Spending time with my parents has alerted me to a misconception I’ve been treasuring for most of my adult life. I’ve never written this down, never pasted it to my fridge, but somewhere along the way I picked up the notion that in later adulthood, I will reach a point where I will have good health, good friends, material security (however modest), and I’ll be able to look back on my life and say, “I behaved as honorably as I could, and I did OK. Now I get to enjoy life.“

That vision defines success as the absence of intense fears, and I might visit that state one fine day, but not on the path I’ve hoped to travel.

Dad hit a health care speed bump the other night and my sister had to whisk him off to the emergency room. I stayed with Mom, and watched her say good-bye to the man she’s loved for nearly seventy years, with neither of them knowing if they’d see each other again. He was back in a couple hours, another prescription added to the list, but those were a long few hours for his wife.

At 89 and 92 years of age, heartbreak still stalks them. Simply getting out of bed takes huge quantities of courage. Humoring the physical therapist, taking the meds, playing the quality of life game, takes a kind of resilience and integrity they didn’t learn in college. Many of their friends are dead, money can’t fix what ails them, and with every passing day, each stands a real and higher probability of losing the person they love most dearly.

And yet, they laugh, they love, they try, try again. Dad adores a box of See’s candy into oblivion in a matter of days, Mom still makes one heck of a one-pot soup. My parents have become fearless, even to the point of regarding death as a friend whose acquaintance neither would begrudge the other. Their courage is being tested right up to the finish line, and they are meeting the challenge.

So I’m easing up on the vision of later life that lets me “enjoy life,” and hoping instead for the courage and heart I’ll need to cross my own finish line with integrity and honor. It can be done–my parents are living proof.

Who has modeled grace under fire to you? Were they young, old, in between? Healthy, ailing, or “merely” aging.

To one commenter, I’ll send a $20 Amazon gift card (lots of good titles coming up for beach season!).

I learned something about myself when I made a recent visit to central Florida. The purpose of the visit was to gain the acquaintance of a handsome swain (see photo), and to renew some friendships from horseback riding years past. I stayed with my friends while Handsome Swain resided with his, in a barn perhaps 15 miles from the house.

Dante, Handsome Swain at Large

I got lost on the way to the barn.

I don’t usually get lost. I have a good sense of direction, disdain ownership of a GPS (when has disdain NOT been a set up for humility?), and manage fairly well by dead reckoning and map study. I will ask for directions occasionally, but expect I myself to be absolutely befuddled first.

I didn’t get absolutely befuddled in Florida, but I felt befuddled because of two features of the local surrounds. First, this part of Creation is flat, and second, it’s also covered with thick vegetation. The road can stretch out for a mile ahead, two lanes between mirroring walls of green forty feet high.

Thus I learned that a certain aspect of my self-assurance comes from having mountains around me for reference. When I’m home, I know where I am in part because the same old mountain looms over my small acreage, assuring me which way is which. The office is away from the mountain; the city is over the mountain. From as much as fifty miles away, I can see that mountain (from certain vantage points), and I like that.

The way I feel in Florida, a bit disoriented, second-guessing myself when I’m driving around, restless and without an anchor, is not comfortable. I love the greenery and the sunshine, but need mountains to be at peace with my surroundings, at least for now.

That metaphor holds true across my personality. I need fixtures the size of mountains in my moral landscape (be kind, tell the truth), in my financial landscape (if you must buy something, buy memories, not things), my social landscape (a few good friends), and in other regards.

In this sense, I’m a valley girl. I spent the first twenty-one years of my life in a valley, I’ve dwelled in a valley for the past 24 years, and been happy there. I’m also a big trees girl, and probably a seasons girl too.

Are there geographical features or other parts of the natural world that help you feel anchored and oriented? The moral or social world? What mountains do you like to keep in sight?

To three commenters, I’ll send a $10 Amazon gift card.

I mentioned in the comments a week or so ago that according to my brother Tom (to whom Louisa’s book is dedicated), he knows something is a problem when… it regularly interferes with his sleep.

