Untangling Tales

I don’t know why I never thought of it before, but it’s true.

For the longest time I enjoyed a smugly self-satisfied sense that (due to my limited writing time or imagination or some wonderful gift) I almost never suffered from writers’ block.

I made this determination based on the fact that I was never at a loss for words.

Because I assumed that writers’ block was like artists’ block: the literary equivalent of staring at a blank canvas and not knowing where or how to start.

Hint: for writing– especially with a computer– you just start. Put words down.  Make a muddle.  Build of your chunk of marble so that you have something solid from which to carve out your masterpiece.

But I was wrong.  Because I have struggled with finishing. With delivering.

I like to say (just because it sounds cool) that my Super Power is instant extrapolation. But what that really means (as I hinted in the last post) is that I react to things before I need to.  I anticipate, flinch, before the burn.  I call that way of life exhausting! because it is, but didn’t really see an alternative and got a bit fixated on the exhausting! (Because it really made me feel like I was working hard.  That’s what makes you tired, right?)

Well, here’s one alternative to consider.  It’s in a free ebook called The Flinch, and can be summarized like this:

• Name this gut-reaction that is not very (if at all) useful. They call it The Flinch.
• Recognize that the purpose it serves (keeping you safe), done too well, can hold you back from anything meaningful. Can keep you from taking good risks that will grow you.
• Overcome the fear of The Flinch by reminding yourself failure isn’t permanent, and pain doesn’t last forever.
• Use the momentum, the speed and impulse of The Flinch to react forward rather than cringe away.

Anyway, it was a short read, and brought up some good thoughts.

Best question it raised for me:

“Have you ever asked yourself why your stomach tenses up and your can’t watch imaginary characters on a television screen to awkward, embarrassing things? You should.”

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I’ve been (re) reading the bit in Chesterton’s Orthodoxy about the logic of Elfland, and how the wonder that exists in that story-world is to remind us of the wonder we forget of our own world.

And I’m filled with this surge of remembering. Of my capacity for wonder and delight.

Then just as quickly it is checked, by the cost of that wonder and delight.

To immerse without reserve means there is no net when I fall through the broken parts of this world.

I lost a whole litter today.  Mneme’s, that I just mentioned on Monday that I was eagerly looking forward to. My first litter since just after Christmas.

At 7:30 this morning I found nine naked kitsicles.  Three on the straw outside the nest were misshapen, and one was bit open and laying on the wire, but the other five looked perfectly formed.  On a last wisp of hope I immersed those in a bowl of warm water, up to their noses. My wonder expanded with my hope when four of those five began to kick weakly, and make gasping motions with their tiny mouths, revealing incisors as delicate as toothpick tips.

But the motion gradually slowed.  They were so cold the water cooled almost at once, and I couldn’t leave them to refresh it or their little noses would sink under the water.

I did what I could but eventually dried them and returned them to their nest, warming in front of the fire. But I knew I’d lost another litter.  And I grieved it.

And I hated grieving it, because it wasn’t necessary.  There were other things I’d expected to get done today.  I also wanted to not-care because if it can happen now after what I’ve learned, it can happen again any time.  And if it can happen any time, I am continually vulnerable.

And since I had just let two new babies into my heart, I did not want to be reminded of my vulnerability.  I didn’t want to think of all the ways I could lose these delicate little lives.

~ ~ ~

But what reading Chesterton tonight reminded me of, was that I am exchanging– surrendering– deep delight for the cheap payment of neutrality.  That is, in exchange for connection, and awe, and wordless wonder, I can now anticipate the worst and practice being numb both before and whether or not it happens.

I don’t limit my pain to events that are actually painful.

But the other cost of the delight– of indulging it– is being willing to look (or at least feel) like a fool.

To be surprised, burnt or wounded by something any pessimist or “realist” could have told me would happen.

I want the delight.  But I’ve forgotten the road. And I still care too much what others think.

But  am praying about what to do about that.  And what not to do.

I’ve said before how I collect songs as a sort of emotional personality profile, or as emotional plot-points in a novel.

Sometimes those emotional plot points turn the song on its head.

This one for example:

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Have I ever mentioned here (on Untangling Tales) that I wrestle with depression?  Usually seasonal, and usually manageable, but there are times and varieties that just eat my mind and (as a result) basically freak me out.

Well, this post is a chewing on that variety.

Last summer I went back to Weight Watchers for a while, to see if their new system was a good match for me. The first group I visited was a  convenient time for me, but I was “twilight zone” weirded-out by the emphasis of the majority on consuming.

That is, they never talked about recipes they were discovering and trying out with their own twist (what I was used to from my old group) so much as they talked about the right websites and recipe designers.

