You may not have known it, but this week is National Preservation Week. It’s not a very well known holiday, but parents actually celebrate it all the time.
That’s because kids are great at preservation.
I’m not talking about the kind of preservation that looks like kids picking up litter on the side of the road or pointing out how the landscape changes when trees are razed or urging their parents to turn off the air conditioner in the middle of a Texas June because they just read a book on global warming (this is what happens when you have a 9-year-old conservationist on your hands, at least in my experience). These are all passions to be celebrated.
But what I’m talking about is how good kids are at finding trash and turning it into delightful treasure.
Take, for instance, the boxes we get from Amazon.
We are Amazon Primers. Anything I can do to keep my kids out of a store, I’ll do. If that means having everything I need (with the exception of my groceries, which I suspect might be coming soon) delivered right to my door, I guess I’ll do it. So we subscribe to everything. Toothpaste, soap, toilet paper, coconut oil, stevia, cacao nibs, almond flour, more vitamins than we probably need, skin care lotions, makeup, you name it, we subscribe to it. I would subscribe to subscribing if I could.
Because we order so much from Amazon, and because it’s always delivered straight to our door in bulk, we never have a shortage of boxes for the kids to keep.
Sometimes this is cool, because every now and then I get a wild hair and do a fun art project with the boys, wherein we’ll decorate a box for somewhere around the house and watch it, day by day by day, get destroyed by the errant legs or flailing arms of wrestling boys.
But sometimes, like when we get an enormous box for all the other boxes, because, apparently, this makes it easier to ship, this is not cool at all. Mostly because I’ll be the one to trip over it and bust my face on the side of the couch—which, you would think, is well padded. Well. It isn’t. See if you’re well padded after having five boys flip over you at 6:30 p.m. every evening when they should be doing chores.
My 9-year-old is probably the worst best little environmentalist in the house. He will keep everything. He’s been making a little money working with his daddy on some video client work, because he wants to be a cinematographer and Husband’s trying to introduce him to the world of video recording, and he’s been buying all sorts of Pokemon cards with his hard-earned money—which is mostly paid for arranging lights in the right formation and cropdusting all over the tiny room because he’s nervous.
He likes to keep his Pokemon boxes, because he “might need them someday.” And, besides, they can be reused for a pencil collection site on his bedroom desk.
Hey, as long as it’s not in my bedroom, go for it.
But now the other boys have gotten in on the act. When one of them is on trash duty, they’ll argue about what we throw in the trash, because, of course, it can all be reused for something useful—like a receptacle for lone socks (already have one…or five) or a rubber band holder (I’d really rather not) or a great container for preserving diapers (why would you…?).
They’ve made some tiny trees out of logs,which are really the charred remains from the outdoor fireplace we don’t ever use in Texas because it’s a thousand degrees most of the year, and grass in the backyard, and they want to bring these “treeple” in, because they’ll be ruined outside, and we CERTAINLY can’t throw them away.
The worst preservation my kids do? The papers.
My kids are very artistic kids, in that they will create all hours of the day. If creating were homework, we would not have our every-single-day fights, because they would gladly sit at the table and draw a line on a piece of paper and call it finished (if you’re the 4-year-olds). AND THEY’LL WANT TO KEEP EVERY SINGLE MASTERPIECE.
It doesn’t matter if they’re only 4 and this “fox” doesn’t really look like a fox, and they’ll be better at it in another three years. They want to keep it now, because they’re sure their future self will appreciate it. The 6-year-old doesn’t care that the piece of paper he just dumped from his red school folder was a quiz where he circled the answers, and the only evidence that it’s his is the name printed at the top of it—he’ll want to keep it to remember what his “handwriting was like.” The 9-year-old has a mad scientist’s stash of plans for the house he’ll build someday, and no amount of persuasive arguments will take those papers and crumple them in the trash (he’s a persistent kid, so he knows how to deal with persistent parents).
I’m trying to swim through the papers, but my head keeps going under.
I guess I should be glad I’m living with six preservationists, but it does get annoying every now and then. Except when someone sees that gigantic Amazon box and wonders what it would be like to ride down the stairs—because I actually fit in it, which means, you guessed it, I can ride down the stairs in it, too.
We sit around the table, and we’ve just finished talking about what we appreciate about one another, and now we get to that hardest of hard questions, because this is our Weekly Reset: Did you hurt anyone this week?
I file through my days, tripping over all the ways I raised my voice, all the times I spoke my annoyance in the hearing of a little boy who had trouble staying in bed, the fight I picked with my husband just to get to the bottom line that said he’s not doing enough.
Yes. I have hurt people.
Will the answer ever be anything but yes? We are all in relationship, and relationship feels challenging when we’re such different people and we’re together all the time and we believe we know who everyone should be.
Sometimes, there are places I’d rather be than beneath the roof of imperfect love.
We fail to love well and we hurt unintentionally and we hold those expectations like they offer the reason to love, but it doesn’t matter how many failures we log in a week. What matters is what we do next.
Do we care enough to repair?
Their daddy goes first, apologizing for something the 7-year-old reminds him about, some words he didn’t think through before he loosed them in frustration.
I look out the window, into the backyard at that tree we planted nearly three years ago when their baby sister died. We tore into rocky earth to dig out a hole large enough so those roots could form strong and reach deep, and we packed the choicest dirt around it so that tree would stand secure. This repairing time does the same kind of work in the lives of our children.
This being available for our children, passing over jobs so we can all sit down to dinner together and talk through our Weekly Reset, protecting those dreams flapping our hearts so our children learn the precious magnificence of struggle and pursuit–these are the holes we dig.
Our forgiveness and acceptance and repair form the dirt we pack around their roots.
We can dig a foundation that’s shallow and already full of who we expect them to be, and we can forget to connect them to the ground of unconditional love with our repair, or we can dig them a foundation that is deep and wide and free, and we can pack that repair dirt so they stand tall when the winds blow and the storms rage and the enemies come prowling.
