My Mother’s Day was quiet and nice in the way that a Spring day that remains mostly sunny, hosts the fragrance of lilacs and viburnum and begins with good coffee can be. The kids planned a scavenger hunt complete with hand written clues on white pieces of paper, the edges of which G had treated with the special care of pinking shears. The sweet and loopy scrawl of her six year old hand led me from one plastic bag of gummy frogs found behind a framed photograph of her one year old self enjoying her first lollipop to another plastic bag of chocolate covered gummy bears discovered on the window sill amongst O’s owl figurine collection and back to a last bag of gummy letters tucked beneath the Cabernet colored throw blanket that was tossed carelessly along the back of the couch.

Long before six a.m., I could hear her, busy in her room, cutting and whispering and fluttering with purpose and the pride of being old enough to participate and contribute. She hurried to MBH’s side of the bed just past 6:30 to rouse him and remind him of the importance of the day. I groaned and turned over, trying to be cooperative by feigning sleep for an hour longer so that the three of them could plan and execute their gummy hunt and travel to Starbucks and back to regale me with a giant hot latte and a early a.m. rice crispie treat.

I’d like to say that I spent the rest of day reading and dozing and doing crossword puzzles but it was really just a regular day that involved jogging and laundry and yard work. It wasn’t until this afternoon, during the kids’ piano lessons that I opened The Short Stories of John Cheever for the first time and now believe I may never put it down. It was the perfect spot to find my new favorite writer, the vast and artful space of an old and flaking Victorian, the room with a piano at the back, flanked on one side by a floor to ceiling book case of poetry compilations and volumes on art history, a teasing, wanton sun peeking in and out and momentarily lingering on the east wall hung with portraits and weavings and pen-and-ink nudes – an art teacher’s collection of her favorite students’ work. Each corner, every inch of wall space the host to something visual and arresting. There I ran my hands along the aging spines and rested on the thick orange hard cover of Cheever’s life work. After reading two stories, The Seaside Houses and The Angel of the Bridge, absorbing every bit of brilliance despite the halting pluck of children striking off keys and errant chords, I am lost to his words, so taken with his descriptive aptitude that I worry I may never write again. Who needs my contribution when we’ve already got passages like the following to adore and admire:

“God knows where they all come from or where they go, this host of prosperous and well-dressed hangers-on who, in spite of the atmosphere of fraternity they generate, would not think of speaking to one another. They all have a bottle hidden behind the Literary Guild selections and another in the piano bench. I thought of introducing myself to Greenwood, and then thought better or it. I had taken his beloved house away from him and he was bound to be unfriendly. I couldn’t guess the incidents in his autobiography, but I could guess its atmosphere and drift. Daddy would have died or absconded when he was young. The absence of a male parent is not so hard to discern among the marks life leaves on our faces. He would have been raised by his mother and his aunt, have gone to the state university an have majored (my guess) in general merchandising. He would have been in charge of PX supplies during the war. Nothing had worked out after the war. He had lost his daughter, his house, the love of his wife, and his interest in business, but none of these losses would account for his pain and bewilderment. The real cause would remain concealed from him, concealed from me, concealed from us all…”

I’ll leave you with this, now excuse me while I go and worship this compilation just a little longer,

“…as she grew older her way was strewn with invisible rocks and lions and the eccentric paths she took, as the world seemed to change its boundaries and become less and less comprehensible.”

In tennis for instance, I enjoy the workings of the game, the serves, the cross court returns and the half court volleys, but the reason I go back week after week is not because of the process, it is because I am driven to improve, I am obsessed with winning. I work to become THE tennis player. It’s an end game of sorts. It’s ridiculous now that I am 34 and my chances of winning a Grand Slam title are nil. But I’m driven there, towards some sort of completed tennis product.

The same can be said of every task I set out to do. That’s why I enjoy cleaning and cooking. The goal of cleanliness or a delicious meal is easily attained. It’s an hour or two of exertions and I’ve achieved a finished product. I like that these domestic tasks are tidy and controlled and doable.

But when it comes to writing, this is where the whole thing breaks down for me. If I sit in front of the computer everyday and strive to complete a novel, then everyday is a disappointment. If I look too hard for the purpose in blogging, for a reason to continue to read and write about daily meanderings, then, again, everyday can be considered a failure. But why do I need to feel that I am doing something useful, achieving something? The process of writing should be good enough, why do I need a destination?

