Today’s Tuesday! And you know what that means, right?
Right?!
A new podcast episode over at The Stories Between Us! This week, Maile is talking about that time she was given a name tag to wear that simply said, “Wife of the writer” or something like that. We also discuss open-door and closed-door writing, I talk about how social media is robbing us of the opportunity to write without an audience (I’m a grumpy old troll), and, finally, we emotionally prepare ourselves for an upcoming episode in which we commit to talking about writerly jealousy between spouses.
Today’s letter from Jen is one of my favorites so far:
“This morning, I finally cracked open Flannery O’Connor’s published prayer journal, which I’d borrowed weeks ago from the library. (Have I told you about my terrible library habits, how I never return books on time? I’ve come to view my regular fines as “subscription” fees, and that seems to assuage the guilt.) In her very first prayer, she writes, “I want very much to succeed in the world with what I want to do. I have prayed to You about this with my mind and my nerves on it and strung my nerves into a tension over it and said, ‘oh God please,’ and ‘I must,’ and ‘please, please.’” At the time of the writing the journal, Flannery was only 23 without any published writing of consequence. I have to admit that I was awed—and also a little bit aghast—at the audacity of her prayer. It makes me wonder if I could have that same kind of urgency about my calling.”
What began as a Twitter conversation between two writers on creative work and family life has become an exchange of letters. Here is where Postmarked began:
Ten years ago I was running a residential painting business, and I was in my van outside of a potential client’s house, writing up an estimate. The real estate bubble had burst the year before, but it took a while to filter down to little people like me. In any case, the summer had come and gone, business was much too slow, and as I sat in that van writing up the estimate, I was trying to figure out how to tell Maile that the worst-case scenario had arrived: I wasn’t making enough money. Our business was in a lot of debt. We needed to make a major change.
That second-half of 2009 lives in my mind like a long-ago series of unfortunate events.
I had co-written one book at that point and was deep in the writing of my second co-writing project.
After many sleepless nights, long conversations, the support of friends, and the overwhelming graciousness of our families, we decided it was time to hit reset. Start from scratch.
I remember how all of our friends came out to help us load the moving truck. I remember the long drive through the rain, 150 miles north to Lancaster. I remember how dark it was at my parents’ house, shuffling the kids down into the basement, getting them in bed, and then lying there, wondering how it had come to that. I was in my 30s, my family of six was living in my parents’ basement, and we were starting over.
Maile would later tell me how she was lying there, too, in the dark, when she felt God whisper, “Maile, this is a gift!”
And I remember her response to God, before rolling over and going back to sleep.
“Well, God, it’s a pretty shitty gift.”
* * * * *
Here we are, friends, ten years later. And it is good.
And it was a gift.
I can’t say the ensuing years were simply victory after victory, a constant upward trajectory. Nope. Nothing like that. And I’m not going to use our story to say that you should leave your job or chase your dreams so that you can live your best life now.
Nope.
Nothing like that.
But I will say this–if you’re living through a large shift in your life, and you’re more focused on learning from the journey than you are on any particular destination, then eventually you will see it for the gift that it is.
I know that’s a pretty sweeping statement, but I stand by it.
* * * * *
Last Saturday night, Maile and I were walking back from Luca, one of our favorite restaurants in the city. We had sat at our table and had a good-but-hard conversation about where we are, where Maile is, where we want to be, what we want to do with this “one wild and crazy life.” Maile was in tears at some point–I don’t think she’ll mind me saying. And I held her hand and listened. And the waiter was kind, even though it took us days before we were ready to order.
As we walked home, I said that to her, “Do you realize it’s been ten years since we left Virginia, since we moved here?”
We walked quietly in that realization, the late-night darkness all around us. The street lights seemed bright, and the air was cool. Fall had arrived. Someone had decked their front porch out for Halloween, and the scarecrow sitting in the lawn chair made me jump again, just as it had when we passed it earlier in the night.
