I've been working on this book for two weeks now. I've written a lot in the meantime, but as far as the actual book goes, I have exactly one page written, which I workshopped all last night and still am not happy with. My mom asked if I was following any sort of outline or time line, and as of yet, I'm not. It's hard to come up with an outline since I'm still not entirely sure what all I want the book to contain. I figured I'd just write like a banshee for a few weeks and see what resulted. But if I've only written a page in two weeks, I think it's time to find some kind of schedule to stick to.
I've come across a few obstacles so far with this writing business. Firstly is my husband. I'm sure he doesn't do it on purpose, but he is great company and a fabulous companion. So during weekday evenings when we usually watch "The Office" or "Dog the Bounty Hunter" reruns and talk and laugh and cuddle together on the couch, I am now armed with pen and paper at the kitchen table or glued to the computer. Choosing writing over TV time with the man I love is definitely a hard sacrifice to make. It's as John from the writing group said, writing is a lonely business. It's sitting at the table by myself all evening long with only my thoughts to keep me company.
If I have to be alone anywhere, though, it's nice that it's the kitchen table. I find it's my favorite place to work. It's a nice solid surface for scribbling in my composition book. I just grab myself a glass of iced tea from the kitchen and get to work. My table is open to the living room, and there are many windows that look out to the all the trees that surround our apartment. And I can soften the dining room light with the dimmer switch that Chris and I installed when we first moved in (which was a task and a half, but that's another blog). It's a very cozy feeling.
Kitchen tables are made for important memories, I think. It's where meals are served, daily conversation is had, Easter eggs are colored, toothpick bridges are built. My mom spends a lot of time at the kitchen table paying bills and working on projects. It's always the place to find her in the evenings. In both the house of my childhood and in her current house, you can see the kitchen table from the door. She always has the front door open when the weather allows it and oftentimes, as you walk up the sidewalk, you can see her sitting here working, unaware of her approaching visitor. It's a rather comforting image for me, which is probably why I find the kitchen table such an encouraging workspace.
The kitchen table can only hold its trance over me for a certain amount of time, however. Because my topic of choice is my grandfather, who is newly deceased, another obstacle of the writing process is my own emotion. After about an hour, I find myself getting caught up in all the memories, and writing about it becomes unbearable. In a way, it's keeping the wound fresh. Everything about this experience is emotional, it seems. For example, the last two weekends, I've juggled back and forth about whether or not I should make a trip home to gather some of Grandpa's things and recipes for inspiration, but mostly just to walk around his house again before anything in it was changed. My cousin and his wife are considering moving into his house, and it may be sooner or later, so I was determined to get home again before that happened.
My husband, the voice of reason, tried to help me understand how unnecessary that was, reminding me of how far away home really is. It's not like I can just "run home." It's a two and a half hour drive, so even if I were to stay only a few hours once I got there, it would consume the entire day, most of it spent staring out of the car window at the same old boring farmland that spans from one side of the state to the other. It would be a large waste of gas (an expensive waste, too) for what? The house will still be there next month. "Nothing will be different," he assured me.
"Everything will be different!" I exclaimed. His things will be moved. His smell will be gone. His spirit will have wilted and it will just be another house. I needed to touch the furniture, the counters, I needed to climb the stairs and stand in that bedroom that I called mine at one time. I needed to have that last moment with him in his house, my last chance to experience his presence, to feel his comfort. It was an encounter I craved, not only for the book's sake, but for my sake.
The furniture has been moved already, most of it removed. And my aunts and uncles have organized what remains, arranging things in boxes or taking some things home with them. I'm hoping none of that will matter when I finally get my chance to go inside.
When my grandmother died, we would pay to have Mass in her honor a few times a year. It would always be a Saturday evening Mass. My grandpa, my cousin, and I would take up the gifts during the collection. We would all go out to the cemetery after Mass and Father would say a few words, and we'd all let go of balloons, sending them up into heaven for her to enjoy.
In my current book-about-how-to-write-books, I read a blurb written by a student in some writing class, a name that was changed to protect anonymity, called, "On Grief" that went like this:
"Time heals nothing. Those that are gone, stay gone. Your heart is like a balloon with it, a gloomy balloon. The kind that rolls on the floor after bad parties. Swollen and dejected. Might explode at any minute... In grief, the air around us is filled with the heaviness of loss and our chest is filled like a rising balloon. A sinking balloon. Our chest is filled too full with some gas heavier than air."
I love that image of the balloon rolling on the floor after a bad party. Is there anything so sad as deflating balloons? I don't think so.
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