Books and Reading, rambles, writey stuff

On Wednesdays, we blog? On Writing Habits and Doing the Work

No Comments
black pencil on white paper

One side effect of this new at-home working, (very) freelance writing lifestyle is that I forget far too often what day it is. I seem to have lost my sense of routine. The daily routine is coming together, but the weekly rhythms are still a bit wobbly. For instance, this morning I opened my laptop and typed “On Tuesdays, we blog.” …But it’s not Tuesday, I quickly discovered. I’d fully intended to put a ramble of some sort or another up yesterday, but either or both the muse and the time got away. One of my objectives for the month is to get this little corner of the internet rolling on a regular basis again, if for no other reason, to get some words out into the world again.

A favorite quote of mine is from John Darnielle, from back in the days when we had writing conferences. At the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing back in 2016, he said, “Writer’s block is a bourgeois luxury,” to an audience of understanding writers. I think at the time, the line was delivered with a bit of frustrated derision, and received with knowing laughter and awkward applause. His point was that if we claim to write for an occupation, we need to develop the discipline of showing up. The habit of AIC: “ass in chair” –or more delicately, “butt in seat,” as Anne Lamott and others have written. If we show up, the words will follow, because the words are material, not an ethereal substance that floats in through the window given the perfect circumstances. A carpenter doesn’t get to claim “builder’s block.” No, she grabs the tools and the lumber and gets to work. Simple enough, right?

Until it’s not.

Until this year, I had a backlog of ideas. College and grad school broke the dam that had been holding back twenty years of writing material. I could drop everything and write three pages on dryer lint. Seriously. So, going from that to …silence? This is deeply disturbing to me. I have plenty of life going on, don’t get me wrong. A complete life shift, completely unexpected. Parenting teenagers who are turning out profoundly different than I’d expected. Re-examining long-held beliefs. Gaining new perspectives on things I took for granted as fact. And yet, the words aren’t following the life experiences this time. Nor are they guiding my way through all of this. Some of this is due to the fact that I know now that some stories must age. Some stories aren’t mine to tell. Some stories shouldn’t be out in the world at all, but settle in the pages of my journal. Maybe some of this chapter of my life will wind up in words, but for now, the time isn’t right.

So, now what? All this time at my disposal, and I’m struggling to find things to write about. First world problems, I’m sure some of my writer friends who’d kill for just a weekend free of other responsibilities to do some dedicated writing would say. Well, for now, I’m reading again, surrounding myself with gorgeous writing. Debra Marquart’s The Night We Landed on the Moon is on my reading table, along with Kathleen Norris’s Dakota. I’m becoming inspired from Marquart’s work to take things in pieces. Just focus on an individual scene, an single scrap of memory, and go deep with it. Maybe that’s enough for this season of writing. Sculpt the beads and wait for the thread that connects them all to appear. Dakota reminds me that yes, other people really write this kind of stuff –books that connect place and meaning. Reading Dakota for the first time gave me permission to write the things that go through my head, and encouraged me that an audience for that kind of writing is out there, even if there might not be enough of them to routinely put that kind of beauty and depth onto the New York Times bestseller list. In a world where shock, fear, and outrage gets everyone’s attention, it’s good to remember that getting attention is only part of the problem of finding your readers.

Well, that’s where I am on this Wednesday morning. Doing the work, even if it’s just “writing about writing,” something that I remember so bugged a fellow student in my MFA cohort. I think I get why, but …well, it’s not going to stop me. At least not this morning.

Continue Reading

You may also like

home happenings, Letters from Nineveh

Re-Settling: an update

No Comments

I thought of titling this entry “settling,” making use of the double meaning there –settling being the process of making oneself at peace in a place, and settling also being the state of making do with less than what one originally wanted. Both might apply here, to be brutally honest. This is not a move I originally desired, but one of those cases where God was clearly on the move and my job was to follow. However, the more we’re here, the less that second meaning applies.

Since last October, my family’s been transitioning from our little house in southwest Minnesota where we’ve lived for nearly ten years to a much-larger parsonage in a little town of 700 in rural South Dakota. It’s an unexpected transition for me. After having written a whole book on what home means and moving and settling (my MFA thesis, as yet unpublished), I wasn’t figuring on having to do yet another chapter of re-settling. But once things built momentum last summer toward our move here, I quickly realized resistance was futile. Jonah tried running once from God’s clear direction. Learning from his example, I think I’d rather avoid the parallel of a three-day-detour in the belly of a whale (or worse). …So, if you see some posts tagged “Notes from Nineveh,” there’s the connection. Nineveh may not have been Jonah’s first choice of address, but once he surrendered to God’s calling, he had a front-row seat to God at work in the unlikeliest of places. And that’s a place I wouldn’t mind being, really. In clarification, the Nineveh connection only really applies as far as my initial resistance. I think Jonah had some anger and resentment toward Nineveh, and that doesn’t apply in my case. Neither is my little corner of the world any worse than average in terms of being a den of iniquity as Nineveh was (that is to say, it’s a typical rural small town with all its quirks and blessings and difficulties).

