Earlier this year, I started writing a book about how to mine midlife’s numerous challenges for our art, specifically how to make some meaning out of all the hard scrabble shit that it produces rather than just sitting in my familiar, hot-flash inspired puddle of misery. I thought I was in that halcyon place of looking back on these lessons after grappling my way back to a hard-won writing practice many years in the making (Thanks, HRT! Thanks therapy. Thanks fellow travelers!) I thought I was now at the lesson processing plant, ready to package up and send along these gleanings to help others.
(Go ahead: laugh…I’ll wait).
And then life went all Alien bursting out of the guts on me. Name a person close to me and they were suddenly going through something major or transitional or life altering. Physical ailments, emotional challenges, breakdowns and break throughs, tragic loss, major regrets, U-turns of life and then some. To top it off, perimenopause gave a movie villain cackle and said: you may be on HRT but I still have some control over your moods mwa ha ha as it dragged me down to its lair.
I don’t know about you, but in times of chaos I rarely turn into a joyous delight that people want to hang out with. I lean into my childhood coping mechanisms—control, rigidity, inflexibility, avoiding social contact, and clutching my cranky mood state close like a child’s threadbare blankie.
(What does any of this have to do with writing? It’s coming, I promise).
In the thick of my own personal bad weather front, I was able to squeeze in a session with my therapist online.
All About that Bounce
She wanted me to externalize/personify that part of me that takes control, that must stay in control else all will surely go to hell. She’s fantastic. I love her. But I was not vibing here. I was clutching so tightly to my trusted sentinal control, my virtual fingernails were carving round red moons into my psyche.
“I can’t just let my inner manager off the job because I might fall off a cliff!” I insisted.
“What’s at the bottom of the cliff?” Or more to the point, she added, “What can you put at the bottom of the cliff to stop you from shattering?”
I didn’t want to think beyond shatter. I didn’t want to play this game, but my psyche, for once, didn’t listen to me. In a sob-laugh what emerged was …
… a trampoline.
Even writing it now, again, makes me feel like cry-laughing. (It’s fine if you think I’m unhinged). A trampoline is the opposite of holding on for dear life. It’s fling and contort, it’s bounce and soar. My husband pointed out it’s a perfect image of resilience—you’re going to get back up whether you want to or not. Boing. Boing. A trampoline is play—the energy I want to bring more of into my life and writing. Hell, I might even start teaching the trampoline plot structure—your hero’s up, then down, then up again, then down, but not for long!
For me, the trampoline reflects life and creativity’s chaotic patterns. Nothing is as neat as the three-act structure; nobody’s life moves like that. Nobody’s goals follow those patterns.
I know a metaphor isn’t going to make your writing practice magic, or the chaos of life any easier to handle… well, maybe for my fellow control clutchers who could use to loosen up… but metaphors do have a way of working on the mind, of worming their way into how we think about things.
Can you jump on the trampoline in your creativity or life right now? What would that look like?
Join Me on the Fallout Book Tour!
Tuesday, July 29, 6:30 pm, reading with
for the Trident Author Series at Trident Books, Boulder, CO.August 23. I’ll be in San Diego—first at the San Diego Book Festival with
with the Sibylline Press booth.4pm: I’ll be in conversation/reading with
at Barnes & Noble, Mira Mesa on Westview Parkway in SD.September 6, 3 to 5 pm. Lion Ranch Winery. Sip + Chat. Join me at the gorgeous Lion Ranch Winery in San Martin as we chat, talk books, play literary games and sip wine. A $10 ticket gets you guaranteed admission and a glass of wine!
AND MORE:
Sept. 10, 6pm. “Writing At the Root.” In conversation with
. Readers’ Books, Sonoma, CA.Sept. 21-22. Brooklyn Book Festival.
Sept. 26-27. Central Coast Writers Conference.
Audiobook Lovers: Rejoice! Fallout is Live
The Fallout audiobook is AVAILABLE and it is PHENOMENAL. I knew the minute I heard Maria Marquis’ sample that it was going to be good, and she blew me away. (I am a tough customer, too!)
Fallout Made Electric Lit’s List of 15 Small Press Books You Should Be Reading This Summer!
Also, Fallout made it onto a list!
‘s “15 Small Press Books You Should Be Reading This Summer” with a theme of resistance, thanks to . I am in VERY good company.Purchase Books
Purchasing books supports not just me, but the entire small press machinery behind me, including Running Wild Press and Sibylline Press.
Your reviews make an author’s world go round and can now help save an Afghan family
Reviews are essential to sales for an author, ESPECIALLY a small press author. If you leave me a review for Fallout, and comment here in the Stack, I will donate $10 to my friend Mike Copperman’s wife’s Afghan family who are in desperate need to get out of a dangerous situation—including elders, and small children. We are VERY close to our initial goal of $20K (which is just a drop in the bucket to support several generations of family over at least 2 years). Also, feel free to donate directly to the cause: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-save-my-afghan-family-from-deportation-and-danger
Falling and bouncing right along with you, Jordan, and menopause has been in my review for a few years. The metaphor serves!
I actually have a very old tramp in our backyard we still use. And man, I’ve been having hot flashes up the yin yang daily for the past two weeks!