Now, this is a subtle distinction, so it took me a while to decide what felt so off.  These were women who were not (as a group) creative people.  They didn’t experiment on their own (at least from their talk). They were good at sussing out the “perfect” recipes and following them exactly for perfect results.

Objectively I see nothing wrong with this, but it is (to use an Alaskan analogy) like warm dark.  I know it exists, and is even normal to some people, but it is so far from my life-history I can’t be all that relaxed in that environment.

Shifting groups actually helped me stick it out longer in WW.  My later group was (as a whole, at least in what they shared) much more creative.

~ ~ ~

I have found a fairly tight correlation between creativity and managing depression. That could be why a non-creative group felt dangerous.  Depression feels like zombie-mode to me, so being surrounded by folks who didn’t need it… Well yeah, was just creepy.

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Here’s a reprint from about two-and-a-half years ago.  Because the idea of ambassador is one I want to keep in front of me. For many reasons.

I mentioned  that life will be getting even busier soon since school will be starting, then added the clarification that we are homeschooling.

“Oh,” says Person-A, “Will Jay be teaching them math?”

“He could,” I said, surprised at the question and not wanting to make Jay look bad by saying he’s not currently planning on doing any of the teaching.

“I was just thinking he ought to be able to,” Person-A finished.

Then (this was my moment of lucidity) I realized Person-A had just insinuated it took an engineer to teach 1st-grade math.

“Are you implying,” I asked, genuinely hoping to embarrass him, “That I can’t teach 6-year-old math?”

Yes, that’s what he was implying.  He didn’t even try to defend himself.

I was surprised, but shrugged it off.  It wasn’t important to me what he thought.

It wasn’t until later that night, thinking again of the leggy Darwin fish on the car in his driveway, and remembering the sign during voting season for the local fellow I wasn’t voting for, that I began to feel something about our interaction wasn’t right.

And then this morning I realized that I had gone into the conversation utterly unprepared.

I had gone to admire a delicious new baby and prattle family small-talk and keep up positive neighborhood relations.

It was not in my mind that I was entering as an ambassador of Christ, and Homeschooling, and Conservative Thought, and Purposeful Parenting.

Lord-willing, that will never happen again.

I acted as though I was a friend among familiars, being sloppy in my explanations and imprecise in my reasons.  In short, I did more to reinforce any (diminished) view they may have of those things than to correct it.

And maybe it wasn’t that bad, but the problem is that I didn’t enter as an ambassador, aware of what I represented.  If I’d had the right mentality going in, I know I would have done better (If I’d only know this was a job interview…).

I might have recognized the “playing” of me and my ideas before the next day, and maybe refused to play.  I want to think I’d still not be offended (it never serves a diplomat’s goals or purpose to be offended), but I could have been more “professional” and less of an airhead.

Again, not that I’m sure I was the opposite extreme, it’s just that I muffed a fine opportunity to muck up their stereotypes.

And I find that disappointing.

All the same, I haven’t yet learned how to respond politely to subtle insults, and it occurs to me that had I fully known what was going on I might have been a poorer representative of Christ than I otherwise was.

So I’ve had two moms in the last month ask me (as a homeschooling mom and a writer), how is it I teach my children to write.

I’ll get back to you on that in 15 years or so.  When I actually know how it is they learned.

In the meantime, I’ll share the philosophy and materials I work from.

Now, I am fairly fluent in writing.  But I never liked to write as a kid. (I hope that encourages anyone who is in despair over her child’s abhorrence.) My understanding of teaching writing was first influenced by Donald Davis’s book, Writing as a Second Language. 

I never finished it, but the title and what I did read set my mind in a direction it had never been before: to see writing as a completely different animal than speaking or reading. Which I believe it is.

This sense of something different was solidified and put into a usable/applicable for when I read the introduction to Susan Bauer’s Writing With Ease.  In that book she points out that when we teach writing we are expecting the student to learn, not one but, four separate skills.

1. Generating ideas. Content that will be conveyed.
2. Translating those ideas into words
3. Holding those words in mind while they are transferred to print
4. The physical act of writing them down.

When you have a child resistant to “writing,” a good first step is looking for where in this chain the process is breaking down.

The first book (Writing as a Second Language) encourages “rehearsing” stories in one’s “first” language (speech) before ever taking them to the paper.  In Classical learning this is referred to as narration.  In its simplest (and most accessible) form, narration is simply answering questions in complete sentences.

The words children create in response to questions (for example, about something they just heard read aloud) may not seem particularly original, but certainly at the beginning originality is not the teacher’s goal.  You are working specifically on the second part of the process: creating words that make sense.

This is why the “complete sentences” part is important.  The child is learning sentence structure by example.

Where did God place the man he created?

In the garden.

Can you say that in a complete sentence?  You can use the same words I did.

God placed the man he created in the garden.

In fact, by getting in the habit of using the words he hears to re-frame the answer, the student is practicing #3 along with #2.