I may be intentionally vague at spots in the stories I share here, as I’ve learned from observation (and maybe the wisdom of years?) that one role of a pastor’s wife is knowing which stories to tell and which ones to keep. Even admitting my hesitance in selling our house and moving here feels like an indiscretion. My years of working among Christians has taught me two things in brutal clarity: one, Christians are absolutely terrible at conflict management. Two, no one speaks fluent Passive-Aggressive like we do here in the wounded Body of Christ known as the Church. And so, I take on this role with a heavy dose of caution and perhaps more than a dash of paranoia. People are messy, and pastoring is about as people-y as you can get. But I’ve also learned over the past few pandemic years that people are necessary, even for me. I may not be the one preaching, but in many ways, this new chapter is a Moses move for me. Hospitality and mercy and flexibility are things I’ve desired, but not things that come naturally for me. I’m learning how to support my husband and family (and church) as I go. All of this is new.

We’ve been here for a little over a month now. I’m finding it easier to remember names and find familiar faces each Sunday. For the first time in years, I am part of a moms’ group that I feel a genuine part of, even having been there only twice. The list of missing items (somewhere in a yet-to-be-unpacked box in the basement, most likely) remains, but for the most part, we’re at home here. I’ve charged the battery to my good camera and am hoping to add some more of my own photographs here as I find my way around. I’m finding my way into a new routine also, since I’ve taken an indefinitely long hiatus from teaching. Now that the dust has settled, I’m hoping to spend more dedicated time writing and getting more of my words out into the world (a gift and a privilege I plan to accept wholeheartedly).

Meanwhile, my copy of Kathleen Norris’s Dakota is sitting here on my desk, waiting for its yearly re-read. I look forward to finding some new understanding in it this time around, even if technically I can still see Minnesota from here.

Continue Reading

You may also like

Uncategorized

Where the Story Ends (and begins)

No Comments

This morning, I’m procrastinating grading the last ten papers of a bunch I should’ve had done a week (or more) ago. I decided this morning as I headed to the kitchen for my second cup of coffee that what I’m feeling on this last week of teaching at Dordt is sort of like what we call “senioritis.” I know the end is near, and so I’m having a hard time concentrating on what’s in front of me in preference for what lies ahead. Focus is a challenge.

What lies in front of me is a set of 43 seven-to-ten page papers to grade, then exams. My last day of active teaching is tomorrow. Lesson plans are done. I’ve saved the best part of the semester for last –the personal essay. I put this at the end partly to give my students a bit of a break in the middle of a season of final papers and exams and catching up. The personal essay requires no outside research, no in-text citations, no Works Cited page. It is intended to be a fun assignment, I explain. You can get confessional if you choose, but humor is acceptable also. Just write an experience of your life from your perspective. I read them a couple examples, so they know what they’re aiming for: not necessarily relatability, but relevance.

One main thing, I’ll explain tomorrow, is to be aware of your thought process as you’re writing, and to journal that process for us so that we see inside the experience to the meaning of it; to write so that we are changed somehow in our observation of whatever it is you’re writing about. I remind them that a personal essay doesn’t have to be “all about me.” If we’re blessed with sight, we go through life looking out through our two eyes. Our view of the world is outward rather than inward, and we should keep that in mind as we write a personal essay, I explain. It’s important to focus on the world outside yourself but to do it in a way that only you, the writer, can do from your perspective, to remember to explain what’s going on behind those two eyes observing the world. It’s not an easy assignment if it’s done well, but it should be far easier for them now (I hope) with the writing skills they’ve developed over the semester.

The most difficult part of the assignment, for many, is that I also require them to read their work aloud for the class during the last two class periods we’ll meet. Writing is a communal activity, I remind them. We’ve spent much of the semester approaching writing as communication, as conversation, and reading their work aloud is one way to continue that conversation. I want to give them the experience of sending their words out into an audience: their class, and seeing what comes back to them. They’ll exercise vulnerability in this, and hopefully, it’ll encourage them to include more of themselves in their writing, to show up to the page in a way they hadn’t before my class.

So, these are my last weeks of class, for now at least, what seems like the end of a long, unexpected journey from the first day I entered that same exact room as a returning student, nervous and hesitant, attempting to remedy a regret. Because I returned to the college I dropped out of in 1993 to finish and graduate in 2017, then to teach in 2019, I walk through the thin places between memory and dream and fulfillment of dreams almost daily. I’ll miss that experience. Part of me wants to tell that woman sitting down at the desk for fiction writing class, dropping her backpack next to her chair for the first time in 20 years that this is how the story ends. But then, I remember that not knowing what tomorrow brings, whether happy or tragic, is a gift also, and so is the reminder that in this moment, in this unfamiliar liminal space between academia and whatever life brings next, I can be sure of one thing: that my own story has an Author who I can trust, and that every day, I can continue walking through the dark days and the bright ones toward the eucatastrophe that waits at the end, when everything sad and wrong and evil will come untrue, and the end becomes just another new beginning into eternity.

