Speed Scrabble

 I’ve always enjoyed the board game Scrabble, though sometimes I’ve become impatient at its slow pace and drawn-out finish. Nowadays, Jim and I (and some of our kids when they visit) play ‘Speed Scrabble.’ Like the board game, each player initially receives seven lettered tiles. Instead of creating one large crossword on a board, each player creates an individual crossword in front of them. Every time any player uses all their available tiles, everyone picks another tile until they are gone. Then the first person to complete their crossword using all their tiles wins.

The last few weeks of working on my memoir have been stressful. Initially, I was weaving a tapestry of my personal narrative. Then I read Bill Stride’s memoir of schizophrenia, Voices Inside Me and realized I needed the recollections of people around me to balance my own distorted perceptions. In my manic mind, everything I thought and did was completely rational, until I was injected with a powerful anti-psychotic, slept for a day and a half, and woke up in a sane mind and shattered heart.

I imagined weaving these recollections into my story, intermingled with my memories for a richer, fuller tapestry.

But the two interviews I’m processing this month point in totally new directions. It’s overwhelming. How can I pull apart this tapestry I’ve woven and start fresh?

Then this morning I thought of Speed Scrabble. In that game, it doesn’t matter at all whether you have ever created words with all your tiles in any of the turns. Only the last round matters, finishing a crossword using all of the tiles in front of you.

Sometimes when I play, I create a beautiful, elegant, long word (maybe even with an X, J, or even Q) and build my crossword around its perfection. Then comes a crisis point where I simply can’t fit more tiles onto the existing structure. With great reluctance, I dismantle my work and start fresh. But it’s not like ripping a tapestry apart or knocking a house down. It’s just playing around with the tiles, experimenting with new combination of letters to form a complete crossword structure.

Realizing that this morning helped me over the latest panic. I don’t have to destroy what I’ve made. I just need to play around with the pieces and discover new connections.

Childhood revisited

 I continue to work on my memoir. On November 9th I sent it to my sister Maggie to read. (Thank you, Maggie!) She planned to return it before their Thanksgiving trip to North Carolina.

But they cancelled their trip, Thanksgiving came and went, and she didn’t send it back. Then Lincoln was born and Jim and I drove to D.C., stayed ten days, then drove to Chicago and spent a week with his mom.

Without planning it, Maggie gave me an incomparable gift. From November 9th to January 8th, I entered a magical state of childhood. Each break during college: Thanksgiving, Christmas, even summer, I would cart a heavy suitcase of books home to study. I rarely opened any of them, but the psychic weight was heavier than the suitcase. By the time I graduated from college, the mental habit of always feeling underprepared and inadequate was firmly entrenched.

My third psychotic episode was in 2003. Shortly after I returned home from the hospital, I enrolled in a creative writing class. I dreamed of writing a memoir of our 1995 cross-country trip. Some years later, my focus turned to my manic depression (bipolar). My inaction fed a constant undercurrent of anxiety.

But when I clicked send on November 9th, I was suddenly on vacation. A true six-years-old-and-nothing-to-do-but-ride-my-trike freedom. I couldn’t work on it: it was in Maggie's hands. The weeks stretched on, and I basked in the tranquility.

Is this an indication that I really don’t want to do the project? I don’t think so. I needed the breathing space, the luxury of having nothing to do. The ability to pick it back up on my own terms.

Plan, Commit, Covenant, Pledge, Promise, Swear, Vow

            Now that the leukemia saga is over, I plan to continue blogging: I hope you’ll continue following my blog. The blog predates the leukemia; we’ll see what the blog becomes over time.

            As I composed this post in my mind, I wondered what verb to use: do I simply plan to continue, or will I commit, covenant, pledge, promise, swear, or vow? Which accurately describes my investment in the blog and my responsibility to my readers?

            To me, a covenant is between God and me; a vow also suggests a solemnity I won’t apply to posting a blog. I originally considered ‘promise’, then paused: perhaps I’m not that serious. Is a commitment more or less binding than a promise? To me, promise is the stronger word. It connotes a personal pledge to do all within my power to fulfill it. After this mental discussion ‘plan to’ seems weak and indecisive.

            Of course, if you never come back to my blog this whole discussion will be moot.

            For now, I pledge to post by 11:59 p.m. each Tuesday for the remainder of 2015. (Engaging comments are welcome: please sign your name.)

            I may post more often, especially at first, as I process David’s death.