For the past few months I have been revealing to family and friends that I am working on a novel. I thought it would help to say it out loud. I thought I needed to have people to hold me accountable. I have declared a destination and people I see on a daily basis might ask me from time to time about how it’s going on the road toward completion. And until By Jane’s post I couldn’t understand why, ever since I opened my big mouth about working on a book, I haven’t completed even a page of writing toward that end. I see now that it’s too big, too expectant, too impossible a task. It’s something I can’t complete today so I put off for tomorrow. What dangles before me is not the carrot but the stick. I need to let go and rediscover the process. So what if I don’t complete that novel? What if I wake up tomorrow and begin revisions and decide the whole thing is absolute shit and cast it aside to write one more blog entry about my children or my marriage or, god forbid, tennis? What if, what if, what if? I’m saying it here because By Jane has inspired me to do so. Who the hell cares if I finish that novel this year, next year, never? If I feel inspired to write about the bag of frozen meatballs I bought yesterday on my way home from the kids’ piano lesson then there is reason enough in that.

I have read that writing is a whole lifetime and a lot of practice. It is less urgent than just necessary. I’ll share a passage from a book for writers called, “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg. If this doesn’t give us bloggers a reason to be than I don’t know what will,

“Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. We live and die, age beautifully or full of wrinkles. We wake in the morning, buy yellow cheese and hope we have enough money to pay for it. At the same time we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all the sorrow and all the winters we are alive on the earth. We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with the pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings, this is how we lived. Let it be known the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn’t matter.”

Today I am writing for writing’s sake. Today I accept what is and put down it’s truth. And hopefully, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, I will remember to do this too.

Yesterday, 7:30 a.m., I received a call from my son’s teacher – Mr.S. There are few people I care to talk to at such an early hour. He is an exception, an affable, boyish, disorganized exception. He was calling to say that the party I had planned for the class will have to be rescheduled due to his forgetfulness. It appears the children have a school sponsored sing-a-along, the timing of which completely conflicts with our holiday fete. Usually such a snafu would have me cursing the ineptitude of the teacher at fault but this is Mr. S, so I calmly said, “It’s not a big deal that I now I have to call 25 parents and beg their forgiveness for changing the party time just two days in advance. Actually, it’ll give me a chance to connect with other Mom’s and Dad’s. It’s a blessing, a total blessing.”

With my forgiveness apparent, I could sense his relief. He explained that he has been tired and less than productive lately. He has had trouble keeping appointments and remembering scheduled events. A few months ago, he and his wife purchased their first home. And have spent every minute of their free time and every spare penny renovating the top floor as an apartment. They need to take on a tenant who will pay rent and help them pay their mortgage. The renovations have been costly and excruciatingly slow as they have only weekends to devote to laying new floors and replacing windows. He and his wife are exhausted and broke and losing faith in their ability to get the project done before the holidays. His despair, when he mentioned that he had little to give his most deserving wife this holiday season, was palpable and true.

He explained, rather sheepishly, that his plans for a X-mas gift for her are, in fact, a little home spun. He floated his idea out there as if hoping I wouldn’t laugh or scoff or otherwise deem it foolish and pathetic. Instead, hearing the earnestness in his voice, I wanted to sing out – “Oh, young love, Oh, the Spirit of Christmas. I am restored.”

Without a penny in his pocket, he will develop and draft a blue print for an artist’s studio. He will build this little space entirely devoted to his wife’s artistic gifts in the basement of their new home. He will deliver the scrolled plans, all bows and promises, with an IOU to begin work on it as soon as their tenant is installed in the upstairs apartment. I said, “This, Mr. S, is an excellent plan.” It’s so Gift of the Magi, so perfect with the spirit of Christmas. And like the character in the O’Henry story, his name is Jim. And his wife is Julie which isn’t exactly Della but has the same number of letters. I am so happy for this Julie who has a husband who gets it. And, simultaneously, I could die, pining away with wishing for someone to make ME a writer’s studio in the empty upstairs bedroom that has been home to only the cat litter-box for two years.

I can only hope that his wife has not sold her paint brushes on Ebay in order to purchase him a new belt sander of nail gun. Because, let it be said, “…that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.” (O’ Henry)

At the very least, the friends with whom we attended bought art with exuberance and abandon. They wrote checks and loudly discussed the merits of each painting, dissecting the color scheme of the work in relation to the fabric on their couch. But they did their part, unlike My Better Half and I who wandered around wistfully and filled the empty space within ourselves that wanted to purchase art but lacks the funding with a thousand Hershey Kisses. We greedily filled our pockets with free chocolate set out in bowls along the way and muttered “I love your work” over and over, eyes cast downward, sheepishly shuffling through the motions of the ‘art aficionado’. We were not convincing.

I collected a few business cards. I will keep them in my drawer of longing in case we win the lottery or suddenly find ourselves the lucky recipients of a windfall because their were some very talented folks whose work I would proudly display above my gold and burgundy upholstered couch.

And if any of you all have some expendable income, please, check these artists out because, regardless of couch color, they worth a second look: Rachel von Roeschlaub with the astonishingly detailed and vibrantly graphic art of animals; Mary Mattei’sevocative work with trees and my personal favorite, Yuko Adachi’s candy shoppe colored, happy paintings of pure whimsy and rhythm.