Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

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Random Five Friday

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Thanks to my friend Tina Fariss Barbour of Bringing Along OCD, I have hooked up with Nancy’s A Rural Journal for Random Five Friday. Don’t know what I’m getting into yet, but I’ll see how it goes! I invite you to visit these blogs and participate in Nancy’s Random 5 if you so choose.

My Random Five for the week:

  1. It’s been a great harvest week for the garden. Blueberries, onions, artichokes, and lots of tomatoes! I’ve had a bumper crop of peas and have frozen several batches, but they’re just about done for the year. The pumpkins are blooming and zucchinis are forming. 
  2. I volunteer at the office of our local public theatre, Key City Public Theatre. We’ve had a hectic week, selling lots of tickets to a musical history of the world, The Big Bang, and getting ready for Shakespeare in the Park. My husband is an actor who will be performing in Much Ado About Nothing.
  3. I didn’t write a regular blog post this week. Well, actually I wrote several, but nothing feels ready for prime time. Bear with me. I’m hoping that by doing this Random 5, I’ll get back to a regular routine, including book reviews and blog recommendations.
  4. My latest novel concerns a Manhattan-based financial planner who gets unwittingly swept up in the Madoff scandal. At the same time, her estranged aunt has died and left her a house on *cough* the Olympic Peninsula. Soon I plan to start sharing my draft with you.
  5. I’ve learned that it’s impossible to predict the weather here on the Peninsula. When we lived in Houston, we would not only know that a storm was headed our way, but we would know when it would  arrive. Here, the forecasts are useless. The other day we had a predicted high of 81, but it hit 63. There was no rain in the forecast, but my deck was wet this morning. Go figure.

Have a great weekend! See you next week!

Bedspreads and Novel Writing: It’s the Little Things

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A few weeks ago I got it in my head that I wanted to knit a bedspread. I don’t know why. These notions just sort of show up, and I either wait for them to pass or jump on them. Usually I jump on them and am sorry later as I ask, “What did I get myself into this time?”

So, of course, I’ve jumped in. Again. I’ve given up the quest for self-improvement in favor of self-acceptance, so all I can do is shake my head, smile, and say, “Yep, that’s what I do.”

After some searching, here’s the pattern I settled on. It’s easier than it looks, because I’ll make a lot of little pieces that I then sew together. Of course, making a lot of little pieces can get tedious. I started knitting the little colored strips…80 of them for each of 13 colors. I don’t like doing math, but I can tell you, that’s a lot, and those pieces represent just part of the quilt.

It’s no coincidence that I’m revising a novel at the same time. Without boring you with all the little details, it feels much the same as working on this quilt. There is the whole that is the ultimate goal, which I’m reaching by working on thousands of little, tedious pieces.

I’m reading The Wonder of Aging: A New Approach to Embracing Life After Fifty by Michael Gurian. Based on what I’ve read so far, it would appear that this new approach to quilting, writing, and life is a reflection of my age and current stage of life. I’m okay with taking time to work on the little details. Yes, I’d like to write books faster than I do, but I’m more interested in writing better. Eventually I’ll have enough of those little pieces done to put them together in one of the rings. Eventually I’ll read through a draft and say, yes, this one’s ready to go to the editor, because I’ve done my best.

It seems curious and paradoxical to want to slow down the process. There is so much to write! So much to get done! Sometimes it feels maddening to become more deliberate, more thoughtful, less action-oriented. Yet somehow, I suspect, I will get more done. My drafts may go more slowly, but I will need fewer of them (I hope). In the end, I hope to have a beautiful heirloom quilt and a beautifully written book to share.

Reading the Tea Leaves

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I seem to be collecting a lot of tea lately.

Black tea, green tea, lavender tea, tea to strengthen my adrenals, tea to help me sleep at night, tea to help me wake in the morning. The other day, while visiting the Tulip Festival in Washington’s Skagit Valley, I spied a chocolate tea that had to come home with me.

My sisters had come for their annual spring break visit. Growing up in small towns in Illinois, we didn’t grow up with afternoon tea rituals, but we seem to have adopted them, individually and collectively, over time. Last year at this time, we took a ferry to Victoria to enjoy tea at The Empress, and once I served high tea on our deck on a sunny summer’s day.

Amy, my younger sister, is always on the lookout for tea cups — English china, thank you. We scour the thrift stores looking for such treasures, and she usually finds something fun for her collection.

Me, I enjoy sipping from my gardener cups. I’m more concerned with filling the house with the aromas of steeped herbs, and I couldn’t wait to share Rosemary Gladstar’s recipe for root beer tea. Outdoors, I have planted mint, and I heard a rumor that chamomile plant starts will be available this week, so at some point in time, I’ll make fresh tea from herbs in the garden.

Tea reminds me to slow life down, and I need it more than ever as springtime speeds up life. The garden calls out for planting and weeding. The first draft of my next novel has cooled for a few weeks and now calls me to get back to work. I woke up the other morning with an idea about how to fix a problem with another novel that has stymied me for some time. A friend sends me a link to a writing conference that I plan to attend. A blogger friend reaches out about a new writers’ group. I’m doing volunteer work for a couple of local organizations, and found myself working closely with a local business to raise funds for a needed expansion.

If I read tea leaves, I’m sure they would say, “Caution. You’re overdoing it again.”

