Angela Amman

stories of choices and consequences

Musings

August Avoidance

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When I set a goal to blog daily in August, I honestly didn’t think I’d struggle to fit in a post on my second day. I’m not even sure why that was my goal; I guess it’s an avoidance tactic in a way. I haven’t written regularly for so long, except for journal entries, that I’m not sure I remember how to craft an essay or plot a long short story or even set a scene in a small vignette.

I told Ryan recently I’m worried I don’t know how to write anymore. I feel stuck in many ways, unsure how to write about the past year with my mom without sharing parts of the story that aren’t mine to share. With that lingering in my mind, it’s hard to imagine writing fiction either. I don’t know that I remember how to slide into someone else’s story, particularly when I’m still wobbly and uncertain in my own.

I’d like to think blogging might shake off some of the rust, unearth some of the rhythms I used to fall into so easily when I sat at the keyboard. (That sounds like writing always came easily. It definitely did not, but I could always find it again. Now it feels out of reach.) Maybe I should have been more definitive with the goal, a word goal for each day or fiction Fridays or something specific on other days of the week. Today, I was glad I didn’t do that. I might have skipped it entirely, bagged out on day two and been angry when I woke up on day three with an already-broken streak.

Next week, Dylan and I will be out of town for a few days. I don’t know what I’ll do then. Pre-write a post or two? Blog from my phone, a practice with which I’ve never had all that much luck? I haven’t decided, but I’m doing my best to take one day at a time. Even if these short little sessions are a way to avoid drafting “real” work, they’re more than I’ve been writing in the past year, really, and that has to count for something.

Another August

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With an August birthday and an inability to untangle myself from academic calendars, the end of July whispers the end of summer for me, even with high temperatures and weeks separating August 1 and the true end of summer. It still feels like summer, but I see the sunlight waning long before I need to start worrying about whether or not the kids emptied their backpacks from the end of the year.

The past several years, my impending birthday brought reflection and melancholy more than excitement. This year feels the same, no matter how diligently I meditate or piece together words in my journal. (Even on busy days, I try to list a few bits of gratitude. I heard it rewires your brain. I’m not so sure my re-wiring is complete yet.) Another year should be celebratory, especially this year, with my mom’s diagnosis almost coming up on an entire year. Discomfort crowds out the celebration, leaving me returning again and again to thoughts of what I’d like to change instead of what I should be proud of.

I don’t like feeling like this. At least I don’t think I like feeling like this, but maybe I do on some level. Maybe I fall into some sort of comfort space carved out by the inability to motivate myself to move forward, a valley worn down by beginning to climb and sliding down again.

How many Augusts can I use as a re-set? How many times can I take account of the habits I should be changing (writing 30 minutes a day shouldn’t be impossible or walking ten thousand steps or any of the other small changes I’d love to make this month)? I’m not sure, honestly.

Today is the beginning of August. Today is the beginning of my birthday month, the month I go back to work, the month the kids start school again, the month that promises a clean slate — if only I can be brave enough to write on it.

Our Chicago boat tour guide said this was designed to look like a bottle of champagne. Cheers to my birthday month.

Through

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walking path

To co-opt and paraphrase a theater phrase, I’m not even sure this thing’s on anymore. I’ve been journaling, a page or two at a time in whatever color felt-tipped pen makes me feel happiest on a particular day. I’m trying to make it a habit, the way I’m trying to make 10,000 steps a day a habit and more water and meditation and keeping up with the laundry. Those habits, I hope, will help quiet my brain a little, quiet the constant hum of worry and anxiety strumming in the back of my thoughts for the last couple of year.

Some days I feel like they’re working, these small, tentative steps. Other days, they feel futile, an inside out umbrella in the midst of a storm

Maybe both things can be true.

On Wednesday, I went for a walk, because 10,000 steps don’t appear out of nowhere. I went alone, which I rarely do for walks, and I went in the middle of the day. I didn’t encounter many people. Perhaps the sun, the thickness in the air, kept people inside or on more shaded paths. One man sat with a little boy in the grass, bikes nearby. He pointed out things on the ground, maybe out of actual interest, and maybe as a way to catch his breath before they began to ride again.

Maybe both things were true.

At one point, I took a breath and wished I wouldn’t have chosen the route I chose. Some days, when I’m running, I choose loops or stay along paths where I can make the choice to shorten the workout, to make my way home to air conditioning and cool water. On Wednesday, I chose a path with only one way home, and that way home involved simply walking all the way through to the end of the route.

As tired as I was, as hot as I was, I had to keep moving forward to get through to the other side.

Maybe the heaviness of my anxiety is like that path, at least right now. It’s possible these habits I’m cultivating will help my make it

Welcoming 2022

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I’ve worn my grandmother’s earrings every day this year. Nan’s small opals dangle, but only slightly. She gave them to Abbey, who wore them often until she double pierced her ears and wears sometimes matched and sometimes not collections of studs and hoops and non-grandmother earrings. She doesn’t mind that I wear them; she’ll want them back one day, I know, so I wear them while I can.

I see them in the mirror when I brush my teeth, when I whip my hair into a wet bun-ish thing on top of my head and run Dyl’s trombone to school because he forgot it the first day back at school, the case tucked away so we didn’t all trip on it in the middle of the kitchen. I remember them when the straps of my mask get caught in one of them. I think of Nan when I see them, when I pause to untangle the elastic from the delicate earring.

