Stepping Stones

I've stalled posting on my blog for weeks. I told myself I was waiting for things to calm down a bit, but I suspect I've not posted because I've wanted to avoid going through emotions I'm not sure I'm capable of expressing.

From the 19th to the 26th, I was in Mexico with my mother. I've posted before about her cancer. Our visit this time was bittersweet: we found a fulfilling end to our relationship. Through the simple act of caring for her physical needs during these final days of her life, she and I bonded in a way that can only happen when you've stripped away all the aspects of this earthly life until all that remains is the fact that life ends. Things that seemed important fall away, and you have only the love and the need to ease pain.

As I write this, I'm waiting for the call from one of my sisters or my brother, telling me that her suffering is over. I think that's why I've put off posting on my blog, although I don't know why. Finality, maybe? Closure?

Just 4 weeks ago - a few days after my father's death -my mother sent me an email about my father's memorial:
"I will miss having your dad here in this world, too. We were married for 22 years, and a lot of those years were good years. And as I told him, I would always love him for giving me 4 marvelous children. Without him, you 4 wouldn't be here."

She asked me to share these words at my father's memorial. On the 25th, my two sisters arrived in Mexico to help me with my mother's care. I returned home to Seattle late at night on the 26th in order to prepare for my father's memorial service. On the 27th, my sister Nancy was at the Mazatlan airport, boarding the same flight my brother Michael took to Mexico to be with our mother. Nancy and Michael shared tears and touched their hands on the glass separating the international arrivals from the departures. Michael and his wife Patty are there to say their own goodbyes and to help my sister Kathy who had requested to be with Mom at the end.

So on Saturday, June 28th, the day that would have been my father's 81st birthday, we held his memorial services. Nancy and I were there in body, Kathy and Michael were there in spirit, and we were surrounded by our family members and our closest friends. The service was beautiful. In her homily, Mother Cynthia captured everything the four of us had rambled about in meetings and emails while we we planned the memorial. After the services, I felt lighter and happy from the joyful celebration of my father's life.

On another day, when I'm not waiting for the phone to ring in the middle of the night, I'll post about seeing my uncle Dan again and my cousin Jim. I'm so glad they travelled from San Jose to Seattle to be at my father's memorial.

Each day of our lives has a purpose. The events of your day may be stepping stones to something you've worked hard to get to, a purpose of your own. But if it's your day to help someone else across the pond, embrace that day as well and live it fully. I believe that my purpose these past 5 weeks has been to help others along on their journey, and if I hadn't allowed myself to be distracted from my own goals, I would have missed so much.

One thing leads to another

At the NECRWA conference, I had the opportunity to chat with Susan Wiggs (http://www.susanwiggs.com/). Susan is the author of many books, one of them Table For Five, which I just read and enjoyed so much I immediately passed it along to a woman sitting next to me on the airplane. Susan is from the Pacific Northwest, too, and she encouraged me to look into Field's End, a conference in our area.

I did, and I'm registered. Susan, it was your pictures that sold me! Who can resist such a beautiful setting? (To find out about this conference, go to http://www.fieldsend.org/).

My friend Ellie is going to attend with me. It didn't take any arm-twisting. All I did was email her the conference info and she called and said, "I want to go!" I'm looking forward to spending the whole day with Ellie. It's been...gosh...since my Tyler days...? *Snicker* are you wondering what my "Tyler days" were? Hint: Tyler was tall, dark, full of himself, and terrified of my husband.

That was fun :) On to my writing ~

I'm applying the work I did a few weeks ago, where I nailed down some elements of the plot that desperately needed to be nailed down. KEY elements, like whodunit. Writing a mystery is not like writing a more literary story where the plot is character-driven (my other novel is women's fic). While it was fun writing a mystery and being in the dark myself, I fear I've wasted an awful lot of time. And words. A few of the changes I made dovetail right into the existing MS; others require a bit more work, but that's okay. I keep telling myself that I don't have to get every word PERFECT on this draft, but then I linger and agonize over scenes, trying to figure out why it doesn't resonate the way I want it to. I need to stop lingering and just get the changes down and into this draft and THEN go back and rework the scenes.

One more thing: the world may be getting smaller thanks to the internet, but it can't overcome the distance between me and my writing friends. The drawback to belonging to an international writing group is that the face-to-face meetings are few and far between. Instead of being filled with gratefulness for the opportunity to meet two of my longtime internet friends - which I should be - I'm feeling the empty, lifeless air of the miles that separate us.

Maybe a trip to Starbucks will fill that void...

NECRWA Conference

For my first conference, I couldn't have chosen a better conference to attend. The workshops applied to all genres: going deeper with point of view, setting as metaphor, weaving in backstory artfully, critiquing, the business of writing. The guest speakers were witty and insightful. Everyone was approachable. And meeting my friends? Well, that was worth every penny spent.

What I found at this conference was validation. To describe the validation in cliche: Writing is a lonely business. I can't think of a better way to describe it. Like all other writers, I pour my heart and soul onto the page and hope that someone will enjoy the words I've conjured into (hopefully) living, breathing characters. Publication is wonderful, as are critique groups, for making you feel like a real writer, but a conference makes you feel like you're part of the writing community.

More later. I still need to process all that I experienced! The fun with my friends, the professional input, the increased motivation...there's just too much to fit down in one post.

NECRWA Conference

ONLY ONE MORE DAY!

It feels like I've spent days getting ready, from making arrangements for the kids for while I'm gone to deciding what shoes to wear with my LBD.

On the road

The NECRWA conference is next weekend! I'm getting excited. I'll be travelling all the way across the country on Monday and staying with my writing friend Madison Leigh. Another of the members of our international writing group will be joining us at the conference. Mad and Jen and I have been busy emailing about our upcoming visit.

This will not be the first time I've travelled alone since my adrenal failure in May of 2005, but it will be the first time I've travelled alone to somewhere I've never been. You would think travelling to a foreign country on my own would have been the more intimidating experience, but there are a few aspects of this trip that have me a bit nervous. I'll be flying into Providence, renting a car, and driving to my friend's house in Massachusetts. Eek! But I'm a big girl, and I have a GPS navigation system with my friend's address already plugged in. Right now as I sit in my house in the Pacific Northwest, it tells me I have 2,454 miles to my destination.

On the aspect of writing, I have not done much of anything. I feverishly scribbled down the start of a longish short story, the one my muse handed to me when he should have been concentrating on one or the other of my novels in progress. To say that this short story is outside of my usual would be an understatement. Near as I can tell, this one takes place in the late forties or early fifties and is set in a tropical climate, most likely somewhere in South America. And it begins with the aftermath of an earthquake.

I think I'll let that story simmer for a while and get back to my mystery.