We are caring for one another, rebuilding that home of belonging, showing our children we love that they are not bound by our imperfect parenting but wide-open free to be imperfect, too. It’s not easy to do this work of repair, because it feels different, or we’re not so great at admitting our mistakes, or we fall back into our old thought patterns—that they are children and we are the adults, so why should we apologize for the words we say when they’ve gotten out of bed for the 300th time, or why should we apologize for the tone of voice we used when they interrupted their brother for the eighth time so he had to start all over again on all those places we’ve already heard, or why should we apologize for the toy-takeaway that surprised them into tears when they flat-out ignored our cleanup song.
We can care enough to repair or we can turn our backs and let that connection-tear grow every time we fail again, because we will.
Apology is like a bandage on the cut of disconnection, but back-turning is like a cut that festers without heal. We can see it in our own lives, in the ways others have hurt us, in the places we never spoke repair.
Maybe we’ll find it tough the first time or the second time or the fiftieth time we do our Weekly Reset, because it’s not easy for us to admit, in front of our children, that we shouldn’t have made their daddy feel so small when he didn’t unload the dishwasher and we had to do the unloading and the loading, and this is not the deal we made way back when; that we shouldn’t have told our son to shut his mouth when he interrupted our instruction so he could tell us why he didn’t want to do it that way before we’d even finished explaining our way; that we shouldn’t have scared the 3-year-old back into bed by turning off all the lights that one night.
The words, “I’m sorry,” are like a healing balm to a child soul.
And maybe it doesn’t matter as much right now, when the hurts are smaller and they can barely remember what they did yesterday and they bounce back from injury like that fall didn’t even hurt them, but one day it will matter, and something this hard and serious and sacred takes practice. So we practice while they’re young, and we believe this caring will make a difference.
There is a gift in the imperfection. Because it’s the new creation that counts. And if we are already there, or we act like we are, our children never get to see the beauty of progress, the beauty of a made-new creation, the beauty that is becoming.
“Parenting is about making a journey with our children toward wholeheartedness, and it’s about learning and growing alongside them…” says Brené Brown (Gifts of Imperfect Parenting). “…the most profound moments in our parenting that shape who they are and who we are is our vulnerability.”
May we always show our children vulnerability and choose the care of repair.
This is an excerpt from Family on Purpose Episode 4: We Believe in Jesus. In Ourselves. In All People. Episodes 4, 5 and 6 of the Family on Purpose series will release May 4.
We’ve all done it. We finally have the time to write, and we pull out our computer or our notebook, and we’re staring at a white screen or a white page, and our head is full of…nothing.
Some call it writer’s block. I call it internal editor block.
One of the biggest challenges we as writers have is outrunning our internal editors, because they’re the voices that can make us stare at a blank page and have nothing in the world to write. We’re putting too much pressure on ourselves. We’re making too big a deal out of the rough draft. We’re letting those annoying voices keep us from using this valuable time we have.
You call yourself a writer? they’ll say. No one would read this, they’ll say. This is terrible, they’ll say.
Well, of course it’s terrible. It’s the first draft.
There are some stories that come out just fine when we write them, and then there are others that don’t come out well at all, and they need a whole lot of loving care. But it doesn’t matter. The point is that the first time, every time, you should just be concerned with getting the words down on paper. That’s the only purpose of a first draft.
So get the words down. Stop worrying so much about the way they sound.
I know. It’s not easy. We want it to sound good right out of the gate, and when we go back and look at what we’ve written for the day it actually sounds a little hollow and cliche, and this is never going to be good, is it? Well, not if we’re constantly putting pressure on ourselves—convincing ourselves that we need to be writing better when we’re only supposed to be getting that initial run of the story down. Not if we’re going to keep focusing on the way the words sound when we’ve only just started writing. Not if we’re hoping the rough draft will come out perfect the first time.
[Tweet “It takes a while to make a manuscript good. It takes even longer to make it great.”]
We can’t expect to get it down all neat and perfect the first time we tell the story.
It’s like when we’re telling a story to our kids. We tell that initial story, and they’re mostly interested, and then the next time we tell it, we add a few far-fetched details, and they’re even more interested, asking for it now, so we tell it again and again, and every time it gets better, because we’ve had practice telling it.
That’s what multiple drafts do—they helps us practice the telling of our story. We refine and add and delete and shape it into the best version it can be.
What’s going to happen if we keep putting the pressure on ourselves is that we’re never going to finish the work of a manuscript. And an unfinished work is way less valuable than a finished work that makes no sense yet—because with a finished work, at least we have somewhere to go with it.
Those internal editors have many different voices. They might sound like our professor in college or our mother who never really believed in us or, worse, ourselves (that’s what mine sounds like, most of the time). But they have no power over us, even though they like to think they do. They have no power.
We are writers. We don’t need the editors right now.
Here’s what I do: I write my first-draft words as fast as I can, and then I let that draft sit for a month. The I go back and turn it into a “final” draft, which is really just a soft final draft, because there will be two or three more drafts after that. One of them I’ll read through on the computer, to tighten up any typos or spaces I feel like need some tightening, and then I’ll print out a copy, no matter how long the story is, and break out my purple pen and get to work, reading for a lot of different things: typos, continuity, questions, errors in the story line, passages where I was unclear, word usage and language, and dialogue.
For me, seeing my work in hard copy as opposed to the same way I’ve been looking at it for months at a time, helps me look at it more objectively, almost like it belongs to someone else.
All this to say that in those first drafts, the internal editor shouldn’t be allowed in. I open the door for them in the final drafts, because sometimes the things they have to say are helpful once we’ve gotten the story down. Sometimes they tell me I need to work a little on the characterization of this character, and this passage is too long, and the words try a little too hard here and make themselves unclear there.
[Tweet “When we’re just trying to get the initial story down? Kill the internal editors.”]
Take heart. Sometimes it takes several drafts to get to the heart of a story. Some stories are harder to tell than others. Some stories need some peeling away, and you do that with drafts. Sometimes the way manuscripts look in final form are not anything like what they looked like in rough draft form. It is as it should be.
