What do you DO?

What do you do?

It's such a loaded question. Usually, the asker wants to know your occupation, your job? Sometimes I get this from adults. Cocktail conversation at the neighborhood party or someone in a writing class.

What do you do?

Ahem, well.

I'm in between, I say. Used to own a store, now home with the kids. You know, until Little Guy is in kindergarten or some such.

Yesterday, however, I got the what do you do from a nine year old girl. Her Momma is a big wig at Gillette.

Well, I said, I'm a writer. Little girl's eyes big as saucers. Wow.

Just trying it out for size.

Right now

It turns out that a large majority of the people in my writing classes either don't have children or have much older children than mine. Out of fifteen people in a class, there might be one other person with young kids.

Once, a younger woman without children commented about how lucky I was to have all of the time that I have to write. You know, because I'm not working. I can't blame her really, she couldn't possibly understand what it is like to be at home with a three year old. And the writers without kids have jobs, spouses, responsibilities. We all have things that get in the way. But the fact that so few of the others have small children always leaves me wondering if I am supposed to be doing this. Or better yet, if I am supposed to be doing this right now.

Every time I come home late from class or a meeting, I make a point to peek in on my sleeping children. I do it on purpose. It's a little trick, like putting on music that you know will make you feel a certain way. The Cure for feeling young again. A certain U2 song for being newly married and on that trip to Italy. Sleeping children for making you feel the magic of motherhood.

Stretched out in their single beds, my kids take up so much less space than I expect them to. So much less space than they take up in my life. They complicate everything and yet I love them desperately. Fiercely.

So do I have bad timing? Maybe, but I can't go back, and I can't imagine waiting ten more years. So this is where we are. Right now.

Mother Writer

Yesterday I spent the afternoon making homemade spaghetti sauce. We planned to celebrate Girlie's 9th birthday with cupcakes and presents after dinner and she asked for spaghetti, so I wanted it to be special.

It had already been a busy day. It had also been one of those days. Little Guy was literally hanging on me every second. Laundry was getting washed but not folded. The dishwasher was full of clean dishes, but not unloaded, so the new dirties were stacking up. I had only just wrapped Girlie's presents minutes before she got home from school. Hubs texted me that he had to work late, so he'd only arrive just as dinner was ready. There were emails to answer, an assignment for a class I am taking that is still, even now, incomplete.

When Hubs came home and asked how my day had been, I almost said, "Fine, but there's some woman killing chickens in our basement."

What I meant was that my laptop was sitting down there, with a story half baked, one that had been burning in my head for the day. But it was one of those days. So the story sat half written, just at the part where the woman picked up the first chicken.

Such is the life of a mother-writer. Lots of stops and starts, and squeezing it in. Heaps of neglect of either the writing or the family. Or both.

So now I have to get back to that woman. I hope I can remember why she's killing the chickens. Maybe she was thinking about dinner?

Or maybe that was just me.

Days Longer and Shorter

As we move out of winter, the days are starting to get longer. It has been a hard winter, but I can't say I am ready for spring just yet.

The extra sunshine is lovely, but it also means that Little Guy is starting to wake up earlier. He has always been one of those children that wakes at daybreak. We have blackout shades in his room and yet still it seems like his body knows when the sun is starting to come up. Today he woke at 5:45 and it was still just dark enough that I could send him back to bed for a few more minutes, but that will end soon too.

Every writer has an ideal time of day to write. I wish I was one of those evening people or the ones up until all hours, but I'm not. My best work happens before noon, but the mid morning hours are usually busy with the family, so to capture it, I have to get up before everyone else.

As spring approaches, the early waking means that there will be less of my best morning creativity. The days will get longer until finally it is summer when both kids are home and it seems I never get any decent work done. Though the turning point for daylight happens in late June, I never notice it until July, and even then, it will take much longer for me to make the shift. Hot, stagnant, marked by dull lack of progress, dog days indeed. By August I will barely be writing.

Now I am looking back on the time I've lost, the dark January mornings that I didn't get up. One day my children will be old enough to get out of bed on their own. Or they'll finally hit the phase where I am dragging them out of bed. Until then, I'll be looking forward to fall, and even now as the snow is still melting, I find myself thoroughly excited about next winter.

Mothers Who Write Reading

Come join me this Saturday night! I will be reading a piece I wrote at the the annual “Mothers Who Write, Mothers Who Read” Mother’s Day Weekend Reading. You'll hear my piece, plus tons of other fantastic writing by some really talented women.

Saturday, May 9, 2009 at 6 p.m.

Stage Two, Scottsdale Center for the Arts

Please note: Some material may not be suitable for children