Chapters like this one ending this month are what I keep in my pack as I walk on from here, reminders that I live as the beloved, and I can believe that the Author of the story does all things well.

Continue Reading

You may also like

100 Day Dress Challenge, paying attention, stewardship, Uncategorized

Update on “The Dress,” Day 35: Travel, Creative Constraint, and Who Cares, Anyway?

No Comments

I’d fully intended to update a lot earlier, not nearly 5 weeks into this adventure, but honestly? It’s just not been a big deal. At all. Granted, it’s summer, and most days, I’m home, so the only people that really see me in the dress are my family or the handful of people I run into on my errands to the grocery store or the library. After the first couple days, I quickly realized how silly announcing my intentions with The Dress sounded and felt, so I’ve really only mentioned it once …other than here, that is. After all, one of the main points of the experiment is to fully realize just how little what we wear matters to anyone other than ourselves. People just don’t notice, on the whole. Or, if they do, it’s not enough of a pressing matter to mention or question it. Suddenly, all those mornings staring into the abyss of a closet full of dozens of things that no longer fit or that I don’t feel “in the mood” to wear feel downright silly. Dare I say, a waste of time? One of the biggest things I’m enjoying on this adventure is the removal of one of the first decisions of my day. Sure, I can dress things up with a sweater or jewelry or a scarf or shoes or whatever, but it’s incredibly freeing to just wake up, shower, throw on the dress, and be on with my day.

And travel… the other huge benefit. Some might think of this as an obstacle, traveling during the 100 days. How do you manage all of the places and climates and occasions with only one piece of clothing? Carefully, and with a minimum of luggage. Our family traveled to Washington for a niece’s wedding, for example. This was before the current heatwave they’re experiencing, but it was plenty warm nonetheless. Comfortable compared to 112 degrees (F), but warm. I packed along a sweater for the plane and air-conditioned places, but my short-sleeved lightweight wool jersey dress did just fine. I threw a small bottle of Eucalan no-rinse wool wash in my liquids bag and washed the dress in the sink a couple times over the week we were there. Washed it before bed, squeezed out the water, rolled it in a towel, hung it in the shower, and it was usually dry enough to wear by morning. I did pack along a t-shirt (black, the same lightweight wool jersey material) and denim shorts to wear in case of wardrobe malfunction or emergency (one morning the dress wasn’t quite dry enough in the morning). The shorts came in handy when we did a quick hike one evening. I tied up the dress, 80’s t-shirt style, and it was perfectly workable. The t-shirt doubled as pajamas, or, as I discovered a few days in, a way to vary things up –wear the t-shirt over the dress.

Creative constraint is another reason I was attracted to this whole adventure. Example: how do you dress up a solid plain blue knit t-shirt dress enough to wear to a wedding? Solution: I packed along a wrap skirt that’s sat in my closet far too much. It’s made of recycled saris, a mix of blue and pink with some metallic threads woven in. I wore that over the dress, added in a pair of earrings I bought years ago in Peru that I don’t wear much because they’re a little too dangly and fancy for everyday, and it worked fine. Besides, who’s supposed to be looking at me, anyway, right? The objective was to blend in appropriate. Bonus: the skirt is reversible, so I could wear it again for church if I wanted. So with the skirt, I had two options –though on Sunday I chose to pull out one of the two scarves I packed with the sweater. Blue (the color of my dress) harmonizes with all of my shoes and pretty much everything else in my closet, so I have plenty of layering options. As it was, I packed for the whole week in just one large school-sized backpack, with a little room to spare thanks to packing cubes. And no, nobody said anything about the dress the whole week. Pretty sure they noticed the repeat, but nobody said anything (which may or may not say something about how many of my family reads my blog…). So, today is Day 35, and all is going well. The only thing I’m questioning about the whole experiment is whether black would’ve been a little easier to disguise than blue.

Continue Reading

You may also like

100 Day Dress Challenge, stewardship

100 Days in the Same Dress?

No Comments
home interior with garments on racks

The strongest influence on my clothing style was a woman I worked with years ago at the International Linguistic Center in Dallas. Miriam was (probably still is) a plain-dress Mennonite. She had five or six home-sewn dresses, all the same simple, modest-yet-flattering style but different colors and patterns. She wore her hair in a bun under a white cap head covering. I was newly married and on my own for the first time, enjoying my access to the center’s “boutique,” a kind of thrift store for the missionaries coming home on furlough and workers on the center. People on their way out of the country would donate their surplus, and people coming in would take what they needed or could use. I’d often peruse the boutique over lunch or after work, looking for new colors or styles to try out. Though I tried, I never quite could land on a “personal style,” despite having access to so many different types of clothing. One day I remarked to Miriam that I was envious of her morning routine. “It must be so easy for you to get ready in the morning,” I said to her.

