Driving Forces

Sometimes In the middle of the night when I’m awake and alone with my thoughts, or sometimes in the middle of the day when I’m driving and surrounded by chip bags, backpacks, and sweaty kids, I think, motherhood is a bit of a stretch for me.

Wait, maybe I should say, motherhood in today’s world is a bit of a stretch, especially with three children. Of course I love them, but occasionally the thought creeps in that it would have been so easy to parent just one child. Now that I have three–twins, age 10, and a son, almost 13–I’m constantly amazed at the amount of energy, generosity and altruism required for parenting. I think about my own mother, who had four kids, drove carpool, cooked dinner every night, even sewed clothes for me and my sister. She and my dad took us on trips, including the requisite pilgrimage to Disney World. We stayed at the exotic Polynesian hotel, went to the Mad Tea Party, and dined to the vocal stylings of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé (live!). It was about perfect.

I took it for granted, all that my parents did for us, which I guess is the job of kids. Children are too busy growing up, living the movie, to catch on to the fact that their parents are helping to write and direct it.

I think about my homemaker-happy mother, whose day before the kids got home included bridge and tennis and garden club–and grocery shopping. She lived (and still does) a happy life, with little talk of stressing out, leaning in, and getting away. Yes, life was simpler. Those were the days of kids having fewer organized activities after school–I remember walking to the local drugstore many weekday afternoons with my best friend Allison and ordering ice cream sundaes at the counter (and putting on the pounds to show it!). I don’t recall if my mother even knew what we were doing. I just knew to be home by dinnertime.

Today, I talk to my mother from my command center behind the steering wheel. We catch up while I, like the operator of the local train, make various stops along the way. These are the snatched moments where I find out about her or Dad’s latest checkups (they are insanely healthy for the 70’s and 80s), who they dined with at the club last Saturday night, whose funeral they attended the other day. Then always, it’s “I gotta go, Mom. I’m at [insert destination] now.”

Once I pick up the kids from school, I’m off to a gymnastics class, a baseball practice, a dance lesson. Forget the stay-at-home mom–that would be fantastic. No, I’m a “stay-in-the-car” mom, and covet the rare day where I manage to avoid my car entirely (especially since it’s so damn dirty, with pretzels and Power Bars and god knows what ground into the synthetic carpet and seat crevices.)

I’m not a great dinner planner, (ugh, the routine) the way my mother was, and I often get home from these carpool laps around the track to open the fridge and simply stare. Then I turn to the cabinet and reach for the box of pasta. I silently give thanks that my husband will eat just about anything and at the same time curse him for needing to eat at all. Every fall, I vow to “figure out the dinner thing” just like I vow to “figure out the homework thing” and “the driving thing.”

The thing is, this is what parenting is, largely. It’s being there for your children’s lives, being there when they need you. We give our kids so much, it seems, this generation of parents. We sign them up, plug them in, buy them off. I’m just as guilty as anyone, yet I occasionally try to fight these tendencies. Hell, we haven’t even taken our kids to Disney World. But, as I’ve seen with friends whose kids are older, it does eventually taper off, and one day it’s over, this part of parenting.

I feel I’m just getting a glimpse of what life will be like once my role in the movie is reduced to, say, Executive Producer. My kids are starting to become more independent, making their own breakfast in the morning, running to the corner market, walking the dog, and doing chores (sort of). Now, as opposed to standing over them and tying their shoelaces, I’m glancing sideways and driving them to the shoe store. I’m supervising when needed, and of course, nagging often.

Oh, I know those teenage years are coming and things will keep shifting–too quickly–and suddenly, I will yearn for these “easy” years when they don’t mind hanging out with their parents (or have no choice). We’ll all get our independence soon enough.

But for now, Disney World is starting to look pretty good. Maybe we’ll even get there before they’re all in college.

It's may not be Disney World but they seemed to like it. — A non-Disney light show.

Rocky Road: Half marathon, anyone?

I’m basically a lazy person. I really don’t like to exert myself unless there’s a good reason. I’m also basically an optimist. I think life tends to err on the plus side, and things usually turn out how they’re supposed to. These two traits can sometimes lead me down a tricky path, one strewn with over-confidence and under-appreciation of reality. I’ll give you a recent example.

