Stepping into something else
My dear Brett is like the protagonist in an Anne Tyler novel. Every time I read one of her books, I’m reminded of this. He’s a little odd, vulnerable, and has a tremendously good heart.
Speaking of Anne Tyler, here’s a fine article about how she manages to be a mother and a writer both; something I cannot manage to do.
I’ve always had a shameful suspicion that if I should ever find myself locked in a cell in some foreign country — the kind frequently targeted by Amnesty International — with no one to talk to and nothing to write with, that I wouldn’t be one of those people who cut themselves so they can scrawl poetry across the walls in their own blood. No, I’m afraid that I would waste the ten or twenty years of my sentence daydreaming.
My therapist says that daydreaming counts but she’s not a writer so I don’t really take her word for it. Anyway, back to Anne Tyler, here’s a quote that echoes my own thoughts pretty well:
“I want to live other lives. I’ve never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.”
When I was a kid, I used to like to look into people’s lit windows as we went driving by at night. It pained me — a real, physical pain that hit me right in the center of my body — that I couldn’t somehow step into their lives. I also like to imagine living in someone else’s house (a specific someone, someone from my childhood). I try to remember every little thing I can about their home: the ceramic, hand-painted Christmas tree with tiny lights poking through the holes punched through each branch; the electric can opener painted goldenrod and mounted next to their sink; the way the light in their bathroom was tinted beige.
I have no discipline; that’s why I don’t write things down. I’m scattered, unfocused, and my attention span is awfully short. I’m clinging to the hope that when my child(ren) is/are bigger (in school maybe, this is just one reason that I don’t want to homeschool) that I’ll be able to sit down and write the way Anne Tyler manages to do it.
Hey, a girl can dream, right?