She laughed. “Yes, I just open the closet and pick a clean dress, put my hair up, and that’s about it.” That conversation stuck with me over the years. This was long before Project 333 and minimalism and capsule wardrobes became popular, but developing a small, simple, comfortable, easy-care, interchangeable wardrobe became my goal. I sewed some of my own clothing back then, a habit that started when I got fed up with walking into stores with racks full of the same style in dozens of sizes. Nothing ever seemed to be quite what I was looking for. Right style, wrong fabric. Right color, wrong size. When I sewed my own clothes, I had the freedom to choose my preferred pattern, fabric, and customize the style and sizing. I had a dream of someday making my own capsule wardrobe, though I didn’t have the catchy name for it just yet.

When my kids came along, the sewing machine went into the closet, and with a body varying within a range of sizes of being pregnant, postpartum, nursing, and motherhood, I never did get around to fulfilling that goal of a self-created capsule wardrobe. If I do have a personal style today, it’s been influenced by the simplicity I saw manifested in Miriam’s dresses: neutral or coordinating colors, simple clean lines, comfort, timeless style, and the best quality and workmanship I can afford. As I’ve learned more about the conditions that are necessary to provide America with cheap clothing in such huge quantities, I added sustainability and concern for justice to those qualities. Most of my wardrobe today is thrifted, either through local shops or online shops like ThredUp and Poshmark. The average American discards 70 pounds of textile waste a year, I’ve read. I figure if I can make use of perfectly good clothing that would otherwise be bound for the landfill, that’s a win both in the financial and the sustainability categories.

And that brings me to my discovery of the 100 day dress challenge. I loved the idea from the moment I read about it a few months ago. I did Dressember a few years ago (my Canadian cousins-in-law still participate every year), and I loved the simplicity of just putting on one thing in the morning. No coordination choices, no uncomfortable waistbands. The biggest challenge I had was keeping my legs warm on cold days (easily accomplished with the discovery of fleece-lined leggings). I’ve honestly never found jeans to be truly comfortable. Easier to move in, maybe; warmer, yes, but comfortable? No. And especially not comfortable since my body has morphed from a 20-year-old size 8 to its current state somewhere between size 12 and 14 (16 if the pants are particularly judgey). As Anne Lamott says (I paraphrase), life is too short for pants with an opinion. Whoever invented leggings (which are still NOT PANTS, by the way) has my gratitude.

So, what’s this 100 day dress challenge? I’m planning to wear one dress (yes, one) for 100 days straight. The dress I’ve chosen is the short-sleeved Maggie style from Wool&, the company that’s sponsored the challenge for the past year or so. It’ll be the most expensive piece of clothing I own, but I have (and love) two dresses that are similar to this style already. They’re a much flimsier material, however, and after a couple years of heavy wear (and the fact that I bought them second-hand), they’re already showing signs of wearing out soon. The dress is wool, which should help with wearability in both hot and cold temperatures and help with stretching out the time between washings. As I learned when I made some felted wool cloth diaper covers when my kids were little (yes, we used cloth diapers –a load of laundry took as long as a trip to the nearest Walmart and cost a lot less), wool is magic for its antibacterial properties and for wicking away moisture (and, therefore, odor). I expect the dress will have the same qualities, as others have attested. …But, of course, I plan to wash the dress several times over the 100 days. Others have gone as long as the whole 100. I really don’t think that’ll be realistic (or desirable) in a Minnesota summer.

The dress is on the way, due to arrive early next week, so once it comes, I’ll be putting a daily selfie on Instagram for accountability. One thing I hope this challenge helps me to do is learn to accessorize, something I’ve never quite mastered. I have a few scarves and a few simple pieces of jewelry that get me through, but I really would love to do more fun things with them and maybe find a couple more pieces in my closet and drawers that would help me stretch what I have in my closet already once the challenge is done.

But more than that, I hope that I can prove to my kids and remind myself of something I realized somewhere in my mid-twenties: people are usually so concerned about themselves that they don’t care nearly as much as we might think about what we wear or do. Once I realized that myself, it liberated me from my self-consciousness, and it enabled me to spend less time being self-focused and more time and energy thinking about things that mattered more.

Oh, and since I begin in June, my challenge doesn’t end until September, so I get to continue my 100 days at work (teaching college English) as well. It’ll be fun to see whether anyone notices (quite possible, I’d assume, since my class has to look at me every day). I’ve already joked with my last semester’s class that they’ve probably already figured out my entire work wardrobe by two weeks in. I wouldn’t be surprised if, like my high school English teacher who was known for never wearing the same outfit twice and a pastor who wore the same green striped tie every single Sunday for over a year, I’ve already developed a reputation as that prof that always wears the same three dresses. And I think I’m okay with that.

Find me on Instagram: @shelbigesch to follow along.

*This post does NOT contain affiliate links, mainly because I haven’t figured out how to do it and I’m not sure that’s what I want to do with this little spot on the internets yet, anyway.