I’m a fair-weather runner, meaning that in the wintertime, unless I’m feeling particularly disgusted with myself, I will find all kinds of reasons not to run (like, it’s 35 degrees outside, or, I’d rather nap). This also means that when spring comes around, I don the running shoes and hit the pavement as though I’ve been running all winter. I have learned over recent years that I need to stretch and strengthen in order to begin again, but for the most part, I just start running.

Two years ago a friend–I’ll call her Olivia–convinced me to run a half marathon just after Labor Day. For a “seasonal” runner (sounds much better), I surprised myself and took this fairly seriously. I trained a bit over the summer and built up my mileage to where I finally ran 10 miles. If you can do 10, I’d heard, you can run a half on race day. Still, I was nervous.

The morning of the race, Olivia showed up at my door red-nosed and stuffed-up, tissues in hand, but still determined to run. (Her work ethic is much stronger than mine.) Suddenly feeling a little lighter, I valiantly told her we’d go as slow as she needed. During the race, I, martyr-like, velcroed myself to her side (“I wouldn’t dream of leaving you!”). At our thankfully civilized pace, I crossed the finish line feeling pretty good about my “accomplishment” alongside my sniffling friend, who’d run 13.1 miles suffering from what her doctor later diagnosed as a full-bore sinus infection.

After skipping last year, we decided to run it again this year. With a big birthday looming, I thought, why not? Half marathon for a half century? Sounds good to me!

Except, I was having a bit of trouble getting motivated this summer. Down at the beach, I’d go running and have to give up after several miles or take breaks because of the heat. I rose early a few mornings, but was also coveting the extra winks and the fact that my children are finally old enough not to burst into my room asking for breakfast or an early schlepp to the ocean. (Guess I love sleep more than running.) I figured I was taking the stairs daily at this three-story beach house. Besides, I’d run this race before, right? It wasn’t so bad … Right??

But by the end of the summer, it hit me: the most I’d managed to run was 8 miles. Once.

Then, a couple of days before the race, Olivia emails me: “I think we should leave at 5:30 a.m. to get to the race in time.”

“I have clock shock,” I email back. I can’t remember the last time I was up at 5:30 a.m. And stayed up.

This isn’t like last time, I start to realize. I am truly nervous. This isn’t just a lark. I could get seriously injured.

But this is also a matter of pride, I tell myself. I am going to run this thing, even if I have to walk it. Although I’d rather not walk.

Well, as it turns out, the week before the race Olivia’s back is acting up (not from running, ironically), and whether she will even participate is a question. While I don’t want her to run and get injured, I am secretly relieved that if she does run, we will not be trying to break any records. Once again, I could be called on to “sacrifice” pace, refusing to leave her in the dust as some other lesser and more competitive friend might do. No, I will be the trusty sidekick, ready to catch her if she collapses–but hopefully not right on top of me.

Considering her track record (ha), I’m not surprised when Olivia decides last-minute to run. The day of the race, she appears at my doorstep having popped three Advil and armed with her phone in case she needs to call for backup. I cross fingers for her and breathe easier for me. This may just work out, and no one will be the wiser that I’m practically winging it.

The starting gun goes off and we are keeping a nice pace, chatting and dodging runners here and there. But as the race progresses, I see that Olivia has not clued into my secret plan. She is barely slowing down at the water stations, and her eyes are focused and determined. Mid-race, as another friend and I stop for some quick stretching, Olivia keeps scooting along with barely a glance backward, calling to us that it’s hard for her to stop and start again. I realize with growing alarm that the only way she’s going to run this race is by not stopping at all. We are the ones being left in the dust.

My friend and I turn to each other, eyes wide, acknowledging that the runner with the ailing back and back-up phone is ahead of us. Somehow, we summon some energy and kick into gear, trying to catch up with the female Forrest Gump.

In the final stretch we do just that, and cross the finish line within a few seconds of each other. As we slap backs and guzzle water, I marvel that it is not even 9:30 a.m. I begin plotting my nap time.

“The obstacle is the path,” as the Zen proverb says. It’s the idea that what we dread or fear is actually what we need to face in order to grow. But starting down that path, and staying on it, isn’t easy, and sometimes we need a few signposts along the way. I’m not saying running a half marathon is the ultimate answer–it’s just a foot race, after all–but it was a challenge I certainly was dreading, and I’m thankful for the friend at my side and the other one up ahead, pulling me further than I thought I could go.

But boy, are my calves sore.

Sometimes you need a little push to start down the path. — Sometimes you need a little push to get down the path.

