Writing Diary 07 | Hope delayed, May 5th
Being sick and negotiating with existential responsibility
Welcome to The Writing Diaries, a recurring series following the life of a writer—when I write and how I do it, with mixed results, momentary clarity, and the truth of creating amid the chaos of life and living.
Monday, May 5
8:37 a.m.
Drop Hanni off at daycare. I’m through the first shift of family chaos; whatever it is that gets a family of four out the door clothed and fed—usually there are sprinkles of joy amid requests to brush your hair! and mainstays like no you can’t have any more orange juice.
I head to a coffee shop to read the rest of Áqua Viva by Clarice Lispector before taking a long walk along the beach and, lately, through Kew Gardens to pick up the library books I put on hold. This week it’s Hilton Als’ White Girls and Maggie Nelson’s poetry collection, Something Bright, Then Holes. Truth be told, I don’t know if I’ll get to either of them before having to renew again.
11:15 a.m.
I text a friend the below. She’s asking about my family being sick.
This is what happens when you get the stomach flu, then your child gets sick and needs to live on top of you for days, then you get sick again with a head cold. I don’t necessarily want to die, I just don’t want this to be my present existence.
The funny thing is, today I’ve assigned myself the task of writing about hope. Might have to save that essay for another day.
1:23 p.m.
Look down at my to do list and I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean anymore. I used to have a diehard mentality about the to do list. Make one, love it, cradle it in all its glorious expectations, let doing be goodness, fulfill the things, be righteous.
Except, my life is so fluidly wild now that the to do list just laughs at me. It’s less of a list of things I can accomplish and more a thing representing the mishmash of my daily experience:
prep for cleaner
finish Áqua Viva
arrange notes on readings
finish story readings (5)
update submission schedule
meeting with CL (prep)
AL essay draft
novel - map next phase
common sort drop-off
library books (return, renew, pick up holds)
pay tuition
pay for daycare
budget
go to Service Ontario (Hanni and Nola health card renewal)
climb
groceries
laundry
I’ve been thinking a lot more these days about what continuity looks like for a single person vs. a family person, and my continuity looks like a rolling to do list with tasks that are just as much a part of me as my children are (read: laundry, groceries).
3:14 p.m.
I’ve read and submitted decisions on five short stories sent to me via Submittable. One interesting thing of late is that I have taken up a volunteer position as a reader for a literary journal and damn, people are out there writing all kinds of things. It’s been eye-opening re: formatting, what makes a story a story, and what others are willing to have seen.
5:26 p.m.
There is nothing inspiring to write about dinner today.
9:30 p.m.
In bed early (head cold, we know) catching up on some reading. Click on a Lit Hub one that’s been sitting in my inbox: Arianna Rebolini on writing about your kid. Like her, I’m wondering what I should and should not share about my family online.
It was easier when he was a baby, when so much of my describing him was really describing my reaction to him, my understanding of him — the faraway look in his eyes that I read as contemplative, the rapid kicking of his legs that I liked to imagine as his eagerness to get out into the world. But as he got older, the same type of observations felt almost like objectification, treating him like a curiosity to be analyzed.
Rebolini seems to land on the side of “sharing with caution”: acknowledging the impact it could have on your child’s future and removing identification (I don’t show my children’s faces online). She also mentions that there are inextricable parts of life she bears witness to thanks to her son’s perspective.
Like my sickness and to do list, my kids affect how life plays out. They’re why I want / need to write about hope. They’re why I do laundry every two days and why I’m going to bed before 10 p.m.
Love Hilton Als and love you.