Whether it’s his job, his finances, his right hip, or his teenage son, Tom knows he needs to take a situation seriously when it consistently steals his sleep.

Tom’s rule of thumb got me to thinking about many of the foster children I represent. One of the ways we know they’ve been through significant trauma, even if they’re too young or limited to talk about it, is if they’ve lost the ability to connect things like, “If I’m hungry, I should eat. If I’m tired I should sleep. If I’m full, I should stop eating. If I need to use the facilities, I should find a bathroom.”

These kids have endured environments where nobody took their most basic needs seriously, or where the sense of danger was so pervasive, it wasn’t safe to turn their focus inward even for a few minutes at a time. They have a lot in common with combat vets and those afflicted with severe mental illness.

I don’t live in that sort of environment, thank heavens! But I have my sources of stress, too. One of my “warning lights” that I’m not managing that stress very well has gone dark in the past few years, in that I no longer get many migraine headaches. Time was, if I was too tired, too anxious, too thirsty, too hot, too hungry, around too much pollen… I’d get a headache, and though it might start out as an allergy headache or a tension headache, it would soon morph into a migraine.

Avoiding those three day splitting headaches became a priority, and because a zillion medications had no effect on them (except to add to my symptoms), I became zealous about avoiding the triggers. And—what a coincidence!—life is better if I get enough sleep, regular food and drink, some relaxation and so forth.

For my dad and grandma, the headaches disappeared with increasing age, the theory being that a bit of hardening of the arteries provides protection from the migraine. I don’t want the headaches back, but I do need to identify my warning lights more effectively now that my headaches are gone.

Tom’s rule is a good one for me too, but so are these: If I go a week without writing a new scene, I might be in trouble. If I go a month without a social outing, I might be in trouble. If I drive past my turn off, especially on the way home, I might be in trouble. If I bounce a check and had no idea I was flirting with insolvency, I’m in trouble.

These are small troubles, but if I pay attention to them, they’re a lot less likely to build into big troubles, and life is more likely to remain sweet–so in a way, I’m grateful for them.

What are your warning lights? What sets them off that surprises you?

To three commenters, I’ll send a $15 Amazon gift certificate (which ought to be enough to cover even a print version of “Nicholas” due out on May 6.)

A noted story consultant and movie screenwriter recently passed along his conclusion that the most important attribute for somebody trying to break into the screenwriting and fiction writing biz is tenacity.

The craft can be learned, the social/PR network built over time, the manuscript buffed and buffed again, but—says this respected fellow—if you’re going to wedge your foot into the commercial fiction door, you must be long on try, try again.

Of course, with any complicated endeavor, tenacity is important, but I don’t consider it the most important attribute we bring to the tough undertakings.

You can try, try, try and try again, but if the market isn’t ready for what you’re selling, if the market is glutted with what you’re selling, then success isn’t likely. If your approach to the craft—be it screenwriting, novel writing, computer programming, or playing Chopin ballades—doesn’t jive with popular tastes, then your tenacity will only earn you that many more rejections.

And yes, popular tastes change, markets evolve. Those who persist are more likely to eventually see financial reward, but I’d argue that financial reward in any subjective undertaking is the wrong goal, and thus tenacity isn’t quite the top priority.

The most important attribute, says me, is that you love what you’re doing. The tenacity that’s borne of love will keep you going when the market is wrong and the trends against you. Love will keep you producing when no money, approval, or moral support is sustaining you. Love will keep you focused when success or failure try to derail your focus or threaten your confidence.

And I don’t think loving what you do should be limited to romance novelists. As a musician, you can spend months with your behonkis on the piano bench mastering a particularly difficult Chopin ballade, only to find three other fine pianists have put it on their concert repertoire for the year, and they’re ALL playing the same cities are you are, and two months before you get there.

And don’t get me started on the bewilderment and heartache that is parenting.You cannot parent optimally from any place except your heart, you cannot pursue music seriously unless you truly enjoy the music itself, and you cannot write love stories that connect with readers unless those stories come from your heart, too.