The first draft should be a telling of the story, from beginning to end, without worrying about technique or language or brilliance or mastery or authenticity. That’s for later.
So many people I know haven’t finished their stories. Usually it’s because they opened the door to the internal editors in the first draft and then didn’t know how to get rid of them. So if that’s you, here are some ways to get rid of them:
1. Write as fast as you can. Set a timer and race it to the end.
Try as hard as you can not to think about the actual writing. If you feel the editors begin to move in the back of your mind, do your best to push them away. There are some stories that, in the middle of writing, I’ve felt the editors come out of hiding, and I’ve had to write harder and faster to outrun them. It gets easier with practice. If we can win the first time, we can win the second time.
2. Don’t look back.
That initial draft is not the place to look back. Don’t even read what you wrote when you’re finished. Close the computer, update your word count and congratulate yourself for all the work you did today. Don’t start reading over the story until you’ve finished it completely.
3. Don’t stop to think.
Remember, you’re racing a timer. You want to get as many words as you possibly can. If you can outrun your thinking, you can outrun your internal editors, because you know what internal editors do? They overthink things. A rough draft shouldn’t be overthought. It helps to have a brainstorm handy and have a plan for exactly what you’re going to accomplish with your block of writing time so you don’t actually have to think at all. You just let the story tell itself.
4. Let your voice tell the story.
The best way to “find your voice” is to do your work quickly, without overthinking it. When we’re writing fast, our voice shines through. It’s when we’re overthinking things, when we’re trying to revise as we write that our voice will feel elusive. So challenge yourself to write as many words as you can, and you’ll begin to hear the beginnings of your natural voice.
It takes practice outrunning your internal editors. But every time you win, it gets a little easier.
Family dinners are a big deal in our house. We eat dinner together every evening and are usually interrupted once or twice by the neighborhood children, who apparently never eat. Ever.
But all that aside, we have a grand time sitting around our dinner table and talking about our days. It’s raucous and crazy and loud and full of constant chatter—because kids aren’t even quiet when they stuff food in their mouths.
It’s probably safe to say that I care a bit more about manners than Husband does, because he doesn’t even blink when the kids answer a question with an over-full mouth stuffed with spaghetti, most of which, in their answering, escapes from their mouths to the table, and the rest of which shoots across toward my eyes, since they’re laughing so hard at the way it looked. It’s about as disgusting as it sounds, so every now and then, you’ll hear me sneaking in that stealthy reminder for them to “don’t talk with their mouth full” and “please don’t smack” and “seriously, don’t inhale your food.”
I have to admit, though, that I used to envision this nice little quiet family dinner around a table of sweet conversation and delicious food that the kids wouldn’t even think of complaining about.
That fantasy left me years ago.
The one thing I can count on when my family sits down to dinner is my kids complaining about what’s on the menu before they’ve even tried it. Doesn’t matter if it’s mashed potatoes drowned in butter or chicken browned in coconut oil, with a bit of celery seed and thyme sprinkled on top or (their favorite) sautéed asparagus, they’re going to complain. If I believed them, my kids wouldn’t like hamburgers, chicken soup, grilled cheese, breakfast for dinner or, especially, carrot chips.
It never fails that a kid will come traipsing into the house, after playing outside with his friends and working up an appetite as only boys can do, that he will sniff and say, “Something smells yummy,” walk over to the stove and, upon seeing what’s cooking, say, “Aw, man. I don’t like that,” to which I reply, “Welp. More for me,” because clearly I care what he thinks.
Once they taste what’s for dinner, there’s not really a problem, but those few minutes between dinner showing up and kids shoveling it in their mouths are quite a problem for now. If I thought blindfolds would work to combat the complaining, I’d invest in half a dozen. But then they’d just complain about the smells.
When we’re all seated at the table, with our plates full, at least three of the kids will ask to be excused so they can get some milk. It’s not a problem at all, so of course we say yes. They pour their milk and bring it back to the table, and, thirty seconds later, it’s all over the floor and table.
This happens just about every night. It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been practicing drinking milk in a cup, someone is going to spill. You might wonder why this happens with such amazing continuity. Well, we are eight people crammed at a table built for four. A new kitchen table is not in our budget, so we sit practically on top of each other, because we’re a family that loves. Every now and then our boys will ask why we can’t use the dining room table, which was built for at least six people. We give some lame excuse about how it’s a glass table and we don’t feel like cleaning up all the fingerprints boys will paint on it when they use its underside as a napkin, even though they have a perfectly good napkin sitting beside their plate. I’d just rather not know what happens underneath a table.
There is also such thing as a Thermos, which would eliminate the possibility of such frequent milk spills. But let me tell you what happens to Thermoses in our world.
1. Boy pours milk.
2. Boy puts lid on Thermos.
3. Boy drinks most of the milk, but not all.
4. Boy “loses” the Thermos somewhere between end-of-dinner and after-dinner chores.
5. Parents find missing Thermos six weeks later.
6. No one wants to open it.
I’ll take milk spills over curdled milk any day.
Next on the list for the perfect family dinner is getting up and down from the table. My boys remember to ask to be excused about once out of four times. It’s still a mystery to me how they’re sitting there eating a bowl of spaghetti squash, and they suddenly remember this flower drawing they did in art class today, and they have to show me, right now, or they’re going to die. Or, two minutes after dinner begins, they realize they need to go potty. Or, ten minutes after dinner begins, one of their friends rings the doorbell, because they apparently think we can eat dinner in ten minutes.
They get up to see what their brother just laughed out his nose. They get up to grab the food they just dropped on the floor. They get up just to get up.
When they finally sit down long enough to actually have a conversation, everybody’s yelling. This happens because the boys are trying to tell us about their days, and no one’s taking turns with the talking, so they think if they just talk louder maybe they’ll have a better chance of getting heard.
