Should I smile?

Recognize me in this picture?

I thought not.

Thanks to my stepson's third Middle Eastern tour of duty in the United States Army, served in Afghanistan, I received an unusual present last Christmas: a burqa. Davy's wife Amanda delivered a message from him: "I figured you'd be the only one who would appreciate it."

Well, I did. Putting it on, and then looking in the mirror, was a profound experience: all physical manifestations of my "Kathryn-ness" were gone. I once read O magazine columnist Valerie Monroe say that when she had tried going for a week without looking in the mirror, she missed herself. No doubt going mirror-less is a good way to start defining yourself from the inside out. This was different, though, because I was looking in the mirror, yet felt severed from my image—and this was not a comfortable feeling.

The burqa is bright and pretty, but this is its common color, so every woman's garment in an Afghani marketplace looks the same. The satiny material slips easily so the part that fits down over your forehead to hold it in place is tight, causing "necessary discomfort" for the uninitiated like me, since the screen must be centered if you're to see at all where you're going. My eyelashes caught uncomfortably in the screen. You can see fairly well—I suppose your brain compensates for the woven threads that block part of your view—but your peripheral vision is lost. Should a little dog or child run in front of you as you walked down the street, down you'd go. 

While fenced in by the burqa I was keenly aware that I define myself by actions that extend my influence beyond the perimeter of my body: looks I give my husband that only he and I can decode. Watching others as they speak to show I care about what they have to say, and encouraging them with lifted brows and nods of my head. Smiling for the camera to let my spirit shine forth. 

While protected by the burqa, though, I suddenly had a greater sense of the power contained within me—a power rarely reflected in the mirror these days, as waning middle-aged attributes demand I rely more heavily on artful draping and cosmetics to perpetuate a visage I can recognize. The burqa removes the need for flirting in all ways, even with one's self. Exposed skin cells that typically interact with the very molecules in the room, now covered, radiated their energy toward my core, toward the place where baby ideas and feelings and dreams germinate. Like a child in the womb these were mine to nurture; I need not share them with the harsh elements of the world. I became more aware of my inner fire, and my skin as its protective barrier—important awareness for one who so highly values the right of personal expression. 

I thank Davy and the burqa for its lessons, which I have shared with people in my church and colleagues at a recent writer's event. But I'm happy to put it away now. While I would have been eager to don one in the painfully pimple-dotted years of my adolescence, it's no longer for me. I have found my voice, and it requires movement for support—so while I still can, I want to walk, run, and dance through my world unfettered to appreciate all its glory. 

Of course our culture has its conventions, too, so what I have previously done grudgingly I will now choose to do with newfound appreciation: I will drape this aging body artfully and willingly, in clothes that won't bind or restrict or contain, because I still need room to grow, to interact, to express. Through my actions and writing and spoken words, I will project my voice so others can hear me—not because an oppressive garment intended to stifle women's voices has taken lip-reading off the table, but because I live in a country where a woman's voice is valued.

Please join me in celebrating our freedoms on November 4 by getting out to vote! 

September's Writing Partner Retreat

Pictured above are the women who attended the inaugural Writing Partner Retreat for Women last month at my summer home on Trout Lake in northern New York. About to take a break from writing for a paddle on the lake, and modeling straw hats from the camp's collection, are (l to r) Fern Hill, Melanie Gold, me, Linda Glaser, and Amy Krause.

Just look at the mirror surface of that lake! Mother Nature blessed us with just the right weather for this event. 

Thursday: Fern, Melanie and Amy, driving together from Pennsylvania, arrived late afternoon in bright 70-degree weather. With the same mirrored surface pictured above, the lake showed off a perfect duplicate of the scenery it has to offer. Once everyone had found her room and unpacked we went for a walk to stretch out legs cramped from the 6-hour drive. I served dinner, then afterward we sat in the living room in front of a fire, drinking Sangria and getting to know one another better by sharing the nature of our current projects and our expectations of our writing time at the lake.

