Leaving a legacy

This is a picture of our summer home in northern New York. When I see it I think of love. Many generations of our family have vacationed here, and my extended family's archival slide show is a 50-50 split between Christmas shots and pictures of smiling faces at the lake.

A few years ago it became apparent that the hundred-year-old camp needed a new roof. My aging parents couldn't afford it, so ultimately my husband and I purchased the camp. But it turned out the roof was only one problem in a structure pieced together through the decades by weekend carpenters armed with determination, enough brawn to swing a hammer, and enough paint to make it look good in the end. (I also suspect a wad of bubblegum or two.) They had succeeded in turning what was once a hunting shanty into a two-story camp, but without the proper forethought and foundation work, it was no longer safe.

My good friend Doug, principal architect of Lifespan Design Studio—after he could breathe again, laughing as he had at my stories of how the door at the bottom of the second floor dresser opened on its own when you hit the spongy floorboard, or how the bottom two stairs were movable because they obstructed a doorway—designed us a wonderful new camp, pictured above. "New roof" to "new camp" was not an easy transition, though. We had to say goodbye to spaces that housed many happy memories, some centered around family members long gone. We had to set difficult financial priorities that made our retirement years feel less secure.

But we took a deep breath—and then, the bulldozer. In a few months, our camp went from the oldest on the lake to the newest.

Last year I happily made the 13-hour round trip drive to the lake nine times to check on progress, deliver materials, and work (now I'm glad gas prices hadn't yet spiked)—because I loved the new camp from the moment I first saw it. The pain of our decision-making faded away with the smell of mildew we had once thought was an integral part of the camp experience. And the new bedrooms and open communal spaces inspired a thought: what a great place to have a writing retreat. Guests could write on the porch overlooking the lake, on the shore, or down on the dock. Ideas could simmer on the back burner while paddling, hiking, or swimming. We could have popcorn parties to discuss work in the cool evenings while gathered around the fireplace.

I'm heading up there alone, the day after tomorrow, to give the writing retreat idea a personal test run. The memoir I'm writing is difficult, making me all too willing to be distracted by the phone, appointments, and e-mails at home. I think that I could hang with my writing for longer blocks of time surrounded by the wild beauty of the Adirondack foothills. So for six whole days, I am going "rustic." (That used to mean no indoor toilet facilities—now it means no Internet.) I want—I need—to write this story of healing since my first husband's suicide. Even if it doesn't see publication I hope it to be my legacy, handed down through the generations of my family.

Then I uploaded the above picture to this blog and realized my husband and I have already created a family legacy. If the last camp survived a hundred years by determination alone, a good foundation and a design addressing our needs should net us at least double that, wouldn't you think? I guess that's what I'll be writing about while I'm there: the way that, after the deterioration that resulted in my first husband's suicide, the boys and I laid a foundation for a new life designed to suit our needs. 

I'll let you know how that goes next week.

Great ideas and chocolate chips

This morning I judged the 9th grade projects at Boyertown Junior High West in Boyertown, PA. We watched kids take on roles such as architect, interior designer, recreation facilities manager, marketing director, and landscaper to create and present a group land development project that would contribute to the betterment of their hometown.

Their goal to "win the room"—to be the best presentation that any one panel of judges saw—is analogous to winning the bid for the construction project. But steeped as I currently am in the process of submitting a novel to agents and helping other writers develop their manuscripts, I saw another analogy. 

Like glancing over a clean manuscript, slick presentation was easy to assess. Dressing nicely, speaking with confidence, and organizing the material well created a great impression right off the bat. The first group in our room quickly racked up points in these areas. 

Another presented well enough but left a memorable impression with the originality and cohesiveness of theme: to bring the beach to Boyertown, which is a good 120 miles inland. They incorporated sand boxes under balconies in their 3-D rendering of the facade, painted the building in peach and seafoam green, and carried through all of their elements a unified theme of stress reduction. The marketing director was full of ideas of how to get the word out about their new facility.

When the presentations in our room were over and it came to deciding who had "won the room," the score sheets for these two groups were tied. Moving to a more subjective vote—who should win—the judges' tied again, 3-3. We considered declaring the tie, but since there were only three presentations in our room, that meant that while no one would "win" the room, one team would definitely lose. The judges did not feel comfortable with this result.

We haggled for a while over details. Both groups had worked hard on their presentation materials. The first group forgot to include a required element in their presentation, the second went above and beyond expectations in that same element. Yet this alone didn't seem enough to decide the outcome. (We tried to let the fact that the first group handed out homemade chocolate chip cookies stay out of the equation.)

The question we ultimately had to ask ourselves is, if we were truly thinking about investing in one of these facilities, where would we put our money? Which would we want to have in Boyertown?

When posed that way, the question was pretty easy to answer—the money element often has a way of clarifying things. We eschewed the slick presentation and went with the solid, original idea that had an integrated marketing plan. Years down the road, when the faces of those slick presenters had long faded from memory, it would be the idea that really mattered anyway. I am writing this just three hours after leaving the junior high and I frankly have already forgotten the theme of the other facility.

I think there is a great lesson for us in our writing here. Especially for someone like me, who can easily spend an hour crafting, deconstructing, and reforming a paragraph: sometimes beautiful words won't be enough to get someone to invest money in your project. You need that great, memorable idea with a solid marketing plan to reach your audience.