This is the time of dinner when I usually reach my system overload and start talking like a robot, repeating the words, “System overload. System overload. System overload” until everyone looks at me like I’m crazy, because, well, I am. But it works. The table grows silent, everyone wondering how close Mama is to meltdown mode. And because of this, we can finally take turns asking about each of their days and get a portion of the story, before one brother interrupts another with something they forgot to say during their turn. It doesn’t take long for the talking to turn back into yelling, but by then there’s no more food left anyway. Dinner’s over.
At some point during the dinner, someone will make a potty joke. This is one other characteristic of dinner I can always count on. Someone will fart and send the whole table into peals of laughter and then “Oh my gosh, it smells so bad” proclamations. Someone will burp and crack everybody up again. Someone will arm fart “The Star-Spangled Banner” while the rest of us watch, mesmerized. Someone will tell a joke that contains the words, “poop,” “pee” and “armpits” in the same sentence. They think it’s the most hilarious thing in the world, and sometimes you do, too—until they start talking about vomit.
That’s when I like to say, “We’re eating, guys. Please don’t mess up this broccoli cheese soup for me.” Because, you know, it wasn’t hard enough to get them to eat it in the first place. Now every time they look at it, they’ll see vomit. Challenge accepted.
Whoever has the sweeping chore for the week always has quite a job to look forward to after dinner. This is mostly due to the 14-month-old, who has a proficient mastery of identifying the color green and eliminating it from his tray. But the 4-year-olds aren’t all that great either, stuffing green beans under their booster seats, except they aren’t great at aiming, either, so it ends up in a pile under the table. We don’t have a dog, so all this food—which could probably feed a small country—mostly goes to waste. It really is a shame.
Every night, when we finish dinner, I find myself wondering whether I really live with a pack of raccoons disguised as good-looking little boys. I’m just glad I don’t have to sweep the floor anymore.
And the last thing I can always count on, no matter the day or what’s for dinner or how much we had to eat, is my 4-year-old twins saying they’re still hungry—because four bowls of chicken noodle soup was not enough for a 40-pound kid. They will eat their body weight in pizza and still say they’re hungry when it’s all said and done.
All in all, even with the noisy, disgusting, messy displays of my children, family dinners are my favorite part of the day. Mostly because I enjoy eating. But also because I enjoy sitting together and laughing together and talking together about whatever it is that makes my boys laugh or cry or smile or scowl or feel glad to be a part of an amazing family.
And those nights when they end dinner saying, “This was the best dinner ever?” I call that winning.
Hasn’t happened yet. But I’m sure it’s right around the corner.
I’ve been working my way through this year’s award winners, and Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan, has been sitting on my shelf for a while, mostly because I read it aloud to my 4-year-old twins. We had to do it in tiny little pieces, because they don’t sit still for more than about thirty pages. Which I suppose is still pretty good for a 4-year-old.
Echo was a lovely story that covered so many issues: the prejudice against Mexican Americans back during World War II, what happened to Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the prejudice against Germans who were born with what the government called defects, and the fate of children who were orphaned in the trying financial times that cropped up during the war. Like I said, it was a wonderfully loaded book.
It was broken into three parts: one part that told the story of Friedrich, a German with a birthmark. Part two told the story of Mike Flannery and his kid brother, who were both orphans. Part three told the story of Ivy Maria, a Mexican American. All three of the stories were engaging and entertaining.
The book was unusually long for a middle grade read, and I could have seen the three parts broken into separate books, but because Ryan wrote the stories in a way that not only made readers love and care about her characters but also brought history to light in a masterful way, the book didn’t feel long. Ryan linked all the stories together by using music—Friedrich wanted to be a conductor, Mike played the harmonica, and Ivy Maria learned to play the flute.
Echo begins alluringly with a story about three princesses caught in shadow form, which makes you want to keep reading, because it begins almost like a fairy tale. Ryan builds the historic story around that fairy-tale—as if there is something linking the princesses in the story to the characters in the book. And it becomes clear that what links them is a harmonica—the princesses live in the music of a harmonica that every child in every part will find and use.
By bringing the story of the three princesses into the beginning of her book, Ryan ensures that readers will want to continue reading. But even without the princess story, one would have been hooked by Ryan’s language.
The first part begins in Germany, where Friedrich works in a harmonica factory. One day he finds a harmonica far superior than all the others, and he pockets it. Friedrich and his father are being targeted by the Nazis, because Friedrich’s father is an outspoken man. Friedrich has a birthmark on his face, and the Germans want to collect him and put him in an asylum. But his father won’t allow it. When his father is taken away by the Nazis, Friedrich has to figure out how to get him back.
Friedrich’s description of the world after he’s found out he’s going into an asylum was endearing:
“The rhythm of Tchaikovsky’s waltz took hold again. Looking back across Father’s shoulder, he lifted an imaginary baton with his good arm and conducted.
“When the wind brushed his face, Friedrich felt a lightness—a weightlessness—as if bit by bit, the dread and worry that always burdened him were taking flight.
“Had Father not been holding him, he too might have floated away on the wind, like a dandelion’s white-seeded parachutes.”
I love that Friedrich finds his hope and comfort in music. When the world is crumbling around him, he can always find refuge in the music.
One of the things I enjoyed most about Ryan’s book was all the points where music came into play. The people find their feet in the midst of war because of the beauty of music. And music does that to people—when a world is dark, music lends a bit of light.
When Friedrich finds the harmonic and plays it, it makes the most beautiful music he has ever heard. Its music seems to be alive—healing, in a way, as if all the terror and disappointment he has in his life melts away with just one note.
Here’s how he describes what the harmonica feels like in his pocket:
“With every step up from the front walk, it seemed to thump against his chest, like a heartbeat.”
It’s as if the harmonica gives him a new reason to go on. The music keeps him grounded and helps him persevere through even greater challenges that will come.
Here, Friedrich’s father is talking to his daughter, who has just told him that the music of negros—jazz—is considered degenerate by the Nazis:
“‘Music does not have a race or a disposition!’ said Father. ‘Every instrument has a voice that contributes. Music is a universal language. A universal religion of sorts. Certainly it’s my religion. Music surpasses all distinctions between people.’”
