The Time is Now

I’ve spent a lot of time living in the past. Not living in the past as much as pining for the past. Pining for a past which didn’t exist. And it still doesn’t exist. It was never meant to exist. Gathering the things around me which connect me to a host of broken and un-lived dreams. There were things at the time which I wanted to do, to be, to have. Instead I was wrapping my heart and my arms around four broken-hearted little children. I was holding them tightly as I faced a world I knew very little about. I had been to some amazing places and had some fantastical experiences. But now I sat there all that forgotten and wondered how I will feed them, clothe them, educate them. All my dreams crushed by another human being. All their securities wiped out. I looked into their eyes and felt weak and small. But the protective parent in me stood up strong and bold. Oh being married to a manic man had it’s perks for sure. But when he’d seen enough of the world and experienced enough of family life, we were on our own. That was the beginning of disappointments. Living with a manic man, we were never really settled. I would no sooner put the pictures up on the walls and it would be time to move again. Not for armed services, not for ministry or business, but for experience. I held a British passport, that meant that we could access another country and live and work if we so chose. For the children’s father this meant adventure. Not planned but spur of the moment I really want to do this kind of adventure. “Let’s take the kids for a drive”, hence the beautiful weekend trip to North Scotland and the dear little Bed and Breakfast. A failed business meant a move back to the states and another failed attempt at business meant another move back to dear old England. When he walked out my first big question was: “Where are we going to live?” So that wasn’t the end that was the beginning. We ended up in a little blue house on a short street in a quaint town West of Columbus, Ohio. I didn’t have much experience with welfare services and the whole thing frightened me to death. I did have some experience with home making and I wanted to carry on with home-school but it became increasingly impractical. I wasn’t very good at getting my children to school on time and making sure everyone had something to wear and that it was clean. Then there were all the things which make up the life of someone who has kids in school. I couldn’t believe how much it cost to send kids to public school. Neither could I believe the teachers who would humiliate a child in front of the class because the mother hadn’t paid the fees. I don’t remember their being any fees or list of supplies when I went to school, but then I didn’t go to school in this country. I didn’t know you had to provide tissues to the school either. That was the dumbest thing I came across. It was straight on the supply list. I’m not exactly sure yet what the taxes and stuff get spent on. What’s next will be toilet paper on the list. Well a parent in my position with four school age children couldn’t afford to buy tissues for ourselves let alone for the school. It wasn’t one box of tissues per child it was four and they had to be a certain kind. The schools were spread out all over the town. Each child went to a different school because they had one school for the K-1 grades, another for 1-2 grades, another for 3-4 grades, one school way out in the country for grades 5 and 6. Then there were the Junior and High Schools. Each school expected you to pick your child up at 3:10 promptly. Each school acted like you had only one child. Getting the children enrolled into school each year was such an ordeal that I was completely exhausted for the whole month of September. What I really wanted to do was have a home where the children could do their schoolwork, I could bake and cook and clean to my hearts content, we could have field trips and shopping trips and look fabulous and I could spend my down time drawing pictures and writing books. The children would be safe on a few acres away from any town and any tissues we chose to buy would be ours and stay in our home. Yesterday, I was thinking about all the clutter around my house and the effort it has taken to get myself going again. How I have felt that I don’t really belong here and that my home isn’t really my home and how I have only begun to put the pictures up on the walls and that I was subconsciously wanting something, somewhere, that doesn’t really exist. I was thinking that this home I’m living in is actually everything I’ve ever wanted and that I really need to claim it. That the man I am now married to, who doesn’t want any more than what we have, who doesn’t want to see any other worlds, who is content to come home every single day. That this man deserves to come home to a house that is cared for and loved by me. One that is decked with pictures and draped in curtains and specked with cozy details. This man who stood beside me as we laid one of the children to rest, this man who held my hands and wept with me after we learned about her cancer. Who tills my garden year after year and wants me to stay home and be content with little and home-school our youngest. Who builds for me whatever my heart desires. Who eats every experiment of homemade foods I cook up. Who slaughters our year supply of fowl and tends daily to locking them safely up at night while they grow. Who has welcomed the older children into his life and home and cared for and supported them in their growing up and in their wild dreams. Then I realize that I have spent enough time in the past. The time for me now is the present. The time for me is now.

Elizabeth Williams, daily writing exercise, 1,093 words.