Sweet Spot

I am sitting here on a screen porch on a breezy, cloudy, 70-degree day, in the center of this sand-swept New England town. Strangely, all is quiet except for the chiming of church bells, the murmur of voices in one of the nearby houses (screened windows and doors are always open here this time of year), or conversation from cyclists on the street, their voices rising and fading as they pass. Dishes clink from the small inn next door. Cars and mopeds do venture up this narrow, one-way lane leading out of town, but today, at this moment, the loudest sound is the wind rustling the leaves. And, now, a propeller plane in the distance pricks the silence, and is gone.

This is rare, this moment comprised of sounds that have nothing to do with my voice, with the yelling and calling and cajoling of my three children (and yes, sometimes my husband). How can a house in this bustling summer town be so close to that town, actually in that town, and still be so quiet? I am aware of the neighbor behind our rental house whose back patio I look down on from my kitchen window. There is a large blue and white surfboard propped up against the gray-shingled house, and I see her at her own kitchen sink, wisps of aging yellow-white hair visible, as I do dishes at mine. Is she a renter too? I’ve decided that she is the mother and there is what looks like at least one teenage girl, a long-haired brunette in cut-off jean shorts, and a man–but I can’t figure out if he is the husband or the son; lean and clad in a polo shirt and striped bermuda shorts, he looks too young for one and too old for the other. And who is the surfer? Who wears the wetsuit hanging from the tree out back, drying in the wind?

Who are all these people crammed together in this quiet and bustling little town?

We are the loud ones, I notice. If you don’t know who the loud one is, to paraphrase a saying, it’s probably you. Yes, I had my daughter walk out with me to the street and listen while I instructed her siblings to talk loudly from inside the house. How much could we hear? Not as much as I thought. But then, they weren’t yelling, because of course I asked them to, and that was the end of that.

These quiet, peaceful moments … it’s hard to really inhabit them and fully appreciate them because of the anticipation of their ending. Any second now, the twins could burst through the door, having walked back from their friend’s house where they’ve spent the night. My son could clamber down the creaky back stairs from his bedroom, where he has been reading all morning, and ask for breakfast at lunchtime. Even if I tell him to get his own, there will be conversation, help needed, and the moment (in my mind) will mostly likely be gone. But for now…

Yes, this is a rare sweet spot–this place on the back porch full of intermittent sounds that mark the silence between. I contrast this moment with the same one two days ago, when I was walking into the charming and distraction-filled town with my twin daughters, age 10, and my son, 12. He was lagging behind, having brought his book so he could sit on a bench while I took the girls inside a clothing shop. The girls, on the other hand, were walking so close to me, I was consciously sticking out and slightly waving my hands to keep them from walking on my flip-flopped feet. They are experts at “the box-out”–one on either side of me, slowly nudging closer to each other until I, exasperated, come to a dead stop, quickly scoot around them and run forward a few steps to snatch three seconds of free walking until they run and catch up with me, and the cycle starts again. I remember when they were younger that they often clung to me so successfully as we walked down the street that I felt like I was “wearing” my children. For someone a bit claustrophobic, that’s not a good thing.

I guess things haven’t really changed that much. Yet.

I see the shift happening in the soon-to-be 13-year-old. He is sleeping later, more reluctant to do “kid” things like go the pool for no reason or take a long bike ride. Yet he is the least high-maintenance of the three in some ways, not complaining as I drag him into town with the girls, as long as he has a “Ranger’s Apprentice” volume to read. He stayed home last night when my husband I went to dinner, perfectly content to watch sports on TV, not afraid to be alone. We gave him money to go grab a slice of pizza.

When we got home, he was watching a movie and I asked what he’d eaten: “Two Luna bars,” he replied. I caved and made him a PB&J. Then I settled in next to him on the couch and we watched the rest of “Swindle,” a Nickelodeon original.

He’s still a boy.

Ten and 12-year olds. The sweet spot, I hear my friends say. That time when you still have your kids as kids but can give them enough independence to give yourself some independence. It goes quickly, I hear these friends say. Suddenly all that independence you’ve been waiting for them to get, for you to get — “please stop walking on my feet” — arrives, and you are walking freely, waving your arms ever so slightly at the phantom children closing in on you.

A lone plane slicing through the cloudless blue sky of summer. — A lone plane slices through the cloudless blue sky.

Little Things

In this entry I randomly select a song title from my itunes library as a writing prompt.