Continue Reading

You may also like

*messy first drafts, home happenings, mental health, mommy stuff, observations

Speaking Grace With Wordless Fluency

2 Comments
person wearing white pants and white socks standing beside brown broom

In 2007, it felt like life had hit me like a tidal wave (or two) as I sat in the tsunami’s wreckage in a tiny upstairs apartment in Oostburg, Wisconsin. We’d been through a job loss –my husband was laid off his teaching job, the one we thought would be for years to come as we grew our family (this happened Feb. 10, 2005, two days before my 33rd birthday), the birth of my son (March 2005), a cross-country move to Phoenix, Arizona and back (July 2005 to August 2006), endured a year of stress and adjustment and isolation (the ensuing time in Phoenix), and finally, another cross-country move back to Wisconsin in fall of 2006, after my husband’s teaching job in Arizona turned out to be the worst job he’s ever had.

I survived that year by going on long walks when I had the chance, by spending time online with other mothers, by long naps, and a lot of the time, by just going numb. I was depressed. Overwhelmed. Disappointed.

When I am depressed, I get frozen in place. Where some might become angry or irritated, I become unable to move. I go numb. And that’s where I was, sitting in the wreckage on my couch, computer in my lap and kids playing in the next room in 2006. It was all I could do some days to just make dinner, to get the laundry done, to keep the kitchen clean. The girls’ room was a study in chaos. Where two years previously, we’d devised a system for them to learn to pick up their toys before bed, I just couldn’t maintain it in the current situation.

I hadn’t realized how badly my mental and emotional health had affected my family’s physical situation until my in-laws came for a visit. I’d picked up the living room. The kitchen was usually fairly ordered, as it usually took first priority in terms of living space. But the girls’ room was still mostly a disaster, despite our half-hearted attempt to shovel the toys into a pile at the end of the day every few days when we could no longer walk through the small room.

My wake-up call, my “rock bottom moment,” happened when my husband and father-in-law decided to move the girls’ bunk beds to another arrangement in their room. They moved the mattress, and under the bed frame were about a month worth of Sunday school papers, broken crayons, books, fruit snack wrappers, cereal pieces, crumbs, and miscellaneous small toys and stuffed animals. It looked like an episode of “Hoarders: Lite, Closet Edition.” I was horrified. Embarrassed. And in despair, because in that moment, I realized how badly I really was doing but had no idea how to remedy the situation. I felt like I was drowning, but I wouldn’t have been able to even give the sinking feeling in my soul that word back then, staring emptily into that pile we’d quickly swept into the corner of the room and a into a garbage bag.

And now, many years later, I see the same despair in my son. He’s going through a rough season himself now at age almost-sixteen, and he’s reflecting my own type of depression. He shuts down and “just can’t.” I’ve gone down to check on him for the last month or two, mildly horrified at the condition of his room. Laundry (clean or dirty? Who knows?) in mounds on the floor, bed sheets that hadn’t been washed in weeks, dishes piled on the corner of his desk, wrappers and papers and garbage piled well above the trashcan in the space between his desk and the wall. If you have teenage sons, I’m sure you can imagine the smell.

Some time yesterday, I started to see it differently, though. I remembered that pile of detritus under my daughter’s bed and decided the situation in my son’s room wasn’t calling for shame or condemnation –several weeks of trying that had failed, anyway– but grace. I know now that what I needed back in the middle of all my own wreckage was grace. I found it in the long-suffering of my husband and in a daily dose of prayer and Wellbutrin, but it didn’t come easily.

So I stopped looking at the condition of my son’s room as a judgement on my poor mothering skills (“how could you let it get that bad?!”), but an opportunity to show my son the grace I needed years ago, but had to fight for. Here, I could fight for him when he couldn’t fight on his own. What might have started with laziness or complacency probably became overwhelming, and that I can understand.

So, yesterday afternoon while he was at school, I went down to his room and took out the garbage, stripped the bed, changed the sheets, washed all the clothes on mounds on his floor, swept under the bed. I’d offered to do this work before, but he’d refused my offer. Whether that was due to my disappointed tone or due to his refusal to be shamed into action, I don’t know, but when I picked him up yesterday after having cleaned his room all afternoon, I told him my own story and what I’d learned from that experience: that sometimes you just need a fresh start, to be rescued when you can’t do it yourself. I reassured him that I’d left his notebooks alone, I hadn’t thrown out anything but what was clearly trash (empty cans, wrappers, plastic cups, packages and boxes), and that I cleaned up the room for him out of love, not out of judgement. I did it because I wish I’d have had someone back then to do that for me.

He seemed relieved.

And when I think of how ashamed I was back then as a depressed and overwhelmed mom of littles, looking into the piles of junk under my daughter’s bed unearthed for everyone to see; when I think of how I still am ashamed at the condition of our yard, of the laundry that piles up next to the dryer, and I have to fight that sense of inner condemnation as I buckle down and just get the work done, I realize that maybe that’s what grace is for: to let ourselves receive it and pass it on to someone else who needs to experience it rather than have it explained to them.