My Garden

The garden is my peaceful place. It has become that for me. I dare not go in there unless I plan to stay. It is a place where I easily lose track of time. I wander from plant to plant, row to row, pulling weeds, tying up vines, trimming off extras, making mental notes on what needs to be done. I used to get really anxious about it. The garden was half the size and large walnuts and mulberry trees hung over the North side. Before that it was not fenced and the edges kept creeping over it. Before that it was in a different place. It was in a lower spot in the property, right next to where it is now. It had been a garden since the 1930’s until the last few years before we moved in. Chloe’s Great-Grandpa and Grandma grew everything there and fed the family all over Springfield with this garden. Grandma tells how she would come and help with the canning. Grandpa tells how he sat together with his mother under the maple tree and shelled beans. He told about this as we sat at our dining room table together last fall, shelling beans. They tell about how Great-Grandma took the harvest into town to share with relatives and days when relatives came to help with harvest. I came to know these stories bit by bit, but not until I started to garden in earnest. In the spring of our first year in this house we planted a garden in the usual spot. We waited a long time for the ground to become dry enough to take a tractor in there. The ground lay low and water pooled. It was past the middle of May when Mark finally took a plow to break up the sod. We planted corn and watermelons and potatoes. I don’t remember what else we planted but nothing did very well. The deer came in and made beds in the corn. I insisted that we plant in a different spot but I got voted down each year. Each year we planted but we lost interest quickly. June was a busy month for me at work and I worked long days in the office. By July the weeds would have taken over most of it. Mark put a chicken wire fence around the garden but it didn’t really keep anything out. It mostly marked the place where weeds were free to grow. Every spring we got excited about a garden but by July we were done with it. I remember that we ate a meal of corn once. It was different. I began to go to the farm market down the road for canning tomatoes and beans. I bought boxes of corn to freeze. I canned tomatoes together with my neighbor one year and she taught me about timing and where to buy vegetables. Every year after that I would order my tomatoes and can them. They were pricey compared to homegrown but they tasted so much better than store bought. The spring after Chloe was born I planted 24 tomato plants. I was able to fill the canner a couple of times before the plants died. I planted beets and kale and carrots but nothing came of them. The only other thing in there was a bed of strawberries and that became a thistle bed. One year I decided to move the garden spot. There was a piece of higher ground on the North side of the property where the water never pooled. It was rough but I was hopeful. Now I was armed with all the knowledge on the internet. I had started to raise chickens just for this purpose, manure. I used leaves to cover the ground in the fall. Mark tilled a small area and I was happy. Next spring he was able to till it up much earlier. I planted beans, tomatoes, onions, cabbages and asparagus. I was excited about it and I did get some beans and a few tomatoes, but nothing did really well. It was the same for a couple more years. The bean beetles were horrible and cabbage worms ate everything, the clay was thick in most places and the hot sun baked it. The next year I began to use more straw and we put all the chicken coop bedding onto the garden and horse manure from a nearby stall. We tilled and tilled. I rotated crops and Mark doubled the size of the garden. A gardening friend gave me 12 small garlic cloves and I planted them in the fall. I also planted potatoes again. Those two crops changed everything for us. The garlic was so easy to grow and tasted so amazing. The potatoes were so delightful to dig up just in time for dinner. As Mark began to get to know the local farmers and glean useful methods and tips from them, our garden also grew and flourished. Last year I grew the best beans I had ever grown. They just kept coming and they were beautiful and I had extras. This year we will have corn. We have a tall fence but the deer still jump over it and eat what ever they want, but we planted extra of everything. The deer did eat all my beets though and this year my onions all died or were eaten, I don’t know, they are gone. The soil in the garden is becoming soft and balanced. The trees which were hanging over the North side have been trimmed back. I have cabbages, broccoli, beans, shelling beans, tomatoes, peppers and squash. Eggplants, peas, cucumbers, asparagus, rhubarb, sweet potatoes, corn and popcorn. The garlic is hanging in the garage, over 80 heads. The garden is my place where nourishing things grow and my soul is peaceful and blessed. This is where I connect with the earth and God’s creation, where I bring the children and show them the dirt. I instruct them to take care of the dirt because from it comes all this food.

Elizabeth Williams, daily writing exercise, 1,017 words.

Anxiety

I was thinking this morning as I was getting ready to get on here and start my writing exercise about anxiety. There are a lot of words for it and ways of explaining it. There are also a lot of opinions about it. Whether it’s good or bad. Whether it keeps us going or destroys us. I was thinking that it may be a topic to do my morning exercise on and then wondered if I could find one thousand words on anxiety. It may be that I can. It is up to my fingers you know. So here it is. If you don’t have to write about anything at all, just write, then you let your soul talk. Your fingers bring the inner self to the front and what you see appearing on the page in front of you is a surprise. It’s not at all like thinking carefully about every word. Yesterday afternoon it took me an hour to carefully choose twenty words. They are very important words and I may change them again as the creativity flows. They are on the first three pages of Elsie Rabbit’s Easter and that’s why they are so important and also why it took so long. I even got frustrated in the middle of it because after taking a minute to focus my attention to teaching Chloe how to make a paper airplane she insisted on interrupting me every five minutes with updates as to how the planes were doing and what was going on at the paper airplane airport. So I got frustrated and yes, a little anxious. I said, “you know, I need a place to work where I can shut the door.” It wasn’t very nice of me. I felt so bad that I got writers block. I thought about packing it up for another day but resisted. Pretty soon I got back to my words and worked out loud. So everyone could hear everything going on inside my head. I asked her if she had enough planes and if so, could she please just go and play. My husband was having stress of his own. The water pipe going from the well to the house has been plugging up gradually and finally the dribble is not working for either of us and it is time to deal with it. He tried to blow the blockage out backwards with an air compressor but it only made it worse. So now our little stream is even smaller. He had turned the water off to the house so that he could do this stuff. Since every job which needed to be done at that time required water, I decided to work out the text and picture layout for my first three pages. I would like to get three pages a day figured out. I will be ok with two pages a day. After all, a small step forward is movement. As long as something is happening every day. Sometimes I am so excited and happy about my book and at other times I’m completely nervous about it and wonder if I’m seriously over the top disillusioned. Whether or not I should be spending my time this way. I’ve read enough now to know that all authors, whether it’s their first book or their tenth or twentieth have these same feelings of inadequacy and self doubt. They don’t last long and I put them all in their place in my head. We had some level of stress going on in our house and then to top it off, I reminded my husband that I am completely out of chicken feed and can be ready to leave whenever he is at a point. He was getting a little quiet which I am learning is what happens when a man has a big job to do and is challenged. The thing is that these things are our personal challenges and we are able to deal with them, it will just take some time. But these things are only stressful if we fight them. I channeled my brain to focus on the words on the first three pages. My husband made a plan to put in a new water line. And Chloe played airport with her new airplanes which I might add, her dad rebuilt for her since the ones I showed her how to build weren’t that good. Somehow I should have known that he was a professional paper airplane maker. We went to get feed and it was a nice quiet drive. Our level of stress is not too high and our anxiety level is even lower. One reason is that we haven’t turned on the news for a long time. We don’t concern ourselves with too much that doesn’t have to do with us. We can look things up on the internet if we need to. I look up international news sometimes to keep up a little on stuff going on. I checked on the fires going on out west. I have family living close to some of those fires. I also checked on the news from the middle east as I am interested in what is going on with Israel. I check these things from the internet though. I don’t turn on the TV at all. I don’t want all that anxiety coming into my living room. I don’t read the newspaper either. I don’t want to be bombarded with information all day long about things which don’t have anything to do with me. I do select information. If I want to know something I can find it out. This is after all the age of information. What I don’t need is more stress than an ordinary afternoon will provide. Since my anxiety levels have gone down I have become more creative. Even though channeling that creativity may produce stress of it’s own, it is always something that I can do something about so it turns into a challenge. It appears that I’m not very good at talking about anxiety. I still got one thousand words but not much on the subject. Maybe another day I’ll nail it.

