Today at noon we are going to a birthday beach party in Yarmouth, then at 4, I'm off to a Ladies Garden Tea in Eastham, and then HIllary and I reconnect at 7 PM to go to a bookstore in Chatham to hear a friend give a talk. That's what our lives are like these days. Sandwiched in between theatre, gardening ( first cukes harvested this week, two peppers about ready), seeing friends, having house guests. swimming, and keeping up with the daily demands of home and body and chickens, we are managing to work. Hillary is clamming about every day and I am trying to finish writing my book before the end of August when I leave for Maui to teach at the writers' conference there.

So, what I'm wondering is this: What happened to the lazy days of summer? Remember them? Lulling in a hammock or on the porch swing. Reading. Back yard picnics. Croquet. Domino games in the late afternoon. Summer church fairs. July and August on the Cape have a frantic air and I wonder if this is because this is a resort destination or if it's reflective of the times we live in. Or just an indication of my own life.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. How is your summer unfolding?

Posted by Anne LeClaire at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As soon as the school bus released me at the foot of our drive on long age winter afternoons, I’d race for the house. Once inside, I’d drop my books, trade my school clothes for woolen layers and grab my skates, then, with my Collie for company, I’d head out across the road from our property where a frozen swamp waited.

I’d kneel on the ice and strip off my mittens to lace up my skates. By the time I’d finished, my fingers would be clumsy, struck dumb with cold. Then I would rise to glide along the length of the stream that traversed the swamp. I would weave in and around the clumps of marsh grass, skating on and on, racing against time as the December sky darkened toward late afternoon.

Eventually, driven by thirst, I would sit on the frozen surface and, using the rear point of my skate blade as a pick, I would chip away at the ice, chopping until I had created a hole large enough for water to rise up through. Then I’d flop prone, legs splayed behind me, and drink.

This is what I remember: The shock in my chest when the frigid liquid hit, then, on my tongue, the wild taste of untamed water, fertile with hidden dangers, unknown life. This bog water was far removed from the purified, odorless stuff I was used to. It was alive. As I drank, rather than feel apprehension, I felt profoundly connected to the earth and to this particular spot where much later in the spring I would return armed with a Mason jar to scoop up pollywogs. I felt strengthened by the primeval taste of nature.

As I grew up I was weaned away from wildness. I became restrained, fearful of wild things and more careful of what I was willing to take in. But I have never forgotten the jolt of the icy swamp water and how it satisfied something deeper than thirst, some nameless desire that is the urge to taste essential life.

Writing can be like that. If it comes from Wild Mind.

“Wild Mind,” writes Natalie Goldberg is “raw, full of energy, alive and hungry.”

A hungry mind is a necessary thing for writers. Like my long ago winter thirst, it drives us to go for primal sustenance. It calls for us to lose control and frees us of the grip of our cautious editor mind. Of course, it also makes us nervous. It gives rise to a litany of fears. We fear that we will look foolish. That we will give offense. That we will expose hidden parts of ourselves. That we will estrange those we love and repel strangers. And so we rein it in. We write a scene that sings about a mother dancing drunk. The writing is raw and alive and we feel its power in our belly. Then a grim voice breaks in. Someone might think you are writing about your own mother. Better change it. Tone it down. Be safe. Better have her drink tea. Better forget the dancing altogether.

Safe mind always urges us to conceal the real heat and energy. It calls us to stop short. It is then we must muster the courage to go deeper. Go further.

“Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of the beginning,” Goldberg says in “Writing Down The Bones.” “Probably that is why we decide we’re done. It’s getting too scary. We are touching down into something real.”

“The crust of the everyday must be broken through,” wrote Delacroix.

I like that phrase. The crust of the everyday. It speaks to me of the loss of wonder and of the layers we take on in the futile hope of protecting ourselves from hurt, from revealing too much, from seeking truth, which is, after all, the aim of all true writers.

Like the skate blade I used decades ago, Wild Mind is a tool that we can use to break through crusty barriers. It leads to the rich material. It connects us to the fecundity of life.

Posted by Anne LeClaire at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about competition.
Let me back up for a minute.

For several months now, I have been sitting on a cushion of joy. My new book sold to a publishing house and was welcomed so enthusiastically that my editor sent me flowers. Lovely things were happening and days passed in a gilt-edged haze. A magical sense permeated my world. When the date was set for publication, I flipped the calendar ahead to June and marked the day with a star.

Several weeks passed and then a good friend called to tell me her novel was also scheduled for a June release. My first reaction was delight. This was, after all, a friend who had been generous and supportive all during the months and months I was writing my novel and had wished nothing but great success for me. It even seemed fitting that our books would be released simultaneously since during the past year we have shipped chapters back and forth for feedback. But no sooner had we hung up than it hit me: Our books would be in direct competition.

As quickly as that, my cushion of joy – the pillow that had supported me for weeks - deflated. My dearest confidant morphed into my competitor. I felt my heart – which until now had championed my colleague – shrink to the size of a toenail.

In the following days she called with up-dates: Her publisher was flying her to Florida to speak to the reps at the big sales conference. Her cover art was gorgeous. Her publicist had secured a June 17th appearance on the Today Show.

“Terrific,” I’d manage, my jaw as tight as a boxer’s fist, the sweetness of my triumph gone sour. Competition is the grinch that steals happiness.

Here’s how it works. It begins with the impulse to compare. How much is her promotion budget? How many cities are scheduled for his book tour? What size print run is her publisher planning? Who has he got to do cover quotes? Did her house spring for a celebrity photographer for the jacket’s author shot?

Almost instantly, comparison edges over to competition. Competition, let loose, feeds dissatisfaction and – ultimately - envy.

And once envy got its fangs in my throat, I was road kill. “The wasting disease,” Cynthia Ozick calls it. I forgot all the reasons I write. I lost touch with the joy and satisfaction that comes from language and story and the fellowship of writing.

We live in a culture that encourages competition. Our economy is based on the very principle of competition. Early on we learn to place our worth on where we sit in the pecking order. From grade school on we are rated and judged against our peers, in academics and athletics and looks.

While it might run the economic system, competition is a straightjacket for artists. It is a vampire that drains spirit and soul. It leads to depression and oppression. As the husband of a friend said, “To compare is to despair.”

I tried to remind myself of these things as I struggled to accept my friend’s news. I counseled myself that success wasn’t a stew. That every ladle scooped out to someone else didn’t mean less for me. But, in a society where competition is the bedrock of commerce, how do we reprogram our minds? How do we separate aspiration from competition? How do we find a way to honor our own aspirations and celebrate our sisters’ successes?

I struggled to come up with answers.

Then, one Sunday, the words of a wise minister showed me the way. “The essence of a joyful life,” he said, “is not competition but gratitude.”

Gratitude. The essence of a joyful life. How could I have forgotten?

When we sit in gratitude, when we acknowledge all the blessings, there is no room for competition. Gratitude expands the soul. It converts an attitude of poverty – the tight thinking that there is not enough for everyone, that I won’t get my share – to one of abundance.

It refocuses our ambitions so that we aspire not to be the best, but to do our best.

It reminds us why we write.

The reward is always in the work.

Posted by Anne LeClaire at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)