Therein lies the great mystery of writing: what the heck comprises a "great" idea? The uncertainty can drive you nuts. But the yearning to find that special idea that grabs you and doesn't let go is the thrill that entices writer, agent, editor, and reader alike.

Now. A good idea AND beautiful sentences? Throw in a good chocolate chip cookie and I'm in heaven.

Graduation card

A special young woman I know will graduate from college this Saturday and my first inclination was to go to the store and buy her a card. It's amazing how I've internalized that advertising-driven prompt. As if Hallmark could come up with something better than I could—I know her, and I'm a writer!

But what is left to say about graduation, except perhaps to note that the spelling of the word is what will prompt many to hand-write the word "congradulations" at the bottom of the Hallmark card they picked out? Thousands of graduation speeches will be delivered at schools across the country in the coming month; it's all been said before. But since I've never been asked to give one, I thought I'd devote some space to it here.

For many high-achieving college prep kids, high school graduation was expected and—despite the hoopla and the certificate from the state senator—just a blip in the continuum. College graduation is different. It seems like a threshold between safety and the big bad unknown; between the person who has been reacting to known variables and the person that will be revealed.

That's not the case with this young woman, who despite her considerable accomplishment will have no proud parents watching her walk with her class. The obstacles she's already hurdled reveal graduation as nothing more than a moment in time, a line drawn in quicksand. Don't get me wrong: as the three degrees framed on my wall will tell you, I'm a huge believer in education and I adore ritual and I'll take any opportunity to revisit accomplishments that make me feel as though my life exhibits forward thrust. But at 23, this young woman already knows that school is only part of the education picture, because life has its own way of distributing its lessons. By pulling the rug from under your home life to the point that you must completely re-define the concept of family, for example. Or handing you your own life-or-death health scares. Or by planting within you a dream that cannot be satisfied at your first hometown college, requiring a lone drive across America to try again. 

I know people who, when confronted by any one of these challenges, would choose to wilt within their own victimhood. Yet this young woman has faced them all. Her innocence was crushed long ago—she knows life isn't going to be fair. So, unwilling to wait for dumb luck to turn the tide, she has not waited for graduation to provide life's starting line. Instead, she stacked the odds in her favor before graduation by pursuing an unpaid internship in the highly competitive field of television journalism, a move that has paid off with an entry-level offer at a major network. She has replaced the dysfunction in her birth family with the rewards of love freely given to close friends—one wall of her apartment is plastered with photos of them—and by caring for her Pomeranian, Burklee.

This young woman knows that graduation does not magically commence anything. It is an opportunity to give thanks and see how far you've come, but so is every day. Day by day, life will continue to reveal her inner strength and beauty and call forth the maturation required of her. For the grace with which she has accepted this, I want her to know that she is an inspiration to me. I'm glad to know her and I'll be thinking of her on Saturday. This is her graduation card.

And, so that I don't disappoint:

"Condradulations," Elizabeth!

Deadlines: When to keep ’em, when to ditch ’em

I'm not talking about hard deadlines here—you know, the ones you'd better heed to keep your job. I'm thinking about the artificial deadlines, the ones on that Post-It on your computer: "Fourth draft completed by April, get agent by December, publish next year." When you are self-employed—and if you're anything like me, you're self-employed by Madam Scrooge herself—such deadlines are useful motivators.

But sometimes stuff happens. Stuff like illness (heart disease from no exercise + too much chocolate + too much caffeine), injury (eye strain, carpal tunnel), and road rage (from swerving dangerously near the car in the next lane while jotting down notes). We try to ignore the kids or parents or house or even our own physical symptoms because if we know one thing it's that "seat of pants in seat of chair" trumps all. So we keep going despite added writerly pressures like frequent rejection and utter lack of job security and WAY too much time spent alone. 

And then we break down. You know the symptoms: nagging self-doubt, sudden crying jags, the need for more and more sleep, and a whole lotta "This is a bunch of hooey and who the hell did I think I was trying to _________ (you're the creative writer, fill it in!), all the while telling yourself that if you could just roll up your sleeves and get some work done you'd feel a heck of a lot better.

Perky and optimistic as you might know me to be, I've just come through such a period, and I have learned that when you are off your game is NOT the best time to expend even more effort to achieve an arbitrarily set goal. Better to ditch it so you can rest and restore.

One of my favorite self-help authors, the late Richard Carlson, suggests we don't need to get better at handling the stress in our lives, we need to become more sensitive to it so we can avoid the stressors determined to get the better of us. He might explain it this way: Before finishing a race course you set for yourself, you sprain your ankle. You don't (hopefully) pop up and say "I just need to run around the block a few more times and it will get better." You heed the pain and rest until it regains strength. There is no glory in finishing the race while injuring yourself further.

Stress is also an injury—an injury to the spirit. It would be equally ineffective to roll up your sleeves and work harder while suffering the effects of acute stress. Yes, our goals are important to us—they see us through when we are whiny or distracted. But when our spirit is injured and we are stressed out and everything exhausts us we must replenish. Chances are, if you worked for a solid week in such a state you wouldn't achieve the results possible by resting for several days, restoring your equilibrium, and working more efficiently.

What I am learning is that effort is not always the answer. Sometimes we need to detach and wait so that the phoenix that is your wise, clever, creative self can once again rise from the ashes within.