Clean House? Not if You're Riding the Rails

I recently published an essay on Full Grown People about my slightly OCD relationship with housecleaning. There was no need to go into specifics about the cleaning schedule or the minutiae of my twitchiness. I would have liked to include a section about the book that taught me how to clean -- What To Do When Your Mom or Dad Says . . . Clean Your Room! -- but couldn't find a way to work it in. I love this book. Someone gave it to me when I was a child, and I still use the methods covered in it because they tap directly into the childlike love of having a routine and creating chaos at the same time. When my house, or a room, is a real mess, I chuck everything possible into some central location (as a child, it was the middle of my floor; these days, it's the kitchen counter), clean every single surface, and then start putting things away where they belong. The book is out of print, which is a real shame because I've never seen anything better.

I also didn't have an appropriate place to mention our Clean House playlist. There's a lot of fun music on there, and all of it shows my poor taste. But hyper-anal cleaning sessions require frequent dance breaks.

Except that wasn't the point of this post. The point is, Wednesday is our usual Clean House day. My kids are so used to it that sometimes my son (who's 6) will actually do his required duties (it's not rocket science -- all toys off floor and tables and put away somewhere, and Legos organized; sometimes he earns a bit of money washing the windows or the kitchen floor) almost before I'm done with breakfast. That sounds awesome, except that his purpose is to nab Angry Birds playtime before I have a chance to sit him down with arithmetic or have him read a Little Bear story to me.

That also wasn't the point. The point was, this happened.

It actually happened three weeks ago. These tracks go out of his room, into the hallway, and off into every other bedroom. I have to wait for Gordon to pick me up in his express before I can go anywhere. My son has pretty much aged out of the obsessive track-building phase (it's all Legos and Minecraft now), so it was nice to see what might be one of his last inventions. And I don't mind chaos at all, as long as the base state is clean to begin with. But after a week . . . or two . . . or three . . . I'm starting to get really twitchy and itchy and have trouble sleeping. Last night I had a nightmare about the weeping angels on Doctor Who. I need to vacuum this floor.

The Competence Project, Bowl Me Over

Ha, ha. Isn't that a funny title? If I were still on Facebook, I'd have just been blocked by several friends. Oh, wait, you haven't read the post yet. Even less funny.

I'm a sucker for all those gorgeous wooden bowls you see at farmers markets, the kind that look like they were carved straight out of the stump of a tree and yet smoothed by silkworms. (Does that simile work? Probably not.) So I asked how a rustic woodworker would make those things. "You need a lathe" was the answer, and evidently not an option for rustic woodworkers. I haven't vowed allegiance to any particular kind of woodworking; this just happens to be the teacher I have access to, and he's awfully good. Why we can use drill presses and table saws and sanders, though, and not a lathe, I haven't worked out. Nor could I see how the option he gave me -- an axle grinder -- made the piece somehow more authentically rustic. I mean, an axle grinder. Here I am working it. You know what I'm thinking? "This is freaking insane. Please don't let me lose my grip on this and slice off someone else's fingers." Also, my mouth was full of wood flakes. They went well with the (organic[raw]) almonds and (organic[unsweetened]) dried cranberries I'd brought for lunch.



When I finished, I found that my hands were abraded to the point of bleeding, all over, from the flecks of wood flying everywhere. What I had started with was a cedar knot that was just lying around the workshop. Dan sliced the bottom off with the table saw (he didn't trust me with the table saw yet, quite rightly; he shouldn't have trusted me with an axle grinder, either), helped me clamp it tight to the table, and I dug out the middle with the grinder.



Like the pine-top table, it took me a long time to work out a shape to finish this in. There's so much flexibility with raw wood. It's limiting in a way, no rules to follow. But fun. I could see myself living as any number of Tolkien characters with the stuff I'm making. (The proliferation of raw wood products, barely finished and oozing forest, is starting to concern my husband, who prefers antique, highly varnished furniture off-limits to cats and, um, children.)



