It happened on Friday afternoon.

Friday afternoon I hung up the phone from a conference call, my ears burning and ringing, and opened a window. The weather was so warm it was nearly unbelievable-people were running around in shorts and T-shirts, the sound and smell of grass cutting pervading every corner of the neighborhood. It was in that moment that I found myself keys in hand, shoes on, and headed for the car to go to a garden center. Once there I bought 40 kilos of compost, 4 different types of flowers, a bird feeder, and a rose bush.

When I got home I changed into grubby clothes and, iPod in ears, I got to it. I didn't use gloves as I never use gloves-I want to feel the dirt beneath my fingers, to get the cuts and brambles on my joints, I need to have some kind of physical memory of the things I touch. I planted one garden of snapdragons, one garden of hollyhocks and one garden of sweet peas. I don't believe in mixing and matching flowers, it seems unfair to the flowers I've planted, as though I somehow don't think they're enough, that somehow they're only pretty if they're been augmented by other friendly flora.

And it felt amazing. I have never been one much for outdoor gardening-I try, and often flowers grow, but I think it comes out of my earnest wishing as opposed to any kerry-colored opposable appendages. I am useless at growing flowers in the house, the only flowers I can grow in the house are orchids, which for some reason regularly explode in color. I am new to gardening, as I have only ever had one year of gardening when I had the little white sugarcube in Sweden. I succeeded, and I never really knew why.

I know that in England gardening is taken quite seriously. People start planning and clearing the earth early on. Growing trays of seedlings dwindle on windowsills. Professional garden advice sought and coveted. I wonder at my insolence in simply reaching my naked hands in the earth. I wonder about me scattering seeds in bunches and in groups, burying them in compost and checking daily to see if anything's grown.

I took my time, pulling weeds out and trying to ignore their frustrated screams as I removed them down to their roots. And as I was there, crumbly earth beneath my fingernails and sun sweat shining on the back of my neck, it hit me like a freight train. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I stood back from myself and saw it for what it was. I was able to see the bigger picture with a clarity that I often lack when it comes to bigger pictures, so obsessed as I always am figuring out the details.

It was an idea for a story.

I saw pieces of it in perfect clarity, the turquoise blue of a skirt and the red-eyed lining of exhaustion. The details started tripping along in my brain, linking the hitches of their railway cars to each other and becoming something capable of motion. In slivers it comes to me still, little bobbles of motion and thought. Dialogue is popping into my head. A bed, a bus, a bench. Fingers inter-linking and an ID card flapping in the wind.

I planted my flowers with seedlings of story and when I was finished I sat down and thought about it some more. This morning waiting for the train I thought about it. I thought about it as I ran it by Angus. I think about it as I walk and sit. I think about it in meetings.

The problem is, with a job like mine, personal time is getting to be regrettably more and more difficult. Today alone I have 7.5 hours of meetings crammed into a 9 hour day, and then there's train travel on top of that. This leaves me with approximately 1.5 hours to go through emails, pee, get a bottle of water, explain a spreadsheet to someone who drops by my hot desk, and to post my blog post (1.5 hours explains why this post is so short-I usually write them on the train but it was too crowded and I had to stand for 55 minutes into London). 1.5 hours is not enough to give birth to an idea. 1.5 hours is barely enough time to emotionally prepare myself for trying. And every day this week is shaping up the same-1.5 hours here, 1.5 hours there, as I truck myself off to London every single day.

In the meantime my train of ideas is getting longer, ideas which may only be good to me, but at least my heart feels it's worth something. The ideas are pilling up and turning into something real on the tip of my tongue and in the whorls of my fingers. They stay with me while I dance to music. They stay while I sleep. They follow me into meetings. They whisper to me: You know you really want to be writing this, instead of wasting your life with gerbils. Do you want to die knowing that you gave too much to your fucking job? Is that what you really want?

I'll come clean-I found out on Saturday that I lost the writing competition. It's my first rejection letter. It'll be the first of many, I am sure-you can't win if you don't play the game.

And I'm playing now, baby. I'm playing now.

-H.

PS-dinner with RP was great. He's a lovely man and the three of us demolished a Lebanese meal in no time. And don't let his pseudoym fool you. I can tell you who he really is.

He's Spiderman.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 12:16 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 987 words, total size 5 kb.