Elizabeth Williams, 1,000 words a day, exercise.

Childhood Imagination

I missed two days writing. Saturday and Sunday. I went back to bed both days. I had an allergy which kept me sneezing violently for a whole day and part of the next, even with medicine. I was tired. The days were busy as weekends always are, especially Saturday. We picked beans and processed harvested corn and weeded and mulched the cucumber patch. There was laundry and cleaning to do. I feel as though I’m fighting a cold in my sinuses. The summer weather is not at all like summer weather but more like fall. Cool nights and some days then hot days as well with really high humidity. It’s hard on the sinuses, I suppose. Anyway I went back to bed two days and didn’t write. I missed it though. Stephan our grandson spent the long weekend with us. I loved having him, so did Chloe. Writing first thing in the morning when the sky is gray and the house is quiet is something I’m really coming to enjoy. It makes a huge difference to my day. I start off not having anything to write about and struggle through the first half, but once I get to the end I’m energized and in creative mode. I feel as though I can take on anything. I’ve even been better at cleaning. It’s like the most challenging thing is out of the way so anything else is possible. Once I’ve been doing this for three or four weeks it will be habit. I remember when I lived in town, I ran everyday, or walked briskly. It energized me as well. This is the same kind of thing. After we moved to the country to the outskirts of a new town I was at a loss as to where to run. I didn’t know the neighborhoods nor where the tracks are. I stopped running and walking. It was not a good feeling. I tried to do indoor exercises on indoor machines, but we all know how that turns out. I may try something like that with Chloe when she gets older. We could walk to the nearby housing development where her grandparents live. That could work. But for now I’m developing this habit of writing first thing. The brain is an amazing part of our bodies and is capable of so much if only pushed beyond our comfort level. Inspiration comes with use. You hear of people not being inspired, but now I feel that perhaps it’s because of stagnation. Like a pond with water but no where to go. Oh, what a concept. When a body of water has somewhere to go it freshens itself along the way. It is seeing different things and feeling different things and turning a corner it surprises itself. It has races down hillsides and bounces and splashes and sprays over and around boulders and ripples gracefully over smooth stones. It is happy, alive and full of energy. Always discovering something new. It is even sustaining other beings and giving energy all along it’s way. But a pond with no outlet like our little fish pond, it becomes stagnant and dark. Yes it is mysterious, but not in a lively refreshing way. It grows a thickness and becomes a poison. But water which flows, that water cleans itself and is clear. Our brains are like that. We need to be flowing. Moving along and letting the words flow. Following the contour of the land. Discovery and surprise keeping us alert and the ideas coming simply from the journey. I missed that this weekend. It wasn’t so long that I had to start again. Having Stephan and Chloe, two keenly creative souls whose childishness is still deeply ingrained in their senses. Spending time with them is like an exercise in itself. Have you ever noticed how grownups tend to move toward really, super boring and uncomfortable material. Making art static and uninspired. Children have the ability to twist and turn the ordinary into fantastical memorable events which have no end and no beginning and which include all the emotions in such a way as can be quickly put away and a different one emerges just like that. You are kept on your toes. Wondering what will be next. Enjoying one fantasy after another all while doing absolutely ordinary tasks. Children see the world in a completely different way than we as adults do. Spending time with children can if you have the right understanding about them, give you access into their timeless world. I know that their are adults who want children to become adult as soon as possible. To take on responsibilities and feel the heavy burdens of the life created for them, with no creativity in it. A boring world which adults feel safe in. One in which those adults believe will provide happiness and security for themselves and their children. A world in which children are uncomfortable and in trouble. Or a world in which the child is kept so busy there is very little time for imaginative discovery. A world full of man-made props. Then their are other adults who long to be given passports to the world of childhood fantasy. Who long to be able to open the door in their own minds to enter childhoods paradise. Spending time discovering and blending with free children, who have time to themselves. Time to explore and discover. Begging to be let in and see what’s there. Where will we go today? Who will we meet? What challenges shall we face? Will we borrow time with a strangers imagination or will we be creators of our own worlds. It is not all fun and games in the world of imagination. Sometimes it is very serious and highly unlikely and tragic things happen and it involves all of us in someway or another. Spending time with children is something like a daily writing exercise, where the imagination is encouraged to flow and meant to be taken seriously. If you have the energy and can let go of the reasonable and proper, you just may be allowed to enter.

