Sandra Tayler

Starfish Story

By / January 18, 2016 / 3 Comments

I’ve been thinking about starfish. The thoughts started when I read this article
about how to keep writing when no one cares. Halfway through reading the article, after a litany of evidence that people don’t care (for which I had all too much sympathy), before she got to the part where she explains why she writes anyway, I began to think of that story about starfish.

You know the one. A quick google search brings up a hundred versions. The beach covered in starfish and a single person throwing them back into the ocean one by one. When someone asks why the person bothers, what difference does it make? The person throws one more starfish and says “I made a difference to that one.”

I wish I knew who first wrote that starfish story. I wonder if that writer was in a place of pain, trying to convince herself to keep going when the effort seemed futile. It seems likely to me that she was. Only a person who has struggled with futility could understand why helping even one matters. I’ve heard this story since I was very young. It has been around forever, attributed to everyone and no one. It is likely that the original writer is long gone. Did she have any idea how far her words would go, carried on the currents of an internet she probably never imagined? Perhaps this starfish story also seemed like a futile cry into the void.

That gives me hope. It is not only when I’m alive and chucking starfish that my actions or words can make a difference. The good things I put out into the world can spread out far beyond my reach. They can last longer than my life. They can change and transform so that no one will every be able to trace them back to me. I may never get full credit for them, but credit is not the point. It never was, even though our egos want it to be. We don’t expect the starfish to come back and say thank you. It is the throwing that matters, the attempt to use action to help another.

Time for me to get to work putting good things out into the world. That is how the world becomes better.

Report on Projects in Process

By / January 14, 2016 / 1 Comment

I have been very project focused in the past few days. At least I have been when I was able to focus. Unfortunately I spent some of this week dealing with brain zaps, which are a known side effect of discontinuing some SSRI medications. Some people never get them, others do even when they taper off the medicines slowly, as I did. This experience has me convinced I should never ever end one of these medicines abruptly. You’d think that having a new anti-depressant would reduce the effects of stopping the old one, but apparently not. Fortunately they seem to be subsiding, which is good because I have lots of work to do.

The Planet Mercenary project is the biggest thing on my desk. There is a massive amount of work that needs to be done to get it ready for print in March. On the other hand, some of the work is being really fun. Yesterday I was finishing up the latest iteration of the playing cards and they were making me snicker out loud. I love that they have little stories and that I can picture how they will work to make a game more enjoyable.

Force Multiplication is the next Schlock book, and it too needs to head off to print as fast as we can get it there. Fans have been waiting for it. Also I wrote the bonus story and I’m excited for it to see print.

I have the usual January accounting load. I’ve done most of it, but I still need to create 1099s for all of the contractors that we use through the year. This time the count has more than doubled because of all the art we’ve purchased for the Planet Mercenary book. There is quite a bit of set up work associated with this.

The 70 Maxims book also needs to go to print in March. This one will move more quickly than the Planet Mercenary book. It has a lot fewer words, no index, and very few images to manage.

I think the parenting project has (finally, after 3 years) hit a lull where I’m not having to do diagnosis or crisis management for any of my kids. I’m a little reluctant to say this because there is a superstitious piece of my brain that thinks saying it out loud will jinx it.

One of my current projects is teaching Link to be a good work assistant. We’ve put him on the corporate payroll and are paying him a bit over minimum wage for the hours he works. This means teaching him how to be willing to work on my schedule instead of his. He’ll also be learning about tax withholding and basic money management. I think he has the potential to be an excellent assistant. This will become critically important when we hit May, June, and July when we’ll be shipping out all the projects that we’ve been spending the last six months (and the next three months) creating. Fortunately Kiki will also be home to help, so I’ll have two trained assistants.

Organizing the house is a constant project. There is always something to sort or to clean.

As I’ve been feeling better, writing is coming back to me. The process is slow because so much of my available creative energy is being poured into Planet Mercenary. I’m actually doing a significant amount of writing for that project. I’ll be getting writer credit as well as editorial credit. I’ve been blogging more, which makes me happy. It is a measure of my escape from depression and anxiety. My novel in progress is still waiting in the wings for me to have time to open it up again. I know it is there, but haven’t yet decided to put my effort into it.

