Sandra Tayler

The Right Journal

By / October 8, 2013 / 2 Comments

“Every time we go to the book store, you buy a journal or two. Are you like a collector of journals? How many empty journals do you have anyway?” Gleek asked me. We were on our way home from the bookstore. She’d earned a trip out to buy something fun and while she was there I decided to see if there was something I could use to replace my almost-full journal. I opened my mouth to protest, but the answer to that last question is at least six. Pretty sure most people don’t have six empty journals waiting for words. I don’t collect journals, not really. There is no joy in just purchasing them, nor in having lots of them. It is just that once I start a journal, I have to live with it for the next year or more. This means it has to be one I like, and it is common for me to bring a journal home and realize it is not quite what I want.

So I’m not really a collector, more a picky journal keeper. For a long time I just bought the same brown or black journals because the size and texture were right. But lately I’ve wanted something prettier. I found it in a book from Peter Pauper Press, but I don’t want to get the same book again. I want something different, but still pretty. Which leaves me looking at journals that are too big, too small, to thick, too expensive, too puffy, not pretty, too plain… etc. This time I think I’ve settled on buying a book that is labeled as a refill for fancy leather journals. The cover of it is blank, which means I could do something pretty with it.

I find it amusing that Gleek is the only one of my family who has noticed my accumulation of journals, since she is also a lover of notebooks. None of hers are empty. They all have bits of stories, journal entries, sketches, and other snatches of writing in them. Almost none of them are full. Where I pick a single notebook and stick with it until it is full, Gleek flits between books as strikes her fancy. Which is fine. I like having someone who is happy to spend twenty minutes looking at journals with me.

Birth Stories

By / October 8, 2013 / 2 Comments

I remember being in the hospital, having just given birth to my fourth child. Howard was there too, I think the new little guy was tucked into the crook of Howard’s arm. This sort of scene is often accompanied by glowing descriptions of the wonder of life and how all of the stress is worth it, rhapsodies on the miracle of birth. That was certainly how the story of my first birth went. We were in a glow every time we looked at her, even when we felt exhausted or stressed. My second and third births also had a measure of glow, but not to the extent of that first one. The fourth birth was different. I remember feeling exhausted and somewhat in despair. I wanted to feel glowing and happy. I knew that I would love this new little person with all my heart. I was already doing everything to keep him safe and cared for, but it did not feel glowing on that day. We were too exhausted from Howard’s stressful work schedule, from four days of stop-and-go labor, from sleeping poorly in a hospital room, from knowing that birth is only the beginning of all the caretaking. I knew that tiny miracle represented weeks and months of insufficient sleep. It was hard to feel happy about that when I was feeling so worn out.

My mother came for all of my births. After my first birth she took care of me as I learned how to care for a newborn. For the rest, she took care of my older kids, plying them with stories and games while I did most of the infant care. Each time she stayed for about a week, which was just enough time for me to want to be in charge again. That fourth time she stayed for two and when she left I still wasn’t quite ready to manage it all.

In hindsight I’m pretty sure I had low level postpartum depression after that fourth birth. I didn’t recognize it because I’d not experienced it with the others. I remember holding my son and telling him he needed to hurry up and learn how to smile at me, because I needed some sort of a reward. He did smile a few weeks later and I emerged from fatigue and difficulty.

Ten years have passed and the pictures of my newborn son make me feel all mushy and happy, just as the pictures of my other three children do. The fact that I did not feel glowing and euphoric in the hours following his birth, or that I struggled for weeks afterward, does not matter. Sometimes love arrives in a rush, sometimes it seeps in unnoticed and fills the spaces. Either way, what matters is the constant nurturing and building of a relationship. My baby boy is now ten years old. The things I’ve done to build a relationship with him these past six months matters far more than whether I chose to bottle feed or if I had to take breaks from his fussing when he was two weeks old.

There are thousands of ways to do things wrong as a parent, but there are also thousands of second and third chances. I am grateful for this every day.

Adventures of the Postal Pigeon

By / October 6, 2013

About a week ago I opened my mailbox and burst into laughter. This is what I saw.

I think it was nice of the mailman to give her a pillow, don’t you?
I knew instantly who the pigeon was from. My friend Mary had tweeted a picture of her outgoing mail just a few days before. The pigeon was featured in the tweet along with a link to the Pigeon Post site. I even considered buying a pigeon kit because the whole idea seemed fun to me. Mary did not mention to whom she was sending the pigeon, hence my delighted surprise.