Elizabeth Williams, daily writing exercise, 1,023 words.

Reading

One thing I have been thinking about is that there are some people who don’t read. It’s not that they can’t read. But they just don’t, unless of course they have to. They have to read the road signs and such or they may not know where they are going. Some reading is required in order to maneuver around on the Television Set. Computers require some reading. Sometimes a lot of reading. If you go to shopping sites like Home Depot for example, you will need to read stuff. If you go to the actual store you will still need to be able to read. So it’s not entirely that they don’t read. These kind of people will never read something just for the pleasure of reading. But they do read. Magazines are picture books and they only read text if it applies to a picture and helping to explain it to them. These people do not read books, whole entire books with no pictures just for fun. Sometimes these people are the doers in our society. People that are always taking care of things and can’t bring their bodies to a stand still unless it’s bedtime. There are such people. They are always moving. Sitting down to read a book would not be a pleasure for them. This kind of person might view such a thing as unpleasant and unnecessary mental exertion. For them there is only one world, and that is the one in which they are involved. My husband is this kind of man. I remember when he had to read for school. Of course his books were 10 inches thick. I couldn’t even lift them. He would open them on the floor of the living room. Then he would read. Not all of it. He would be turning the pages. We were all quiet because Daddy was reading. No Body is quiet because Mommy is reading. Ever. He had several of these books. He stacked them in the corner of the room. They would have made a great table. He got his diploma, passed with the highest scores and the books disappeared. I saw one such book in the garage once. He may have referenced it. Outside of the phone book and on-line stores and the occasional how to use on a can or bottle, or instruction for a new appliance my husband does not read. Ok so he reads for instructional purposes only. I on the other hand, well, what can I say. I love words. Any words. All words. When I was growing up it was like a contest with me to see how many words I could devour in a day. Words were made to be read. All words must be read. The entire cereal box. The label on the back of the fridge. The words inside of clothing. Every single word in sight of a road we were driving down. Every book I could get my hands on. The Bible. I could not get enough of words. My daughter Chloe is the exact same way. Of course words must be read out loud when you are young. I loved books. Chapter books. Books of all genre’s. Some genre’s were unacceptable in our home when I was growing up. These books must be read in the night under the covers with a flashlight. I don’t remember my mother being an avid reader. My mother is a practical person who is always doing. My father was a book person. He created with words. He remembered words of great authors. He gave me a love for writings the likes of Kenneth Grahame, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and CS Lewis. He recited poetry of the greats and he was mysterious in his knowledge of these things. It drew me in. I have done some traveling in my life. Parts of Europe and North America, the British Isles and Scandinavia. I have a limited exposure to other parts of our world. I have met many people from so many different walks in real life. But I have been further and seen so much more through reading. I have lived in ancient times and deep into the future. I have experienced through books much more than I ever could in real life. Reading a book is not the same as watching a movie or documentary. Reading a book is entirely personal. Taking you through words into worlds you would never have dreamed possible. Your own mind making up the pictures as you go. The pictures being more emotion than color. I have buried myself in books before. Losing consciousness to words. At times I have absorbed so many words that my body would be in shock. Especially in the overload of information today. You can get on facebook and completely overload your systems with too much information. You can do that with your email too if you are like me and sign up for all the newsletters. My email inbox is always flooded with emails. Hundreds of emails. My husband on the other hand barely gets any. I actually have to send him an email every couple of months just to keep his account active. I have to choose now what I will read and what I will not. I have to set limits on the whole reading thing and only read the important stuff. I do get to decide what’s important though so that’s good. I use a standard with myself now. Does it weaken me? If it weakens me then I don’t read it anymore. If it takes away from my creativity then it is weakening me. Too much reading of the wrong information is weakening. Some reading is inspirational. Some is depressing. Some reading is information that is not needed at this time, clogging up the brain and causing concern. This stuff makes you worry and takes focus away from what is needed at this time. I’m just learning about this. I’m in the creating with words mode. I read all the stuff that inspires the creation of worlds through words. Other peoples creativity through words and pictures. That inspires me, instructs me, energizes me. I can’t imagine living without books. Without reading books. My husband is learning this about me and bookshelves are beginning to appear. I fill them as quickly as he builds them. I would love to have a home with every wall a bookshelf. My worth being measured in the number of awesome books I own. Someday my own books will be mingled together with the books on my shelves and perhaps grace a shelf in your home as well.

Elizabeth Williams writes 1,000 words a day.  This page is 1,110 words.

The World Within My Mind

It's probably a little risky, letting you all have a glimpse into my mind.  This is from my daily writing exercise.  1,015 words.