I absolutely love this sentiment: that though the world may have a hard time not seeing the differences in race and color and belief, music wipes all of that way.
Later, when Friedrich goes up to his room, he can still hear his father and his sister, Elisabeth, arguing. Here’s what he says about it:
“In the broken chords, he heard the rhythm of Father and Elisabeth’s argument. The alternating notes—their banter back and forth—rose and fell. The music was precise as their conversation had been brittle. As the piece progressed, he felt the gathering tension wind tighter and tighter, like unspoken anxiety. After the movement, a sadness lingered, unresolved.”
Part Two told the story of Mike Flannery and his kid brother. Mike was taught piano by his grandmother, but when she died, he and his brother were sent to an orphanage. Their grandmother specified that they must be adopted together, but there’s a strong possibility that it won’t happen—and then someone shows up looking for a musical boy.
Before Mike is taken to the home of a potential foster parent, he’s talking with one of the 16-year-old boys in the orphanage, who tells him:
“‘Everybody has a heart. Sometimes you gotta work hard to find it. One thing I learned is that if there’s something you want or need to know from grown folks, you gotta step up and ask for it mannerly. Plead your case, that’s what I say. More times than naught, you’ll get exactly what you asked for.”
I love the wisdom in this statement, wisdom that comes through the hard experiences of life.
Mr. Potter, who is a servant at the home where Mike and his brother are taken at one point, turns the song “Twinkle Twinkle” into a blues song with a harmonica. Mike asks him how, and this is what Mr. Potter says:
“‘Easy.” Mr. Potter grinned. ‘You take the tune and break it up. Then do over some of the lines. Then sprinkle in some grit from your insides. You play the song like you’re testifying to the feeling you hold in your heart: happy, sad, angry.’”
It’s a great description of the blues.
The woman who is considering adoption of Mike and his brother is a hard woman to get to know. At one point, Mike thinks she’s going to try to get out of the adoption, and he urges her to at last keep his brother, because he can figure out what to do with himself. He tells her:
“‘Mrs. Potter said you were a kind and loving soul, underneath all the rest. I guess that means your heart’s so sad that it’s hard to get out from under the weight. When I was sad about my mother dying, Granny used to say grief is the heaviest thing to carry alone. So I know all about that.’”
I love Mike’s perspective on grief. One of my favorite things about kid-lit is how much truth is contained in the innocent observations of its characters. It’s true that grief is heaviest when we carry it alone.
Part Three of Echo is about Ivy Maria, who is a Mexican American. Her family is very poor, but her father gets a new job on a farm that belongs to a Japanese family who was put in an internment camp, which happened to many Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. One of the owner’s neighbors wants to prove that he and his families were Japanese spies so the farm will be given to the government and someone else might purchase it. There were so many emotional issues raised in this section of the story: the death of a loved one during a war, the unjust treatment of the Japanese during that time, the unjust treatment of the Mexican Americans or, really, anyone who was from a different race.
When her father told her that their family would be leaving her old school for his new job, Ivy Maria remembered the image of her best friend this way:
“Ivy tried to etch the image into her mind: her best friend, wearing a matching purple hat, waving and blowing kisses to her. She blew kisses in return and pretended they were not the beginning of good-bye.”
This passage was so endearing, because Ivy Maria has left many of her friends behind, because her family is sort of nomadic, as were many Mexican Americans during that time. Ivy Maria captures the pain of children who had to leave their friends and lives behind.
Ivy Maria is a little angry at her father for moving their family yet again:
“Better. Papa was always looking for a place called Better. Once, this place, Fresno, had been better. Now it was nothing more than the last place she’d lived.”
This stuck out to me, because it’s always human nature to pursue Better. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and it’s always hard to know which it is. Ivy Maria is angry about it right now, but she might learn, once the worst happens–the move–that it’s not as bad as she thought.
Echo was a book full of history, lovable characters, and unforgettable stories tucked within a larger Story.
I’m a good parent. That means that when my kids are being completely unreasonable and losing their minds about how their soccer socks weren’t washed the last time I did laundry and they don’t have any blue socks left and blue is their favorite color and they CANNOT go to school without their blue socks, oh, and, also, they don’t remember where they put their shoes so now they’re going to spend the next half hour looking but not really looking, because they have their nose stuck in a book while they’re walking up the stairs, which means they’re most likely going to trip and fall, and there will be a bit of blood and they’ll be dying (in their minds, at least), there are some things I’d like to say.
Kids evoke some of the most unreasonable responses in their parents, because they’re illogical little human beings. But because I’m a good parent, I don’t usually say any of these things out loud. I keep them safe and sound in my own mind. But parents, you know, we need a place for these confessions to go every once in a while, so I’m going to take them for a spin today. Here’s what I’d say to my kids if I could.
“Because you haven’t been alive as long as I have, I think you’re completely unreasonable.”
No, the world isn’t going to end because you accidentally left that Pokemon card in your Sunday school class. In fact, you’re probably not even going to miss it in the grand scheme of things, since you have 999 more.
Now. What to do with all the others…
“You’re ridiculous.”
We’re really picky about the way we say things in our house. Because we don’t want kids to take on the identity of “ridiculous,” we say “You’re acting ridiculous.” It seems like a small thing, but it’s actually huge in a kid’s mind.
Still, there are times I’d like them to know that they are, in fact, ridiculous. This is usually when my kids are arguing over whether or not we’re going the wrong way to the zoo even though they have no sense of direction whatsoever. At least the older boys are weathered enough to understand that they can look at the landmarks and know, about 50 percent of the time, whether we’re headed in the right direction. But those 4-year-old twins will fight us to the word-death, screaming and hollering about how they want to go to the zoo, and we’re never going to get to the zoo, because we’re going in the wrong direction and they know everything. I don’t much like to be told by a kid who’s been alive for all of four years that I need to turn around and go the other direction or that I should go when the light in front of me is red or that I need to “beat all the other cars” when we’re on the highway.
“You don’t know anything.”