Friday: It poured all morning and I couldn't have been happier—what better excuse to stay in and write? After a breakfast of yogurt, granola, and fresh fruit, we met again in the living room to jump start our brains with a writing prompt. Rather than share right away, we kept the momentum going and wordlessly segued into our own writing projects. Linda arrived at noon, just as we were clearing the front porch of rockers and turning it into a studio by carpeting it with exercise mats. Amy, a yoga instructor, lead us in a series of stretches that simultaneously felt loving and empowering. 

It stopped raining during our smorgasbord lunch so afterward we took advantage of the opportunity to get out on the glassy lake pictured above in a canoe, a kayak, and two "Wee Lassies" (lightweight one-woman canoes). While on our paddle we saw a bald eagle take off from a dead tree with prey in its talons! We got back to shore without anyone tipping over and returned to our individual writing projects. After I served dinner we re-convened in front of the fire to share readings we had brought along with us.

Saturday: The morning schedule was the same as Friday's, with breakfast, prompts, individual writing, lunch, more individual writing. Stretches of time to write: that was the dream that pulled us together for this retreat and the reward for devoting ourselves to it. While Melanie was on an editing deadline and had to work, the rest of us met late that afternoon for a 3-mile hike to the bluffs of neighboring Cedar Lake. The loons had stayed out of sight during the retreat, but we heard that recognizable, mournful cry while hiking through the woods. The view from the bluffs was stellar: rocky, wooded cliffs, a blue sky thick with white clouds above us, dark blue water more than a hundred feet beneath us. We sat without speaking, listening to the insects and birds. The only sign of man was a canoe, tiny from our perspective, trolling soundlessly across the lake surface below. 

We had dinner when we returned. That evening in front of the fire, a bowl of hot buttered popcorn in hand, we reveled in one another's creativity by sharing the writing that resulted from our two morning prompts. (And I want to go on record, ladies: I did not intend to add a political charge to my sci-fi romance by naming my character "Algor," but subconscious thought can often lead us in unexpected directions. I haven't laughed that hard in ages!)

Sunday: Yoga before breakfast this day, with our final writing time after. I served apple cinnamon pancakes with New York State maple syrup for lunch, then participants packed up to head home.

I want to thank Fern, Melanie, Linda and Amy for being my guinea pigs—their presence and their feedback helped me fine-tune my retreat concept. I had such a great time getting to know them better through their interests, observations, and writing styles that I hope to continue to host retreats at the lake each May and September. If you're interested in furthering your writing by retreating from everyday chaos to an idyllic location where you can commune with nature, your inner voice, and other women writers, e-mail me and I'll send you a pdf brochure when the next retreat is scheduled.

Signature design

I was weary to the bone from closing up the camp and took a moment to sit and read what my friend had written in the Trout Lake Journal—a fancy name for the spiral notebook my sister designated for this use some quarter-century ago. Now nearing the close of its second volume, the journal has outlived my grandmother, Uncle Bob, Aunt Jane, Ron, several marriages, and the very camp in which it was housed.  I opened to the last entry, where Doug, the architect from Lifespan Design Studio who helped me design the new camp, had laid fresh ink on a musty page.

He referenced how stressful it had been for me as, one decision at a time, I left our old camp behind. Why copy it? he'd ask me. He wouldn't settle for a murky argument like "sentimental attachment." Slowly I came to see his point—that structure had never been designed in the first place, but patched together to meet new needs over a century of use. Envisioning the new camp required mimicking the very process that allowed personal growth after Ron's suicide: I needed to set aside "the way it had always been" and make purposeful new choices. This was not easy. Coping is in my blood, and readily accessible. I find it much harder to access the kind of deep knowing that can turn into a vision.

But that was old news. I was eager to know what it was like for an architect to walk into a building he had designed. Yes, he knew the floor plan, and yes, he had created a black and white sketch of the exterior, but what did it feel like to be surrounded by its 3-D surfaces, in living color? Doug wasn't just my architect; he and I had been friends for 36 years. I knew he wouldn't let me down. I scanned the entry until the following words, so loving in their intent, pulled me up short:

When I walked into the camp I immediately felt at home. I designed the camp for Kathy; it is her. 

I sought the truth in these words as I finished what I used to call "chores" but now regarded as a fitting expression of loving care for this place. I mopped surfaces that are practical and frugal and easy to care for; I'd no sooner spend money on a manicure than furniture wax. The pine paneling is new and strong and displays precious family heirlooms. The interior is open and welcoming, large windows making parts of it almost transparent. While the sleeping porch and open living room/kitchen area encourage togetherness, bedrooms with closing doors create needed boundaries. The kitchen and laundry room encourage optimism; the necessary work of daily living can be a joy. The simple line of rocking chairs on the porch allows the work of a writer—observing, dreaming. The building is protected by materials that compliment the natural setting, and while they may look old, they are plenty strong enough to deflect storms—the numerous pots placed around the old camp to catch the rain are now solely used for cooking. A new bird feeder and flowers in a rotted stump celebrate the surrounding nature.

Fond as I am of extended metaphors, these weren't the thoughts that brought tears to my eyes when I read Doug's entry. It was an immediate association to words I'd uttered time and again since the camp had been rebuilt; words many others unaware of this metaphor had echoed.

It is her, he wrote. Could this really be true? Because this was my gut reaction: It is beautiful.

Reverb

Last night when I walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light something flew past my face. Using my diligently honed command of nuanced vocabulary to express myself, I screamed.

We had a bat in the house.

It had startled me, but even as the bat skimmed the ceiling above me I quickly calmed down and went to work assembling bat-catching items: a strainer with a handle and a cookie sheet.

"Looks like you've done this before," Dave noted. I have—bats have played a recurring role in my 26 years living in the country. We also had several in the camp while growing up. My father would catch them with the antique corn popper, a screen contraption with a sliding lid meant for use in the fireplace (I never saw it used that way, though—in my mind we kept it to catch bats). My grandmother would do her part by shouting for my sisters and me to bend down and cover our heads, since the bats would surely get their toes caught in our hair and then deliver so many bites we'd be dead before we could untangle them. 

While I have grown to feel competent in my own bat-catching ways, that lovely image never really left my mind. Thus, the scream. I did my share of ducking last night before nabbing our furry visitor. While he took a breather on our living room curtains I covered him with the strainer and had Dave slip the cookie sheet beneath. Effectively trapped, he was soon back outside where he no doubt longed to be.

I'm not necessarily a screamer, but that was the second time this week that I was shocked to the point of shrieking. On the earlier occasion I'd been working on my computer when my son told me it had suddenly started raining. We heard a rumble so I took an "Accu-look" out the window—a dark cloud hovered above but I could see blue sky on the horizon in each direction. Although this didn't look too threatening I decided to disconnect my computers just in case. 

I was leaning over my computer shutting it down when I heard what sounded like a rifle shot beside my left ear—a direct lightning hit through the DSL line. I screamed. As soon as I realized I was fine I called up to my son to tell him what had happened—he had felt the concussion through the floor. In that one explosive surge we permanently lost two phones, a modem, a router, the USB connection to my printer, the internal modem on my husband's computer upstairs, and the old computer on which I had just completed a large page layout job. Of more importance to me was what I had lost temporarily: the sense of safety that has grown as each of the ten years passed since my first husband Ron shot and killed himself. The sound of the lightning—that I had immediately thought of as a gunshot—brought it all back into the moment. 

I felt fragile for a couple of days. I wanted to talk to everyone I knew, hold Dave's hand, stay close. The next day was Saturday, so when he drove to town on his errands I tagged along. We took a walk in the warm sunshine, visited the new farmer's market to pick up some fresh tomatoes, and listened to the singer/songwriter performing there. We stopped by the new coffeehouse and had lunch at one of the outdoor tables on their covered porch. Later that night we thoroughly enjoyed seeing the new Batman movie (have you ever noticed that the universe can have a perverse sense of humor?).

