The Silken Tent
My Letter to the World
August 2000

 

August 29, 2000
Tuesday

I am a tourist
in my own life.
     -- Linda Pastan
         “Excursion”

I never meant to go an entire month without posting a new piece. As I told someone today, I’ve been doing things worth writing about, but not doing the writing. I made notes, and some partial drafts about such things as George Bush’s appearance here on his way to Philadelphia, the writing class I’m joining, my three days in New York City with my daughter and her friend, my high school reunion. But I never summoned the focus to finish, edit, and publish.

That first week in August, when Lynn was at camp, I tackled the formidable task of updating Lynn’s bedroom, which involved removing outgrown clothing, accumulated mementos and junk (between which there is a fine line), juvenile books and accouterments, and installing new window blinds, bed dressings, a functional desk and lighting system, and other things that will make living in it as a high school student more enjoyable.

One project gave rise to another, and before I was really aware of it, I found that I had devoted all of August, except the days we were in New York, to redding out* a lot of old junk, both physical and psychological, and moving several steps closer to my desire to bring order and completion to some important areas of my life.

In the last week of July I’d assembled and submitted an application for a state arts grant which I’d worked on daily throughout June. I had only twenty pages to make a good impression, and I needed to make every page perfect. And then I stopped writing. I can’t say I was “blocked” in the sense one often hears about, but I was reluctant to turn to a fresh page. What I did during August was recharge my batteries.

As the first day of school dawned, the start of Lynn’s freshman year, the start of my third year out of the classroom, I came to understand that I was moving into a new phase of my life. The first year I was retired (and remember that “year” for me still means August to August) I alternated between sulking in emotional paralysis and frantically taking on roles and commitments I didn’t really want. The second year (1999-2000) I worked on sorting out what I really wanted to do and be.

The little green light is on now, I think. And I’m ready to move into September, clearer headed than before, optimistic, calm.

I will eventually write about the New York trip and the reunion. Two pieces will go up this weekend dated August, one my On Display Collab piece about inventing a national holiday and one a piece for a different collab project involving food.

For now, it’s good to be writing again.

(* “Redding out” is a Pennsylvania German expression meaning to clean and restore order to a cluttered area.)

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Margaret DeAngelis.

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