Song Title: “Live and Die” by the Avett Brothers (from The Carpenter album)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about living every day, staying in the present, making the most of those moments. A friend’s tagline on her email is: “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” Being someone who likes to have big things to look forward to (don’t most people?), this idea prods me a bit. In rushing to get on to the “big thing”–like the annual beach getaway–I sometimes don’t realize that there is beauty and depth in the little thing. Often these little things have to do with my three little things–my kids.

Besides not having a mountain of patience, I’ve driven enough rings around the Beltway, made enough mac n’ cheese and hot dogs, and presided over enough “word study” sessions to feel like I’ve earned the right to not always enjoy those “little things.” At bedtime, I’m literally willing my kids to sleep, like a marathoner with the finish line in sight, as if that will make any difference in what they actually do. I usually end up surprised and frustrated when they don’t seem to have received my mind-controlling messages and suddenly appear in the kitchen for that life-preserving glass of water that will sit untouched by their bedside all night.

Even now, my 10-year-old daughter, who leaves for camp this weekend, is hanging around as I type outside on the patio. I try not to shoo her away too sharply–she will be gone for two weeks, after all–but my first thought when I see her is “not now.” She comes closer, and I uncharacteristically hold my tongue and wait to see what she does. She has showered and dressed and fastened a fake flower to the side of her wet, blond hair that is pulled back in a ponytail.

“Mom, can I see your phone?” (That’s where all the games are.)

I hand it to her and look back at my screen. She sits down at the table next to me and asks if I’ve seen a sweatshirt that she needs to pack for camp.

“Honey, I’m working on something. I’ll be happy to talk in a bit, and then we can take Cookie for a walk.”

She wanders over to the swing and sits. She’s not excited, not upset, just slouches in the swing with that fuscia flower in her hair, lightly pushing her feet back and forth. I think about what I’m writing and how this beautiful, contented (for the moment!) 10-year-old, excited and scared about her first-ever sleep-away camp, is soon to be a 10-year-old who will have had a two-week experience that I will have had nothing to do with, except for write the occasional letter and send a care package, maybe. She will come back changed, even if ever so slightly.

She ambles back over to the table, grabs my phone and starts to show videos of her and her sister to our scruffy terrier, who lies at her feet.

“Mom, look at Cookie watching!” She is giggling.

And I am watching my daughter. It’s only a little thing, this moment in which a 10-year-old is delighting in showing her dog a video, but it’s one I’m paying attention to.

Think I’ll go walk that dog now.

Running, Writing, Striving

Note: This entry is not an actual song-title prompt, but this song is on my running playlist and came on when I was thinking about the topic, below.

Song Title: “Doors Unlocked and Open” by Death Cab for Cutie (from Codes and Keys album)

As I lope along the shoreline, compulsorily glancing out over the glistening sea, it occurs to me that running and writing — both interests of mine — are a lot alike. Each requires an elaborate preamble that sometimes takes longer than the activity itself. Before running (especially at the beach) wind and temperature must be checked for optimum conditions, sunscreen liberally applied, shoes laced just so, playlist cued up, ipod running app ready. Then, when I’ve covered every other procrastination angle, I go to the bathroom … again.

During the run itself, I try to enjoy it, and sometimes that actually happens. I run with ease, not constantly trying to catch my breath. My body feels light and my mind wanders in a good way. Basically, I’m not slogging. But more often than not, my legs feel heavy, I frequently check time and distance, and I talk to myself as I would a whiny child: “Just to that yellow house,” “Only a half-mile to go,” “C’mon, don’t be a pansy!”

Similarly, I have to be in the “right” frame of mind to write. Usually this means bills have been paid, email checked (in at least the last 15 minutes), caffeine ingested, kids asleep or otherwise occupied, husband ensconced in his office, and no latest episode of “Mad Men” burning up the DVR queue.

When I finally start writing, there are those rare occasions when the words flow easily. But much of the time it is a start-stop situation, like a car with a bad battery. Sometimes I will get a text or call with an “urgent” issue. Every 20 minutes or so I have to get water or check my spam folder. A professional organizer once told me after some observation that I had about a 90-minute attention span. And she didn’t mean 90-minute increments. She meant for the whole time. That’s not SO bad, right? Well, ok, for a child…

But if I can get the battery going, I’m usually writing for something like that 90-minute span. Or at least to the point that I’ve feel like I’ve written SOMETHING. Sometimes I quit in the middle of a thought, so that I know where to pick up the next time. I heard Ernest Hemingway did that.