I’ve been reading more, which is another measure of the escape from depression. I pick reading over binge watching Netflix. Right now I’m trying to (finally) finish reading the last three books of The Wheel of Time series. Then I’ve got Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, Sister Mine, by Nalo Hopkinson, and half a dozen other books in my stack of things to read. I want to fill my head with stories and ideas.

I know I have other projects sitting around and waiting, but at this moment I can’t think of them. Which is fine, because I really need to do all of the above first.

Success and Failure

By / January 12, 2016

Sometimes success looks like a failure to those who misunderstand the journey you’re on.

I’ve thought about this frequently as I watch Link take the reins of his own life and forge an educational path which diverges from the majority of his peers. I thought about it when I helped Kiki cancel a freelance contract. I’ve thought about it each time I have to advocate for Gleek and explain that drawing in class represents a triumph over the the other coping strategies that we’ve managed to extinguish. I thought about it when I gave Patch a high five when he managed to pull a D out of a failing grade. Each of these things was a personal triumph though they might look like failure from the outside.

I need to remember this when I look at my own projects and get ready to feel like a failure. Success can be redefined en route and it may look nothing like what I pictured when the project began.

Correlation is Not Causation

By / January 11, 2016 / 2 Comments

I ran across yet another article that confuses correlation with causation. This time it is KSL saying Why You Should Rethink Your Netflix Binge There was a study done that noticed a strong correlation between people who watched a lot of television and those who had less cognitive function later in life. The trouble is the study has no way to show that the television watching caused the lower cognitive function. It could just as easily be true that people who have lower cognitive function are more likely to watch lots of television. I know that for me one of the biggest signs of depression is that I binge watch Netflix. When the depression backs off, I’m just not interested in watching that much. I’d rather be doing other things. For me it is definitely the depression that causes the binge watching not the other way around. One anecdotal example is not proof of anything, yet it may lead to a line of inquiry. What if we treated habitual binge watching television as a symptom? What if when we saw it in a person’s life and sought out where else they might need help or healing? Symptoms vanish without any work if the core condition is healed.

Riding the Currents in My Brain

By / January 11, 2016 / 1 Comment

It was a great week, full of productivity and success, so I didn’t know why I woke up discouraged on Sunday morning, but I did. The feelings of discouragement were followed by significant grouchiness. I don’t think the grouchiness spilled outside my head much. I was pretty good at containing it, but it colored my whole day.

This morning the discouragement has ebbed because I’ve figured out what was causing it, and the grouchiness, and the dizziness which has been a plague since the middle of last week. These are all symptoms of discontinuing the medicine sertraline. I had been blaming the new medicine buprorion, and that may also be having an effect, but discontinuation is the more likely issue, even though I followed doctor’s instructions about tapering off.

This means my best course of action is to proceed as if everything is normal. I take my doctor prescribed meds on the schedule I’ve been given, and wait for my body to adapt to the new balance. Having to wait makes me feel a bit grouchy. I can’t tell if the grouchy is mine or just the result of out-of-balance brain chemicals. That makes me angry. It forces me to face the fact that so much of what I think of as me and my emotions are influenced by chemicals that I don’t really have control over. Thinking about all of that leads to more angry. In fact I’m angry with all mental illness, anxiety, depression, OCD for existing and making my life more complicated.

On the other hand, I had a great week last week, which seems to indicate that the medicine switch is likely to be beneficial in the long run. I just need to hang on until I stop feeling mad about it. So my job for today is to look at the dizziness and angry that are residing in my head and to tell them “I’ll attend to you later if you haven’t gone away. For right now, I have other things I need to do.”