More of my crappy photography. These were taken with an iPhone. I don't like iPhone photos. The colors always seems wrong. (Actually, I just don't like the way the iPhone takes pictures of me.)

I finished this with the same stuff I use on my skin -- a homemade lotion of beeswax and almond oil. (Learning to make lotion was, of course, another competence endeavor, and depressingly easy. I can't believe how many years I've paid significant chunks of cash for a product that, if made at home, costs little, uses only a few [or even only two] all-natural ingredients, and takes about twenty minutes. I can make it while dinner's cooking and I'm watching The Big Bang Theory.) Actually, I finished it with that first and then re-cooked the lotion and added coconut oil to make it more human-skin absorbable. (What atrocious syntax.)

The Competence Project, Living with Ugly

The table on the right here was actually given to me as practice by the workshop teacher, Dan Mack, who by the way does magical things with rustic wood furniture in addition to teaching and writing books on the subject. I think I chose the legs -- it's been a while -- but he chose the top, this odd trapezoid of pine (table on the right). The legs are a) on the left, something I can't remember but think might be oak; b) on the right, driftwood; c) at the back, peeled maple.



Anyway, it took me over a year to finish this thing because I couldn't figure out what shape to make the top. I didn't like the trapezoid option, but I'd already drilled the holes for the mortise and tenon joints and they didn't leave much room to get inventive with the shape. In the end I went for something pretty basic and mostly just sanded down the corners to round them out.



It matches our floors almost perfectly. Isn't that hideous? But I like the bottom, even though I can't look at it most of the time. It reminds me of a glacier valley, or the colors of rocks under a rushing river in the Rockies. And the shape looks nice from the side. Turning the legs around was a big improvement over that wide-legged stance. That reminded me too much of so many men on the subway taking up all the space.



All in all, I'm not thrilled with this table. It doesn't have the weight I'm looking for, for one thing, which I'm sure is a psychological problem. (Part of this whole competence project, I've realized, is a craving to feel more rooted or grounded or something; I should just wait a few decades and they'll have a pill for that. Or an app.) But it's not bad. Maybe it needs staining to bring its disparate parts together.



Or maybe I should pretend it's a high-fashion model. The legs have that kind of ultra-skinny catwalk look. Except with the knock-kneed cutesiness of a Care Bear.

The Competence Project, Middle Ground

A little over a year ago I started work on these two tables. I talked myself into thinking the one on the right was like a man standing wide-legged and dominant, but with a delicate top; and the other was a woman with a leg kicked out and a grounded, authoritative weight for the top. Gender role reversal. Except actually I was just at a workshop trying to figure out how to make a stool and these were the result of screwing around.



I really fell in love with the trunk slab, which is a chunk of maple that the teacher had found cast off in scrap at a local sawmill. If I weren't such a crappy photographer you could see the deep saw marks on its top.



It took about five months for me to finish the maple table. Because I have a job and kids and really important stuff like my novel and memoir and loads of essays to finish and peaches and tomatoes to can and even more important stuff like making sure I never miss out when a new season of Doctor Who is released. Also my husband had to buy me an orbital sander for my birthday, which allowed me to see what that slab of maple actually looked like.



I am totally in love with this table but leave further commentary to your own imagination. It makes life worth living. I've shown my love for it by already marking it with my 5 a.m. coffee cup. Oops.

Storysurfing: The New Writer's Act

Every time I've participated in some kind of online writing forum over the last few years, there is always a long, hotly debated, and unnecessary thread about what makes a "real" writer and "real" writing. Because blogging makes publication so accessible for everyone, there are a precious few who would like to define "writing" as something other (almost anything) than putting words on a blog. Many participants (usually the unpublished ones) get very hung-up on whether or not they're "real" writers.

And then there's the self-descriptions of those who are writing, or writing and publishing, or writing and posting. You look at an author's mini-bio, and they're described in one or two of the following ways: short story writer, essayist, novelist, biographer, blogger, reviewer, journalist, writer, storyteller, author, nonfiction writer ... all of which clutters up people's ideas of what a writer is or does, and limits the writer's own perceptions of what he or she is doing when inspiration strikes and they make the effort to put words on a page.