With my girls I use the workbooks Bauer developed to accompany the text I read at first.

The workbooks are not essential, but they replace the planning that I would otherwise have to do myself, and so I find them *absolutely* worth the $20-30 they set me back. (Not forgetting that I can use them for each of my kids if I continue in this method.  Copyright permission clears each book for an entire (single) family’s use.)

The other resource I’ve found useful is the English worktext put out by the same publisher we buy our math curriculum from– BJU Press.  Natasha isn’t using it this year, but did last year, and I was impressed with how systematically it worked through the basics in her 2nd-grade text.

She wrote her first personal essay last year, following the step-by-step instructions as guided by the curriculum.  She couldn’t hardly get through a sentence without a giggly-happy squeal of “I’m writing!” Because it’s a big deal to her to be like Mama.

And there’s the motivating bit about enjoying writing, or words, or Story, yourself.

Kids learn what’s “normal” through observation.  If they regularly see you writing (or reading, or singing or dancing) and enjoying it, finding value in it, that will increase its value in their eyes.

My children may not see it (writing) as important as I do, but between reading and writing, I have what I want most for my kids at this stage in their learning: they are not afraid of language.

Yes, Natasha learned to read without really trying, but, as we guessed in that blog post, the “different minds working differently” means we weren’t surprised when our other two were (are) different in their learning to read.

The wonderful thing is that the younger two– for whom reading is a harder slog– are enough in love with Story that they are not driven away from all print by their hard road.  I’ve known kids (it made me sad) who had no interest in stories because they were too much of a reminder of their struggle.

Elisha and Melody are both so wired for story they’ve got steps #1 & #2 just *nailed.*  Even #3 isn’t that far away.  So, as a rule, I encourage storytelling, and have them practice their letters, either with tracers or copywork.  They get to advance (grow in strength) in all the steps, even if they aren’t doing them all self directed yet.

We have plenty of time.  And especially with their prolific storytelling and spontaneous narration, I expect a time will come when they’ll want to record their visions to hang on to.

At least, that’s what happened to me.

Going through a list of personal interests/roles/priorities (this resource was what prompted the inventory) and firming which ones are just for me.

All mine.

Only and completely for my own enjoyment of life, and nothing to do with what anybody else thinks.

This is a big deal because it means if I’m happy, the task is successfully completed.

For the first time I realized that for me this is guitar and piano.

Previously when I’d try and go through the process of making a schedule (Always beginning with a list of everything I’d like to fit into my life) I’d include the “good” stuff I knew a disciplined me would do everyday with intent. That meant music practice (along with bible-reading, prayer and cooking), and even writing it down would leave a sour taste in my mouth. The reminder of something else I must not want enough ’cause I can’t make it happen.

If I’m really going to go out of my way to do a creative something every. day. I want it to be writing!

What Amy (different Amy, not me) suggests instead is a step back, to first define the roles you have, and draw tasks from those roles.  It is, I suppose, a way of looking at priorities, but in a specific way.

For me, God, Jay, kids, house, is *way* too generic a list.

By saying the activities/jobs that are tagged under each role, I am able to break things into smaller chunks– but not so small that “musician” could make the list.  She limits you to seven roles (blanks on the worksheet, anyway) so *everything* isn’t included.

And I was able (because of her very specific insistence) to include self in those roles.  Once I saw music as an activity I did to become my best self, not a goal of it’s own, I felt instantly freer.  For the first time I saw that every time I dink around (and get a little better, and show my kids music is play and a delight), I’ve done enough.  With very. few. exceptions I have no need to perfect any one song for outside consumption.

Another bonus was seeing my list of “jobs” (what I want to do to become the best I can be) in my wife role, were basically covered by fulfilling a couple of the remaining roles on my list: home-managing and teaching the children.  These are the big things (I asked!) that make my husband feel loved and that he has a peaceful home/happy family.

So I’m recommending Amy’s (short!) book on time management.  Short reason: it’s about knowing where you want to go, and making small steps toward that every day.  It’s moving beyond wishing to living.

And that is delicious.

I’m a defender. It’s what I do– often without thinking about it.

I see someone on the defensive doing poorly, I jump in on their side.  Especially if it’s an argument I know and think I could do better than them.

I think I lost a friend this way last year.  He hasn’t spoken to me the same way since I took the other side of his literal-6-days creation debate.  It is in my nature to try and homogenize, to find the perfect faerie* argument to make everything “technically” mesh.

For the record: I think the “specific Hebrew word for a 24-hour day” argument is weak.  The argument that brings me to a literal creationist stance (which, for the record, I hold) is my belief from scripture that death did not exist before the Fall.  Therefore, billions of deaths over millions of years– in order to get to a human creature, sentient and capable both of communion with God and division from him– is not possible.