I couldn’t see our future ten years ago: the two additional babies we would have, the 20 books I’d co-write, the novels I’d see published. All the words. All the new friends. The ways Maile and I would change, and grow, together.
I couldn’t see that incredibly hard thing for what it was: a gift.
“Ten years,” she said quietly. That was all. We each knew what the other was thinking.
Another Friday, another letter from Jen Michel Pollack in our ongoing series on creativity, writing, and family life! Check out a preview below:
* * * * *
“Dear Shawn,
. . . I so enjoyed your thoughts on “vocational holiness” in your last letter, how it calls us to set things apart, even set ourselves apart. I used to imagine a stark division between all that matters to God and all that doesn’t, but I’ve come to see that the messy, ordinary whole of life is his—though as you reminded me, there’s a certain focus that’s required for drawing a circle around what we’ve been given by God to do and to tend. We have to admit what falls inside that circle and admit what falls outside. In fact, there is no circle without the line, no shape to the whole without the definitive boundary of in and out.
I have to confess that I hate boundaries; I want capacities that are endless, energy and time that is infinite. No doubt there’s a lot of pathology in this (not to mention sin). But as I also realized in a recent session with my spiritual director, I think it’s also difficult for me to draw that circle because I feel everything that remains outside of it to represent a kind of loss. Worse, in facing the losses of the things I must leave undone, I can start convincing myself that I’m doing the wrong thing. Because if I were doing God’s will, surely there would be no losses, right?”
What began as a Twitter conversation between two writers on creative work and family life has become an exchange of letters. Here is a list of our prior letters for Postmarked:
Thursday seems like a good day to give a shout-out to a few of the things I’ve been enjoying lately, so here are five…just to name a few:
In the Midst of Winter by Isabelle Alende (book)
This is such a poignant book, telling a compelling, modern-day story while also going into the backstories of the immigrants involved. In a day and age when we need all the empathy we can get, this book is the medicine. Alende’s writing is so beautifully simple and poetic. Check it out.
10 Things to Tell You by Laura Tremaine (podcast)
Full disclosure–Laura is a friend I met many years ago on a trip to Sri Lanka. Random, right? Well, it turns out she has a wonderful podcast called 10 Things to Tell You, and the last few episodes have been a roller coaster of seriousness and laughter. Check out the one about the break in, or her most recent episode with Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey (of The Office fame).
Love Letters to Writers by Andi Cumbo-Floyd (book)
This is a really touching book written by Andi to writers everywhere. Super encouraging, plus she’s writing a follow-up, so now’s the time to buy and read this first volume.
Podcasting with Maile
Okay, this isn’t exactly a thing you can get or listen to or read…at least not yet. But I have been loving this podcast that Maile and I are working on. I love the conversations we’re having about creativity, writing, and publishing. I love how honest she is–actually, it’s a little scary for me, how honest she is. It’s called The Stories Between Us, and as soon as it’s all set up, I’ll give you the link to subscribe.
Sleep
Folks, I am loving sleep right now. I’m not getting it consistently–our five year old and three year old have been getting up in the night and our oldest works two nights a week until 10:30 p.m., and since he doesn’t have his license yet I have to go pick him up. But sleep, when I get it. Wow. I love sleep.
Today, Jen continues with our ongoing correspondence on creativity and family life:
I wasn’t speaking to promote books and having to manage all of the logistical details as well as the content preparation for those events. Instead, I was dropping my kids off at school and on really good days, tucking myself into a booth at Panera, counting on refilling my mug of coffee and being absolutely undisturbed.
Where have those days gone?
In some ways, having authored three books, I’m more a writer than I was then. But the irony is that I feel like I’m not able to write like I used to, at least not write with space for boundless creativity to romp and play. Today, I may be publishing lots of words, but sometimes they can feel like the dubious effort of trying to wring more water from a desiccated sponge.
What began as a Twitter conversation between two writers on creative work and family life has become an exchange of letters. Here is a list of our prior letters for Postmarked:
