Post-Vacation Resolutions

Back from a week Up North. As usual the trouble with the joy of getting away from it all, is the realization that despite abundant free time on my hands, I'm unable to productively accomplish anything because "it all" is back home. Instead, I must sit around in sweltering humidity, gritty with sand, occupied with bad reading choices, since I decided to try to clean house before we left and ran out of time to stop to the library (e-reader is rendered obsolete aka, bricked by B&N--still saving that rant for another day.)

The usual result is that I spend a boatload of time gazing at the lake and thinking up ways to make everyone's life miserable.

Not really. I mean, actually, I'm thinking up ways to make my life absolutely perfect. Like how I'm going to get off sugar and feel full of energy and super-thin, but lose weight slowly and sensibly so I don't become a wrinkled old hag. I'm going to do at least an hour of cardio daily, some of which will be while cleaning the house, and will also take the dog on long walks, and get tons of inspiration for writing. I mean if Dickens had time to walk 3 hours a day, then surely I can houseclean, walk dog and still write this generation's classic literature. (Note, excess time on hands on vacation leads me to Dickens trivia, but does not lead me to time to crack open the creaking laptop and compose my own brilliance.)

Also, I am going to do crafts, and create beautiful quilts and crocheted things with fabric from my old tattered clothes and my burgeoning collection of grocery store plastic bags. The very first thing I'll make is a reusable shopping bag, and I will never forget to take this one into the store. Probably because the no-sugar diet and extra walking will improve my mental function.

I will also connect better with my children so next time we sit around a campfire and try to talk about hopes and dreams and feelings, it won't all be about farts. We will be better disciplined about screen time, and they will do housekeeping and crafts with me instead of binge-watching every single episode of We Bare Bears. As a result of this, on Monday back from vacation, I abandon the heaps of waiting laundry and take the kids to see a movie, Christopher Robin. (Please don't ask me to explain my logic.)

The movie was funny and sweet, and the 11 year old liked it. (Thirteen was unimpressed). Unfortunately it's one of those well-used plots, where the parent(s) is all busy and stressed out and have forgotten how to connect with their childhood and What's Truly Important. This does not coincide well with my plan of reining in my undisciplined children.

Return home with "please just one or two things" from Target, including Laundry Detergent and Milk (needed). End of Vacation is not sitting well with the other family member who is home from work and hungry and Wondering where we all are.

Very well. We all yell a bit, get dinner made of Corn on the Cob and Hot Dogs (left over from Vacation) and I make kids clean the kitchen with me until someone cries at my efforts to explain how to wash a dish, rather than merely giving it a gentle tickle with a dish brush.

I write this blog post to prove that I can do it, even without my three hours of walking/housework/cardio.

Watching Sing Street Again

A friend asked for movie recommendations while she’s recovering from foot surgery, and I once again recommended my favorite movie in recent times, “Sing Street,” which I’d just been thinking about earlier in the day.

It’s a movie that often crosses my mind and it’s particularly relevant to Young Adult writing. My last book (querying now), and my current work-in-progress are both YA, and the movie “Sing Street” gloriously captures the reason I love Young Adult stories, even as an adult. 

The story itself isn’t that complicated. It’s about a boy who starts a rock band to impress a girl he likes. But his life is complicated. Parents, and school and circumstances are all getting in the way of his dreams. The story is told from such a realistic point of view, that upon watching for a second time, I was struck by how accurately the first viewing of the movie had portrayed teen experience, pushing even me, as an adult viewer, back into the point-of-view of teenager.

There are a number of moments in the movie when things seem particularly tense. When it seems like something dark and dreadful is being foreshadowed. Not every one of this moments materializes into the worst-case-scenario you might expect, but those moments of not knowing, along with Conner, perfectly capture that teenage feeling, of life hitting you full-force, and never knowing if this disaster is going to be one that blows over by Monday, or if it’s the pivotal moment that’s going to shape your future forever.

And teenage-hood is packed with those pivotal moments, each one—from what sport you play, to your grades to your friends to your free time—each one of them chipping away at the myriad futures that have been previously open and available to you ever since you were old enough to answer the question “what do you want to be when you grow up.” Despite promises of “it gets better,” vying with “these are the best years of your life,” the truth is these years are full of irrevocable decisions.

I’ll never get to go back and practice piano three hours a day instead of two, and maybe get that 1^st prize scholarship and summer piano camp, instead of an honorable mention and dinner with parents who say, “musician isn’t a job.” Does it matter that “musican” may have been my escape and not my dream? All that matters is that, at some point in those years, the possibilities narrowed. 

Teens see this shrinking of the world that’s theirs for the taking. The talk of “you can be whatever you put your mind to,” tells them with certainty, that they are responsible for limiting their own possibilities, by how they choose to use their minds. It’s terrifying, and worse, outside of their own minds, are the obstacles out of their control—parents, money, teachers, friends, and abilities, who act in ways that further limit them.

Sing Street does a beautiful job of immersing the viewer into pushing up against those obstacles without knowing if you’ll push through. Without knowing if the path you put your mind to is even the right one, and without knowing if you’ll look back on it all someday and laugh. 

The Way I Am

I dabble, or I obsess. It's the reason I rarely get passionate about things, because honestly life's too short and too big to sink into one thing to the exclusion of all others. From time to time though, I indulge in an obsession. Possibly a TV show (Vampire Diaries) or a band (MCR) or a celebrity (Alan Rickman). Or maybe just a song or album (we won't talk about how many times I've listened to 'Light of the Seven' on repeat for at least an hour.)

And then there are things I dabble in. Like running. Which involved two 5Ks and one "Marathon Relay" and painful foot problems, and my subsequent realization that running just isn't my thing.

But in between dabbling and obsessing, I have the interests that have been consistent in my life, and although that interest may never get to the level of passion, these things are who I am:

Pop Culture

History

French

Music

Piano

Beethoven

Chopin

Libraries

Radio

Baseball

Newspapers

Gardening

Camping

Bicycling

Humor

Travel

Writing

Movies 

The stories I love and write are about people who are misunderstood and the ways they find to express themselves honestly to the world. 

My latest obsession has, unfortunately, been politics. I try to remind myself that this blends my interests in History and Pop Culture. But I'd much rather let this newest obsession lapse. Can't manage to close both eyes to it though. 

I have a Pinterest inspiration page for the novel I'm currently querying, THE LIFE YOU STOLE. 

Penguins

Photo: Penguin's Paradise by Anne Froehlich

Line up in a flock of black and white.

Stand firm on ice cold principles

 the size of a small state.

We just broke off a chunk of Monticello

 but it’s only visible from space.

We’re cracked, we’re melting, we’re floating

 away on a world that looks to us

 like it hasn’t changed since ’76.

by Maria Mainero