If you followed the link to the pigeon post page, you’ll note that postal pigeons have legs. This pigeon lost hers in transit.

But her message arrived intact. She sat on my counter for several days, and made me happy every time I looked at her. I was tempted to keep her, because of the happy, but the purpose of a postal pigeon is to carry messages, so I wrote a letter and refilled her pouch.

She went into the mail almost a week ago, so she has probably already arrived at someone else’s house. (First class mail arrives in two days.) I hope that friend is as happy to see her as I was.

The First Visit Home from College

By / October 5, 2013

We watched the calendar, all of us, for the day when Kiki would come home to visit. We watched the clock on the day she was coming so that everything would be prepared, sheets washed, room decorated. We watched the driveway at the time she was due to catch sight of her as soon as possible.

Then she was here. Then there were hugs. We laughed. We had an evening full of being together, watching a show, playing video games. She snuggled her kitty, laughed with her siblings. I looked on them from upstairs and once again I was counting to four instead of just three. It was wonderful. Life was normal and right.

Except, we had to figure out where to put her suitcase and how to set her up for sleeping. We had to move Gleek back up to the top bunk. We had to return to the careful dance of getting Gleek to go to sleep first to dodge the frequent bedtime grouchiness. We needed to remember how many pizzas to cook with an extra person in the house. Having Kiki here made us all see the ways that the patterns of our lives have shifted in a dozen subtle ways. We are so glad she’s here. All of us have drifted to be near her just because we can. Yet her being here is no longer part of the regular rounds of our lives.

This morning Kiki was tired. She doesn’t sleep well in unfamiliar beds, and the bed that used to be hers has become unfamiliar. The dorm is sort of home and our house is sort of home. Kiki has made the discovery that though there will always be a place for her in our house, it is not the same place that she used to have. She doesn’t get to go back, just forward.

Kiki and I sat this morning and talked about how best to make space for her when she comes home. This time we made space for her in the room that she and Gleek used to share. But Kiki and I looked and knew, she does not fit in that room anymore. Kiki is grown up and needs a grown up space. On her next visit we’ll put her on the fold-out bed in my office. Perhaps that will be better.

This evening I dropped Kiki at the home of one of her college friends. They have an event this evening. It is the reason they came up from college. This friend has her own room and it is still exactly as she left it. The comparison was striking. Kiki packed up all her things when leaving our house. This friend always has a familiar space to return to. Kiki is propelled toward her future, this friend has a measure of security that isn’t available to Kiki with the way that we have done things. I don’t know that one way is better than the other, just reflective of different families and requirements. Some day Kiki will own a space that she can make exactly as she would like.

We have one more day with Kiki here. Next weekend we’ll go and visit her. This will let the other kids see the school, see her dorm, meet the friends that Kiki has found. It will be a different view on this new stage of life that we have entered. All of us are figuring out how this needs to go.

Calm Autumn Day

By / October 3, 2013 / 2 Comments

It is the hour of homework and here I am in my kitchen ready to supervise, help, and enforce. Only my teenager took his homework downstairs and I actually believe he’ll get it done with out me hovering. My tween has no work to do because the local junior high prefers to keep as much work at school as possible. (This is the natural result of being a title one school. For at least half of the student population, work sent home never comes back.) My ten year old has homework, but he’s plowing his way through the list all by himself without drama or much need for my help. I don’t have much to do during this homework hour, which is a real dream compared to some of the ones I’ve seen before.

I look around and things are settled. We’ve finally got a routine and I’m able to relax for a bit. the temptation is to rest a lot, but now that I’ve caught my breath, I need to step up preparations for the next things. I want to get the house more organized before the holiday business hits me hard. October is barely a breath away from when we have to begin our holiday pushes. I don’t want to think about that. I want to breathe the cool outdoor air. I want to clean up the girl’s room before Kiki comes home this weekend. I want to have gardened even though I’m not currently looking forward to pulling weeds.

More than anything else I am relieved to discover that my resting state has become a calm happiness instead of a weary sadness. I spent six months with weary sadness and it was not my favorite.

Nearing Completion on the Jay Wake Book

By / October 2, 2013

I’m almost done with the layout for the Jay Wake Book. I’ve still got a few pieces to place and I’m still waiting on a few more pieces from others, but I can see completion from here. After this there is test printing and tweaking before it is released for the public. I have been awed and honored to be part of this project and when I release it, it will feel like the time I held one of my Aunt’s pigeons then let it fly. I never owned the bird, I was just privileged to hold it for awhile before it took to the sky.

