Day #47: I Have Got to Find More Time to Write
I just finished the L.M. Montgomery biography I've been reading this week...it was so lovely and such a good read for right now. I'm always struck by how much her story parallels my grandmother's. I didn't know my grandmother, she died when I was four days old, but I was close with her younger sister my great aunt Marge. My grandmother was seven years old when her mother died, the second of four. Their father took off, moving eventually to Portland but I don't know how much wandering he did in the meantime, and left them in the care of their mother's parents who were in their late 50s at the time, so not incredibly old. Edda, my grandmother's mother, had been her parents' only child, and neither of them were from Montana so I don't think they had any other family around except for their grandchildren. The kids lived primarily with those grandparents but would occasionally be with their father or his parents for a time. As adults, all of the kids ended up near their father except my grandmother who made her home in Great Falls and took care of her grandparents, particularly her grandmother, who suffered from dementia. Grandpa Bird, who was her grandfather, is the only person my dad ever called Grandpa. My dad was named for Grandpa Bird. James got in big trouble yesterday for playing with his pocket watch, which I now have in my home. I think I also used to get in trouble for playing with it when I was a kid. My dad kept it under glass. My husband, who my dad gave it to (don't get me started) likes to leave it on its stand but with the glass gone so you can see the face.
L.M. Montgomery's story is similar, just earlier in time. She is more than a generation older than my grandmother, but the story is eerily similar. Her mother died of tuberculosis when she was less than two (my great-grandmother's youngest child was the same age when she died) and her father took off West, leaving her in the care of her mother's parents. They always get described in biographies of her as "elderly," but it isn't true. They were in their fifties and had an unmarried young daughter still living at home with them at the time she came to live with them. Except for a year with her father when she was a teenager, Maud, as she was known, lived with those grandparents. She left home as an adult to teach school and get some education but she always came home to their home and she spent the last years of her grandmother's life taking care of her in the family home after her grandfather died. That's when she wrote Anne of Green Gables.
I don't know how common this story is...certainly with maternal mortality rates as high as they were well into the 20th century there were lots of motherless children out there and probably a lot of them did end up with grandparents or other relatives. I'm sure to many people a widowed man caring for his children without a woman in the house would be pitied and it would be assumed he couldn't do that well. Both Maud and my grandmother continued to live with their grandparents even after they had stepmothers and younger half siblings, which I also find interesting.
Reading this book I also learned how much Maud was affected by the Spanish flu. I guess everyone was in that era and we are learning so much more about the Spanish flu now. I can't remember ever learning much about it in history class, just a passing mention. I knew much more than that because it was such a part of my family's history, and because my dad was older when I was born those relatives on that side were older than my friends' grandparents and they had more of a connection to that era. But it makes sense that with so much loss everyone probably felt it. Maud lost her favorite cousin and best friend as well as other relatives and was sick herself. It's chilling to read that part of her story now.
I love reading biographies of authors, especially favorite authors, and Montgomery for sure qualifies. But there is also a sadness. I feel like I've wasted a lot of my life "wanting to write" and not doing much about it. I looked up at my collection of typewriters again today. It's been so long since I've really written anything. I feel like I've been waiting for a story to tell and nothing has ever really grabbed me enough to do something with. I have such interesting family history and I've tried novelizations of it in the past but nothing sticks. I have such a longing to write now and feel stuck, not sure what to say, not sure what story to tell. It is frustrating. I feel it slipping away. I don't want to be a famous writer or make a fortune writing but I feel like I'm going to lose the chance to call myself a writer at all and I don't know what to do about it. I have managed to find more reading time in the past couple of years and that has been amazing...it nourishes me like nothing else and it is so nice to make it a priority again. But writing eludes me. And now...lordy, now I'm lucky if I get to go to the bathroom by myself, much less write. I do this. I'm glad I started doing this. And I write a poem a day from my poetry prompts book, when I can. It doesn't feel like enough. Everything feels speeded up, now. I feel like I'm in a race I'm losing. I haven't got an answer. I feel like even five years ago reading that book would have inspired me to pick up a notebook. Now I feel stuck...hemmed in by time and circumstance and my own brain.
As for the daily report, the less said about today the better. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed, was not kind, school did not go well. Mom guilt is real, for all the things. Should my kids wear masks outside? Should we do more school? Less? Did I really say that mean thing? One of their toys today recorded me saying "Do you have to be so loud?" That was a fun moment.
It did get better. Max and I napped. James played outside. Daddy made dinner. Daddy had a tough day, too. In the words of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day, "Some days are like that. Even in Australia."