Time to write. I’m a little late today. So many things going around in my head. So many unconquered stories. So many new ideas. Almost everything I see is a writing prompt. I feel that my mind is just like a large bottle of wine which has not been opened yet. There is so much to discover inside. So many roads to travel down. So many boxes to unpack. The more I look at the unopened the more I see inside it. The absolute possibilities. The treasures awaiting discovery. I’ve begun to close my eyes when I type like this because it is just like peering into something and I can’t see it clearly with all the distractions around me so I close my eyes. The details begin to appear and stand out better one from another. I don’t have to think about the white screen and the black type against it. I can look into the shadows and see shapes appearing and details emerging. I haven’t opened that bottle yet. I hope I do soon because I’m getting thirsty for a good taste of wine. Oh, it isn’t actually wine but it is wonderful. It is going to be so delightful. A world of discovery. I turned the lights down so that the bright lights don’t intrude so much as I look into my mind. Some day when I unleash it it is going to amaze me. I see sign posts pointing. This way and that. There is an old house standing on a hill. It may have been a writing prompt I latched onto about twenty years ago that I had forgotten about. It intrigues me. I turned off all the lights now so that I can see better. I have only the light of the computer screen and my eyes closed. There is a family of rocks. They came in with a meteor shower and somehow I heard about them that they are here. But I don’t remember seeing them I only read an account that I wrote down about them. I’m longing to find them and learn more about them and the planet they broke away from and the galaxy they once knew. There is a child in Germany who was left behind with Nuns when her family came to America before the second world war because she had tuberculosis. There are others too much more obscure that I can’t see clearly at all because I haven’t opened the door yet. I’m still looking through the window. It’s not like a room or building that I’m looking into. It’s like I’m in the room and my mind is on the outside and I’m looking through a dirty window at the world outside. I’m wondering what it all means and where it all ends up and will I ever get to discover any of it. Will I have the courage to open that door and begin that journey to all the lands? I sit here at my keyboard and I learn to type. I do know how to type, physically type. I type fairly quickly. Well, not as quickly as a lot of other people. But as quickly as I can speak. If I speak slowly, like to someone who is very hard of hearing. But much too quickly for my typewriter which is from a long time ago. The keys on it kept jamming because my fingers were going too quickly for it. Yes, I can type. But I’m learning to type from my heart. From the place where stories live, without it going through some sort of censor. I’m learning to let my fingers do the talking and I’m reading it at the same time as you. I’m not sure what the next sentence will be. It surprises me everyday. I’m on a road to discovery. I’m learning new things with every line. I didn’t know I felt that way. I didn’t know it looked like that. I couldn’t have guessed it would end up over there. I just have to let my fingers guide me and trust them as guides. It’s almost like I’m saying they are my feet. Like I’m walking on my fingers or something. But really I am. My feet have nothing to do with this. Except they do become useful when I need another cup of coffee. Then my feet are useful. And yes I will need the rest of my faculties at times. To do research of course. I have to do research sometimes. That’s just part of the discovery. I’m going to have to let a character show me what it is like somewhere else or take me to lands I’ve never been. I forgot about Patrick. He is in the box of ideas left unfinished. The stories begun and put away. I must have stepped through that door once upon a time. Maybe I was just looking through this window then too. There are others out there who I felt a familiarity with. Who’s stories I desperately wanted to record. So that they wouldn’t be lost forever. I love that they are all still there, waiting. Waiting for me to train my fingers to tell the story. Waiting for me to unlock that door. Uncork the bottle. Maybe they all fit together somehow. Maybe there lives twist around each other and connect. Maybe not. Time will tell. Time will show what is out there beyond that door. It isn’t dark out there really. It’s just the window isn’t letting me see clearly. Maybe it’s one of those old fashioned kind of windows that make the glass look wet. I had some of those in the house I live in now. We don’t have them anymore. I would have kept them but they let too much of the outside in. And I think they were missing the purpose of being there because you couldn’t really see very well through them anyway. So they were all replaced. I can’t wait now to go through the door and start discovering the world within my mind.

Elizabeth Williams 1,000 words a day. 

There is a lot of love in a Grandma

I began to notice a hesitation in moving forward with my book. I was excited about it and did all the set up. I started a file and wrote out the synopsis. Then I made an outline. I compiled these and printed them out as if I were sending it to a publisher. I made a character sheet for all the characters and printed them out. During my research of the process I found a self-publishing site on Amazon where a person can publish books whenever they want. It is awesome to think that I don’t have to mess with the big guys because I’m quite timid and lack confidence. So I was happy to find the on-line site. I am a Prime member with Amazon and sell used books through them and I like how they work. I became bolder about my writing and illustrating this book after reading instructions from a published author who has used the amazon system. I began to think of myself as a successful published author. Now this is a good thing, not bad. One should reach for the stars. One should feel deep down inside and live that out. All the positives of that feeling should be pushed to the surface. Then one should set up their life around that to make it happen.

"I don't want to hear whining about how it's so difficult. Oh, I don't tolerate any of that because most of the people who've ever written are under enormous duress, myself being one them. So whining about how they can't get it is ridiculous. What I can do very well is what I used to do, which is edit. I can follow their train of thought, see where their language is going, suggest other avenues. I can do that, and I can do that very well."
-- Toni Morrison from an interview with Zia Jaffrey, "The Salon Interview With Toni Morrison," Salon.com (February 1998)

“most of the people who've ever written are under enormous duress, myself being one them” I can’t stop thinking about this because a writing lifestyle doesn’t really fit in, even though it does. It only does because I make it fit. Making it fit has changed everything for me. I now get up in the morning and write. I do the other stuff after I have written. It wouldn’t fit at all, any other way. Writing must come first. I did stop during writing this to fill up my cup of coffee. Yesterday I forgot to get my first cup of coffee until I was almost finished with my writing. That was amazing to me because it shows me how much I’ve changed since I started writing in the mornings. I just put a load of laundry in as well because then I can hang it up when I’m finished writing, and that works. I used to not be able to do very much at all in the mornings but lately I’ve been starting my day at six. Gradually I feel more anxious in my body to move about and do things earlier in the day. I can’t sit and waste the morning any more, or sleep through it. Things are changing for me. I’m waking up. My husband is doing less and less for me and I’m taking back my duties one by one. I penned up my birds the other day and he gave me a look that said that maybe I didn’t need him anymore. I know he wasn’t thinking that, but maybe he was thinking that I didn’t think he was doing it right. You can’t blame a guy for having a thought like that, after all I’ve put him through. He said he would have done it and asked why I did it. I simply told him that I would like to start taking on my responsibilities again and that if I didn’t he could but soon I would like to be taking care of all my stuff. I thanked him for always being there for me and taking over when I couldn’t. Earlier in the year I had started getting up before he leaves for work and letting my birds out. Now I water my plants and feed the cat, before I go back in the house. Then I write at least 1,000 words. It has changed me. I am writing that many words more and more quickly and the words just keep coming. When I’m finished I feel that anything is possible. One author I read about shared that she writes in spurts and puts nose to the grindstone to get a book finished, her husband writes consistently for one hour a day and puts out just as many books as she does. Life doesn’t have to clear out for a job to get done. It just takes a little time each day. In all my enthusiasm for being a published author I became overwhelmed. I began to be intimidated. I’m sure I’m not actually good enough. My illustrations are putting up a huge road block. I began to lose the momentum for my book. I was starting to judge myself as manic and mentally unstable. I started to feel embarrassed about all the paper with doodles and drawing tryouts on them scattered all over the dining room table. I have two fridges full of corn to get into the freezer and peas to shell and a load of beans to snap, blanch and freeze and the house is not taken care of. All of this began to weigh heavy on me and I could see myself putting all those papers and outline into a box and packing it away for a time in the future when the time will be just right. Another idea partially worked through, set aside. I have a lot of them. Then I spoke to my son. I told him I was writing and illustrating a children’s book about the little rabbits I knitted for the kids at Easter. I told him I was struggling with the illustrations. He became excited and asked me if he could tell his little girl that her rabbit is going to be in a picture book. I’ve been thinking about that. His faith in me and his excitement for something I am doing. It blew me away and I’m getting this passion in me to give her that book and make sure that her little rabbit is in it. And put ‘for Olivia’ in the beginning, printed. My inspiration has been from Chloe, she got all this going, but I will make this book for Olivia, and Stephan, and Loralei, and Isaac and Larry and Elijah and Chloe who has given me my childhood back and Joanna and Andrea and Carl, who bring these perfect little people into our world. And Debbie who will read it from Heaven and watch the process first hand. I will do this for them and put their names in it. It will be a gift to my children and grandchildren. Doing it for any other reason is just not working. The world is too intimidating for me. But doing it for them is just a Grandma making a picture book for her kids. And there is a lot of love in a Grandma.

Written by Elizabeth Williams.  1,224 words.

My Journals

This is from a daily writing exercise, One  Thousand words a day. This article is 1,011 words.

