Following Austen

Croissants and a concert

There were some lovely moments on the trip, in the midst of the Lyme disease stupor.

I ate chocolate croissants every morning for breakfast and still lost five pounds.  I'm convinced it doesn't work that way in the US, only in France.

I remembered that I love espresso.  And I heard one waiter call it expresso, which is how my mom says it, which made me laugh.

I discovered that Air France has absolutely the best food in the airline business.  It actually smelled so good it made you want to eat, even if you weren't hungry.  And, the wine is free.

I drank my coffee every morning at the table in our courtyard, with the just-opening jasmine covering one wall and pots of lavendar and begonias.

I remembered the importance of good wine, which doesn't have to be expensive wine.  In the Languedoc region, you can get stuff for 2 or 3 Euros at the grocery store and it's fabulous.  (At least, to non-conissuers like me.)  And thank goodness for Trader Joe's which serves the same purpose here.

We went to a Mediterranean beach one day -- Vieux de Cap, in Agde, a black sand beach protected by cliffs.  It was lovely -- hot, perfect.  Except for the really old guy wearing a g-string who chose to do much dressing and undressing (accompanied by much bending over) just in front of us.

The second day in Paris, I got to go to a concert in Saint Germain des Pres, a chamber orchestra playing Mozart.  The church was dark and heavy, and only about 1/3rd full.  The music was so comforting and full of life, against that dusty backdrop.

On our last night in Paris, Melissa's dad sprang for dinner for all of us.  He wasn't on the trip, but he made reservations for us at a restaurant called Laserre with instructions to enjoy ourselves.   It was the nicest restaurant I've ever been in.  When we arrived at 7 we were the only people there, and there were about 15 (or more?) waiters hovering, their only objective to ensure that all of our needs were met.  The room was full of orchids.  The ceiling was open.  They brought out tiny bites of things while we ordered, so I tried foie gras and sushi and something else that was very good but we had no idea what it was.  The salad had Delphinium flowers on it.  All the flavors were intense and everything was so carefully done.  When we had finished everything, they brought out more tiny bites of dessert (little chocolates and caramels and creme de menthe with chocolate on a stick and single raspberries perched on tiny sponge cakes -- everything made from scratch by their chefs).  Amazing.  I felt completely pampered.

It definitely more than made up for the ugly Frenchman we encountered the day before.  We were attempting to see a bit of Provence, and misread the map and ended up in what could only be called bad France -- a gypsy beach town in the middle of nowhere.  We walked out to the beach and a guy said, "Be careful, the water's cold," and then threw a bucket of water on all of us, from behind.  Sheesh.  I think the ugly French people and the ugly Americans should all get together, and spew their hate on each other.  Then they would all be satisfied because their very low expectations of the other culture would be more than met.  And they could leave us out of it.

Sweet, sweet home (and shitty France)

I was so incredibly glad to be home on Sunday.  Two weeks away makes everything look different, and my house (which needs an inordinate number of repairs) seemed so sweet -- perfect, almost.  I decided that I love the red couch in the odd-shaped living room, the dining room table which actually only serves to hold piles of mail and newspapers, the love seat in the sunroom which I haven't touched since our visiting mouse decided it was one of his favorite perches.  I am still not fond of the tub in my master bathroom, with its talent for growing orange mold, which excessive doses of Clorox seem unable to stop.  But in that moment, even the moldy tub only bothered me a little.  And I loved my life.

France, on the other hand, was rather a disaster.  Lyme disease and international travel don't mix.  I'm not sure why this year is so much worse than last.  I could handle England last summer, which was a much more demanding trip.  But in the last several months, I've not even been able to complete a ballet class (on the rare occasion I've been able to go I've not been able to do more than barre) and a very good day is one in which I'm able to work 4-6 hours.  If I can manage the grocery store as well, that's something to celebrate.  I'm not sure why I thought I could handle an international trip.  I had faith that things would be better, I guess.

I wandered around Paris in a semi-catatonic state, the kind of deep exhaustion that is too much to actually enjoy anything.  When we made it to our Mediterranean villa, I had a series of lost days and couldn't leave the house.  It was a lovely place to be stuck, but infuriating all the same.

One of the hardest things about this disease is that my friends, no matter how much they love me -- and I know they do, and they try to understand -- can't understand what I'm experiencing because they've never been through it themselves.  I hope they never do.  But at times I also feel very alone.

