Paragraffers Writing Club

Last night I went to my first writing group meeting since moving here to Canada. The group calls itself The Paragraffers and meets every second Tuesday at the library in town. When I first arrived I thought that everyone in the Fort must be a writer because the parking lot was full. Truthfully everyone in town thinks they need to lose weight and were there for the Weight Watchers meeting. I don’t think I have ever seen so many women happily walking through the door of any group whose existence depended on their inability to eat right and exercise regularly. Of course, if I get any happier or sassier, I might end up one of them. For last night however, I was there to check out writers’.

My last group was organized by a fellow widow and teacher back in Iowa. It was a group of just women, and we met once a month at a local coffee house. I have to confess, I didn’t have a chance to really get heavily involved though I did met some wonderful women. By the time I had gotten my feet wet, I knew Rob already and it wasn’t long before I was having to start my long farewells to a number of groups with whom I had only just begun to feel comfortable. What I had enjoyed the most about writing group was simply the conversation that spun off the writing. Sometimes it would stick closely to the topic at hand but just as often it would verve off into lively chatter about a range of things that were just as important in nurturing my creative spirit as sharing my writing was. The group last night was typical of what I am accustomed to as far as work-shopping goes. I have taken a number a writing workshop courses through the University of Iowa’s writing program, even taught the workshop model myself at a variety of grade levels, and most clubs base themselves on the workshop method developed there and fostered now on many academic campuses. Someone reads a piece aloud, or the group comes together having already read someone’s piece via email attachment or shared document file, and the readers offer feedback to the writer. In the college, or professional I imagine, setting the feedback usually errs on the side of criticism which can be brutal and of dubious use. Most of it though is jealous pulldown. No one, in my opinion, can be as snotty as an insecure writer. In the “laymen’s” writing group however, the feedback is generally positive and the critiquing meant to be constructive. There aren’t, or shouldn’t anyway, any ego’s at stake. Realistically there should never be ego at stake in any writing group. A person is either a writer or he/she is not, and comparing one piece of writing to another is like trying to decide what shade of blue is “the” blue. Blue is blue. Writing is writing. It is good or it needs work. For nearly every kind of writing there is an audience, and no one type or genre is better than another. It all depends on the tastes and needs of the individual.

The Paragraffers were brought together a year ago by a woman named Kathie Southerland. She was tired of driving into the city to attend writing groups and wanted something closer to home. The group’s size and participants varies from month to month depending on people’s needs, and last night I was one of six attending and one of two newbies. An engineer from Calgary named Brenda was the other newcomer. Though she downplayed her skills, I noticed that she was quite insightful when offering feedback and easily picked up on such things as recurrent theme and the way Kathie made use of past and present tense in her third person narrative of the tale of how her parents met and fell in love. It reminded me of Rob and how dispassionate he can be when editing my work. An engineer thing, I suppose. There was a junior high school teacher who moonlights as a stand up comic. Rob’s girls both had her for English. There was another woman, Christine, who might also be an minister just going by her comment about writing sermons, but I could be wrong. There was an elderly woman named Pat. She is eighty-six which reminded me of my Great-Aunt Liz who was still taking university courses to improve her writing when she was that age. Now, at one hundred, Auntie Liz merely writes the occasional piece for the local paper and contributes to the newsletter at the facility where she was forced to take up residence when she broke a hip at 94, slipping on the ice right before the weekday morning mass. There was another older gentlemen. Possibly in his early sixties. It was hard to tell. He has vision trouble and wears those thick glasses that remind you of magnifying lens that came out of Cracker Jack boxes long ago. Only, of course, his were much bigger.

The meeting followed the predictable pattern of meetings when new people are present and began with introductions. I hate introducing myself. Rob asked me later if I had been nervous. I can be notoriously shy. However, I don’t find myself reticent anymore when I am in my element. Those being nearly anything to do with education, widowhood, and writing. All three are topics on which I can expound and are groups I “get” on a deep gut level. I speak quickly however and I am acutely aware of my accent here, so I went as slowly as I could, consciously trying to not veer off topic as is my wont verbally as well as on the page. Being from the United States makes me a bit of a curiosity, and my widowhood and remarriage gives others a bit of pause. These revelations were might in stride though. After introductions come readings, feedback, more reading and more feedback and the evening ended with a writing exercise. Last night’s exercise was to take the first line of a poem, brainstorm and write your own poem incorporating that first line. For the life of me, I couldn’t do it. Probably because I am not much of a fan of the reading of poetry. I enjoy writing it, but I haven’t much interest in anyone’s poetry save my own. It’s just not my thing. I am always fairly free-wheeling with poetry too. When I taught poetry, I emphasized free verse and use poetic lines to literally shape the ideas in it. This appeals to kids who are frightened of the writing process in most, if not all, of its forms, and the idea of writing without rules finds fertile fields in their rebellious little souls. Mostly I taught that way because it’s the only way I enjoy poetry. I like a good acrostic poem to facilitate the learning of science or social studies now and then, but free verse in the early fall when summer is waning and the reality of another 8 months hits is like visiting the pumpkin farm before the first heavy frost. It’s all orange-gold and solid. I managed to knock out a tiny poem about how writing poems is difficult. Which it is without the proper preparation and inspiration. At least for me. Judging from the group’s newsletter, poetry rules for many of them.