The earrings aren’t magic. They aren’t a talisman that makes me feel stronger, and they don’t save lives. Literally, I wore them today when I tried to give blood for the first time this year. I felt a little proud of myself, doing some good in the year that still feels new. Then they pricked my finger and tested my blood and found it my hemoglobin lacking. They tested another finger with a worse result. I wore the earrings when I couldn’t give blood, which I thought of tonight when I took them off, the pads of my fingers still sore.

I’ve worn them every day because thinking of my grandma makes me happy. She wasn’t just my Nan, nor only the Nan of my many cousins. She grandmothered nearly everyone she met, telling stories and listening to other stories and laughing a laugh that provoked smiles from anyone within earshot.

I’ve worn them, in part, for the same reason I take pictures of Max. He may be a cat, an animal most certain of his own intelligence, but he does not care to look back on photos I’ve taken of him in the past. I snap his photos because looking back on them makes me happy, and they make both my kids smile, though Abbey sometimes needs to remind Dylan Max is hers more than anyone else’s.

A new year brings forth all sorts of proclamations, even during a pandemic, when one of the most popular resolutions I’ve seen is to tiptoe into the year, not jostling anything loose in the hopes things don’t get worse. I can’t do that, at least not in totality. The turn of the calendar, the drop of that giant Waterford crystal ball, kissing Ryan at midnight, all of those things whisper promises to me, and I’m helpless to walk into a new year without hope.

So this year, with uncertainty and fatigue hanging in the air, I’m welcoming 2022 with small bits of happiness, like tiny opal earrings that gleam in the sun.

Everything highlighted

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Right before November began, we decided to take on a fitness challenge. Ryan started it, then I hopped on board, and I printed out copies for the kids to participate, too.

We all went into this with different attitudes. You can see I thought I would double the burpees, at least. Then I realized I was supposed to do push up burpees, which are NOT FUN, so I respected the challenge limits and moved forward.

This morning, I finished.

I didn’t finish perfectly. I can think of two days I skipped, which meant I doubled up the exercises the following day, something that felt much easier on the first half of the sheet than the second half. After about the twenty push up number and the two-minute plank, I had to do those exercises in blocks, breaking them up with ten to twenty second breaks where I basically pep-talked myself into continuing. I could possibly do 50 consecutive pushups, but it wouldn’t be pretty, and even doing them in three consecutive chunks (20, 15, 15) felt pretty rewarding (all on my toes!)

What makes me proudest about this list of highlighted rows (marred by creases and coffee) isn’t the fitness I gained, because honestly, prior to November 1, I didn’t care how many pushups I could do.

I care about this, because I finished something that felt hard at times.

Some days it felt extremely hard.

Of course I had days where I ran and then blasted through the list with music blaring in my ears, feeling strong. Other days, I did it in the living room, with Dylan next to me, checking off his list. Other days still, I did it alone, not even wearing workout clothes, wondering how this chunk of body weight exercises could make me sweat in under five minutes. And, like I mentioned, a couple days I couldn’t bring myself to do it at all.

Today, though, all the boxes are checked. I used different color highlighters and spilled coffee and kept going anyway. For someone with many, many sets of habit trackers littered with missed days, this means something.

I finished, and it helps me remember finishing is possible, even when it feels hard, repetitive, or even a little pointless.

Now to get started on what I’ll finish next.

Different Each Time

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I’m tired, which is mostly my fault. Mostly, because I’m the one who stayed up until 2:45 a.m. reading, knowing I had to wake up to get the kids to school and myself to work, but only mostly because I haven’t felt fully rested in years. Maybe over a decade.

I could talk a little about 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I could talk a lot about it, truthfully. It’s a paperweight of a book, over 800 pages, with an incredible story (natch, from the master of stories) nestled snugly between historical details, contemporary pop culture touches, and more to think about than meets the eye — as is the case with most good stories.

Instead, because I’m tired, I simply want to talk about why I re-read books I love, sometimes while books I’ve been waiting to read rest a little longer on my “on deck” shelf.

I can’t remember the first time I read 11/22/63, though I could probably figure it out if I tried hard enough. The important thing is that I’ve read many, many books in between. I’ve done many, many things in between readings, too, though they’re all more mundane than time traveling to twist apart events in the past.

Re-reading books means seeing them with a different lens. Not a new lens, but a different one. To use a personal anecdote, since I last read 11/22/63 (before this week), I read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, a book I thought about for a long time after closing its pages. A book I still think about, now, and a book I thought about while reading Stephen King’s story about trying to change some major historical events.

When you’re feeling a little stuck, the idea of tweaking past decisions happens to the best of people, at least I imagine it does. As someone with a couple of major life decisions I sometimes question (related to writing and geography, mainly), reading Stephen King’s story after reading The Midnight Library gave 11/22/63 a different texture than it’s had in the past.

Changed decisions, even those that lead to positive outcomes, don’t always mean a brighter future. I need to remember that.

Either way, 11/22/63 read differently to me this time, and the next time I read it, I expect it will have shifted again. The kaleidoscope of time and experience make it impossible to come to a book in exactly the same way, and for that I am grateful.