So I flew home thinking, Fuck Lyme disease.  I've had it.

(Okay, my mom is going to read this.  And I know there are other gentle readers out there.  But I can't find any other word to capture the depth of my frustration.  So pardon my French -- or as my friend Bev said when we were in Paris, pardon my English.)

The problem is that willpower alone is not enough to beat this.  If it were, I would have won long ago, I'm convinced.  I'm incredibly strong (and strong-willed.)  Crazy-emotional, but strong.

The doctor told me yesterday that it's normal that I'm not feeling much better yet, that six weeks on antibiotics is too soon to start seeing significant improvements.  He said it's a good sign that in some ways my symptoms have gotten a little worse on the antibiotics -- a sign that the antibiotics are attacking the disease in its cyst form, and breaking it up, so that in the short term my body is actually having to deal with more of the active virus rather than less.  He added two more pills to the mix -- another antibiotic and another supplement.  My stash of pill bottles above the sink looks like it belongs to a 90-year-old.

It's going to be a longer haul than I was hoping for.  I still beg God for healing on the days when I have enough faith for that.   Perhaps he's only going to work through the slow medical process.  That's more hope than I had several months ago, but today it feels long and painful and uncertain.

I don't want more vacation.  What I really want is some quiet space, and the energy to do very good work.

And, when I'm better, to go back to England.

Au revoir...

I'm headed out of the country tonight, for France, traveling with some of my best girlfriends.  We'll be in Paris for a few days, then headed down to a cottage in a medieval hamlet on the Mediterranean coast.

I'm a little stressed about leaving.  To be honest, I feel like I should be putting all of my limited energy into work, not gallavanting around Europe.  (We Smiths don't actually do vacation all that well...)  But the trip was planned long ago, and, really, a vacation is in order.  I'm praying for rest and healing.

So, look for me back here in about two weeks.  Until then, I'll be sitting in cafes, visiting Michelangelo's work in the Louvre, hanging out in the courtyard of our little cottage, drinking vin rouge, and reading terribly meaningful chick lit on the beach.

Au revoir!

45: Divergences (or, the birth of a perfectionist)

There are several places where Austen and I diverge.  She didn’t keep a journal—at least, none that survive.  From the time I began writing it was about capturing my own thoughts and feelings.

The summer I was nine, we packed everything up and drove for six hours through central Texas, hundreds of miles of barren dirt punctuated by the occasional Dairy Queen.  Everything changed in Wichita Falls.  I went to a public school where nothing spoke of home—everything had a tinge of mediocrity to me, and I felt lost.  The teaching was perfunctory and cold, far behind the schools I’d been in.  The girls were so different.  They were reading Judy Blume books and anxiously waiting for their periods to start.  I was reading Little House on the Prairie and The Black Stallion, still playing make-believe.  I don’t remember having any friends there; I was the awkward one without anyone to talk to.

Ballet was lost, just when I could have gone on pointe—we couldn’t find a studio.  I’m not sure I even told my mom how much I wanted to keep dancing.  Instead, the whole family took up tennis; my brother and I had hours of practice every day after school and all summer in the hot sun.  Our house on Lou Lane, walking distance from the university, flooded that first spring.  Three feet of water floated away baby pictures and ruined shoes.  I remember feeling poor, wearing hand-me-down clothes that someone from church brought over, and realizing that now I knew what it felt like—for a brief time, at least—to be in need.

I started making straight A’s.  I became a perfectionist.  And I started to write.

I can remember sitting on the formal couch in the living room, looking out the tall windows at a rare north Texas snow, writing bad elementary-school poems about God.  The journal—brown, with pink and white flowers—has disappeared, but I’m sure I’ll be horrified when I find it.  And then there are notebooks of self-indulgent, poorly written journals going back to high school.  I can’t throw them away, but I can’t bear to read them, either.

