With Reckless Abandon

While November is often a time for scarves and Mom's stuffing, it means something else to me. Because November 1 officially begins NaNoWriMo - or National Novel Writing Month. This fantastically fun month is a challenge to every procrastinating writer out there to write a novel in a month.

In a month?
That's correct.

The goal is to hit 50,000 words by the end of the month. There are no prizes or anything like that. No one keeps tabs on you (although you are encouraged to keep tabs on yourself and commiserate with other participants). You aren't allowed to begin writing until midnight of Nov. 1, although character sketches or plot outlines ahead of time are allowed.

You aren't allowed to edit or rewrite what you've written. The goal is just to get the words out - no matter how awful they may be. To turn off that internal editor and just keep going. Because everyone who wants to write assumes that "some day" you will - and it never really happens. No one is going to hand me a six month sabbatical in a beautiful thatched roof cottage somewhere (somehow I've always envisioned my writerly self penning masterpieces - or really marketable stuff - under thatched eaves). So on my lunch breaks, in those precious evening hours after work, I'm brushing off the handle to that little door called imagination and entering another world.

All that to say the blog may suffer a bit in November.

She Dreams in Color

I had an awful dream the other night about a baby. It wasn't my baby - it was Faith Hill's baby. I don't even think she has a kid that is baby age, but I digress. Anyway, I was some sort of nanny on her tour (Tim was nowhere around), and I could not take care of this kid. I kept trying to give it a bath and it shot out of my hands like a tiny rocket. I dropped it on the floor every time I tried to pick it up. Literally, it was like the baby was constantly covered in baby oil, and I was the world's clumsiest person. Finally, the baby looked up at me and firmly said, "Please stop."

I woke up quite sad.

Now, this dream wasn't as odd as the one where I was being chased by a white rhinoceros driving a red sports car (knock yourself out interpreting *that* one), or the one about Michael the Monkey and the members of Green Day, but this dream was very clear and vivid. So I lay in bed broodily asking myself -

Does the dream mean I'll be a bad mother?
Am I afraid I would harm a child?
How come the kid wasn't mine?
Does this mean I'll never have kids of my own - left to care for the children of others?
I never dream about babies; why am I dreaming about babies? This is my first baby dream.
Has my biological clock finally started the countdown?

And so on and so forth.

I was getting myself very worked up and was just about to call my mother at 4:37 a.m. to have her reassure me that, yes, I am a good person and would make an excellent mother, when it all became crystal clear.

On Saturday I accompanied my pregnant best friend in her search for "cute" maternity clothes. The entire time I was immersed in stores full of expectant mothers and left to peruse shelves of products that, frankly, left me a bit wide-eyed (and not in the good way). I even got to try on the sample "bump" thoughtfully provided in the dressing room, while Christy muttered evil things against maternity tops.

Relieved, I snuggled back under my warm covers and went to sleep.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Every Monday night I enter the studio, tie on my shoes, and take my place at the barre. My tap shoes are comfy and broken in, like that soft shirt from college that makes the best nightgown. The women around me smile and talk to one another.

I ask N. where she’s been. We haven’t seen her in a month. She grins and points to her barely protruding stomach. “Getting pregnant.” We laugh. The teacher puts on some warm-up tunes, counts it off, and we move in unison.

We come here for one hour a week, each of us dropping the concerns of the day at the door. The elderly mother we are taking care of, the cranky two-year-old, the leaky faucet, the budget that won’t balance, the project that won’t end – they aren’t allowed in here. This is our time, tapping out a rhythm across the hardwood floor, pretending to make the difficult look easy.

In 60 short minutes, we will be ejected back into the world of bills, car repairs, illness, and dirty dishes, but right now, this moment, is ours.

"On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet."
-Lord Byron

Huh

As I collided with the steel beam that holds up my carport and scraped off the trim on the right side of my car, it occurred to me - oh, it's going to be *that* kind of day...