The Art of My Essays - Part One

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.

Michel de Montaigne

Twenty years ago, a new friend and I took on the editorship of our neighborhood newsletter. Probably doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but this was an eight-page monthly newsletter with a circulation of 1500. My friend, Rebekah, and I were new stay-at-home moms in a new neighborhood, seeking sanity.

The publication consisted of advertisements from mainly neighborhood residents - the insurance salesmen, Tupperware ladies, real estate agents, and home painters. Articles included happenings with the sewer company, neighborhood association news, Yard of the Month, and the pool schedule. Rebekah and I handled all aspects of the process from collecting and writing the news, advertising, copy editing, distributing, etc. We used the newsletter as a welcome outlet while our lives took on this new role of never-a-break motherhood. Rebekah brought the journalism experience and I can't tell you what I had to offer at the time other than being a sucker for getting out of the house. (Eliminating my salary put more than a few chinks in our lifestyle.)

By the time we, and then co-editor, Lynda, finished this volunteer job years later, the paper had grown to 16 pages and a circulation of 2200. We had a volunteer staff of 15 people, monthly meetings, and the Austin American Statesman was calling us for news. The superintendent of schools wanted our publication on his desk as soon as it came off the press.

But all that glory did have its bumps along the way. At deadline, Page 5 always had a hole. A big one. A few months after we began, in an effort to bring some feature writing and articles of interest, I wrote a short essay on buying a new refrigerator. Had a tad of humor to it, I think, and was received well. Sample lines from a few of the eventual 40 or so Page 5 fillers:

On children: What is it about our species that wants children so desperately and then delights in their absence?

We put our kids to bed between 7:30 and 8. People ask why they go down so early. I reply that they need their rest, but the little voice in the back of my mind says 'Be honest, tell 'em you can't stand them anymore.'

The other day while I was trying to remember my oldest child's name so I could yell at him...

On housework and homemaking: I don't have particular days set up to do laundry. When my kids come downstairs and say, "Mom, we're out of underwear," I know it's time to do laundry.

I've heard that the key to a neat home is to have a place for everything and to put things back in their place. I do that. I have a place for everything--on the counter.

Ok, so I didn't become the ultimate homemaker. My neighbor, also a stay-at-home mom, gets up every morning and irons a shirt for her husband, fixes him breakfast, and probably kisses him goodbye at the door. At my house, as my husband irons his own shirt using the bathroom light as his guide, I wake up, ask him to not make so much noise, then roll over and go back to sleep.

On pregnancy: The Ode to the Nine Month Pregnant Woman - She lies on the couch listening to her children destroying something in the garage and thinks, 'Boy, there was a day when I would have cared what was going on out there.'

Who cares if her kids eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and dinner? She fed them, didn't she?

On my husband: I don't know about the man in your house, but in my house when my husband is sick, the whole world comes to a standstill. He usually makes sure that he has worn himself down as much as he can before he decides to call a doctor or stay home.

My husband has never refused to handle a diaper change or a throw-up cleanup. He has made tremendous progress from the days when changing the cat box gagged him.

On getting crap for writing form Christmas letters: What they don't realize is that after you hand write 50 letters, they are all pretty much the same anyway. And those at the end of the alphabet usually get profound letters stating "How are you? We are fine. Jacob talks, Jordan walks, Bob works, and we still have the cat. Merry Christmas."

Okay, so some of you blogger friends who have followed me for a while are thinking not much has changed in twenty years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

As to the reason for this trip back in time? One of the groups I joined in the writing salon, She Writes.com, has been discussing the definition of the personal essay. It reminded me as to how I came about writing essays as never did I expect to do so. When I did this newsletter, even after five years and over 40 essays, I had no idea that's what I wrote. But I liked it.

One of my mentors? Erma Bombeck. Through her daily columns, she taught me how to survive the life mine had become. We had a difference in styles. She had a better sense of humor and a more vivid imagination. For her kid's lunches, she made pork chop sandwiches with the bone still in the meat. I paid for school lunches.

After the smoke of motherhood cleared somewhat due to my youngest beginning school and I had a moment to myself, I consumed all 770 pages of The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate. There, and in several writing classes, I discovered why I loved this form of expression. The discovery of self. The universal, yet personal nature of its works. My actions, my thoughts, my life, on any given day, put into words so even I could understand them.

Of course, this makes it sound like I have it all figured out. Wouldn't that be nice.

to be continued...

Photo courtesy of Beth at Idea Gal

Housekeeping? Moi?

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
Erma Bombeck


After reading Gilead, I had Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping novel somewhere on my books-to-be-read shelf. I didn't await it with glee. The title scared the crap out of me. You see, I'm not the best housekeeper. In fact I can pretty much find everything else to do rather than clean my house, i.e. the books shelves in the study where my youngest son does his homework. (Note the presence of the old encyclopedias. What does one do with a set of those these days?)

Conversely, husband's side of the family are cleaning freaks. I can visit his mom's house and use the garage floor as a plate for my dinner, no thoughts needed. At my house, I push aside a pile of papers on my kitchen table to find a spot for my plate. I dare not think about when it might last have been washed off.

I admit it. I'm a crappy housekeeper. Oh, I have times when I sweep, dust, vacuum, mop, sort, toss, scour, and pile papers into a neat stack. Few and far between occurrences. I am easily distracted by the New Yorker open to a new article on top of the pile on the table, or a handwritten letter to send, a garden to plant, a friend to visit, or a novel to write.

Lest I say, you get my house as is when you come by. Which is why Marilynne's book didn't disappoint. Two young girls, Lucille and Ruthie, have survived their parents and grandmother and are passed off to their aunt, Sylvie, their mother's sister the "tramp". Or transient. She prefers the outdoors, danger, a trance-like atmosphere. Collects tin cans, newspapers. Adverse to housecleaning. When the younger sister, Lucille, decides on a more conventional life and moves in with her teacher, the authorities swoop in to see if Sylvie provides a good home for Ruthie. Sylvie cleans the house, but both decide this is not what they want. They escape over the bridge out of town - the railroad bridge no on else will cross, and enter a nomadic lifestyle. Very happy with it, I might add.

The message? Not everyone conforms. Not everyone is cut out for the cookie cutter life. The definitions of order are different for everyone.

I like that kind of thinking.

Although, all good things must come to an end. There does come a time when one has to break down and clean the damn house. My husband and I did that at the lake this past Saturday. Fall Cleaning, as it were. Supposed to do it last spring, but then the crowds came and, well, so much more fun to loll on the dock with a glass of wine than wash sheets, find out what's really under the beds, and scour showers.

We put our bodies to work non-stop. I must have done 24 loads of laundry. Bed pads, sheets, comforters, pillows, blankets. Took everything off the bookshelves, dusted, washed. All the windows, showers, toilets. Moved the furniture - vacuumed and washed underneath.

It looks mahvelous. Ready for the next round of 100+ visitors. At least the upstairs.

We have to spend next Saturday doing the bunkroom and downstairs windows. The old fashioned horizontal kind you crank. Like Venetian blinds, only glass. Plus the downstairs shower where all the hundreds of kids rinse off. Yeck. (That job is for sale if any takers.)

But that night, after we declared the day done, my husband and I lumbered onto the dock to watch the sunset. Our bodies dropped into our chairs and we wished the entire wine bottle plus another had found its way down with us. Although our wearied limbs tingled with overuse, we did have satisfaction in the order and cleanliness of the cabin behind us. Only a momentary tingle for me, I'm certain.

Now, will someone come shovel out the house in town. The one where all the junk of life lives.

Meanwhile, share the sunset.