This phrase flits through my head when my 4-year-old twins are telling me I’m doing the wrong part of my workout routine, even though I’m busting my rear to get ahead, and it’s all the worse, because I don’t even have the extra breath to tell them that they’re the ones who are wrong (because I like falling into the black holes of arguing with a 4-year-old). But my mental space is filled with all sorts of words. Sometimes, if I can manage enough air to say anything, I’ll huff out something sarcastic, like, “Oh, look at that. She’s doing the same exercise I was doing FIVE SECONDS AGO. I guess I know what I’m doing after all.” But usually not. Those workouts are hard core. And, also, I get winded standing up.
“I’m the worst parent ever? Yeah, well, no one in this house is winning any awards for best kid ever, either.”
Whenever we say that the boys can’t do something (usually going outside to play with their friends, who keep ringing our doorbell during dinner), we’re the worst parents ever. When we tell them they have to take a bath and wash behind their ears, we’re the worst parents ever. When we won’t buy them another pack of Pokemon cards, we’re the worst parents ever.
When we don’t let them watch that show a friend was talking about (because we don’t even have a TV), when we don’t let them play outside in the mud after it’s been raining all day, when we don’t let them have a little more technology time because dang it if I’m not going to be a parent of a techno-head, when we don’t buy them an iPhone like all the other third graders have now, when we won’t let them stay home from school because they cut their toe yesterday, when we make them do their chores, we’re the worst parents ever.
And every time I hear it, I want to tell them the phrase above. But usually I just smile to myself, knowing this will soon pass and they’ll be climbing into my lap, even though they’re 9, for a bedtime story.
“We go on date nights so we don’t have to put you to bed.”
This is usually reserved for the nights when my kids incredulously say, “Didn’t you just go on a date night with Daddy?”
We don’t get date nights all that often, but when we do, we’ll live it up until about 10:30 p.m., when we start falling asleep in the middle of our sentences. We get a date night about once every month, but the kids always act like we just went out on one, mostly because kids have zero sense of time and think that so much longer has passed than the amount of time that has actually passed (except when their technology time timer goes off. Then it’s always, “What? It’s already over?”).
Well, little do they know that we go out on date nights because we love each other, but we mostly go out on them to get a break from the kids.
“If you don’t get back in your bed, I’m going to strap you down in it.”
My kids are terrible at staying in bed. On the nights that actually pass without someone coming to knock on our door for one more kiss or to tell us they can’t find their favorite stuffed animal and can’t sleep without it or that their poop had some orange pieces in it and should they be worried, we wonder if maybe something is wrong.
We have this boundary that says our boys can only come knock on our door after lights out if it’s an emergency, but kids have a really messed up sense of what an emergency is. Case in point: Last night the 9-year-old, who is a brilliant kid most of the time, came to tell us about this Pokemon trade he made today. Not an emergency. The 5-year-old came to our room to tell us that his leg had fallen off. He used both of them to walk to our room. The 6-year-old came to our room to let us know that his baby brother was now asleep in the crib. Not an emergency.
One of these days, I know they won’t even want to tell us goodnight, so I’m trying to enjoy this get-out-of-bed-a-thousand-times while it lasts.
“Go put something else on.”
This would be reserved for the days when my boys wear sweat pants, which is pretty much every day.
My kids have a whole closet full of nice clothes they don’t wear. I know. I bought them. I took them all to the store and braved walking around that store with three kids, and they picked out their first day of school outfit, which they wore on the first day and never again. Now they only choose sweat pants and look mostly like miniature hobos.
I mean, I’m not really one to talk, but still.
Husband took the 9-year-old to a video shoot recently, and the 9-year-old came down the stairs wearing horizontal stripes with plaid shorts, and we got to have a fun conversation about the appropriate dress code for meeting with clients. We got a little mileage out of his good clothes that day.
“Maybe use your brain, genius.”
I think this every time my twins are putting their shoes on the wrong feet. It sounds terrible to say it like that, but it boils down to this: They can figure out how to climb a wall and pick a lock and do this elaborate break-in routine to get into a locked and boarded room so they can take the gasoline can and pour it all over themselves and the backyard, but they can’t figure out which shoe goes on which foot.
Confounding.
Like I said, I never say any of these things out loud, but if my kids could see into my brain during a moment like the ones above, they would surely agree that I’m the best parent ever.
My restraint muscle gets a great workout with all these boys. Sadly, it’s about the only one.
It’s not easy being the easy one, is it? You come second in a long line of boys, and you’ve always been the one we worry least about, because you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and you know who you are, mostly, and you don’t ask for much. You mainly give. It’s all you’ve ever really done. Observed the world and given whatever it lacks.
But the danger in being the easy kid is that oftentimes you’re passed over, unless you do something really spectacular, because there are other kids who need their behavior curbed and redirected, constantly. Sometimes the frustration of that—the being passed over—comes out in your behavior, and I can tell you’re feeling forgotten. If you only knew. You could never, ever be forgotten, my son. You are a gift to us and to this world. But I know it’s not easy to understand that when you don’t get nearly as much attention as your 4-year-old twin brothers, who are always into mischief, or your 9-year-old brother, who is always badgering us about something, or your 15-month-old brother, who needs more care than the rest of you.
So, today, on your seventh birthday, I want you to know that I see you.
I see you. I do.
I hear you outside, speaking your gentle heart and your kind words to the girl the rest of the neighborhood boys called fat. I hear the way you defend your brothers, especially the flies-off-the-handle one, to all those kids who don’t always choose to be nice. I hear the way you join in and connect and befriend everyone who comes in our cul-de-sac for a game of soccer, and I feel so very proud that you are my son. I feel proud that you are not afraid to show your emotions and name them, that you are only seven and have the amazing ability to curb your actions even when overwhelmed by emotion, that you believe, so deeply, so truly, so contagiously, in everyone who has been put on this earth. What a magnificent boy you are.