Recently I found all my journals, when I was looking for something. They were in the upstairs hall closet on a shelf behind our clothes. We don’t have closets in our rooms, only one at the top of the stairs and one underneath the stairs. So all three of us share one narrow closet for our clothes and one closet for our winter coats, and extras, under the stairs. It is interesting because it is the first house I have lived in that has been like this. All the other homes had closets in every room. I do have a wardrobe in one of the rooms. It is an old heirloom wardrobe that I’m really proud to have. But that’s not where I found my journals. They were upstairs on a shelf behind the clothes. I pulled them out and began to open them. What a treasure. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read them. I had been through some really difficult times. But I was happily surprised when I began to read. 1997, I wrote about people that didn’t exist and fanciful things about the children and I wrote about what I wanted to accomplish and I shared a little about what was going on but only in the I’m challenged sort of way. I didn’t find one 'woe is me' kind of entry. I didn’t find one thing that someone else did or said to me that was unfair, unkind or atrocious behavior. I was concerned that I was about to revisit a dark and depressing past. But none of that was recorded in them. Only this wild fanciful stuff and lots of encouragement. I probably didn’t write anything when I was depressed. Oh, but I did. Truth is I never knew I was depressed until I was coming out of it. It’s like the sky is dark and dreary and you are used to it being that way and you don’t really notice. Then one day a hole in the clouds appear and you can see some sky. It is unbelievable the color of the sky. And you recognize that you have been depressed, and think it is over now, and you tell everyone how great you are doing and you don’t even notice that the hole is covered up again but you treasure that glimpse of blue sky in your memory while gray darkness surrounds you. I began to read my journals. There was this thread running through them. I wrote about how much I had written or not. I wrote about my tiredness and that I was thankful for a moment to write. I wrote huge character sketches about people I knew and people I made up. I wrote about stuff that the kids were doing. Situations that made for great writing prompts. I began stories and stopped, later in the same journal or in another one I found the same story only different and much better. I didn’t complain in my journals. Everything I wrote about my circumstances, if I wrote about them at all, was about my plan. I challenged myself on paper to make positive changes. But mostly I wrote stories. I still don’t see any point in complaining or even saying how it is if it isn’t nice. Unless it could be turned into a story. I usually won’t focus on anything that does not already have a solution. I’m so glad I did not write a lot of negative things. I wrote about books I was writing and picture books I wanted to write and illustrate. I wrote about a course I was taking about writing for children. I wrote some of those exercises in my journals. I found a treasure. I found aliens from galaxies you have never heard of. I found stories about my childhood that were brave and exciting. I found stories about my son when he was a child and my beautiful daughters. There was a sea dragon who helped a child overcome. There were real stories about the things that we experienced. I wouldn’t want to go back in time and read only the bad stuff. I went back twenty years and I was delighted. I am still writing. When I read those journals I knew for sure I was meant to be an author. I knew that more than anything I want to write. This is my passion. And my journals confirm that. Complaining is a way to keep negativity in your life and seek company in it. I can use the experiences I’ve had in my writing. Experiences are gold to a writer. Why complain about too much gold? If I weren’t a writer I would still not want to focus on the negatives unless I’m working out the solution. In that case I would be focusing on the solution and the situation would merely be a tool to an improvement. It’s not that I have never complained, but I didn’t complain in my journals. I focused on the positives. If there weren’t any available positives in my life at the time, or I couldn’t see them, then I wrote about other stuff. I think that if you want your life to change for the better then you need to focus on the good. Cultivate good thoughts, good habits and smile a lot. Have some clean funny thoughts and smile to yourself. Write those funny thoughts down and other fun stuff. Things will start to change. You will rise to the challenges you face. Don’t record the horror and despair that’s in your life. Only record beauty and blessing. Don’t talk about the unfair stuff happening to you. Don’t focus on how awful the weather is. Talk about that funny thought you had. Talk about a beautiful discovery you made. Tell someone else how cool they are. Don’t even ruin their day with tales of how awful something or someone is. Don’t ruin your day with it either and definitely don’t ruin your poor journals’ day. I’m so glad I didn’t.

Elizabeth Williams 1,000 words a day.

Shortcomings

This is from a daily writing exercise, One Thousand words a day. This article is 1,077 words.  It was a lot of fun to write and went very quickly.

It seems inevitable that I should write about my shortcomings. After all, isn’t the best writing truthful? We all have them. We try to fudge around them, over them, under them. We try to act like we are the only one ever to not have them and shame on anyone for exposing them. We read a lot lately about not noticing them. Looking beyond and believing something other than the truth about ourselves. I don’t think that looking at our shortcomings realistically and truthfully is the same as beating ourselves up. It is not the same as calling ourselves bad names and filling ourselves up with self-doubt. It is not the same thing at all. My shortcomings are mine. It is partly what makes me who I am. It is only considered a shortcoming because I have a higher, nobler goal for myself. I would like to imagine that I am something that I am not. But being honest about myself and the way I react to stuff is the first part it would seem in embracing who I am. If I truly understand my shortcomings and weaknesses then I can set myself up differently to compensate for it. If I am aware of myself then I can be more respectful of me. Before I can be respectful of who I am I really should meet myself. ‘Hello, how do you do?’ ‘Hello back, I don’t do well with changes to my schedule.’ Wow, there it is. I said it to my self. I also don’t do well with upheavals in my space. I also forget what’s going on, what time of day it is, what my tasks are and how important I am to the nourishment of other folk living with me. Good job we don’t speak to each other that way. I do share my shortcomings with my spouse on occasion. Usually the answer is something like, ‘tell me something I don’t know.’ So my spouse knows me pretty well. Better than I know myself I suppose. I always lived in a fantasy world about myself. It wasn’t a great idea but I didn’t realize that I was doing it. If you don’t really know who you are then you can’t help others to be considerate of you either. If you know that you don’t do well with changes then you can tell someone else that you aren’t ready for this or that change yet. You can figure out your role in the new changes and give them the green light when you are ready. If you get distracted easily, like I do, then you can make a list and let someone else know you are following a list. There are lots of ways that being real or truthful with yourself can help you. If you think you don’t need a list when really you do and you go about doing a little of this and a little of that and you are busy all day long and really tired at the end of the day but can’t remember what you did all day to get that way then maybe you really do need a list. That way you can look at it and tell yourself you are awesome. Tired and worn out, but totally awesome. Even if only one thing got crossed off that list you know you did something that day. Not that you should have to do anything at all, but you are tired and worn out so it’s nice to know how you got that way. If too many things need to be done at once and they are all pressing that’s hard for me. It’s on days like that I start going around in circles. Sometimes I want someone to say, ‘hey, do this now!’ I wouldn’t actually want anyone to. I don’t have a job. I don’t actually have a boss, so I wouldn’t want my spouse to say that to me in that way. He might try saying, ‘what are you working on right now?’ that might prompt me to check my list and find out what I am doing. If at the end of the day I really didn’t accomplish anything. I didn’t feed my family. I didn’t finish the laundry. That happened to me yesterday. I forgot that I was washing the dish towels and tablecloths and that I was going to hang them on the line. It was a perfect day for that. I forgot. I get excited about something and then I forget what I’m doing. So I went to the garden and worked out there for hours. On the way back to the house I thought about the dish towels and hanging them on the line. It was still early enough for them to dry. But by the time I got to the house I had completely forgotten and this job was not written on my list. If this stuff happens to you, don’t beat yourself up. It really is not the way to help yourself. Most shortcomings are not crucial. I can laugh about the poor rags in the washer and how I made them spend the night. I can turn the whole thing into a non-fiction short story. Maybe even a comedy. That would be great. It could even be a writing prompt. It is a little different with children. I mean when I forget to feed them. It gets a little awkward and I’m hoping they survive. I quickly peel bananas and cut up apples and wash some grapes. Then I’m reheating some homemade chicken noodle soup and frying up the mashed potatoes hoping that they will survive an hour or two of starvation. I do have to say something apologetic to them. Something like, ‘oh my gosh, look at the time, I am so sorry, I forgot to feed you.’ Being careful to respect their weaknesses now. Most kids don’t do too well with starvation. They get crazy you know. They don’t actually know what the problem is. They know something is not right with them and they may even start asking for desert. That is a big clue that they need a meal. So the point is that it is important to be honest about my shortcomings and make allowances for them so that no one has to starve or spend the night in the washer.  But if they do, I'll know how to handle that.
Elizabeth Williams 1,000 words a day.

