Can’t Do It; Doin’ It Anyway

I read this week from an editor that a writer’s website needs 50,000 true followers in order to get a book deal. It made me cry a little bit.

This was written by one of my students last week during finals.  He wrote it at the top of the essay portion of my exam.  My essay question was this:

“It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating hearts, they must learn to love.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Explain what this quotation has to do with Romeo and Juliet and Sleeping Freshman Never Lie. You must use three examples from each story. You may use characters, quotations, and/or events. Finally, explain where and/or how you see Rilke’s words ringing true in your own life.

He wrote my words at the top in order to motivate himself to write what he needed to write. I remember when I said those words.  The students were writing an exit essay to show their high school teachers where they are as writers.  One student asked me about a style question. That is, she had a story that would fit well but would be difficult to write. She had another one that wouldn’t be as difficult to write, and wasn’t as risky. In other words, she’d show her teachers that she is a fine writer, but there’d be no heart of the story. One would take longer to write. One would be more difficult to write. It was May, the room was hot, it was the end of the school day.  That’s when I said, “My gut tells me to take risks.” I said it because I knew what she wanted to do was write the difficult story. If I thought she didn’t want to try, if I knew her heart wasn’t pounding a little and her fingers weren’t twitching to put the words down, I would’ve said something different. But after working with her for nine months, I knew she wanted to try. So I dared her.

I put everything I’m teaching next year in binders.

Here’s the stack, plus The Hobbit which I don’t have a copy of yet.  I haven’t read The Hobbit and I’m a little nervous about it.  But you know what? I was terrified of Romeo and Juliet and in the words of Sarah Arthur, that book happened to me. Those two crazy kids plus Mercutio grabbed my heart and haven’t let go. I’m sure the same will happen with those strange footed short people.

I’ll be teaching 7th and 8th grade next year.  So, still part-time, but more than what I did this year. I’m not sure how I’m going to keep writing and blogging, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to go to graduate school and be a mom. I wasn’t sure how I was going to write and teach. Every time I sit down to make a plan about how things will get done, I get overwhelmed and then I read editors’ websites and learn that there is nothing I will ever be able to do that will make me a writer. There is no way I can be a mom, a teacher, and a writer.  It is impossible. But my heart pounds, and my fingers twitch thinking about trying. So I dare myself.

Here’s what I learned this year:

Teaching is redemptive.  It is the only thing in my life when I don’t hear a voice in my head that says, “You make too many mistakes. You are a fraud. You have no clue what you are doing. You are wasting everyone’s time.” Jesse saw me teach several years ago and said, “It’s like a light switch was turned on.” I’m glad he saw me when I’m at my best.

Teaching helps me write.  It is the perfect balance. Somehow, when I couldn’t figure out a story, a lesson plan would perfectly come together, and vice-versa.  This year I learned the mighty lesson of letting something alone and having faith that I would figure it out when the time was right.

Teaching helped me be a better mother, or, at least a more attentive one. Jesse’s seen me throw everything I have at teaching, and thank God he is a patient man because I focused on nothing but what I was doing from 9-3. I didn’t know any other way to do it, which is one of the reasons I was afraid to go back to teaching. I found out though, that teaching and mothering are like working two large, important muscles that help the rest of my body function.

I love to write. It didn’t matter if I was working on an essay, a possible book, or even report card comments.  I love to find ways to articulate what I see. This is not to say writing isn’t hard anymore.  This is not to say that I don’t have doubts about my capabilities. I am saying that I love writing and 50,000 true followers or not, I’m going to keep trying to do it. I feel like I am that young person Rilke is talking about, still learning how it is to love with my pretty anxious, upward-beating heart.

For year end’s sake, here are my favorite pieces from the different places my writing has appeared:

When I started graduate school in 2012, I thought, maybe one day I’ll get to be on Art House America. In 2014 I was. “A Subtle Grace” is one of my favorite essays from the year.

Writing about Bear is my favorite Coffee+Crumbs essay from this year.

My Darius Rucker essay on Makes You Mom is my favorite of the bunch on that website.

I don’t think I can adequately express how thankful I am that I get to write for Relief Journal.  I feel like I get to write with the big boys, so everything that’s been published on that site I am very proud of.  However, my top two are my essays on Dale Brown, and “He’s Not Here.” Both pieces knocked me out, and I don’t feel like I’ve been the same since. But that’s the way it is with mothering and teaching as well. It’s good to love these things, because they are difficult.  I believe in doing very difficult things.