Any "real" writer knows in his or her bones that the essays, stories, novels, and blogs are all different consequences of engaging long-term in the same activity. No matter what your final product is -- an essay in Harper's or a blog read by your friends or oral narratives told at a storytelling festival -- they all come from the act of attempting to take experience and shape it into story. It doesn't matter whether that story is fiction or nonfiction, short or long, read by millions in book form or ten people looking at a blog.

We need a new word for this act, to cut through all the crap about what constitutes a "real" writer, and I've had one in mind for a long time: storysurfer.

Why storysurfing? This act, that of reaching into or out to experience, life, memory, and trying to shape it into a narrative that might resonate with others, reminds me a great deal of windsurfing. You are at the same time pulling and being pulled, letting go and holding on, riding the elements and letting them take you. That's what writing is, the whole act. All those titles above -- essayist, novelist, blogger -- they just describe the product. The act is its own thing, separate from the end result and separate even from the experience it's pulling on.

Beginning writers will often hear, if they're taking a workshop or in an MFA program or reading a creativity self-help book, that "a writer is someone who writes." But there's more to it than that. It's not just putting words on a page. Storysurfing is a full-body act. A storysurfer is someone who rides life, and harnesses their experience to the page.

Dear Vida: Why I'm not helping up the submissions percentage this week

The much-discussed 'count' by Vida: Women in the Literary Arts shows a saddening lack of women writers represented in literary publications, daily publications, book reviews, etc. Here's one sliver of a reason why:

9:30 a.m. The children have breakfasted and nursed, been toileted and diapered, medicined and vitamined, swept off and wiped. The baby is down for her reliable morning nap (the afternoon one is hit-and-miss, and requires long periods of holding and rocking). The 3-year-old is playing happily with his train tracks on the floor after I spent 20 minutes helping him set up an elaborate layout with plenty of bridges, tunnels, curves, and switches.

I've had two cups of coffee and even the breakfast dishes are washed. The new album from Bright Eyes is playing. So while Alex sleeps and John plays, I sneak out a story that I've been writing and rewriting for 5 years, and am hoping to send to a journal this week. (Even though I still feel shaky in fiction, creative nonfiction being my strength, and this journal has off-handedly rejected several of my nonfiction essays. But they mentioned on Facebook that they're looking for stories, so I keep working. When I can.)

I sit down on the rocking chair slightly out of sight, rest the clipboard on my knee, and uncap a pen.

John looks toward the kitchen. "Mummy, I want a hug." Gripping Percy the green engine, he trots over and climbs onto my lap.

Five minutes later, and again ten minutes later, I ask if he's ready to play with his tracks again. "No," he says, running Percy up and down my arm, "I just hugging now."

And in no time flat it's time to get the baby up and make lunch.

Of course I'm going to put the story down and give him a hug. There's a tug, an "I wish I could just have half an hour and then get lots of hugs," but there isn't really a choice. Does this make me not-a-writer? Are you a writer only if you push away the hug and stick to the story? No. It just makes me a writer who doesn't get things done very quickly. A writer who is always tired, and always trying. I'm betting a lot of women writers who are also caregivers find themselves in a similar position.

(I did attempt to keep working by offering to read John the story I was working on. While he was patient enough, and I always do a fair bit of editing while reading aloud, it is a bit hard to engage in serious rewriting when you've got your "This is George. He was a good little monkey and always very curious" voice going on.)

On the Purging of Books

Last week I did a little book purge. If you're a book lover, you've probably done this. This weird thought process: "Why did I keep that again? Oh, right, because I thought referring to a bunch of first-in-series mystery novels would hep me finish my own. But this was crap. Don't care if she's famous now, I yawned all the way through it. Chuck ...

"I'm never going to read these again. But I need to keep them because when the kids turn into ravaging book hordes they'll be curious to read everything. Even the lesser novels of Isabel Allende and Michael Ondaatje (even great writers turn out mediocre books sometimes). When you're into a writer, you don't care. But then ... do I really need to keep Wyoming Stories 2? It was awful. Why have bad Annie Proulx around when I don't even own a copy of The Shipping News? Why don't I own a copy? ...