It surprises me every time, those days I’m washing dishes and I hear your encouraging voice sneak up behind me, telling me I’m doing such a good job at washing dishes—something as simple and mundane as this. Something so…ordinary. It doesn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things, but you find ways to make it matter, because this is who you are. You find the small, overlooked things we do, and you make them shine like a full moon, like they are the most important things we do, because this is who you are. You watch your next-in-line brothers try to tie his shoes, and you can’t help but speak to him, urging him on, trying to teach him what you know, encouraging him to never give up, because this is who you are. You reach for your baby brother and fold him in your arms and let him stay there a while, and he lights up when you walk in the room (did you know that he lights up when you walk in the room? I have seen it), and it’s all a brilliant picture of your love and your help and your interconnectivity. This is who you are. What an exceptional boy you are.
You defuse fights between your brothers, and you take the time to smile at the discouraged one, and you help the twins put on their shoes when it’s time to go and they should be ready, and you never complain about any of it. Sometimes, of course, you get disappointed and sad, and that shows itself in the way you talk or the way you act or the way your eyes leak, but even then, you are sweet and kind and gentle. What a wonderful boy you are.
Because I see you, I have also seen your heart. I know that you feel a little shaky about your abilities. I see it in the way you ask if this is the right answer and the way you want to know if you’re doing it right before you’ve even begun and the way you feel frustrated with math and science and certain building toys before you’ve even begun. And so there is something more I must tell you.
It’s not easy being the second-in-line behind a brilliant brother. I know. I was the second-in-line behind a brilliant brother. You see how easily it comes to them, and you feel like somehow you’re missing something, because maybe it doesn’t come as easily to you. Maybe you actually have to really concentrate in order to figure out the right answer. Maybe you have to re-read the question a time or two and can’t just add it all up in your head. I used to feel that lack, too.
But the thing is, we are all gifted in different ways. So your brother is gifted in every subject. So maybe you’re only gifted in a few. But I have never seen a boy who could make a friend everywhere he went quite like you can. I have never met a 7-year-old who could find a way to encourage every single person he meets. I have never known a child to walk so surely into who he was made to be. And this is a gift, too.
So I just want you to know, today, that I see you for who you are. I love you for who you are. There is never anything you could do differently that would make me love you any more or any less. I love you as much as my heart could possibly love you. I feel as proud for you as I’ll ever feel for you, because of who you were born to be. I feel as privileged to be your mother as I’m ever going to feel, whether you become a superhero like you want, or you just remain an ordinary man who saves the world in quieter, gentler ways.
Sometimes it feels like you’re forgotten in the great mess of our lives, but I want you to know that you are never forgotten. I look forward to our times alone together with so much expectation and delight. I love sitting with you, talking with you, hearing your heart. I love listening to your fears and your dreams and what you did on the playground today and who said they’re mad at whom and how you really wish we could get a dog. I love watching you greet the world with love and hope and wonder, as if the smallest things—that lady bug crawling across the porch, that kite flying in the sky, those bubbles the wind pulls from the wand, still hold as much fascination as they did when you were 15 months old. Because you have taught us wonder, too.
Sometimes you doubt yourself. It’s no less than I have done, but, oh, it pains me when it is you. No mama wants her boy to doubt himself, but sometimes we all need the encouragement of another to feel like we have what it takes to do something hard and amazing and breathtaking. So let me be that voice now. You have a brilliant mind. You have a beautiful heart. You have as much intelligence and kindness and hope and love as you will ever need, flapping around inside you.
You are able. You are able to do whatever your mind decides to do. I know. I see you. I’ve watched you color a lovely picture, color reaching all the way to every side, and it was grander than any piece of art I’ve seen hanging in a gallery. I’ve watched you create grand towers out of those contraption planks, and there is not another like it anywhere in the world. I’ve watched you roller blade down the hill with perfect precision and balance, even though you were only six, and it is a feat to be applauded. There is no one quite like you.
So the next time you doubt whether you can do your math homework or you doubt that you know the right thing to do when two of your friends are having an argument or you doubt whether you’re quite as brilliant as your older brother or quite as dogged as your next-in-line brother, I want you to know that you are who you are, and who you are is glorious. Marvelous. Breathtaking.
Rest in your own abilities. Run your own race. Be who you are.
You are light in the darkness. You are everything good and beautiful. You are a magnificent wonder. I appreciate the person you are, and I can’t wait to see how you take this world by storm and infuse it with joy. Because I know you will.
I love you as much as I possibly could. Happy birthday.
In this episode, Rachel shares about two nonfiction books she calls gripping reads, the value of reading critically, why every parent needs a little time off, the overwhelming nature of revising manuscripts, and her family’s experience with a show called “Signing Time.”
Me: What’s something cool that happened at school today?
5-year-old: I found three ladybugs on the playground today.
Me: You did?
5-year-old: Yeah. I put them in my lunch box.
4-year-old: I found a ladybug.
Me: Well, please don’t bring bugs in the car.
4-year-old: It’s not a bug, it’s a ladybug.
Me:
4-year-old:
Me: I’m not going to argue. But a ladybug has the word bug in it. Therefore, it is a bug.
4-year-old: No it’s not.
Me: Yes it is.
Me: Don’t go inside yet. We need to get an Easter picture of all of you. Then we’ll have lunch.
9-year-old: I want to take the picture after I eat, because I don’t want to look grim in my picture because I haven’t eaten.
Husband: Why are you naked?
6-year-old: I accidentally pooped in my underwear when I tried to toot.
Husband: Sometimes that happens.
4-year-old #1: Look at my crack
4-year-old #2: Ewww! Yuck!
4-year-old #1: hehehehe
4-year-old #2: Wanna see my crack when I get in bed?
Writing is one of those professions that you typically do from the comfort of your own home. I rarely get out of my house or, even, the room I’ve set aside for my writing—which is a small sitting area in my bedroom.
Every now and then I’ll get a wild hair and go for a walk and see the world, but I’m not really writing then, I’m just thinking or brainstorming. Or I’ll drive down to our local library, which has a pretty fantastic outdoor space if no one had the same idea I had (which is always the risk—and then I’ve wasted some of my really sparse time), and I’ll sit in a rocking chair, with nature humming around me, and create.
