Getting your Ducks in a Row

Well, I’m sitting here thinking about getting my ducks in a row--my ducks being the completion of the novel I began in 2017 (nearly ten years in the making!)

I’ve been thinking about what will I do when I type the words Fin and then hit send. (Hey, that rhymes! Okay, it’s a rhyme by association.) Gawd, I’m already exhausted.

And, I’m sad. This is the part they don’t tell you about in the M.F.A. program (or at least not in the macho boot camp style M.F.A. program I attended in the 1980’s). No, there was no crying allowed! Although, I cried all the time. And I still do.

Perhaps this is why it has taken me so long to write my novel--because I really truly enjoy writing. It’s not terribly strenuous. Maybe that’s because I write in bed in the morning (yes, just like Edith Wharton) and then I cry at the end of the day. Also, I suppose I’m a homebody these days. Perhaps too, it’s the world at large--the smoke from the wild fires rolling down Canada to Upstate New York. Perhaps it’s the current politics. And then, there’s my age.

Oh, do not ask “what is it?“ Let us go and make our visit. (T.S. Elliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock knew all about growing old, feeling utterly misunderstood, and being sensitive and shy.) And yet, Prufrock still went out to that party with the ladies asking questions--despite the fact that he could hear the mermaids singing and imagined himself as a pair of scuttling claws along the ocean’s bottom.

And despite a million decisions and indecisions, he dared to eat a peach.

Creative Friends--There will always be reasons to eschew the wider world, but there comes a day when you must loosen your grip, uncurl your fingers and open up your palms to new possibilities. Reach out to the evening’s warmth and yes, dare to eat a peach.

Oh, and go ahead and cry. I give you full permission. In fact, dear friends--I support you in this noble endeavor.

Love,

Jamie