I love Anne Lamott’s comparison of the writing process to advice her father once gave her brother, who hadn’t begun a report on birds that was due the next day: Take it “bird by bird.” (That’s also the title of her book — one of the best ever on writing.) Running, and writing even, is just one foot in front of the other (even if your shoulders are hunched over) til you’ve gone far enough to catch your breath. And at that point, occasionally, it gets easier and you keep going.

I was thinking of the word “strive” and how it seems to encapsulate both “try” and “strength.” First, you have to have the intention — the desire to try — and secondly, you need the strength to take those first few steps.

The Stealth Napper

In this entry I randomly select a song title from my itunes library as a writing prompt.

Song title: “Never Gonna Leave This Bed” by Maroon 5

I can’t say that I enjoy NOT being a morning person, but I also have come to realize that I cannot fight my “bio-ribbons,” (as one daughter calls biorhythms.) Contrary to what I used to think — as a teenager, college student, employee, wife, then mother — you don’t necessarily morph into a morning person when you “grow up.”

It’s kind of like growing up itself, actually. Over time, as you gradually adopt all the accoutrements of adulthood — a job, a professional wardrobe, a rent payment, a husband, a house, a dog-as-first-child — one day you find that everyone thinks you really are a grown-up. And you think, “I’ve fooled them.”

So it is being a night owl who must moonlight as a morning person. You wake up at 6:30 a.m., rouse the kids, make breakfast, rush out the door, and weave and bob through traffic to get to school on time. You go to that meeting about making snacks for the teachers and race to yoga so you can squeeze in your de-stressing and detoxing. You feel energized enough to go make that stultifying grocery store run. You walk the dog in the sun-filled park. You perk up just in time for the afternoon carpool.

But sometimes, after that morning carpool … you go back to bed.

Yes, on rare occasions, when I have that little pocket of time after morning drop-off and no appointments or responsibilities (glaring ones, at least), I’ve driven back home, beelined upstairs and flopped into bed. This is particularly the case if it’s been an unfortunate “no-coffee” morning — if my husband, who usually makes the coffee, is away and we’ve had a searching-all-over-for-the-math-homework-that-was-just-in-the-backpack kind of mornings.

This return to sleep doesn’t happen nearly as often as I’d like. But I like knowing it’s in the universe of possibilities. It feels illegal, in a good way.

Further confession: I’ve even found a quiet place near my children’s school to park the car, set my phone alarm, and tilt my seat back for a 10-minute catnap. Yes, I feel like those cabbies you sometimes see catching winks in their car, and I can relate.

Once, when the twins were infants, I remember arriving home bleary-eyed from an afternoon of errands with them both sound asleep in their car seats. A friend’s car was temporarily occupying our one-car garage, so I parked in front of our house, cut off the engine, cracked the windows, and reclined my seat for a siesta. Why fight it?

A few days later I ran into my neighbor, who smiled a little as she said, “I saw you in the car the other day. You and the babies — all asleep.” Her eyes widened.

Trying not to show how embarrassed I was, I just smiled back and murmured something about “If you can’t beat ‘em…”

I think our world would be a more peaceful, serene place if we openly embraced the idea of the catnap. Luminaries such as John F. Kennedy and Leonardo DaVinci apparently did. In fact, how about adding napping rooms to every Starbucks? If that tall, grande or venti latte’s not doing the trick, you could order up a 10, 20 or 30-minute nap. Extra dark. Eye pillow included.

Nightblindness

This is the second entry where I select a song title at random from my itunes library as a writing prompt.

Song title: “Nightblindness” by David Gray

I have had poor eyesight forever, or ever since I was in fifth grade, got glasses, and discovered the trees had leaves. I first wore wire rims, then classic coke-bottle glasses with brownish-purple plastic frames that I thought looked “cool” (read “hideous” and “why did my mother let me do that?”), which I wore through junior high school. After that I endured years of new-and-improved contact lenses — dealing with dry rubber eyeballs at the end of the day, searching for the invisible lens after dropping it, seeing the college boyfriend accidentally swallow one that I’d put in a glass of water. Finally, a few years ago, I got laser eye surgery, also known as Lasik.

It has been a godsend.

At the time, the doctor told me I was a “borderline” candidate, which meant that my near-sightedness was so bad (my prescription is -6) he couldn’t promise me 20/20 vision. And, he added, “You will definitely need reading glasses.”