"These are disposable. But when guests want to down a thriller in bed, it's nice to have something to feed them. And they can take them away (though they rarely do). And if one of the kids is into thrillers I'd rather keep the paperbacks than try to remember the names Daniel Silva and Robert Ludlum. ...

"I can't get rid of that. The author's a friend. And not that one. It's out of print and good for reference. And those were gifts. So depressing when you get a used book that someone wrote a loving note in. Reminds me of that awful Paul Theroux memoir, and the bit at the end about finding all the books he'd gifted to his friend V.S. Naipaul, with personal notes written inside, for sale online. At least I didn't keep that book, though I did keep the Naipaul."

And on and on. If a book doesn't come alive for me, why should I keep it on my shelves? Why should I finish reading it in the first place? If you don't like a book so much the first time around, why keep it for years just in case? That's what libraries are for.

Last weekend my husband gave me time for a nap and brought me a cup of tea (husbands like Ian = good). I, of course, need a book to doze off the way that some people need a sleeping pill. I wasn't in the mood for either of the current books I'm reading -- Wait for Me, an autobiography by the Duchess of Devonshire, and Pioneer Women, letters and journals of women settling the Kansas frontier, by Joanna Stratton -- but I took one look at the pile of to-be-read books and they just made me feel more tired.

Last year, in the space of about 8 months, I read at least 6 really crappy or just mediocre novels and memoirs. I wasn't ready to take the risk again, of wasting the time and energy to figure out if a book was worth reading, and resenting the author of a crappy or mediocre book for stealing my precious free reading time.

Out came The Hobbit.

Talk about comfort food. My older sister gave me The Hobbit to read when I was 8 years old, followed by The Lord of the Rings. I read them all at least once a year for over 20 years but have been neglecting them recently. There was a time when I'd get partway through The Return of the King and start crying because I'd forgotten how large the appendices were and there was less of the story left to live through than I'd thought.

The book purge was prompted by my reading through all 4 of those Tolkien books last week. I took a look at our well-filled bookshelves and wondered just how many of those books I would ever read again, or read with as much pleasure. Why keep any books that I know I won't read over and over? There aren't many authors who fit that bill: Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, L.M. Montgomery. Dodie Smith, Kathy Tyers, Anthony Trollope, J.K. Rowling. C.S. Lewis, Norton Juster, Dorothy Sayers, Wilkie Collins. Colin Thubron, Jan Morris, Margaret Atwood, Susan Cooper, Fyodr Dostoevsky. Some others.

The first book I ever got rid of was The Great Gatsby. I hated that book, partly because I'd moved schools several times and had had to study it 4 years in a row (#1 way to kill a kid's interest in a story: force them to study it rather than just read it). But also I just don't think it's very good. Or maybe it just doesn't speak to me. Not a big Fitzgerald fan.

Books look pretty. Well-stocked bookshelves make for a cozy room, and for book-lovers impart an odd sense of security. Maybe there will always be a struggle, wondering what we should keep and what to give away. Book are old friends, even the lesser novels of well-loved authors, even the ones we might have grown out of. But I think what it comes down to is that the ones worth keeping are the ones that inspire us, one way or another. Anne of Green Gables might not suck me in the same way it did in my early teens, but I still enjoy reading it. And I might no reread Motherland: A Philosophical History of Russia again anytime soon, but I was engrossed in it and marked it up and dip into it now and then when I'm curious about something.

Our books are like an encyclopedia of the kind of reader we are, and how that reader has evolved. For me, they also represent the kind of writer I'd like to be. Most of the books that I keep out of love are the ones that people continue to read a hundred or two hundred years, or more, after they're published, not because they're forced to, but because the story comes alive no matter how old it is.

Which is why I finally gave away Wyoming Stories 2 and bought a copy of The Shipping News. Good writers can write crappy books, but they can also write great ones that last for generations.