Other media consumption today, not much. I've finally given up on that horrible Peck's Bad Boy book and there was some History Chicks. I'm hoping when I'm done here to tune into the second episode of that Mrs. America show, this time alone. James and I did watch some I Love Lucy. I had fun hearing him laugh. So did Max.
I'm also putting myself on a facebook hiatus for 72 hours, through Thursday. Guilt is real, guys, and nothing happening over there is good for me. I like seeing the memories of my kids and I like sharing them, I occasionally have a laugh at the mom jokes or a meme but for real the tradeoff isn't worth it this week. At all.
Today I'm grateful for a good book, a facebook hiatus, the day getting better, naps, Max, sunshine, bubbles, my dog snuggles, this blog, and I Love Lucy.
L.M. Montgomery's story is similar, just earlier in time. She is more than a generation older than my grandmother, but the story is eerily similar. Her mother died of tuberculosis when she was less than two (my great-grandmother's youngest child was the same age when she died) and her father took off West, leaving her in the care of her mother's parents. They always get described in biographies of her as "elderly," but it isn't true. They were in their fifties and had an unmarried young daughter still living at home with them at the time she came to live with them. Except for a year with her father when she was a teenager, Maud, as she was known, lived with those grandparents. She left home as an adult to teach school and get some education but she always came home to their home and she spent the last years of her grandmother's life taking care of her in the family home after her grandfather died. That's when she wrote Anne of Green Gables.
I don't know how common this story is...certainly with maternal mortality rates as high as they were well into the 20th century there were lots of motherless children out there and probably a lot of them did end up with grandparents or other relatives. I'm sure to many people a widowed man caring for his children without a woman in the house would be pitied and it would be assumed he couldn't do that well. Both Maud and my grandmother continued to live with their grandparents even after they had stepmothers and younger half siblings, which I also find interesting.
Reading this book I also learned how much Maud was affected by the Spanish flu. I guess everyone was in that era and we are learning so much more about the Spanish flu now. I can't remember ever learning much about it in history class, just a passing mention. I knew much more than that because it was such a part of my family's history, and because my dad was older when I was born those relatives on that side were older than my friends' grandparents and they had more of a connection to that era. But it makes sense that with so much loss everyone probably felt it. Maud lost her favorite cousin and best friend as well as other relatives and was sick herself. It's chilling to read that part of her story now.
I love reading biographies of authors, especially favorite authors, and Montgomery for sure qualifies. But there is also a sadness. I feel like I've wasted a lot of my life "wanting to write" and not doing much about it. I looked up at my collection of typewriters again today. It's been so long since I've really written anything. I feel like I've been waiting for a story to tell and nothing has ever really grabbed me enough to do something with. I have such interesting family history and I've tried novelizations of it in the past but nothing sticks. I have such a longing to write now and feel stuck, not sure what to say, not sure what story to tell. It is frustrating. I feel it slipping away. I don't want to be a famous writer or make a fortune writing but I feel like I'm going to lose the chance to call myself a writer at all and I don't know what to do about it. I have managed to find more reading time in the past couple of years and that has been amazing...it nourishes me like nothing else and it is so nice to make it a priority again. But writing eludes me. And now...lordy, now I'm lucky if I get to go to the bathroom by myself, much less write. I do this. I'm glad I started doing this. And I write a poem a day from my poetry prompts book, when I can. It doesn't feel like enough. Everything feels speeded up, now. I feel like I'm in a race I'm losing. I haven't got an answer. I feel like even five years ago reading that book would have inspired me to pick up a notebook. Now I feel stuck...hemmed in by time and circumstance and my own brain.
As for the daily report, the less said about today the better. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed, was not kind, school did not go well. Mom guilt is real, for all the things. Should my kids wear masks outside? Should we do more school? Less? Did I really say that mean thing? One of their toys today recorded me saying "Do you have to be so loud?" That was a fun moment.
It did get better. Max and I napped. James played outside. Daddy made dinner. Daddy had a tough day, too. In the words of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day, "Some days are like that. Even in Australia."
Other media consumption today, not much. I've finally given up on that horrible Peck's Bad Boy book and there was some History Chicks. I'm hoping when I'm done here to tune into the second episode of that Mrs. America show, this time alone. James and I did watch some I Love Lucy. I had fun hearing him laugh. So did Max.
I'm also putting myself on a facebook hiatus for 72 hours, through Thursday. Guilt is real, guys, and nothing happening over there is good for me. I like seeing the memories of my kids and I like sharing them, I occasionally have a laugh at the mom jokes or a meme but for real the tradeoff isn't worth it this week. At all.
Today I'm grateful for a good book, a facebook hiatus, the day getting better, naps, Max, sunshine, bubbles, my dog snuggles, this blog, and I Love Lucy.
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