At the End of the Picnic

By / October 1, 2013

We were at an evening picnic on a school night. It was a happy reunion with long time family friends whom we’ve not seen for quite awhile. The weather was lovely, the canyon scenery was stunning, food was consumed, and the kids had run around for hours. Howard and I began to gather our things when one of our friends said
“Leaving already?”
Most everyone else was still settled in for visiting.
“We’ve got to go. The kids have homework” I answered.
The friend waved a hand as if to wipe out the work to be done “Just let it go. they’re smart college-bound kids. It won’t hurt to let it slide for one day.”
I paused for a fraction of a second before answering, because I could see her point. Life should be arranged so that sometimes the work can bend around the fun. However I knew my kids and my family. We needed to get home. Also I had to process the implication that we were high-stress college-focused people. Yes my kids needed to focus on homework, but not because of years-off college. We needed to return to our regular routine because it was the best way to make sure the rest of the evening and the next day were good. Patch would quite happily ignore homework and play all night. But then he would turn into a quivering bundle of stress when he arrived at school with the work not done. All three kids needed to bathe. They also needed time to wind down lest bedtime be made out of arguments.

In that fraction-of-a-second pause I realized that I have high intensity kids who get wound up and anxious about things. My friend’s kids and grandkids are generally easy going. I also knew that if I sat down and explained all of this, she would understand because she is a smart and kind lady. She was just having fun with everyone gathered together and didn’t want it to be over quite yet. I agreed with her. The gathering was really fun, but my family needed to leave while fun was still being had, because the alternative was to leave because someone had a meltdown. I smiled and said “We really do need to get home, but we should do this again soon.”

Hugs were shared and we went home.

Kicking Into Gear for Strength of Wild Horses

By / September 30, 2013 / 4 Comments

Yesterday I got an email with all the storyboards for Strength of Wild Horses. (The sequel to my picture book Hold on to Your Horses.) Once again Angela has created vibrant images which capture the story. They’re only sketches with words pasted on the top, but they let me really see how the completed book will look. I fired back a happy email to say they were delightful. The response let me know that once I approve these sketches, we’re only about two weeks (or less) away from me having completed artwork in my hands. Eeep. I mean Yay, because I am so excited for this book to be real, but it moves me from calmly waiting for art to be done into the part where I have to step up and make the project happen. In the next weeks I have to assemble a full Kickstarter campaign. I’ll have to run it. And I’ll get to ride the emotional roller coaster of watching it fund or fail.

This morning I sat down and carefully looked through the sketches with a critical eye. I approved almost all of them. There are a couple of pages where the words and pictures are not quite working together the way that they need to be. So Angela will give me new sketches for those. In the meantime, I’m beginning to take steps to run and promote the Kickstarter. I dusted off the preliminary page I created last spring. I need to do a lot more with it. Since the thought of shooting a video felt too scary (and I really ought to wait until I have some final art for it anyway) I went over to MailChimp and set up a mailing list. Now anyone who wants updates and press releases from me can go sign up. I promise not to be spammy, though I’ll definitely be sending email about the Kickstarter when it goes live. At some point later this week I’ll figure out how to put a link to the sign up in one of my blog sidebars. Probably to the right, where I list my twitter handles and social media groups. There is also the Hold on to Your Horses Facebook page, which will host many announcements for the coming Kickstarter and also currently has a sneak preview sketch.

It is always tricky to balance a promotional push without being annoying. I can feel like I’m shouting out to everyone, I can be a nuisance to some people, and there will still be people who come to me weeks later and say “How come I didn’t know about this?” I shall endeavor to do as much as I can to make sure that my social media announcements are in themselves somewhat interesting rather than just announcements and begging.

The most important thing for me to remember as I begin the scary process of putting my project out there for others to support (or not) is how much I love and believe in this book. Creating Strength of Wild Horses is not about making money or even about furthering my writing career. It is about getting to be part of something amazing. I get to provide a forum for others to appreciate Angela’s amazing art. I get to put another story into the hands of families and children who fell in love with Amy through Hold on to Your Horses. And perhaps most of all, I get to see Amy come alive again with a brand new adventure where she learns what wild idea horses are good for.

Angela feels a little reluctant to release sketches because she wants her art complete before it goes out in the world, but I have permission to show a few. This is only a concept sketch, but it makes me very happy because I see Amy again and I realize how much I missed her.