I didn't bother grieving for the work I'd lost; with the heavy use of help menus I rebuilt the Quark document from the ground up on my husband's PC in Microsoft Publisher. Within a few days I re-established Internet connections, replaced the phones, and circumvented the connectivity issues with Dave's computer and my printer. My work is now caught up and I am ready to leave for a week at the lake tomorrow as planned. 

But as surely as bats are still nesting in the chimney high above the walk-in fireplace I can see just ten feet beyond my computer monitor, I am more aware than ever that the trauma I sustained at the time of Ron's death still has life within me.

I thought Dave was pretty brave to marry me three years after Ron's death—I mean, a first husband committing suicide after fifteen years of marriage isn't the best advertisement for a woman' s enduring charms. When I asked him what he thought about that, he said, "I think Ron's death is something you're going to carry around with you for the rest of your life."

That Dave. A pretty smart guy.

Healing through rejection

You might be thinking, Okay, there's a weird title. She must have meant healing from rejection.

I don't.

Many have experienced the healing power of writing in a journal. Spilling carefully guarded emotions onto the page can be frightening at first, but once you have survived doing so you feel stronger. More yourself. Reading your truest thoughts is fortifying; like drinking your own blood. 

Building deeply felt emotions into a story and then submitting it for publication is a whole new level of scary. The agents you submit to are not only industry professionals with informed opinions as to what will sell, but as passionate and voracious readers they are your ideal audience. So when you meet with rejection it's hard to know which is worse--getting a form rejection letter stating your project wasn't right for their agency or a personalized letter stating why the public won't embrace it. Either way, it felt like you slit a vein in public and the agent didn't connect with your blood type. It can make the most heath conscious among us want to curl up on the couch with a gallon of Häagen Dazs and say to hell with it all.

Yet an inner voice nags: you feel that you do have something to say that's worth sharing. What to do?

• Make sure that your panic concerning publication failure isn't premature. Leave no stone unturned. Your best prospects may be used up, but do you have a second tier of agents to submit to? A third? Have you submitted to new agents in your genre without a track record? Have you contacted every agent who has ever represented a book remotely similar to yours?
  
• Have you made the book the very best it can be? Have you attempted to decode personal messages within personalized rejection letters for ways you might be able to improve it? (I grant that this is useful in a limited number of instances, because the notes are hastily written after the agent has decided not to represent you.)
• Many books are rejected because the agent can't figure out where this book fits on the bookseller's shelves. Are you willing to make changes to better fit the market? There's no one right answer to this question, it's just a matter of knowing yourself. If you make concessions you might move farther along the path to publication. If you can't force yourself to make the changes, then you are happy on the path your writing is taking you down, publication or no.
• Remember that each project stands on its own. Your writing is a journey but each project is judged on its own merits. Try to erase the tally on the rejection chalkboard with the submission of each project—it is the project they are rejecting, not you. 
• If you want to be published traditionally—meaning you've decided against self-publishing—you can't "make" it happen. You must wait your turn, whatever that entails. There are economic pressures at play that you cannot control.

If you are a submitting writer, stuck in the nether region between form rejection and infrequent personal rejection—or perhaps you've been told you're a good writer but just can't seal the deal—keep in mind that thousands of writers will seek publication this year and never receive the courtesy of a form rejection letter.

Hundreds of thousands of writers will seek publication this year and never be told that they are good writers.

Hundreds of thousands of people will seek publication this year and never be the recipient of a brief analysis of why the book didn't work for this one particular agent.

Many will abandon their dream in a huff.

Most will not have the grace to allow for indeterminate variables and fail to preserve hope by allowing for the outside chance that the publisher may not be looking for something just like their project at this time, and they will do so because cynicism is just a whole lot easier.

Some will take a good hard look at the pros and cons of seeking publication and have to admit that the cons are growing and that they are no longer happy—a good reason to redirect focus.

A determined handful will heal through rejection. They will eat that gallon of ice cream, return to the keyboard, and continue with the writing that gives their life meaning. They will look to their writing friends who are in a more hopeful part of the submission/rejection cycle to lift them up. They will live life trying to bring their publication dream to fruition. They will become strong in themselves in both a private and public way. They will become better writers.

