10 years ago right now, I was naked in a birthing tub in my 16th+ hour of labor on the labor & delivery floor of Macdonald Women's Hospital in Cleveland, OH. In another few hours, I would get out of the tub sometime during 3 hours of intense effort to push out the big, long, healthy girl who would be Z. (Though she wasn't named until the next day.) It would have been an intense time, but having already lost my first child to preeclampsia (yes, this is what killed Sybil on Downton, and it could have killed me. Instead, it just killed my son, Calvin. And if you don't know about it,
you should), the effort to give birth to this girl was particularly intense. She was two-weeks past her due date, and we were very eager to see her for the first time alive and well.
It is a cliche to say it, but I don't understand how a whole decade has passed since then.
Today, in 2013, the boy child was home sick with a fever and the blahs but no other distinct symptoms. As he put it, "My head feels dizzy and foggy, and now my stomach feels like is all full of some kind of vapor." I came home midday to be with him and let David go to work. Now, I feel like I might have caught some of his vapors. Not what I want for Z's big day tomorrow.
Reading: I have given myself the assignment to think about the endgame of this novel writing endeavor, and how it relates to other things I have finished or not. Zen Habits is a blog I read from time to time, and I found
this post there about finishing. And then I was reading
Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer, which if you are a writer or think you might become one I highly recommend. He is both a writer and (often with his wife Ann) and editor of science fiction and fantasy, and in this book he offers a highly sane and compassionate guide to both the public and private sides of the writing life. I dip into it from time to time. His bit on "Permission to Fail" is a case for taking huge artistic risks. Not so much about finishing but it is relevant to my effort to stay true to the big, sprawling, impossible ambitious thing I have laid out for myself with the ToT. Better to try and get it right, despite its improbability, then to curtail it and always be wondering if I could have done it.
Writing: Yes, juicy meaty revision. Yum.
Dinner: Chicken chowder (with that chicken stock I made a while back when David had to empty the freezer to make way for the prepackagedness) loosely based on a recipe from Monday to Friday Chicken. Mine had bacon, onion, green pepper, thyme, bay leaf, chicken stock, potatoes, chicken, corn, and condensed milk. It is good.
Soundtrack: This morning
WRUW's Swing a Verse program featured jazz trumpeter Roy Eldridge, who was born 1/30/1911.
While cooking, I listened to
Gossamer by Passion Pit, per Tina's response to yesterday's Facebook cookery music roulette. I liked it more the more I listened to it, and I had accidentally set it to repeat, and found that second hearing was better than first. No time for more specific comments.
Random thing: Who knows? It's late, and I'm vapory
... temperature shifted
50 degrees in 2 days. My body is a little confused.
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