But because I typically hole up inside my bedroom and write, it’s really easy to get distracted. When you’re home all the time, of course there are other things that come knocking on our subconscious.
Remember that laundry you forgot to put in the dryer? You should go do that right now. Remember that stack of dishes in the sink? You should probably do them before dinner. Remember how you said you’d go to the grocery store today? Your pantry’s really bare, and the kids are about to be home from school, claiming they’re hungry.
The kids. There’s not even enough room to list here all the distractions kids can provide—all the papers that need to be signed, the pants that need to be tightened (because I have skinny kids), the stuffed animals that need mending, the never-ending questions that need answering, the attitudes that need curbing, the homework that needs supervising.
I probably don’t have to tell you how difficult it is to stay focused in an environment like this one.
So here are my best tips for taking your writing business from amateur to professional, at least on the production and focus side:
We’re not ever going to start writing if we don’t actually set aside the time to do it. This isn’t easy when we’re parents, because you know what is the only job from which you can’t take a break (unless you beg)? Parenting. There are always needs that our kids have, even when they’re away at school. I am constantly with my phone, because I never know when someone from the school might need to get in touch because a boy is sick or I forgot about early release or someone forgot their lunch and can I give permission for them to charge one.
But my point is that I have a space on my calendar, every day, that says this is my creating time. I don’t schedule anything else for that time, unless there’s an emergency that no one else can take care of.
2. Set up the space.
Like setting aside the time, if we don’t have a space set aside where we will actually do the work, we won’t do the work. Set up this space however you like it. I’ve set up a standing desk in my bedroom, right in front of my dresser. Every now and then, it’s a little freaky, because I get so lost in my words that I forget what I’m doing, and I look up at the mirror, and there’s this person staring at me. It takes me a minute to remember it’s me. So maybe don’t set your standing desk up in front of a mirror. It’s the only space I had for a standing desk, though, and it was important for me to stand for most of the hours of my day, instead of sitting.
On the tail hour of my work day, I’ll usually sit in my blue wing chair, with a couple of books on the coffee table in front of me, and work on things like editing or business items that need to be gotten done. My day is pretty crammed full, but my space, unless my kids have destroyed it (which is highly likely) is usually nice and ordered and relaxing.
3. Do the work.
This is probably the hardest thing of all, because there are a lot of things that will come against us. Some people call this Resistance.
Resistance, for me, comes in the form of crying children—especially my baby. He’s a mama’s boy through and through, because he’s the youngest, and I’m truly captivated by him, so when I hear him crying, which isn’t often, thank goodness, I feel my focus shatter. If I hear his voice, or if his daddy brings him in to see me, because he starts missing me about halfway through my creating time, I’ll smile and kiss him and snuggle for five minutes or so, and then he’s good and it’s time for me to get back to work. I wear headphones most of the time while I’m creating so I can’t hear the roar of noise my children make when they’re with their daddy.
Resistance can also come in the form of a stomach virus, trying to keep us in bed, or our kids latched to our side. It comes to us as laundry and dishes and all the things we should be doing instead of writing.
The trick to beating Resistance is doing it the first time (and, also, believing in the value of our work). After that, it becomes easier and easier to beat.
4. Get started.
You don’t have to get started on a 120,000-word novel. Start with 225 words in your morning pages (that’s about the equivalent of one page in a long-hand journal). Set a daily word count for yourself and constantly push yourself to attain it. Do some writing exercises to ease you into the writing. Record your progress and see how you’re doing.
5. Minimize the distractions as much as you can.
Like I said, there are so many of them when you’re a parent. But I’m not even talking about our kids. I’m talking about technology and Internet and, for me, books. Turn off the phone, close the Internet browser, keep the books on your shelves until you’ve written your word goal for the day. Those stories inside you will be glad you honored them.
6. Run your own race.
It’s so tempting to look around at all the other authors who are doing so much better than we are, and to get distracted by that. Sometimes I find myself feeling jealous about this or that book deal, and I wonder why not me, because of course I’m entitled to what they got. I’m pretty good, too.
[Tweet “Our race is our own. No one else can run it for us. We owe the world our own journey.”]
And, also, we are all in this together. We can’t forget that.
7. Connect.
Writing can be a very solitary pursuit, and it seems to be filled with people who are naturally introverted and quiet. But something I’ve learned in recent months is that it’s so important for me to connect with other writers. I’ve recently joined a closed group of writers (you have to pay to get in, but the value you get just being in the same place as 1,500 other writers is pretty phenomenal). Not only do you learn so much from each other, but you also get to vent about the same things with people who understand.
Don’t become disconnected. Find a writer friend somewhere.
8. Don’t forget the business side of things.
As writers, we don’t like to think about the business side of things, like setting up an email list and having a presence on social media, but the truth is, those things are highly important to our connected world, and we’re going to have to look at them. And if we’re indie authors, there are a ton of other things that we’ll need to embrace in our business. I spend about five hours a week on business stuff, and that’s not nearly enough. So I’ll be making some changes once I meet my word goal for the year.
9. Put your systems in place.
By systems, I mean an editorial schedule for things like submissions and email newsletters and blogs, if you do them. It all depends on what we want to do with the business side of our writing career, but we have to put systems and routines in place that will make it easier to create consistently in the margins of our lives.
Systems also mean things like whatever makes it easy to create quicker and without interruptions. My systems include things like wearing headphones when I’m working and my husband is on duty with the kids, so when the kids accidentally wander into my bedroom (which is often), they see the headphones and know that Mama is working. I also have systems like batching, which means I work on business-related things on Thursdays, and I write fiction on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and I create all my blogs on Mondays and I edit manuscripts and brainstorm new ideas on Fridays.
[Tweet “In order to get the writing done in our short amount of time, we have to create systems.”]
It’s anything but easy to be a parent writer, but it’s most definitely possible. We just have to get into the groove of whatever schedule or routine we’ve worked out for ourselves, and that’s going to take some time. So be patient and kind to yourself. Adjust when you need to. Talk to your partner and kids when you need to.
