking at a full day, a full night, and a half day on the road.

** ** **

My second recent Ohio trip took me six hours west and south to Cincinnati, and then two minutes over the river into Kentucky. At that point things begin to tilt Southern, and the terrain picks up some more hills.

When I was a kid, six hours in the car invariably meant heading east to our family's annual New Jersey beach vacation.

Six hours on a plane can take me west to Seattle or east to London.

Six hours in a carriage with a fast horse would get me almost from my house to Pittsburgh International Airport fifty miles away.

** ** **

An old, lone tree stands in the middle of a field. You see it all the time in farmland if you look for it: a giant maple or oak keeping vigil on an island of grass, smack dab in the middle of tilled brown earth. A shady oasis for farmers, some say; a holdover from the old days before motorized equipment could take you quickly from the far end of the wide field to the barn. Or shade for livestock, should the field be used for grazing. Or a landmark by which to keep track of your location in all those featureless acres, others say. Or the result of intact land where large boulders made clearing it impossible. Or an invitation of hospitality to birds who eat the fieldmice. Or, as the Irish might say, a portal to the fairy world. Or a simple matter of aesthetics and sanity, something beautiful to rest the eyes from the terror of all that open space. A single tree in the perpetual act of waiting.

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Hi. So....I've been in Ohio lately, and when I sat down to tell you about it, what I'd intended as a blog post turned into the beginning of an essay, so I decided to share part of that beginning with you. I've had a terrible time trying to write essays lately, and now I think I've discovered the cure: Pretend to write a little blog post--nothing of import, a trifle, really--and then let it sprawl and unspool until you have several pages, a solid start to something more. Basically, I'm tricking myself into writing.

I'll be back soon with more scenes from Ohio, including some thoughts from the River Teeth Creative Nonfiction Conference and moments of beauty from a special Over the Rhine concert at Nowhere Farm.

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About Everyday Essays: At least a few times a week I jot down notes about something -- usually a small moment, detail, or thought -- that I want to write about. Most of those ideas stay frozen as notes and never bloom into essays. Everyday Essays is my writing practice to allow some of those notes to move beyond infancy. I've decided to share some of them with you here, even if they're still half-naked or half-baked. The word "essay" (as is almost always noted when the form is discussed) comes from the French verb essayer, which means to try. The essay is a reckoning, a rambling, an exploration, an attempt. Think of these Everyday Essays as freewriting exercises, rough drafts, or the jumbled, interconnected contents of my mind, which may or may not take root and grow into longer (deeper) essays.

Snow and Birdsong: The Time Between (an everyday essay)

This post is part of the "Everyday Essays" series. See below for a description of the series, and read others essays here.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.

T. S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"

These are the days of snow and birdsong. Soggy brown yards and a few green slips of daffodil leaves. The time between.

This is the end of March in southwestern Pennsylvania, the Keystone State that doesn't truly belong to any one region.

Keystone (noun): the wedge-shaped piece at the crown of an arch that locks the other pieces in place

Keystone (noun): something on which associated things depend for support

Where and what are we, here in the shadow of the Laurel Mountains, those foothills of the Appalachians?

Not exactly the Northeast, despite our chilly, white winters. This isn't New England with its cold ground holding firm well into April.

Not the South by any means, despite our humid summers. It's true that West Virginia is just an hour away and that traces of a southern drawl twang in the conversations of people still on this side of the border, but we're Yankees here in the Commonwealth.

This isn't the East Coast, since this corner of the state sits six hours inland. Some people try to wed us to Ohio and lump us in with the flat Midwest, but I'm not buying it. Have you seen the hills in these parts?

So here we are, the middle of everywhere, suspended in the slice of time that feels like the center of all time. Everything depends on everything else.

Winter and spring play catch with each other in the wind. We all know how this game goes, and by the last day of March our money is on spring every time. But even the most stalwart gamblers among us start to wonder if maybe this time we should have hedged our bets. (Just the other day I found myself peeking under pieces of shrubbery, looking for a purple jackpot of crocus. The next day that same shrubbery disappeared under six inches of snow.)

I've stayed inside all week, sitting on the couch and breathing through my mouth in the suspended animation of a late-winter (early-spring?) sinus infection. Tonight I drank a glass of mud-green smoothie, willing the chlorophyll to work a miracle in my own pale cells. Pots of tea (green, white, black) keep me warm while snow flurries swirl and melt before adding themselves to the little icebergs of leftover snow-ice edging the road. (A robin hops between two large chunks at the end of my driveway.) My fridge holds huge bouquets of kale and a small plastic square of organic blueberries. I'll have a superfood banquet while I wait for breath, for sunlight, for the shift from here to now.