Sometimes that looks like six loads of laundry, three garbage bags full of trash in the dumpster, and a fresh refill in the plug-in air freshener. Sometimes it looks like remembering to take my meds every morning and making a plan to take care of myself. Sometimes it means listening to a compliment and letting yourself believe it. Sometimes it means remembering that God does not operate by human-made formulas, but by love and grace and justice that we may never understand. Justice that gives itself up for those who can’t give of themselves. Especially on the days when we “just can’t.”

Continue Reading

You may also like

Coronavirus Diaries, Uncategorized

The Regenerative, Endangered Power of Boredom

2 Comments
woman wearing red sweater lying on snow covered ground

Boredom is a dying art.

One thing I’ve gleaned from this pandemic is the necessity and power of leaving room for boredom. I was reminded of this as I checked the school closing lists on our local television station’s website this morning. Even snow days aren’t sacred any more –about half of the “No School Today” notices posted included a second line: “e-learning day today.” Even our kids are compelled to work from home (beyond the generational curse known as homework, that is). Whatever happened to snow days that meant snow angels and sledding and sleeping in?

We’ve forgotten how to stand in line or sit in a waiting room and just …be. It seems people have forgotten how to take those in-between moments and stare into space. Give us thirty unoccupied seconds, and we reflexively reach for our phones. Even meditation –the ultimate modern example of “productive boredom”– is something we search for on our Headspace app and not in the very real space around ourselves, beyond our phones.

Like many others, I brought my classroom home with me in March when the world shuttered and hunkered down against the Covid-19 virus. My husband’s been working at home since March as well, and likely will be for at least the next few months. It’s been much harder on him than on me, to be honest. He’s the extrovert, I’m the introvert. That said, it’s really been a tough year for all of us, as our daughter came home from college, our son who is in high school a half-hour north of where we live started doing his classes online, and my other daughter who’s done her studying from home for all of her high school experience has needed to adjust to a house full of familial distractions. Now, we get along quite well as families go. We’re not yellers, and conflicts are usually held to a simmer when they happen, but in a relatively small house, finding our own space is still a challenge.

And not only finding is physical space tough, but temporal space is hard to find as well. By late April, I learned to keep work hours, to build a daily routine that allowed me to save those evening hours for non-work endeavors. Even with that though, I’ve done very little writing since March. Part of that’s the post-graduate-school, adjusting-to-work-life lull, but part of it’s just craving the empty space of not being obligated to do anything. Margin. The ability to take an hour to aimlessly research things like local hiking spots or the relative futility of modern weight-loss methods or how to build a capsule wardrobe. Reading a book just because it looks interesting and not because it’s something I should be reading –and the guilty pleasure of not writing something I really don’t care about that much simply because it’s been nearly a year since I’ve had anything published.

I’ve become suspicious of the creeping dread of obligation in defense of deliberately reclaiming some empty space in my day. I’ve learned to find the place in the day where my work day fits, and to not let it go further. Since my second semester teaching, I’ve added a note on page one of my syllabi outlining my “email hours.” I explain to my students that if they email me before 7am or after 11pm or any time on a Sunday, they shouldn’t expect a response right away. It’s a reasonable, common-sense boundary, but even putting that in writing has helped remind me that working from home doesn’t necessarily mean 24/7 availability. I dumped social media apps from my iPhone long ago, but two months ago, I finally deleted my Outlook and Gmail apps from my phone. I highly recommend the practice.

So, what am I getting at? I hope that we’ll all let this pandemic work-from-home revolution (if we want to call it that) become an opportunity to revisit the importance of boredom. I hope that we’ll learn that setting hours and boundaries is an essential practice while working from home, but also quite possible when we all move back into offices away from home.

Maybe we’ll learn to turn off all those blasted notifications on our phones. Maybe we’ll try a digital Sabbath once in a while. Maybe we’ll go on a long walk and leave the phone and earbuds at home. Maybe we’ll unplug the internet router for a day and see if our family can survive the experience (confession: I haven’t yet had the courage to try that yet). If we relearn how to be bored (perhaps starting by learning to stand in line and look around ourselves instead into our phones), perhaps we’ll all come back to work –whether that be home or office– refreshed, regenerated, and reminded of the reasons why we go to work in the first place.

Continue Reading

You may also like

Uncategorized

Redefining Normal

1 Comment

My year’s memories will likely begin at the end of January, with a head-first tumble down the stairs at the college where I work. I landed at the bottom with a mild concussion and a badly broken wrist. A week or so later, I had surgery to put it back together, taught a couple classes online, warming up for what was to come after an extended Spring Break, when my college went to online classes for the rest of the semester, my son began doing school “virtually” from home along with his sister, who has been doing high school online since her freshman year. Sam, who’s taught online since 2009 kept on doing what he’s always done, albeit from home and with many, many new students this fall.

