Monthly Archives: November 2021

Still not trying to be a better person

i

I’ve been giving this a great deal of thought, kittens, and here’s the thing—generally speaking, I do want to be a good person. I just don’t want to be a better person. I mean, I probably wouldn’t mind being a slightly better person—it’s just a lot of work and I don’t want to do it. Like eating a totally sugar-free diet, exercising regularly, not drinking and not indulging with my occasional sheesha pipe—these are all things I’m capable of doing. I just… in the final analysis, when push comes to shove, insert cliché of your choice here—don’t want to.

You are on a relentless path of self-improvement—the goal, not perfection, I’ll grant you that, but that self-help enlightenment that makes me cringe. I’ve figured out why, by the way—your self-focus, self-improvement? It ensures that you will never actually change the world. You, yourself, after all are the project—the one thing you can control and change, and you do require infinite work…

He, conversely, thinks he’s perfect, no improvement required. When he clashes with the world, it’s the world that must change, not he. He’s often irritating to be around, I won’t deny—but he’s going to impact the world around him. You won’t.

You get upset when we talk about this—when I talk like this—because you sincerely believe that you do what you do for the greater good, not just of yourself and your soul—although, ok, there’s that too, you admit it—but for the Greater Good, two capital Gs, period.

That’s the lie the gurus, be they yogis of ancient lineages or secular life coaches sell. Maybe some even believe it. But the pursuit of self-enlightenment is really just a distraction—a way of sidelining intelligent, big-hearted people, funneling them away from the external work of social change and trapping them in the Narcissistic mirror of self-love.

Yeah, it’s a conspiracy and it’s a brilliant, grassroots one. The Man did not have to create it. He just needs to use it.

And he does.

ii

To be frank—when am I not—I feel the pull and allure of self-improvement too. I have control over so very little in my everyday life, nevermind on the macro political and social stage. My paltry actions on climate change and smashing the white, heteronormative patriarchy… all so insignificant.

But I have 100 per cent control over being thinner. Physically stronger, maybe even ripped. Capable of sitting still for 20-30 minutes each day in unfocused meditation…

Maybe it’s time to start sitting still and meditating again. It won’t change anything—but it will make me feel like I’m doing something.

Working on myself.

iii

I sit down and close my eyes. Breathe. Ugh. No. Not yet. Moral of the story, reiterated: I don’t really want to be a better person. Now excuse me while I go eat a chocolate croissant, not exercise, and have a long nap…

xoxo

“Jane”

Still writing?

i

I pick up my Ender from his homeschool school—like school, but part-time, like school, but for weird, unsocialized homeschoolers, like school, but you can tell the teachers you don’t care about academics and grade level and if you see them screwing up your kid’s love of learning and confidence—OMG, none of this is relevant to this post, except that clearly, I still feel defensive about sending Ender to fake school at all, because I didn’t really want to and I wish I had been able to give him the full ten years pre-high school that his siblings got, but such is life and so far, he seems to be thriving—although it was a rocky start, point: I’m picking up Ender from school and as I’m circling the playground with the Bear called Bumblebee, I bump into someone from my previous life.

“Still writing?” she asks me after giving me a shorthand of what she’s been up to over the past decade.

(People always ask that. See Dani Shapiro’s Still Writing for a book-length riff on why that’s such a weird question for a writer.)

“Yes,” I say.

It feels like a lie. Because outside of my morning pages, the occasional blog post, and a handful of bad (so bad) poems, what am I writing?

Well, I write at work, but that’s not really writing, it’s more production… anyway. It feels like a lie and as I excuse myself and yank the dog to finish our round-the-playground loop, I force myself to examine why that “yes” feels like a lie.

The answer is the same as it was on the day I realized that despite the undisputable fact that I’ve made a full-time living writing since I’ve been 17, whenever I said, “I’m a writer” when people asked me what I did or who I was… it felt like a like.

Because real writers write books.

Novels.

I haven’t been working on a new novel since I paused Bingo in February or March. I haven’t even been trying to sell the finished one(s).

So am I writing?

The published titles on my shelf say, “At least you wrote.”

They mock me.

I’m still writing, I tell them.

I think…

ii

There is, of course, one way to NOT make myself feel like a liar and that’s to pick up Matilda, Honey or Bingo and take one of them across the finish line. Matilda just needs a proof and can be subbed. Honey needs a consistency edit and polish, and it’s ready for a beta reader. Bingo needs 50K more words, but that’s a month’s worth of work at most, full-time job, kids and lovers notwithstanding. I’m only working one job now and I live alone, with the kids coming and going only three or four days a week—I definitely have the time.

Why aren’t I writing?

iii

If I were a friend asking me for advice—please don’t—I’d remind them about the hell that was 2019, the strains of the pandemic, the divorce, the stress of living on imaginary money for eight months, the five months of working two and a half full-time jobs, and suggest that they stop being a self-aggrandizing queen (queen can be a gender neutral word) and cut themselves some slack—also, what about that memoir they just finished ghostwriting, what is that, chopped liver?

(It’s so good, btw. Coming to a silver screen near you one day soon, I’m sure of it. Well, I hope. Nothing is certain. But. It’s so good.)

But I’m me, staring at me, and I think that clearly, I need to stop reading Ann Cleeves novels, watching Brooklyn 99 (because, inter alia, ACAB), dancing and dating and, like, write.

At least proof.

So I don’t feel like a liar.

So I don’t disappear.

Because, as everybody knows, when a writer doesn’t write, she doesn’t exist.

iv

Ender had a great day at school and is excited about everything. He likes his math teacher—I like his math teacher—and he loves gym and recess. There’s too much homework, though, he complains. When we get home, I make him a snack and he gets on his computer to double-check what he needs to do for next week—ends up making rockets instead (also homework, but he was just supposed to make one—he makes at least six).

I make supper, assist him a little with the rocket production line, in-between, read The Healers by Ann Cleeves and check work email. Flora walks over in a bit to join us for supper—have I told you Cinder has flown not just the nest, but the province?—and we eat, then clean up and play Anomia.

I walk them to the Coop house in the dark. It’s still early, only 8:30—I could, I should write. Right after I walk the dog, I can write before bed—but on the days that I pick up Ender from school, I like to start work by 6:30 so that  I’m essentially done for the day by the time I leave to go get him from school and now, I just want to stretch out on the couch and read.

Be asleep before 10.

I write a couple of (very bad) poems and this blog post first.

xoxo

“Jane”

PS Still writing.