Why I Wear Black

My life as I knew it stopped that day. It had changed two and a half years before, never to be the same again yet this day was different, it came to a stop. I started a batch of bread and got a load of wash into the washer. Then I dug out my suitcase from under the stairs. As I struggled to set my house in order I put things into the suitcase that I may need. I took a gym bag out of the closet as well and began to fill it with things for five year old Chloe. The bread rose on the counter and I hung clothes on the line. As I threw corn out for the chickens tears ran down my cheeks. Sometimes they flowed so heavily that I couldn’t see and had to blink many times to get my vision focused. I didn’t say any prayers but silently took care of the birds and gathered eggs and filled water buckets. There were babies in the brooder. I went in to care for them and sat on a box and really let the tears flow. I whispered and cooed to them. I sat there for awhile until the tears stopped. It won’t do for Chloe to see me this way. I don’t want her to be nervous, she loves adventures. I baked the bread and folded the laundry and finished packing. I replied to an email that I would be on my way very soon. I waited for Mark to get home from lunch and told him that I didn’t know when I would be home but that I was needed at the hospice. I thanked him for taking care of things for me and invited him to drive out to see us.

Four weeks later I laid my head on her casket in the cemetery, after the brief graveside service, and let the tears course down my face and run all over the beautiful box that held her forever. I did not restrain myself. I didn’t care. It was over in the worst possible way. My little Chloe was close by with family. My two girls Andrea and Joanna one on each side arms wrapped around me wept filled to the brim with grief. They wanted so badly to comfort me and said words but my soul was sinking deep into darkness and my bones were tired and weak. I stood up with them and we went home together as a family and I eventually went to bed.

Days passed by and one by one the relatives and children went home to their own lives to bear their own griefs and we were left alone. Mark, Chloe and I. I slept. I woke. I slept. I did things but mostly I slept and cried. I got up and dressed pretty, in blue and green and cooked and the tears came and came and came. So I went back to bed and slept. I got stuck in the middle of steps. Sometimes in the yard between the barn and the house. Sometimes in the house. I would stand not sure which way to turn or which step was next. I don’t know how long I would stand like that. I would stop in the middle of talking, not sure which word to say or which letter comes next. Then I would cry. We ate what was brought to us most days. I had frozen everything and would just take it out of the freezer and put it in the oven. It wasn’t too hard to do. I was numb. One day someone told me that I should try to move on.

I became angry. Anger filled me up. My anger frightened me. I was angry at Mark because he couldn't stop my anger. He is not a praying out loud kind of man but he put his hand on my head and prayed one day, so bad was my anger. I told him about my anger and I was open about it.

When Debbie was sick and I knew the end for her would be soon, I wondered how it would affect me. How could I know how it would be. I read in the Bible that Rachel wept and could not be comforted because her children were no more. I read that Jacob tore his clothes and would go to his grave in sorrow because his son was dead. I know with my head that there is a resurrection and that Debbie is resting with the Lord and her body will be restored in the triumphant day. But my soul is deep with the sorrow that my child could not live to see many days with her son, with her sisters and brother and nieces and nephews and all the good she could have had here. I would have rather been the one to go ahead. I should be.

I covered myself in black. I put away the colors and trifles and let a part of myself be with her. I found the strength to walk in a different way. I found my voice bit by bit. And I drove out the anger, thought by thought. I worked with my hands and stood on my feet. I surround myself with pictures of my children, all of them brave beyond words. I learned a new way to live, to be here in the present moment, to love and care.

Bit by bit the tiredness has gone away. I have begun to live again, but with a new determination. Those things I have always wanted to do but thought were trifling those are the things I do now. Like writing a thousand words a day. Cooking all our own food from wholesome ingredients is important to me now. If I don’t live this way now, then when will I. Reading everyday to Chloe is so important and sharing hopeful wonderful things with others is important as well.

It has been 3 years now and I am still wearing black and my hair is worn simply. I have begun to have courage to face this life again. I have let go of my anger, though I still don’t understand why she had to die. I am waking up and learning to walk.

There is no right or wrong in grief. There is no rhyme or reason. There are no words adequate. There is however a deepening and an expanding and enriching of compassion in those who know true love.

The above article is an example of one thousand words.  As a daily exercise I write one thousand words.