Summer brought my first experience of teaching a planned online course, my first time teaching literature. Fall would’ve been the first “normal” semester (as in, not a first-time, not interrupted by injury or pandemic). Of course, though, nothing’s been normal this year, and for me, that’s kind of normal. Since 2015, I’ve willingly taken on a series of new experiences –first going back to school part-time, then full-time, then graduate school afterward, add in a new part-time job at the local Casey’s for a month or two and a teaching internship. After that, teaching my own classes. It’s been all-new, all the time for the last five years, even without the every-two-or-three yearly cross-country and cross-town moves that have defined the first decade or two of our marriage.

So, I kind of have to laugh when I think of what a “normal” year is. I’m not sure I remember. What is normal, anyway? I suppose you could mean “according to one’s plans,” maybe “as expected.” Maybe “following a routine.” I guess I could use a little of that –normal. We’ll see what the next year brings. I’m looking forward to not having to have a backup plan for students in quarantine, always being prepared to “pivot” to online at a moment’s notice. Looking forward to getting a vaccine and being able to retire the masks (someday). Looking forward to in-person church, a calming of tensions over the whole thing.

Today, I’m taking a bit of a break. The photo is from my view of the sunrise this morning. It’s finally “normal” winter weather today, eleven degrees and clear at dawn. Even the weather’s been odd this winter, though that’s not been anything to complain about. My Christmas present this year was a night away to write and figure out what project is next, writing-wise.

Writing, for me, is normal, and I’ve done precious little of it this year. And solitude, though too common for many this year, has been hard to find in may case, with an entire family working and schooling at home most of the year. It’s been good, yes, but this year’s been as hard on us introverts as it has for you extroverted folks, just in a different way. I got used to coming home to an empty, quiet house after teaching, after church, and now –not so much. So, here’s to a new year, “normal” or not. At least it’s pretty certain it won’t be boring, and absolutely certain that One wiser than I will be guiding all along the way.

Continue Reading

You may also like

Uncategorized

Creative Writing MFA Pros and Cons (part 2)

No Comments
closeup photo of assorted title books

Pro #2: Dedicated Time to Write

(Second in a series of posts designed for people considering the pros and cons of earning a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, specifically a low-residency MFA. I’m one year out from completing mine, and thought I’d share my experience. The first post in the series can be found here.)


Ask any MFA graduate what they liked best about their program, and they’re likely to mention the dedicated time (and, perhaps, permission) to write. An MFA program should get you in the habit of doing the two things that can make nearly anyone a better writer: focused, habitual reading and regular, disciplined writing. 

Some days are more productive than others, but no work will ever be done if you don’t clock in and show up. A good MFA program will give you something to show up to.

Many of us who write find that we can procrastinate these two essentials right out of our lives far too easily. Reading falls by the wayside, replaced with social media, work obligations, aimless internet browsing, and social media. Writing falls victim to short blasts on Twitter, useless arguments on Facebook, emails, and everything else that comes our way. The quickest way to get a clean house around here is usually to get me started on a writing project. Procrasticleaning, procrastibaking, procrastinapping, call it what you will, but all are very real enemies of getting sh…tuff done on the page. Homework and deadlines and feedback from your mentor and cohort help fight against these tendencies.

A good MFA program will also push you to your limits in terms of writing regularly and writing a lot. You will learn quickly that “The Muse” is a myth. If there is a muse, it’s activated by applying your behind to a chair and writing whatever comes to mind on a regular basis. Those who write when the spirit strikes are usually those who find themselves wondering why they never complete anything. As John Darnielle so aptly put it during a workshop years ago at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing (I may be paraphrasing), “writer’s block is a bourgeois luxury.” 

If you’re a working writer, you learn that working people keep regular hours. Some days are more productive than others, but no work will ever be done if you don’t clock in and show up. A good MFA program will give you something to show up to. It will keep you accountable. It will teach you how to become a working writer and how to stare down the intimidation of a blank page. In the case of a low-residency program like the one I graduated from, it will also force you to find a balance between your day job and your writing life. 

Pro# 3: Dedicated Time to Read

I can’t speak for every MFA program, but reading was a huge part of mine. I fell into writing mainly as a side-effect of two things: I’ve been an avid reader since childhood, and I journal to keep myself sane. The readings I was assigned in my MFA program gave me a sense of what’s out there in the world. I read things I’d never have picked up on my own (hello, Eat the Apple). I was exposed to a plethora of different writing styles, genres, and more book recommendations than I could possibly keep up with. During my first year’s summer residency, I started carrying around a small notebook just to keep track of all the book recommendations our mentors brought up in workshops and classes. 

I developed a deeper knowledge of contemporary and classic literature, which books were being talked about, which authors were in vogue (or not, often because of their behavior beyond the page). I learned the importance of reading outside my own experience, of amplifying voices outside my own world by reading and recommending, and now, assigning books by authors whose voices must shout over that of the majority to be heard. That exposure to a variety of other writers broadened my own writing and gave me many models to follow, or at least to experiment with. Even more valuable than the depth and breadth and volume of reading we accomplished, we learned to read as writers. We learned to go from saying, “I love this book” to being able to articulate why we loved it. We were encouraged to look into the writing craft of a book. 