Foreigner

By / January 8, 2016 / 1 Comment

I was at the grocery store and the Asian couple in front of me spoke to the cashier in broken English. I watched as the gray haired lady said “I pay you with coin?” holding out a pile of coins in her hand. There was something about the way that she held out the money that made me realize that she didn’t fully comprehend American money. She was just handing over a pile and trusting the cashier to give her the correct change. She turned to me and nod smiled, an apology because she and her coins were taking a long time. I smiled back to let her know that I did not mind.

I’ve only visited foreign countries where the primary language is English, but even there I have felt baffled by local customs and currency. As the woman walked away with her husband I realized how brave they both are. I don’t know where they came from, nor what decisions caused them to leave their native home and come here. I do know that everywhere they go, they are different. Every conversation they have is a struggle to be understood. Often they must be met with anger, frustration, and offense from people who are impatient with broken English. Every time they are out in public, they are vulnerable, easily picked on, easily taken advantage of. Yet the woman smiled. She was friendly, even in her slight confusions over words and coins.

Courage comes in many forms. I saw bravery today and I should pause to recognize it.

Thinking About Health, Weight, and Society’s Obsessions

By / January 6, 2016 / 3 Comments

Of late I’ve been paying quite a bit of attention to American society’s relationship to body weight, especially on women. I’ve read articles on body positivity. I’ve seen Whitney Way Thore’s “Fat Girl Dancing” videos, she’s amazing. I’ve seen “Fat Girl Yoga” with another woman who can do things that I’m not currently capable of doing despite my smaller size. I’ve also read some articles that express concerns about the effect that body positivity will have on national health. I skipped all the articles that wanted to teach me one cool trick to lose weight.

I’ll admit that some of my interest has been due to the fact that the last time I weighed as much as I do right now, I was nine months pregnant. Back then my body was carrying around a tiny human being and lots of extra water. Now all that weight is stored in fat cells. I’m still not obese. In fact many people would look at me and say I look fine. Yet I have more fat on my body than I have ever had before in my life. I look at myself in the mirror and work to think body positive thoughts, which is good. Bodies change as they age. I can’t expect my body at 42 to be shaped the same as it was at 22, or even 32. Things soften, years write their stories on my skin in scars, freckles, and wrinkles. I don’t mind the wrinkles, but the rapidity of the weight gain is of concern. It indicates that something is out of balance in my body and it is time for me to find a new balance.

This morning I came across yet another article talking about weight loss and gain. The writer had finally recognized the weight loss industry as a racket where companies who sell weight loss programs actually profit when their clients fail. People come back again and again. I read it and thought “Why is gaining weight a failure?” Weight fluctuations are the natural response to changes in lifestyle. If a person wants to be a particular weight, then they need to be willing to live the life that induces their body to be that weight. Of course all of that leaves out medical and genetic factors which play a huge role in how our bodies gain or lose weight. Some people can attain a weight that makes them happy with work. Others are not able to do so no matter how much willpower they apply to the problem. This is not fair. Life is not fair.

I am very aware that as a person who has spent most of her life in the socially acceptable weight range, I do not understand all of the nuances that factor in to how people feel about their bodies. Part of me feels like this might be an area where I should listen more than I speak. Yet this conversation belongs to everyone. We all have to come to terms with the bodies we have. I don’t think that naturally thin people have it all easy either. This topic is so complex and so emotionally charged that part of me wanted to file my thoughts away in my folder of things I don’t post to the internet.

It is a tricky balance between accepting my body as it is, and striving for better health, which requires making changes that will affect my body shape. In order to reconcile these, I’m approaching it all as an experiment. What happens if I eat mostly vegetarian for a month? What happens if I count calories and teach myself more about the caloric content of foods? Where does my weight stabilize? Do I feel different when I eat differently? How does exercise affect my mood? Do I notice a difference in my depression and anxiety? Is what I’m doing sustainable over a long period of time?

The goal is to find a combination that includes happy, healthy, and sustainable. Note that while being thinner is the likely result of my experiments, it is not my primary goal. I do feel cliché making changes to my eating and exercise at the beginning of January. Yet it feels like the right time for me to do this. My head is clearer than it has been for a long time. It is time to experiment.