As far as we know, there was none of this for Jane, no self-indulgent scribbling, no journaling about her feelings or about trying to find her place in the world.  Her “quiet life” had its share of upheaval.  Her first experience at the boarding school in Oxford must have been somewhat traumatic.  A few years later, when she and Cassandra were at a different school with their cousin Jane Cooper, a fever broke out.  Mrs. Austen and her sister rushed in to get the girls, but their aunt Cooper caught the fever and died shortly after.  The household was constantly changing as Jane’s brothers were sent off to school—James and Henry to Oxford, Frank and Charles at a younger age to naval school—and returned home.  At twenty, of course, she met Tom Lefroy, and immediately lost him again.  Cousin Jane Cooper went on to marry extraordinarily well, only to die in a coach accident several years later, when Jane was twenty-three.  At twenty-five she lost the dear family home at Steventon when her parents abruptly announced her father’s retirement and the family move to Bath.  At twenty-nine, her dear friend Anne Lefroy died in a riding accident on Jane’s birthday, and then Jane’s own beloved father died, sending the small family unit of mother and two daughters spiraling into something close to poverty.  But there’s no record of any of these in Jane’s own hand, other than in the letters that remain.

Another point where we diverge is the source of our writing.  I believe Jane wrote because she was a great conversationalist, full of wit in a day when wit was prized, a sharp observer of society.  While I write in many ways from weakness rather than strength--I write because I am a poor conversationalist, because there are so many things I can’t sort out in conversation and have to put in print to get right.

Jane wrote for fun, while I write in some ways from need.  Perhaps she felt the need to write as well.  Perhaps there were days when it was a burden.  But when she made 200 pounds on Sense and Sensibility, she spoke of the great return for “that which had cost her nothing.”

Make me a kept woman

Many people believe the freelance life consists of whiling away the hours at cafes, contemplating the nature of life and succeeding in incredibly meaningful artistic endeavors.  There is some of that, I'll grant you (though the artistic endeavors are usually fraught with anxiety, as well).  And today I'm sitting at home in jeans and flip-flops, drinking a big cup of coffee.  My hair is still wet.  It's 11:45.  But, allow me to disabuse you of some of your notions about the freelance life.

I'm working on an article today, for example.  I can't tell you who it's for, other than to say that it's a fairly well-known Christian publication--and because it's in the Christian market it doesn't pay much.  I first sent in the query in mid-September, roughly 8 months ago.  The editor knew me a little and liked my writing, and they wanted the article.  (Yay!)  So, I followed their suggestions for the piece and within a month had it turned in.  I rather liked it.  I was waiting for their edits, but--mostly--waiting for my check.

When I hadn't heard from them in six weeks, I followed up.  After two months, they gave me some additional direction and asked me to rework a few things.  No problem.  A few weeks later I had it back to them with their changes.  Again, waiting.  (Check, please!)

Two more months and no word, so I followed up yet again.  A few more edits.  Now it was my turn to slow up the process, between working on the book proposal and not feeling well.  So I will turn it in finally (and hopefully for good) tomorrow.  Luckily, they pay on acceptance rather than publication, but it could still take 2-3 months to get my check, depending on how long their final approval process takes.  All told, almost a year.  And all of that for $0.25/word.

Do you still want my life?

Every freelancer has numerous stories like that.  I could tell you about the piece I pitched for 9 months that finally got accepted by a magazine I very much wanted to write for.  And then how they cut this precious little article in half (and they only pay you for what actually gets printed).  Or about the piece I did for an editor who is also a friend who rejected it out of hand without giving me a chance to make any edits at all--after telling me he wanted it, after I was counting on that $300.  Or the huge 5000-word piece I did on spec for a major magazine that didn't make the cut.  (And how I realized later that piece actually was crap.  Ugh.)

I have some regular gigs, and of course every article isn't torturous.  I love my life, actually.  I just wouldn't wish it on anyone.

At the Calvin Festival on Faith and Writing, there was one panel that was especially encouraging and discouraging at the same time.  It was on freelancing, moderated by Jana Riess of Publishers Weekly and including Lauren Winner, Andy Crouch and Cindy Crosby.  I went, really, to commiserate--to hear them say how hard this is.  And they did.  And then they talked about the wonders of being a kept man or woman, of being married to someone who has health insurance and a salary.

So this is my dilemma.  If even Lauren Winner is having trouble making ends meet, chances are it's not going to get significantly better for me anytime soon.  (Although, if I get a book contract, I should be solvent for several months, at least.) But there is a way out.

Guys, my COBRA runs out mid-August.  I am entertaining rich men--I mean, suitors.  (And I mean 'entertaining' in the good old-fashioned way.  Minds out of the gutter, please.)  But seriously, guys without health insurance need not apply.