This Demented Life: A Flash Blog

writing off disbelief

Creatively speaking, it’s been a good year so far. Daily writing with London Writers Salon, a global writing community. Master’s Writing Workshop, University of Arizona. Joined Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Made art, some good, some bad, for the 100 Day Creative Challenge. Wrote a few poems.  Launched the micro mashup, a weekly microburst of literary art. Interviewed authors. Published a few stories. Tweeted a novella.

But when I applied to a 5-Day Writing Residency and wasn’t accepted, the familiar chords of self-doubt clanged around my brain: I suck as a writer. Who am I kidding? I’m a charlatan, a poseur. My writing career is over.

And then it wasn’t.

After a while, the chorus changes. It always does, if you listen long enough. Now the refrain that plays is “writing equals butt in chair,” so I walk to the kitchen writing nook and sit in the red chair at my little desk. Gradually, the muse appears, a faded polaroid of my mom in her art studio. The black dog settles on his rug. The lighthouse in the painting above guides me toward pen and page. Just when I believe I have nothing left to say, it turns out I do, in fact, have words that need to be heard, so I sing them. This is how it happens with writing.

And in those murky moments when I’m panicked over deadlines and paralyzed with inadequacy and questioning my ability to juggle writing with everything else in my life—multiple households, travel, petsitting, finances, caregiving, death—and all of this feels as if I’m channeling my mother’s own self-doubt and disbelief in herself as an artist, a writer, a mother, all I can say is it’s just part of the process. Of being human: daughter, mother, wife. Of being a writer: artist, wordsmith, creator.

from the archives: an evolution of gratitude

“Greatful” List, age 7. My mother was a fan of lists and taught me to be grateful at an early age. Spelling skills came later. Here’s one she framed: dogs and cats and family and friends. It still hangs in the living room of my childhood home.

Medium: Pencil on a sheet torn from her sketchpad.

Gratitude Journal, age 35. After two decades of a hard-driving life, when the only thing in my life remotely related to gratitude was a Grateful Dead show, I finally stopped running away from myself. A page from Year One:

Dear Universe:
Thank you for keeping me sober, one day at a time.
Yours truly,
Me

Medium: Leatherbound journal, purple gel pen.

Gratitude Blog Posts, age 50. So, this happened: I quit the insurance career I never planned on to take care of my mother and somehow became what I always wanted to be: a writer. I started this flash blog to sort things out. Dementia. Family. Caregiving. Recovery. Dogs and cats. Running. Depression. Writing. From the depths of despair, writing brought a sliver of hope. And yeah, I wrote a few posts about gratitude.

Medium: keyboard and website. Cyberspace.

Gratitude DadTexts, Pandemic edition. Shortly before the pandemic, my father moved from his beloved old island cottage to an assisted living community. Before he’d had time to make friends, the place went on lockdown. Lonely and a little sad, he was stuck in a tiny apartment with his aging cat, Gilbert. Like my mother had done all those years ago, I revived the Grateful List and every day for three months we exchanged lists via text.

Medium: iPhone.

100 Days of Gratitude Sketches, 2022. Last month, I stumbled onto Suleika Jaouad’s 100-Day Project, with the simple guidelines to “create one beautiful thing each day.” Daily now, I leave the comfort of my word world to orbit a new galaxy of art: a tiny sketch of one thing I’m grateful for each day. The artwork isn’t pretty and clearly, I did not inherit my mother’s artistic talents, but the challenge is unexpectedly exhilarating.

Medium: sketchbook, colored pencils and markers.

My gratitude journey goes on and on, it never stops. My seven-year-old self knew it all along.

I’m over it

A million years ago in the days of resumes and job interviews, I considered being detail-oriented my biggest strength.

Analyzing every angle, stripping the layers of a project bare, problem solving any potential flaw—that’s how I roll even now, long after the career ended.

In the next chapter of my working life—family caregiver, petsitter, writer—attention to detail is still critical, but more often, crippling. The octopus tentacles of overthought options often overwhelm. Funding for my dad’s lifespan. A new furnace for island house. Multiple revisions to a manuscript. Another road trip back East.

Overthinking: I suppose it lies somewhere between impulsive and ponderous on the life balance chart. And, yeah, I suck at moderation.

If overthinking is the spawn of perfectionism, it should come as no surprise that I’m a recovering perfectionist. In sobriety, I’ve gradually learned to accept progress over perfection—which, as Lyle McKeany writes, is easier said than done. And if it’s true that the devil’s in the details, I can either drive myself mad with them or chill.

So. Why not take a vacation from overthinking, both literally and figuratively? As I press the “book tickets” button on my screen—my spontaneous experiment in underthinking a Mexican vacation—I’m a bit giddy. Did I spend days trying to coordinate frequent flyer miles and seating arrangements? No. Did I obsess over the weather forecast and repack my suitcase six times? No. Did I research the best restaurants and plan snorkeling and kayaking adventures? Again, no. I honestly have no idea where to find the freshest yellowfin tuna, if there’s a beach near the hotel or the peso-dollar conversion rate.

Overthinking. Just for today, I’m over it.