This is my theory, that we’re happier if we allow ourselves to care about what we do, and to pursue the things that reach our hearts. It’s counter-intuitive in some sense, because a life of ups and downs, repeated rejections, and successes that only flash in the pan, can be scary and painful—particularly if you’re focused on the ups and downs, rather than the privilege of indulging what you love to do.

Even if it’s only for thirty minutes a day, which is how some writers finish their first novels.

Which brings us to my question: What defines success for you? Is it keeping the bills paid, staying on good terms with the boss? With your family? Maintaining physical health? Guarding your free time? Can you be successful if you aren’t happy?

To one commenter, I’ll send a signed ARC of “Once Upon a Tartan.”

In my reading travels last week I came across a snippet advising that if worries plague you incessantly, write them all down on small pieces of paper, fold the papers up, put them in a sealed jar, shake them up, and then take them out, shred each and every one to bits and throw the lot away. The theory here is that the mind treats thoughts like physical objects, and if you destroy a representation of the thought, the underlying idea is less likely to shanghai your attention.

Hmm.  

I do worry, but not enough to invest that much effort in shutting the worries down. I got to thinking, though, about rituals—spring cleaning being one—that we imbue with emotional significance. Spring cleaning isn’t just about vacuuming up dust bunnies, putting the hammock up on Mother’s Day isn’t just about summer being right around the corner.

Because we are largely an immigrant nation and one that values diversity, we’ve lost some of the old, old culturally significant rituals (my Irish ancestors celebrated a LOT more saints’ days than I ever will), and even lost sight of the power of ritual altogether. Courtrooms are full of it, as are churches, but the home used to be a locus of ritual as well. While ritual can reinforce backward, rigid ideas, it can also be a source of creative self-expression, comfort, and identity.  

One friend always has something planted by St. Patrick’s Day, even if it’s a single set of onions. Another says a prayer for the safety of animals, children, and other drivers before turning the key in the ignition of her car. I get out of my lawyer clothes (especially those fussy idiot shoes) before I allow myself to sit down at the computer and attempt any creative writing.

Yet another friend agreed with his wife that whenever either husband or wife felt a sense of upset or distance in their marriage, they’d give their spouse a single rose, and ask for time together.  

Some of these small observances require that time goes by when a transition is underway or a hot topic under consideration, some put a pause in a headlong day, some mean we have to get out of the house and see the sun, or otherwise jostle ourselves from one seasonal routine when another is close at hand.

I’m going to think about this some more. While I am the last person to defend routine for its own sake (boredom is the enemy), I can always use emotional support and a sense of meaning and peace in my life.

I may try that worry obliteration ritual, for example.

What are some of your small habits that help make the day meaningful and manageable? To one commenter I’ll send NOT a copy of Darius (we all have one, right?), but rather, an advanced reader copy of Once Upon a Tartan (title may change), my second Scottish Victorian. I think this is the best book I’ve written so far (and yes, it has a bunny in it)…

My mom is 89 years old and mostly in possession of her wits, but she neither hears nor sees well, and her memory is getting a bit dodgy. Dad, at 92, has good and bad days. He can walk short distances with a cane, sees well, hears well, and knows the songs of most birds in the eastern United States but naps frequently and may not recall at lunch what I discussed with him at breakfast.

What we discussed at breakfast does not matter as much as those song birds. My brother’s cell phone has the wood thrush as its ring tone. Dad got it in one, and hearing that song, I’m sure he was transported back to birding walks with his Uncle John, to evening strolls with my mother when they lived in Pennsylvania, and to quiet mornings as a boy in East Aurora.

Memories can terrify so powerfully, they obliterate reason, but I hope, increasingly as we approach the end of life, memory becomes our best comfort, and eventually, our reality.

I have many, many wonderful memories of Easter, in particular.

