The anxious in-between
04 August 2010 11:01 AM Categories: On writing | Quotidian existence
And here I am, at a café, drinking tea, attempting to write. The sound bounces around, the music and the clang and rush of coffee machinery, the clink of cutlery against porcelain. From where I sit, in a corner in the back, it appears that this place is half-populated by women in-between (like me) and bald men. The other fifty percent are hipsters with their beards and pale skin and chunky glasses.
When I left the house this morning, I told our babysitter, "I'm not used to getting out of the house in the morning." He said he aspired to that, to not being used to the morning slog. Once again, I felt like a deadbeat, a producer of short blog posts and not much else, though being the mother of a small child certainly counts for something. How long do I give myself in this writing gig? At least another year or two, especially once the kid is in real school and I have more time to devote.
August has become the month of anxiety: how will I fill the time with the boy? (So far, so good.) Will he and his friend get along the two mornings a week that they are sharing a babysitter? (Remains to be seen.) What will our adjustment to school be like? (To be determined.) When I go away for three nights at the end of this month, will I pine for my family? Will I feel like a bad mother, missing the Kindergarten/First Grade picnic at his new school? (Oh, just be quiet, anxious brain.) And, finally, if I decide to take up meditation in order to quell all this mainly useless anxiety, will that take up too much of my time and not be productive? (Here I'm just being silly. I think.)
Then there is the Big Anxiety: that I suck. Mainly as a writer, but in other ways as well. I wonder if I will ever not-suck, whether it matters if I am never published, whether I need to write for myself or other people. I should write to please myself, of course, but the danger in doing that is that I am stuck with myself, without thinking about an audience, or about what makes good writing. It's not possible to improve in a vacuum. Not that I write in a total vacuum, but almost.
I start so many things, devote weeks to them, and then let them drop. I need to finish a story, two stories, three stories. More. I need to submit them and maybe get rejected and maybe not. I need to get out in the world. Even being in this cafe is a worthwhile thing: can someone be a good writer and avoid other people? For the last three years, I have moved from my guest-room office to my son's preschool to the occasional playground or play date. When I get out in the world and see all these other human beings, with their stories and distinctive ways of dressing (though we're all clad in dark jeans here and we all use MacBooks), with their different conversational patterns, I remember that I am connected to the world, and all the world is writing material.
Image: The crumbs of my croissant.
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