I have a high degree of empathy– the ability to get into other people’s heads or emotions and imagine how certain things affect them.  As a result I can take far too much responsibility for their comfort.  For their feelings.

And I recently figured out that to be healthy as me I have to quit thinking so much of others.

Whoa! Is a Christian allowed to say that?

You see for about three years now, about as long as I’ve been homeschooling, I’ve been feeling responsible to keep my choices (for example, to homeschool) from making other parents feel guilty for making a different choice.

Before that it was about being a stay-at-home mom, but it seems more people do that with preschoolers so I didn’t feel the separation as keenly.

The point is, I imagined how I’d feel if I were the other parent, and I downplayed the significance of our different choices because, well, if she wanted to be home, I didn’t want her to feel bad, and even if she didn’t, I wanted very much to avoid any possible conflict or fight over which choice was better or (an even worse word) “correct.”

This sheltering or defending of others has continued as Jay and I made our lives more complicated and atypical: gluten-free, debt-free, tiny house, homegrown (I like to call it “ethical”) meat.

I’ve avoided talking about our choices, especially the whys, because I didn’t want to draw such stark lines as I knew they’d create.

So I basically said what anybody chooses doesn’t matter, because we’re all different, with different needs and different stages.  And while that’s true, and I really don’t want to create a hierarchy or polarize folks, it killed me emotionally.

Because I had just said– continually said, over years– that what I invested in, the hard stuff I chose because it was important to me and I felt it was worth it and made a difference– Didn’t. matter.

And I don’t want to do that any more.  This is where I need to be my defender and trust everyone else to be grown-up enough to own and love their own decisions.

I’m certainly not going to pick any fights, but I’m going to quit being embarrassed of how hard I work. I do it for real reasons, and those reasons carry me through. Make me stick with things even when they’re hard.

What I do is valuable. Not something to kick under the bed like the shoes my husband won’t get rid of.  I’m proud of what I do. It is important and worth defending.

*Faerie are creepy to me on a couple levels.  The main one is their commitment to the truth– as it is useful to them.  Their methodology is to manipulate the “mortal” they speak with by speaking nothing but the *exact* truth.  Of course they will direct, imply and manipulate to their purpose’s end, but they will never be culpable to the charge that they ever spoke falsehood.

When I talk of me speaking faerie I mean it in terms of working words or reality as a puzzle that I’m trying (by means of the exactness or slipperiness of language) to meld differing views enough to bring cooperation if not true peace.

Eh. I’m just trying to decide if I can do “3 Rs” here at Untangling Tales without boring my delightful lurkers.

So here’s your chance to tell me.  I’m always shocked at the number of hits my stat-counter tells me I’m getting, and while some of it is Google sending people to my archives, I’m curious what makes the rest of you come back.

This is the place where I feel like I’m talking to myself in an empty room.

I am having a great deal of fun with my rabbits.  I’m thinking of starting a category for pictures and projects.  (For example, we have Before:

and After:

Both pictures and a project. Whee. About an hour it took me to shear him; I hope that gets shorter as I get more practice.)

And really, the only connection to what I already do here is the atavism I mentioned yesterday.  The idea that animals and fiber arts are a part of life as much as reading and writing (storytelling).

But then, perhaps that’s just my life.

But you’re welcome to peek in and enjoy.

So there’s the question: Are you interested?

Atavism is the idea or concept of a throwback.  A recurrence of a trait that (genetically, say)  had not shown up in a few generations.

I tripped over the term earlier this year.

I’d stopped into a yarn shop to see what blends they sold of angora yarn, and to buy a pattern.  My girls were with me (we’d just come from a baby shower), and between us we started talking with a woman who was probably in her 50s.

It came out that we raise rabbits, that I spin their wool and knit and love old stories– the old tales where spinning and knitting could be critical elements.

“Ah,” said she, “so you’re atavistic.”

I’d never heard the word, and asked what it meant.

“It means you love the old ways,” she said.  “Traditional things.”

I really enjoyed being given a useful new word (I had her spell it for me).  It is used more frequently in an evolutionary context, but her explanation is still solid. (The word is related to the word for ancestor.)

Anyway, all that to say, that I’ve been looking for a focus on Untangling Tales, and this might be what I end up with.

I do not automatically agree with Older-Is-Better (expect a post on that, eventually), but I am also against reinventing the wheel.  Such a waste of time.

With such a full life, I often think about time and how we have to make the most of it.  One of the ways I look at frequently is How did other people manage?

“There is nothing new under the sun,” and that concept gives me hope: I don’t need to know everything, or even figure out everything. If our generation has fewer physical resources because of the “depletion of the earth,” we can at least benefit from the many generations that have come before us.

Stories, songs, skills, delights: What a gift that we are not limited to ourselves– the past or the present.