First, on Saturday we’d die eggs, at least two dozen. Why so many, you ask? Not because we wanted egg salad sandwiches in our lunches for the next week, but because with seven children, two dozen eggs meant we’d each find at least several in the household Easter Egg hunt. From year to year, some hiding places remained the same, but others… yes, there was the occasional orphan egg, founds days later, and taken straight outside to the garbage cans no matter how badly I wanted to know exactly what a rotten egg smelled like.

There was also a dish of jelly beans. In good years, they were the spicy kind, with clove, cinnamon, licorice (my fave), and peppermint, but more often, they were the really sweet, fruity kind that is mostly useful for wrecking teeth and pitching at siblings.

There were Easter baskets stored in the Christmas closet, and a bit mildewy as a result, but we each had our own, specific, don’t-you-dare-touch-mine basket, and mine was one of the largest.

Finally, there was Easter dinner, which might have involved ham, ranch dressing mashed potatoes, and green beans almondine. I forget the meal (please don’t tell Mom), but I recall in scrumptious detail the coconut cream cake made with whipped cream and Jell-O. Mom ONLY made this cake on Easter and there was never a single piece left over.

Not one. Be nice to me, because I have the recipe.

When I’m old(er) and my memory is a bit (more) dodgy, when I’m reduced to teetering short distances with a cane, don’t worry about me too much. Aided by my memory, a part of me will be skipping through the house, hunting Easter eggs, picking out all the black jelly beans, and savoring a piece of Mom’s Easter cake.

How about you? What memories will comfort you and make you smile? What memories are you making for your children to bring them comfort and cheer when you no longer can?

To one commenter, I’ll send a signed copy of “Darius,” due to hit the shelves on Tuesday!

Compared to what many people endure, my life is a cakewalk. Lately, though, it has been a stressful cakewalk. My lawyer job went out for competitive bid, which it has done periodically for the past twenty years. Each time, I tell myself, “I am not putting myself through this again….” because the procurement process will pluck the last nerve of a cast iron saint.

A few years later, there I am, on the edge of my legal seat, wondering if I still have a job.

My daughter has been on the edge of her academic seat in recent weeks too, as she’s come down to the final laps on an associate’s degree that will qualify her to work as a vet tech. The nice people tell you how easy it is to get a job as a vet tech, but they don’t tell you that the curriculum is set up so one mis-step out of about ten mandatory steps in the final term, and you have to repeat the entire term, and you only get one do-over.

No pressure… though you also have to pay all that tuition again. Did I mention that my daughter struggles with anxiety?

And because hard things come in threes, I’ve gotten at cross purposes with my publisher on a few issues too. Nothing major, but in my present mood, a hangnail could feel major.

My agent worked out the publisher issues and left things in a better status all around.

My daughter passed every test with flying colors.

The State awarded me another three-year contract to represent foster children.

I got all this good news in about a 24-hour period, and it hasn’t entirely sunk in even yet… I have manuscripts to work on, you see. But I did pass along the glad tidings to a friend, and he asked, “So how are you going to celebrate?

Huh?

Celebrate. As in, stop and smell the roses, be of good cheer, wallow in gratitude, and laissez les bon temps rouler. That kind of celebrate.

I am chagrined to say, I had to think about this. I’m not a big drinker, I prefer to socialize one on one or in small groups, and I’ve never been much of one for retail therapy. I can watch “North and South” or “Pride and Prejudice” any time I please…

Maybe I’m doing something right, if planting pansies qualifies as a celebration to me, or walking my dog, or calling my parents, but I think when this much good befalls me, the moment calls for something more extravagant.

Whatever that gargoyle is that’s trying to spoil your happiness—the tax bill, the noisy neighbor, the extra fifteen pounds that keeps trying to turn into twenty—how will you celebrate when you’ve emerged victorious, and the gargoyle has been sent packing? Chocolate? Date night? Mani-pedi? A book splurge?

I know how I’m celebrating. The first fifty people to comment get an Amazon gift card.

Let the wild rumpus begin!