Could a person do this without the structure and expense of an MFA program? Absolutely. For many, this might be the better route to take. Writers have compiled books that essentially form a sort of do-it-yourself MFA. What the books don’t come with, however, is accountability. Without the external motivation of completing something like an academic program, developing those habits will be more difficult —but not impossible. The accountability (and, hopefully, if you picked a good program) encouragement that comes within the community of an MFA program is something that would be difficult to replicate on one’s own. You could possibly start or join a local writers’ group, join an online writers’ forum, find a friend to read your work and keep you motivated, but then, the community is another reason many are attracted to an MFA program. More on that in a day or two. 

Continue Reading

You may also like

academia, learning, MFA Creative Writing, Teaching, writey stuff

MFA in Creative Writing, a Post-Degree Retrospective, Pros and Cons (part 1)

No Comments

Part 1: Background and Overview

Getting my MFA in creative writing was not in the plan when I went back to school in 2015 to complete my abandoned bachelor’s program as a non-traditional student. However, the more I sunk into student life, the more I realized that the advice I’d given my husband years ago could apply to myself. “If you enjoy school this much,” I advised my aspiring-professional-student husband, “you should really consider teaching.”

At least then you’d be paid to go to school, was my line of thinking.

So, hesitantly, I put an application in to one (yes, only one) Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program in the last year of my undergraduate work. My location ruled out a traditional MFA (the University of Minnesota, Mankato is the closest school which offers an MFA in creative writing, a two hour drive away), but I discovered a small low-residency program at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, an easy three-ish hour drive from where I live. Low-residency programs are mostly online, with (in Augsburg’s case, a yearly ten-day) “residency” where students attend an intensive in-person set of workshops and courses. Many MFA programs require two or three residencies per year, so Augsburg’s once-a-year summer residency worked better for my life and was much more affordable.

I applied to Augsburg late in 2016, and after a wait that was far more agonizing than I’d anticipated, I was accepted to the program’s creative non-fiction cohort in early March. Between March and May, I wavered. I wasn’t quite ready to take the financial gamble involved in continuing my education, but I didn’t really feel I was done with school just yet. I was increasingly drawn to the possibility of teaching on the college level.

However, when I walked for my graduation ceremony, I’d put aside the idea of getting an MFA. It was expensive, it was kind of scary, and I wasn’t sure I would be successful at teaching. Writing, however, I knew I could do. And that, I could do with an MFA or without. My plan at that point was to find a job that would pay the bills (i.e. student loans), build a (virtual) shed in the backyard and write in my off-hours.

Pro #1: Ability to Teach on the University Level

…In retrospect, the shed would’ve been cheaper, even if I had built the actual thing. But I couldn’t shake the desire to give my long-held dream of teaching a shot. About a week after graduation, I decided to take the leap. One of Augsburg MFA’s best features is that it’s one of the only low-residency programs to feature a teaching concentration. In traditional, fully-in-person MFA programs, students apply to be a graduate teaching assistant, funding all or part of their education by receiving on-the-job training in teaching basic undergraduate English writing courses. Low-residency programs, however, typically attract people with established careers, people who are looking for a way to polish their writing skills or publish their writing, not remain in the world of academia post-graduation. Augsburg’s program was exactly what I needed.

So, there was my justification. I could get my MFA, and have the possibility of teaching once I was done. Was it risky? Yes. Teaching jobs in academia —particularly teaching jobs in the humanities in the middle of an economic downturn and a pandemic— are extremely difficult to come by. Things may have looked slightly rosier a few years ago, but even then, I was never under the delusion that earning my MFA would guarantee my finding a teaching job. In retrospective, however, it was well worth it in my case. I wouldn’t have the job I have today (an adjunct instructor at my undergraduate university) without having earned my MFA.

An MFA in creative writing can be considered to be a terminal degree, which means that while it may not allow you to be addressed as “Dr. Lastname,” it does the job as far as opening the door to teaching on the university level. In my MFA program, the research component is an in-depth (in my case, twenty-four pages) “craft paper” on a topic pertaining to an issue in our genre. The main writing component is a creative thesis. In my case, this was a 180-page essay collection. Others in my program (in other genres) have written screenplays, poetry collections, novels, and plays.

Could I send my completed thesis/manuscript out to publishers? Perhaps, with a little reformatting and polishing. Many others have started their career as a published writer with their MFA thesis. However, other graduates and our mentors cautioned us that publishing one’s MFA thesis as-is, right out the gate is the exception and not the norm. Typically, an MFA creative thesis can be considered finished for academic purposes, but may still be a work in progress as to whether it’s publishable or not. Still, a few graduates of my MFA program already have books out currently or forthcoming. Some had published even before they began the program. Others have started literary magazines and small presses of their own.

Did I make the right choice, all things considered? Would I do it again? …Probably. Would I advise someone else to do it? That depends on a number of things. More pros and cons are forthcoming, point-by-point, in the following few posts to help you make the decision for yourself, if you’re considering an MFA in creative writing.

Continue Reading

You may also like