Quick now, here, now, always -

** ** **

(The final line of this essay is also taken from Eliot's "Burnt Norton.")

About Everyday Essays: At least a few times a week I jot down notes about something -- usually a small moment, detail, or thought -- that I want to write about. Most of those ideas stay frozen as notes and never bloom into essays. Everyday Essays is my writing practice to allow some of those notes to move beyond infancy. I've decided to share some of them with you here, even if they're still half-naked or half-baked. The word "essay" (as is almost always noted when the form is discussed) comes from the French verb essayer, which means to try. The essay is a reckoning, a rambling, an exploration, an attempt. Think of these Everyday Essays as freewriting exercises, rough drafts, or the jumbled, interconnected contents of my mind, which may or may not take root and grow into longer (deeper) essays.

Wherever You Go (an Everyday Essay)

This post is part of the "Everyday Essays" series. See below for a description of the series, and read others essays here.

I don't know why I was sitting alone in that small-town McDonalds 18 years ago, but I do remember that I sat in the corner by the window. In my memory of this scene, I can sense that I felt sad and alone, but I don't remember why. (This was some time during my college years, so feeling sad and alone wasn't exactly unusual then.) As I stared out the window at cars driving by, I listened to the inner monologue chattering away in my own head. Call it an inner monologue, thoughts, or prayer, I was reaching out to something inside of me and greater than me, seeking connection and a sense of meaning and love in it all. And then, in-between bites of french fries, an epiphany of the obvious materialized from thin air and hovered between me and the Formica tabletop: You are never really alone. No matter where you are or how alone you feel, no one can take away the thoughts in your head, the love in your heart, the knowledge in your spirit.

Wherever you go, there you are.

My dad likes that saying. He's also fond of: If you lived here, you'd be home by now.

On the surface, these are silly little truisms. But like most clichés, there's a deeper meaning wrapped up in them.

When I lived in England for a year after college, I learned to do all sorts of things by myself (first because I didn't know anyone, and then when everyone else was busy). I went sightseeing alone. I learned to navigate public transportation on my own. I ate out by myself. I went to movies and plays without a date. I visited museums and attended concerts solo. I didn't always feel at ease with being alone in public, but I was determined to not let that stop me from making the most of that year.

Wherever I go, there I am.

My friend Liz has a beautiful mirror meditation practice that she uses to feel less alone, to feel seen, and to bear witness to the truth of her life and her self. Sometimes she documents the moment through photography, and sometimes she just spends a moment looking herself in the eye. (She's exploring and sharing this practice in Water Your Soul next month.) Again and again, she meets herself in the mirror.

Wherever she goes, there she is.

Earlier this month I went to The Moth StorySlam in Pittsburgh, prepared to get up on stage and tell a story should my name be pulled out of the hat. (Alas, it was not, but more about that experience in a later post.) I've been dreaming of telling stories on stage for a long time, and I was finally ready to take that leap. My husband (my biggest supporter and the one who keeps me grounded) was supposed to go with me, but things changed at the last minute and he couldn't go. I went by myself, but I wasn't alone. I took my friends with me: I wore my "Just Be True" shirt from Jen, my misfit bauble necklace from Kelly, my wedding and engagement rings from James, the fingerless gloves that I wore when Viv took this photo of me (one of my favorites), this Anna Joyce hoodie that Liz had turned me on to via Pinterest, and some Texture posh pants that I'd bought when I was with Liz in Seattle a few years ago. Pretty much everything on my body (minus my shoes, socks, and underwear) was conceived of, handmade by, bought for me as a gift by, or somehow connected to people who know and love and support me. These physical items are talismans, reminders of rootedness and connection.

Wherever we go, there we are.

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About Everyday Essays: At least a few times a week I jot down notes about something -- usually a small moment, detail, or thought -- that I want to write about. Most of those ideas stay frozen as notes and never bloom into essays. Everyday Essays is my writing practice to allow some of those notes to move beyond infancy. I've decided to share some of them with you here, even if they're still half-naked or half-baked. The word "essay" (as is almost always noted when the form is discussed) comes from the French verb essayer, which means to try. The essay is a reckoning, a rambling, an exploration, an attempt. Think of these Everyday Essays as freewriting exercises, rough drafts, or the jumbled, interconnected contents of my mind, which may or may not take root and grow into longer (deeper) essays.