I believe that in this world there is one resource that is always renewable.

Hope.

The Motivation Game

My younger son just finished his freshman year at Drexel. Despite finishing eleventh in a high school class of over 500, there were times I didn't think he'd make it. He never really bought in to college life, choosing instead to come home every weekend and hang out with local buddies. When asked how school was going, he threw the word "hate" around a lot. So when he got home last month and immediately got on the phone to line up interviews for his fall/winter co-op experience, I was compelled to comment.

"I'm impressed with your initiative."

"My only motivation is that I'm going to the shore with my friends and I don't want to have to come home for any interviews," he said. "So I'm trying to line up as many this week as possible, then finish up when I get home."

I didn't care. In my book he was still showing initiative. Going to the shore is as good a motivation as any, as long as it worked for him. It's one variation of a game he'll need to play the rest of his life.

As someone who's self-employed, I know this game all too well. If I write for three hours I can have some tea. If I finish editing this manuscript by Tuesday I can go to lunch with a friend on Wednesday. If I meet my income goal this month I'll allow myself to buy those capri pants I've wanted. The demanding employer and the lazy employee, having it out in my head.

But it's not just work-related. I play this game in every aspect of my life, anteing up exercise hours against a sweet reward (which in my case typically has something to do with dark chocolate), or hours mowing the lawn against a good long soak in the bath while reading a good novel. I have grieved deeply so the pain wouldn't drag me down my whole life long. 

I built such behavior into our early family life as well, through a game I'd play with the boys that would motivate us to clean the house. I'd look at a room and assess how much time it would take us to straighten it up and clean it—at top speed. 

"Your room's a wreck, guys. Fifteen minutes. Think we can do it?" "Yeah!" Then I'd set a kitchen timer and off we'd go. One square foot at a time the wood floor would clear as they tossed toys back into cupboards and re-stacked books, with me following behind to mop up their footprints. If we were finished to my satisfaction before the buzzer went off, we'd each get a reward—a couple of peanut M & M's would do—and then we'd be off to the next room.

So it wasn't a perfect plan. I now need to think of ways to reward myself for NOT eating the M & M's. But at least I understand the methodology for doing so. And so, apparently, does my son.

Motivation doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to work.

Before I go...

It was ten o'clock the night before our 6-1/2 hour drive to our summer home and what I really needed to be doing was sleeping. Of course I also needed my bags packed and the car loaded and the dishes washed but was I tending to these things? No. I was doing what any self-respecting writer would do: knocking out a last-minute press release.

For me, one of the joys of being a writer is finding opportunities to use my skills to help other people: in this case, an awesome young tenor named Orin Strunk. This is not the kind of guy who has enough swagger to brag about the fact that he was tapped for The Juilliard School's prestigious Pre-College Division, which is the opportunity of a lifetime. He is a shy, sweet kid who adopted his overachieving ways to satisfy an itch for constant growth—but when he opens his mouth, he just happens to sound like a young Pavarotti. Unfortunately, his parents can't afford to send him.

I am helping to organize a benefit concert for Orin to help defray the cost of attending the New York City program, to which he will commute every Saturday of his senior year in order to prepare for a career in the opera. At the benefit, professional musicians and exceptionally talented Boyertown graduates will be performing in a range of musical genres, as well as Orin (and my son, baritone Jackson Williams) at 7 pm, Saturday, July 26, Boyertown Area Senior High School auditorium, 120 N. Monroe Street, Boyertown, PA 19512. Suggested donation: $20.

If you love music or want to support a talented young artist in need or simply love a good "small town boy makes good" story, please contact me and I'll gladly e-mail you a copy of the full press release. It includes a way to contribute even if you can't attend the concert, and I know I can say, on behalf of his humbled and overwhelmed family, that any amount would be so appreciated. This is not the kind of opportunity any aspiring performer can afford to turn down. And it's an opportunity for the rest of us to make something beautiful happen in the world.

Plus, then you'll know more about what I do in my "spare" time! Whether the last day of vacation or the last day of my life, I hope to be dashing off one more story before I go.