Today is a Good Place

By / January 5, 2016

I’m on the second school morning of the new year…and it is going really smoothly. Usually we hit the second day and it is hard because we’re tired and feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the things we’d forgotten we ought to be doing over the holidays. Except that yesterday Link was like a different person than the one I’ve been dealing with. He was up and focused, ready to work. He put in several hours as my assistant and also reviewed the school work he needs to be doing. It seems that finding a dream makes a huge difference in what he is capable of doing in a day. I’ve seen this forward-momentum version of Link before, but not for at least two years. Two long, depressed, emotionally difficult years. I’m not yet certain that the forward momentum will last past the first goal, but maybe it will. For now, I’ll be grateful for every day we get to have it.

Last night I had a conversation with Patch about his (giant) pile of missing and overdue assignments. The term ends on Friday and he has to hustle this week in order to pass a couple of his classes. For the first time in a long time, Patch was able to talk with me calmly about what needs to be done. For the past year or more, any discussion of incomplete work triggered anxiety and sometimes a full panic attack. He was able to acknowledge that while he doesn’t want to have to do the assignments, he really does want them to be complete. We made a plan for working on things. The plan included a reward and consequence structure that Patch thought through himself. He’s learning how to motivate himself in good ways. We also discussed the possible failure points of our plan, one or both of us may forget to follow through. We’ll see how it goes this afternoon. He was pretty tired this morning.

Gleek has continued her habits of getting herself ready for school and out the door. She’s always prepared for class and gets grades that make all the adults around her pleased. Over the last week or two it became clear that the same thing that makes it so I don’t have to manage her academic life, also causes difficulties in other areas. So Gleek will be getting more attention in the coming weeks. I’m fine with that. I like spending time with Gleek, she makes me laugh.

Kiki is off at college, doing college things. Her classes start on Wednesday. Howard has thus far experienced the regular ups and downs of daily creative work. Though having the quiet hours when the kids are out of the house makes it easier for us to settle in to working. All in all, it has been a really good start to the new year. I’m feeling happy and hopeful, which is a nice change. I’m not going to try to project trends or make predictions about what is coming for us this year. Instead I’m just going to recognize that yesterday was a really good day for me, and I’m going to try to make today be good as well.

Disorders in Hiding

By / January 26, 2016 / 6 Comments

Sometimes autism doesn’t flap arms or drone on forever on the infinitesimal details of one particular topic. Sometimes Autism can look like a friendly kid who calls his friends over and is the instigator of group play. Autism can be wearing the exact same outfit every single day because your clothes are part of who you are and you don’t feel like yourself in different clothes. Often this means duplicates of clothes. Autism can be standing in a group full of people who are all talking and laughing, wanting to be part of it, but they only talk about things you don’t care about. Autism can be refusing to go into the lunch room because it is too loud and ending up sitting in a hallway off by yourself feeling lonely. Autism can be feeling certain that you made an agreement with another person only to discover that they understood what you said completely differently from how you meant it. Autism can be being unable to do an assignment because you can’t wrap your head around how to begin. Then everyone gets angry with you because it looks simple to them. Autism can look like stubbornness and laziness.

OCD does not always flip light switches, count posts, or line things up in rows. Sometimes OCD is becoming actively uncomfortable and antsy if someone else is sitting in the spot where you expected to sit. This discomfort may cause you to lash out in anger. Then you have to face the consequences of your angry outburst. OCD can be carrying all of your books and school papers in your arms because that is the only way you can constantly be sure you have everything. OCD can be not throwing away any school papers and carrying them all in the ever-growing stack because it would be terrible to not be prepared should the teacher ask students to pull out an old assignment from three months ago. OCD can be wrapping every thought with a cloud of tangential and descriptive information which obscures the thing you want to tell other people. Only you can’t skip any of the information because it is all connected. And if anyone tries to interrupt the thing you’re saying, you get angry, because you weren’t finished, and the thing you were saying is important and must be completed. OCD can be correcting the pronunciations of the people around you because if a word is said wrong, your brain can not let go of that word until it is spoken correctly. One of these things is a quirk. All of these things together is a disorder that affects pretty much every hour of every day and every relationship in your life. OCD can look like disobedient defiance, rudeness, and disrespect.