The two hours flew by. I had forgotten what fun it was to sit with other writers. There is another group that meets at the county library in Sherwood Park that I want to check out as well, but I am definitely going to return to The Paragraffers.

Lunch by the River

I met Rob for lunch yesterday down by the river that flows past town. The last time we were there was to watch the fireworks display late in the evening on Canada Day. The weather was nice. Mostly sunny with that nip of fall in the air when the wind would blow. I had dropped Katy off at school earlier, and she expressed only mild disappointment at being left out. Now that she is back in school, even if only for the half day, Rob and I have a bit of free time to play with again, and it’s so nice to be just he and I.

Funny how the day to day routines and demands can so quickly erode time that was once set aside for the simple pleasures. Breakfast on the weekends. Sitting around the dining room table in our robes munching toast and sipping tea until it could officially be brunch. Curled up on the couch after bedtime stories and rituals have settled down the little one, so we can watch The Daily Show together. Running errands as a family that could have been more easily accomplished alone. Catching up on movies via the bookmobile coupled up on the sofa or bed. Even just walking to the bookmobile together on Wednesday evenings, arms around each other is such a joy. Such simple things, and so easily brushed aside at times by reno work and house work and aqua classes and writing groups. And I am not complaining. We make plenty of time to be “just us”, but the real world can only be kept at bay through willing blindness on yourself for just so long. Still it’s hard not to miss some of the early day routines of first being together full-time. Lunch with my husband however is still a must. Even it isn’t in the park. Even if it is just a phone call on days that work demands its due. It’s important to not go the whole day without touching or talking or saying “I love you.”

Yesterday as we snuggled up on the picnic table bench like teenagers playing afternoon hooky, I was struck again by how really blessed I am and how wonderful he is and how much I love him and being with him. I still worry a bit about the “other shoe” and the “wolf at the door”. It’s hard to have been where I have been and seen the things I have seen and not carry a few of
fear ‘s scars, but in the moment, I have no worries. The sun shines. The leaves whisper like small children practicing indoor voices. My love warms my hands between his own. We are in love, and I am happier, I think, than I have ever been.

Shredding Life

I have spent the better part of today going through stacks of papers, trying to decide what should be kept, what can be recycled, and what needs to be shredded. I think that shredding as an activity ranks right up there with monthly faculty meetings and cleaning the bathroom. Mind-numbing and faintly disgusting. But, until modern life becomes the truly paperless utopia it secretly deludes itself that it already is, sorting, storing and shredding are just one of several downsides to be an adult. Not a grown-up, mind you, but an adult. Adult is a term that recognizes the number of years spent living and breathing (and for some of us those years were spent breathing more than living) but to be grown-up means to have come to terms with the downs as well as the ups of attaining the age of legality. And, I think, acting accordingly.

Having exhausted the shredder, which now sits idly as I wait for it to cool down, I am left to ponder how the room consuming piles I had this morning have, being lessened, managed to take on an even more unkempt appearance. A lesson to be learned about organization is that it is always more chaotic before order is restored. In my case, this isn’t quite true. My ideas about order could unhinge even the most bohemian soul, but it (mostly) works for me.

My Facebook profile of late has stated that “Ann is currently attempting to force organization on her life.” This is only partly true. There is order, of sorts and even routine. It just still seems that some days I am not making headway though where I think I am going is a mystery. I am where I want to be, but, and this should be unsurprising, I am still the same haphazard person I was before baby and dying husband supposedly infected me with disorganization. Who knew? Well, I did. I like to imagine that I cleaned more often and had all my important papers sorted, labeled and safely stored. I really didn’t clean but once a week and since it was just me, it was pretty easy, and I have always filed horizontally. Even at school. I remember one time when I was teaching eighth grade Language Arts, a student came in at the beginning of class and remarked upon how wonderful it was to be able to see the top of my desk. And she was one of my nice students. I am order challenged, then and now. Still I somehow retain the fantasy of clean and put away.

Shredding is like cleaning toilets though and on a scale of one to ten, it is a two when it comes to increasing efficiency and aiding the quest for order. It’s dusty, dull and intermediary because even when you have finished shredding, you still have shreds with which to deal. It is a task that forces you to actually read and assess the worth of the items Many of the papers concerned medical issues of my late husband’s and paperwork that was generated by his stay in the nursing home and then hospice. Lots of application copies and consent forms. Nothing heart rendering but there comes a time when you wonder where the end of the paper trail is. Though some people refer to the process of downsizing official files about their loved ones’ illnesses and/or deaths as “shredding their lives” for me, my life is and was more than a stack of wood pulp. Rendering them confetti doesn’t signify literally or even metaphorically a loss of my past. Memories are not that easily gotten rid off. I suppose for some their is a finality to getting rid of old papers (or clothing or anything tangible really) but most stuff is just stuff. In my personal frame of reference there are only a few items that hold meaning to deep to allow them be destroyed or cast away.

