The Other Reality
I was an hour late to my son’s crew regatta Friday because I was writing and lost track of time. My husband tried calling me when I didn’t arrive to pick him up as planned, but I ignored the phone, and even when he walked home to find me, I just thought he was early and kept writing on the back porch. In short, the portal to this world was closed. Only awareness that my husband was eating lunch finally penetrated to my consciousness and brought me back. Food, it turns out, is a powerful cross-worlds communication link.
Quonnipaug Lake, Connecticut, May 2011
The day turned out all right. My son’s race was late in the line-up and there’s a lot of standing around at regattas anyway, so we didn’t miss anything. Even so, I was embarrassed with myself, which is a strange type of embarrassment. I don’t want to be that spacey a person. It feels irresponsible and selfish to check out of reality so completely.
In a contradictory direction, I sometimes feel guilty that my job is this self-indulgent escape from reality while plenty of other people living on our planet have no escape from their hunger and war and homelessness. I feel like I ought to be working harder to deserve the happy time in my head. I feel like I need to earn it when other people, like other versions of me at other times, are enduring crappy jobs when they’d rather be artists. If I have an unproductive day, I’m wasting much more than just those hours. I’m wasting a cushy gift of opportunity.
I think about what I would have given, back when I was a stay-at-home parent with two little offspring, for a day of nothing to do but write. It was impossible to arrange. For the sake of that starved, mind-benumbed version of me, I feel like I can’t afford to waste a single writing minute. I can’t forget how terrible it was then, writing deep into the night when my family was asleep, knowing the longer I wrote, the more exhausted I’d be the next day, and how much worse reality would be because of it. The escape time poisoned the real time, but like an addict, I had to have it.
Now, somewhere between these two extremes—writing myself out of reality and chastising myself for not writing enough—there is probably a place where I’m doing enough writing and also clued in enough to my family and my real world. How to find that place is the question. I’m open to suggestions.
10 Responses to The Other Reality
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I totally get how you feel. Still working on balancing everything out myself. :p
Kota ~
Good luck with it!
Caragh
Our work as writers is far more flexible than as teachers. When I feel torn between my writing world and my family world, I just think about how more responsive I am to my children now. I was able to take Sage to the dentist for a 9:00 am visit this morning without asking admin to grant me personal time or having to leave lesson plans. I’ve been able to take many days to run back and forth to UCONN (100 miles each way now). I even got to move both kids into their dorms this year (Devon and Emily’s freshman year I was at my desk when Devon moved in…..you may have been at THS too that day).
After more than 6-months of job hunting and two interviews (and rejections) I am able to see how much better off I am writing than “working”. That makes me grateful.
Now…..back to writing. I’m eager to see what happens with Taryn today.
dt
Your post today reminded me of something I went through yesterday. Which is weird, because it’s not really the same thing at all. But anyway, I’ve been working on my second book and have been doing a lot of research about conflict diamonds. I was so into it yesterday afternoon that I was ready to sell my wedding ring. I was just so wrapped up in my characters.
I like what you said.
Your happy escape job brings happiness and escape to me. Thank you.
When I am writing (something other than software documentation), I feel as if I am re-living, or maybe re-writing, my childhood in a happy way. Yep, I like to write stories for children.
Davetta ~
I’m grateful for more flexibility, too. On the other hand, I miss being with students and laughing with them. My guess is you do, too. Maybe it isn’t about having balance at any single time, but about having balance over a life-time. That I seem to be getting. Good luck with writing today.
Kelly ~
That’s it, that wrapped up feeling. Our characters change us, I think.
Cara ~
You have me considering how re-living and re-writing a childhood might be almost the same thing. Neat idea.
Thanks for being writers with me.
All best,
Caragh
“I feel like I need to earn it when other people, like other versions of me at other times, are enduring crappy jobs. . . ”
Ouch, Caragh. Ouch.
:{ ) S. Jim
S. Jim ~
To clarify, I had my share of lousy jobs long before I arrived at THS, of course, and would never count teaching among them. Have you ever worked at a bakery in 12-hour shifts?
All best,
Caragh
My first job out of college was as a utilityman/beamer at a woolen mill in Maine. I drove to work in the pre-dawn darkness listening to Don Imus on WNBC-AM from New York City, and it felt like I was listening from Mars it was so far away. (I quit after developing a bad skin rash from some of the chemicals involved.)
That was not as bad, however, as trying to sell very expensive vacuum cleaners door-to-door. That I could not bring myself to do.
Sunny Jim ~
Sounds like writing fodder to me. This is the summer of your poetry collection.
All best,
Caragh