Saturday

By / September 28, 2013 / 2 Comments

Kiki was having trouble with her computer and I was helping her sort it out using a mixture of phone, video, and text communication. Howard knew she was having trouble and said he was ready to jump in his car and go help her. The moment Kiki heard that, she made the biggest puppy-dog hopeful eyes I’ve ever seen. So, even though we resolved the computer trouble, Howard drove three hours to go see her anyway. They’ll visit, go out for dinner, and then he’ll drive back. Ratio of driving to visiting 2:1. Sometimes it is important not to do the sensible thing.

This morning I drove Link to go meet people at the local Pokemon league, because Link wants friends who care about Pokemon games as much as he does. As first visits go, I think it was a success, though I’m not sure Link sees it that way. It is hard for him that everyone else seems to have better decks or better trained Pokemon than he does. I think he’ll give things another try though.

Gleek has discovered distopian YA. She was enthralled with Scott Westerfield’s series Uglies, Pretties, and Specials. Next I’m going to hand her books by the Wells brothers: Variant, Feedback, Partials, and Fragments. She’s also discovered blue eyeshadow. Since she is also a queen of finding weird internet tutorials (she’s found everything from How to See Auras to How to Make Mermaid Tails), I’ll perhaps mention that eyeshadow tutorials exist.

My day vanished somehow, swallowed by helping kids with chores, helping kids with homework, driving kids places, picking up library books for kids, helping kids with computers, feeding kids, and then attending a church meeting. If only I’d managed to rake the cut grass off of the front lawn, I would be satisfied with my day. It was what it needed to be.

How Kiki is Doing at College, and How We’re Handling Her Being Gone

By / September 25, 2013

“You don’t write about me as much anymore” Lamented Kiki via twitter on an evening when she was feeling a bit homesick and had read through my blog entries. She’s right, I haven’t been writing about Kiki’s college adjustments or our adjustments here at home. I’m still trying to find my balance with this parenting an adult thing. I’m once again having to ask myself which stories are mine to tell and which just belong to Kiki.

The other truth is that we’ve reached a point where having her gone feels normal. Humans are highly adaptable and one month into having her gone, my mother radar has learned not to try to look for her in the house. Instead it expects to keep tabs on her via twitter, email, and Skype. Things that feel normal don’t generally make for interesting blog entries. Except in the midst of the “normal” there are little evidences that life is different from all the years that went before. Gleek has taken to sleeping in the bed that used to be Kiki’s. Part of that is convenience, it is the lower bunk. Some of it may have to do with the softer mattress. I think most of it is because it lets Gleek feel closer to Kiki. This morning Patch asked me to show him how to send an email, because he forgot how and wants to send one to Kiki. He wants to hear back from her. A major theme in Link’s emotional dramas over homework was how much he misses Kiki. Adapting to being the oldest kid in the house is not easy for him. All of us pay attention to the calendar, noticing how long until she’ll come home for a visit. So when I say we’ve adapted and life feels normal, part of what feels normal is missing Kiki. Every day, in a dozen small ways.

Any time Kiki calls us via Skype, everyone flocks to the room the minute they hear her voice. They don’t always know what to say, so they sit there smiling at Kiki, just wanting to be close by. Mostly the younger kids end up listening to Kiki’s college adventures for awhile before they wander off. Howard will sometimes take my laptop and talk to her for awhile. Not having her here in the house means that we all have to learn new ways of relating and connecting. The kids need to learn to save up and remember the things they want to tell her, so that they have something to say when there is a chance.

Every week at church someone will ask me how Kiki is doing. It is always a different person, though we’re starting to see repeats. They honestly wish her well and are glad to hear that college is going well. Because it is. Kiki has down days. She has homesick days. But, as far as I know, most of her days are good. She’s got paying work as an illustrator. She has classes that interest her. She has friends who let her hang out in their room almost 24/7. There are frustrations and stresses, but they are outweighed by the good things. I know a dozen stories to tell about financial learning experiences, dragon marathons, costume plans, and stray cats, but I’m not sure which stories she wouldn’t mind having told and which would make her feel exposed. And then there is the fact that it has only been the past week when my bloggy story-telling brain has switched back on. For weeks on end I was skipping blogging or only reporting the days events. It feels very different internally when my brain takes the days events and crafts it into an interesting story. With that part of me reviving, perhaps I’ll tell more of Kiki’s stories.

So there you go Kiki. Just because you’re not taking up space in the house (nor much on the blog lately, which has been quite Link-centric for the last bit) doesn’t mean you’re forgotten. Far from it.