1 Damn, woman! If a writer of YOUR calibre loses a writing contest, then there's little hope for the rest of us who are but mere mortals... Don't worry... one day, while you are making your Pulitzer/Nobel accepting speeches, the mention of your name across the world will stir a memory in some editor somewhere who used to judge a writing contest. At first the old bastard won't be able to quite place you, but then, sudeenly, the memory of how he once had a chance with you will flood him, along with the realisation and the shock and anger at having come thisclose to hitting the jackpot but letting it slip by him, and he will proceed to have a heart attack, keel over, and die. Don't give up, dear! It's going to happen.

Posted by: redsaid at March 21, 2005 02:30 PM (kw57b)

2 The old saying "life is what happens when you're doing something else" is so true. I've got about 10 years on you age-wise, and I've been planning to make the big leap for at least that long. Go for it and know you gave it your best no matter how it turns out.

Posted by: Schotzie at March 21, 2005 03:28 PM (Pv1wB)

3 Three words girl. Micro. Cassette. Recorder. I used to keep one in my car because possible song lyrics and melodies would pop into my brain and I'd forget them before I got home. I would carry it in to class so that as soon as class was over I could record a record of my thoughts. And sure, it makes you look a little nuts, but it also makes you look kind of important. Think about movies. The people in the films that have people talking into recorders as they go about their daily tasks are always the important people. Detectives, journalists... Those kinds of jobs. It could work...

Posted by: amy t. at March 21, 2005 03:43 PM (zPssd)

4 Yep, what Amy T. said. I was going to suggest the same thing. I have a mini recorder that I carry around and one I leave on my desk by my bed at night because I don't always have the option or time to write the thoughts down. The one by my bed is for when I wake up from my usual crazy dreams and am too tired to get up and write it down so I click "record" and mumble as much on tape as I can. It registers the full memory the next day or when I listen to it again. I highly, HIGHLY suggest you take Amy's and my advice. It won't solve your problem for getting it all down in writing but it will solve the problem of getting the thoughts down somewhere so that later you can put the thoughts down on paper.

Posted by: Serenity at March 21, 2005 03:46 PM (zShs1)

5 My future father in law bought a hammock for their garden...the weather must be nice over there for such a purchase. What I've learned about spending lots of time in England is to never take anything too seriously and by god get out in the sunshine (when it happens) even if only for a little while.

Posted by: Juls at March 21, 2005 04:21 PM (BoC78)

6 The rejection letters will certainly pile up, because they do for all of us. As long as you keep sending stuff out, that is. A growing folder of rejections is a good thing, though, as it means you're putting your work out there. A friend recently sold a story to a lit mag. A very well respected lit mag. And this same story had already been rejected by 32 other well respected lit mags. I recently got a handwritten rejection note instead of the form letter... Funny the things we cling to as good news. Glad to hear you're playing the game. It's hard to make time to write, but you'll find a way because you need to. My solution is often to go without sleep, but I don't recommend that for long stretches. I'm in the second draft of my novel and I can honestly say it's been almost entirely fueled by coffee. Good luck. Try to remember that the writing is the important work. You'll find the time, somehow.

Posted by: cari at March 21, 2005 05:12 PM (VyY1d)

7 Robert A Heinlien's RULES FOR WRITING 1. You must write. 2. You must finish what you write. 3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order. 4. You must put the work on the market. 5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold. And Sawyer's addition is: 6. You must immediately begin writing something else Put that rejection slip in a memory folder and send that story off to someone else! Good hunting!

Posted by: Easy at March 21, 2005 08:17 PM (dH3dd)

8 Never give up, girl. As for Spidey, did ya'll hug each other like I directed?

Posted by: Margi at March 21, 2005 11:49 PM (lWAiX)

9 One more thing: Jack Nicholson was rejected hundreds of times before he ever got his first acting job. Clint Eastwood was told he would never act in Hollywood because of his Adam's apple. They didn't give up and look at them now. Rejection will happen and it's not always a bad thing: it can help you become stronger, better and improve your writing....regardless of how good anyone is, everyone can use improvement. Do not ever let the rejection letters get you down....instead, use them as a sign to yourself that you ARE doing something with your life and you ARE trying. Eventually, you will reach your goal. Perservere. I know you have it in you.

Posted by: Serenity at March 22, 2005 01:44 PM (zShs1)

10 I had a wonderful time, too. But you knew that already!

Posted by: RP at March 22, 2005 02:56 PM (LlPKh)

11 You go, girl!!! I can't wait to buy your book or magazine in which you are published. Gardening is very theraputic and artistic at the same time. Nothing like painting a picture with plants instead of oils or pastels.

Posted by: azalea at March 22, 2005 07:18 PM (hRxUm)

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