For me, none of that mattered. The first time I didn’t have to poke a slippery translucent disc into my eye was my “Hallelujah” moment. After the operation itself (easy for some, but not my favorite, as my kids say), my newfound and naked vision was nothing short of a miracle.

However, a little over a year ago, I found myself squinting a lot. I mostly noticed because the little lines around my eyes had increased dramatically, and I was becoming alarmed. This had to be more than simply “aging.” And blobbing the most expensive eye cream (because that means it’s the best, right?) around my eyes day and night didn’t seem to help.

Additionally, at night while driving I realized all the lights were a bit blurry and I was sticking my neck out over the steering wheel like a turtle — as if that would make me see better.

Finally, I went for an eye exam, convinced that my vision had slipped about halfway back to “legally blind.” But actually, when the doctor told me the results — about 20/40 — she commented that it wasn’t “that bad.”

So you’re saying I’m just picky?” I joked.

“Basically,” she joked back (I think).

She added that it was possible my Lasik had initially over-corrected to better than 20/20 so I was used to seeing like Superman.

Well, maybe so, but I have to say, HD was working for me. So, I got glasses with the prescription she wrote, and I now wear them often while driving — and not just at night. I also use them at sporting events … and my kids’ performances … and, um, for watching TV. I definitely have not become dependent, though. I don’t wear them while sleeping or going out to dinner.

No, at dinner in order to read a menu, I now pull out the “cheaters,” those other glasses I carry in my purse, alongside the sunglasses (two pairs, in case I lose one) and the “night” glasses, which I had relegated to my car until I realized I really needed them for all that other stuff I just mentioned.

Lately, I’ve found myself walking into the house with my “driving glasses” on my head and then putting on my reading glasses at the computer, and realizing I look like a complete freak. Sometimes sunglasses are even hanging off the top of my shirt.

Yes, that seems like too many glasses. That’s what bifocals/trifocals are for, right? But then I’d have to say my Lasik was a complete waste. And besides, I really don’t want to wear glasses all the time.

Seeing “Past My Shades”

This is the first in a series of posts based on song titles. For each entry I will randomly select a song title from my itunes library as a writing prompt. The title itself, and not the song’s lyrics, will be the prompt, although occasionally the lyrics might be relevant to what I end up writing about.

Song title: “Past My Shades” (by B.O.B. w/ Lupe Fiasco)

Maybe someone wearing the sunglasses doesn’t see anyone or anything beyond himself or herself, is someone whose world view is skewed inward — so that all he is thinking about is his own fabulousness, his own brighter light, one that outshines everyone in comparison. Or maybe the sunglasses wearer is hiding behind the image she wants to protect, distancing herself from the world. What’s back there? It’s murky and dark. With both — and each in their own way — self-absorbtion is the theme.

This idea of self-absorption is something that’s come up a few times lately in my life. First, we are all self-absorbed to a certain degree. After all, we can only be within ourselves, our own mind, and our own bodies. Yes, we can empathize, and put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, but then again, if one is completely selfless, doesn’t that insinuate a degree of self-removal, of distancing, of lack of intimacy? A narcissist at least puts themselves out there for all to see and to understand — and to judge.

Which brings me to the idea of writers, memoir writers, specifically. Often writers are encouraged to tell their story — because everyone’s story is important. Each one of us, it is often said, has a story to tell. Plus, writing can be incredibly therapeutic (not to mention free). Yet in the act of doing so, aren’t we absorbed in self? Some would even say obsessed? What about the idea of getting outside of oneself as therapy, as really living?

When does honest self-exploration risk becoming shallow self-obsession?

Maybe when the shades are on. With them, the memoir writer could be seen as self-involved and over-sharing. Or maybe he is masking the parts of himself he doesn’t want the world to see. It’s selective revelation. One assumes some self-editing in the shedding of the layers, but is there an image the writer wants to project or protect?

It seems to me that at some point the writer has to toss the shades, to stop controlling and start trusting. And when that happens, what the writer is offering up to the world becomes less about himself or herself personally (and obsessively) and more about the human experience in general. As a wise person once noted to me, sharing is a generous act. It’s also an honest one.

In “The Art of the Personal Essay,” Phillip Lopate writes: “The trick is to realize that one is not important, except insofar as one’s example can serve to elucidate a more widespread human trait and make readers feel a little less lonely and freakish.”

Here’s to hopefully feeling a less freakish.