Anxiety does not always worry about things. Sometimes anxiety is a heart that races and palpitates even though there is nothing going on and the person feels calm. Anxiety can be feeling antsy and agitated, like post-adrenaline shakes, even though nothing happened. Anxiety can be imagining a dozen possible futures and making plans to be prepared for all of them. Anxiety can be hyper-organization that other people praise, and which is actually useful, except that it never allows rest, vacation, or breaks. Preparation that never switches off. Anxiety can be needing to leave an event because there are too many people moving around and talking, making you unable to track everything. And you have to track everything, because if something goes wrong, you must be ready for it. Anxiety can be skipping work opportunities because they require face-to-face interaction. Anxiety can be checking up on other people’s work until they get annoyed with you, but you can’t not check because you have to be prepared if they didn’t do their job. Anxiety can look like a nagging and controlling personality.

ADHD is not always easily distracted. ADHD can be so focused on a project that suddenly you realize that people are standing over you angry because they’ve been trying to get your attention. ADHD can be the sound of pencils scratching on paper overpowering the thoughts in your head. ADHD can be deciding that today you will REALLY pay attention and make sure you get all your assignments, only to realize that you missed hearing an assignment because you were busy planning how not to miss assignments. ADHD is being lost in the thoughts in your head. ADHD can mean always feeling lost or out of step because everyone else knows what is going on, but you haven’t any idea what the instructions were. ADHD can be a jittery leg, all your pencils chewed to bits, and fingers that twist and play with whatever they touch, all without you intending to do any of it. ADHD can be lost items and missed appointments because at the important moment your thoughts were on something else. ADHD can look like chronic disorganization, negligence, and a person who doesn’t care enough to get things done.

Depression does not always stay at home lying in bed feeling in a pit of despair. It is not always dramatic or suicidal. Depression can be doing all the tasks that are required of you, but enjoying none of them. Depression can be feeling like things will never be better than they are now. Depression can be binge watching television shows on Netflix, because then you don’t have to listen to your own thoughts. Depression can be playing endless games of solitaire to fill the spaces between required activities. Depression can be deciding to stay home rather than go out with friends because being social sounds too exhausting. Depression can be having friends drift away because you’re not the person you used to be and you don’t have emotional energy to maintain the friendships. Depression can be crying at seemingly random times over things which wouldn’t normally cause tears, like a happy song playing, or the store being out of the cereal you like. Depression can be a messy house because you only have so much energy to do things and laundry didn’t make the list this week. Depression can be not bothering to brush your hair or change clothes because it is too much work. Depression can look like a person who is standoffish, slovenly, and unfriendly.

So if you have to deal with a person and they are awkward, rude, nagging, standoffish,or negligent, pause a moment before you condemn them. It may be that they do have the character flaw you perceive in them. Or it may be that the person is fighting a daily battle you can’t see, and they need your compassion instead of your anger.

Happy New Year

By / January 1, 2016

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I put up the new wall calendar today. The calendar used to be the scheduling hub of the entire household. On it were all the appointments and events. If something needed to be remembered, it went on the calendar. These days most of the appointments never even get written on the wall calendar. They’re hidden away in my electronic calendar where they are far more useful to me. Yet the wall calendar is still useful. I come and look at it any time I need an over all view of the next weeks, months, or year. The kids reference it all the time when they need to count days or find out when the next school holiday is. So I spent an hour putting down the big events and birthdays for the year. Then I pinned it to the wall, moving it over slightly because the old spot had so many pin holes it was hard to get the pin to stick. Some day we’ll use piles of spackle to repair all those holes, but not today.

For now I’ll listen to the booming of the neighbor’s fireworks and glance at them out of my front room window, past the glow of the Christmas lights on our tree out front. The holiday season will soon be over, I should enjoy this last bit of it.
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