Still, even minus drama the kind of burrowing in today’s efforts entailed is taxing. In the end though, it is better to divest oneself of the literal baggage of the past, good and bad, on a more regular basis then we do. It is an exercise in growth as well as space saving.

Bikinis and Me

I recently began deep water workouts again. I abandoned weight training in favor of a similar program about 8 or so years ago, and it proved to be a very effective program. Toning, strengthening and best of all it was in the water, my adopted second home at the time. Fast forward to now. I happily discovered that the local pool offered a deep water class twice a week for an hour. The upside is that it is as good a workout as I remember, and the downside is that it is from eight to nine in the evening. It’s not even five, and I am ready for a nap.

My current swim attire turned out to be unsuitable for water workouts, as I feared it would. Tankinis have a tendency to “fly up” in the water when you are aqua-sizing. Back in the day, I wore a two piece. I owned quite the assortment of bikinis, and I made good use of them. During the summer, I swam nearly everyday, and a bikini top was pretty standard for me under my t-shirt and sometimes without the tee at all if it was warm enough. When I mentioned to Rob that I owned several of these suits, he asked if I had been an exhibitionist. I never thought of myself that way then though I suppose, looking back, I was. Growing up I had been quite uncomfortable with skimpy because, as I have mentioned before, I was pretty hefty. When I reached thirty though, years of religious work out, including an avid love of running, had put me in the physical shape necessary, in my opinion, to carry off a two piece. However, pregnancy and years of care-taking pretty much wiped up my gains, both physically and confidence-wise. Though I am in actuality thinner than I was a decade or more ago, I am not nearly in as good a shape, but I needed a two piece to be able to work out sans annoying suit.

So yesterday, I trekked across Edmonton (by myself thank you very much) to the West Edmonton Mall. It’s fall here in Canada and the swim-wear is gone from the department stores, but there are plenty of specialty shops at West Ed because Canadians, as I have oft-mentioned, take their holidaying seriously. The Surfco shop was nothing but suits and the vast majority were really tiny bikinis. Sure they had one piece suits that would have worked, but I just can’t work out in them. They are too short=bodied for me. So, with the help of a very pretty and annoyingly thin shop girl, I picked out three suits that I hoped wouldn’t shatter all the confidence I had built up just for this occasion and into the dressing room I went.

The first suit was actually too big. It feels great to try something on and find that it is too big for you. That doesn’t happen often. Usually things fit but are too short or not the right design for my frame, but too big is always a treat. The next suit, I have to admit, I looked pretty darn good in for someone my age. I read recently that the actress Demi Moore has spent about a half million dollars on “upkeep's and upgrades” for her body. She is a year older than I am, and looks better than both her teenage daughters, but she has the too-taunt facial expression that screams “botox” and a stomach too flat for a mother of three that plainly pronounces her a cheater because once you’ve given birth there is a certain curvature to the solar plexus that you will never be rid of regardless of how stringent your diet or vigorous your workout routine. Looking at myself in that light blue sting bikini, yes....it was a string bikini, I felt sorry for her. I looked great. No muffining over the stings. The bum cheeks didn’t have that stuff sausage look of trying to put too much flesh into to small of an area. Yeah, my stomach could be more flat and my thighs a shade thinner, but I am nearly forty-four. I’ve had a child and know the stress of long term care-taking. My arms and legs have seen a bit of sun, though no deliberate sun worshipping. I am not young and firm and impossibly thin though I am smaller than the average size American (and Canadian for that matter) woman.

However, I didn’t get the string bikini. Maybe if Rob had been shopping with me, I could have been (easily) persuaded, but my old prejudices and standards wouldn’t allow the purchase. Looking good for my age, doesn’t quite cut it with me even now. Last year I would watch the girls in the high school where I taught with a feeling that couldn’t decide if it was admiration or horror. They would strut proudly up and down the halls wearing clothes that were clearly designed with small and taunt in mind, not pudgy, paunchy and even quite overweight. When I was in high school, well.....I wore a uniform it was Catholic school, but girls of a certain size were barred from wearing “thin girl” outfits. And this was not just a social admonishment, it was by design. There wasn’t yet the financial incentive needed by clothes makers to cater and pander with lycra and spandex enticements.

Suit number three turned out to be the winner. And not by default. There is something about practical, functional and sexy rolled into one that takes a clothing purchase to the next level past shopping nirvana. It’s halter style made it good for actual use in the water, and it fit even better than the string one, although there is something about a string bikini that just says sexy in a way that no other suit truly does. For my part I am pleased to be back into a two piece. Believe it or not it is part of the reclaiming of myself process that has been going on for a long while. I modeled it for Rob later that evening and he pronounced it hot looking. Of course there is some bias there.