I am fortunate. I am not overly busy because I have to juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet. I have the luxury of doing what I damn well please, for which I am deeply grateful. Still, there’s so much that I want to do! So much to enjoy! So many books to write! So many plants to put into the ground! So many weeds to pull! Though I do my best to stay balanced, sometimes I overdo, making myself overly tired and cranky.

When my sisters arrived, I put my work aside. We spent time together, tooling around the area, enjoying the tulips, shopping, and yes, hitting nearby tea houses. I played tourist in my own neighborhood, which forced me to put my work aside. Yes, I snuck outside a few times to weed or plant, but otherwise, I enjoyed some needed time off from all the hard work I’d been doing. As with any vacation, I felt a sense of renewal.

Today I’m back at work. This week I gear up the blogging and writing as I return to my familiar routine. Sometime in mid-afternoon I will stop, pause, and make myself a nice pot of tea. I will breathe in its scent. I will make time to hold a warm cup in hand in a moment of gentleness to soothe my spirit, to take in the miraculous beauty of my life. In these moments of reflection, I know that I am enough, and my efforts are enough. Yes, the tea leaves tell me I have work to do, but the tea itself reminds me to take my time, to relax, and to trust that it will all get done in good time.

Emerging From Hibernation

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Each day gets two point something minutes longer, and already, at the beginning of February, I notice a difference. It’s my first winter in the Pacific Northwest, so I’ve had to adjust to the darkness, just as in the summer I had to adjust to the days that seem endless. “You will sleep more in the wintertime,” someone promised me, and he was right.

January, with its slow pace, allowed me to make plans for the springtime garden without feeling rushed. My first seedlings are now sprouting on windowsills, and I’m feeling less like a hibernating bear and more like a mother early in the morning, tiptoeing around while everyone’s asleep, making preparations. It’s a shift in perspective that has made the darkness bearable.

Planting vegetables from seed requires patience. Each morning and evening, I give them a spritz of water. I have some growing directly on windowsills, while others sit on a table under a grow lamp. Every few days, I plant a few more. Little by little they sprout, some more delicate than others. I have to listen to them, adjusting water and light needs based on what they show me in their growth. Late this month, I’ll be able to put some of the hardier souls in the ground. Hopefully these modest sprouts will produce a bounty of food later in the year, and I’m also learning how to preserve the harvests that I get.

As a writer, I feel as though I’m doing the same thing. I’m re-evaluating what I’m willing to do to market my work…and what I am not. I’m planting small seeds by working on a new novel. Another wonderful idea is starting to emerge that could turn into yet another book, so I’ve added it to the idea list for now. I will blog when I want to, rather than trying to blog for a certain number of days every week, and I’ll comment on others’ blogs when I read something that I find meaningful. I want to remember the joy and play of writing and not worry so much about trying to sell what I do. If I read a book that really jumps out at me, I’ll write about it…but frankly, I’ve read a lot of sucky books lately, and I no longer feel the desire to come up with a good one every single week.

It’s natural to want to share one’s work, just as it’s natural to want one’s efforts in the garden to produce food and flowers. I just don’t want to be so attached to the outcome that I forget to wander the garden to visit the plants, or forget that writing is supposed to be fun. As the sun adds a few more days to its journey across the sky, I am adding back a bit here and there, but just a little at a time. That is enough.

Cover Crop

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The garden is quiet; most of my vegetable beds are empty, and the fruit trees have gone dormant as the winter darkness descends. I have many plans for the garden and dream eagerly of spring when I can load the beds with fruit, vegetables, and herbs. In the meantime, the beds beg for cover crop, a mix of plants that fertilize the soil and protect it from winter conditions. “Green compost,” it’s called. One of the eight beds has a thriving crop, while the others wait for my loving attention. Come spring, I will chop up the cover crop and turn it into the soil, where it will work its magic.

Gardening creates a balance for my writing. The physical work and time outdoors offsets the hours spent hiding behind a computer. Every time I harvest a vegetable or clear out a weed, plot problems resolve more easily. Scenes appear that provide juice for the story. It’s as though the ideas are in the very soil, and I need only dig my hands in to pull them out like so many beets.

I have avoided the garden lately for reasons I cannot detail here. In my absence, weeds have cropped up, and the remaining greens wonder when I will harvest them. The naked beds call to me to protect them from the winter elements with cover crop or mulch. I long for the day when I can once again dig my hands into the dirt without looking over my shoulder in fear, and I long for the day when I no longer feel the need to restrict and censor what I write here.

Being a spiritual sort, I have puzzled about this, asking myself and my higher power, “What is the lesson here?”

Yesterday I took a deep breath and walked outside, bucket and trowel in hand. I dug up weeds. I planted my cover crop. Is it too late to do that? I don’t really know, but all I can do is try. Somehow it felt that as I created protection for my garden, I was protecting myself as well. By confronting my fears, I could start to take my power back.

One of my fictional characters is having a tough time of it these days. She’s unwittingly gotten involved in a scandal that has cost her her job and her relationship. I’ve toppled her from a high perch, and now she will have to find out what stuff she’s made of. She’s going on her hero’s journey, and I’m not sure how I’m going to dig her out of her many jams just yet. All I know is that for her to have her journey, I must have mine.

As I dug in the dirt, I had a plan. If anything bad happened, I reminded myself, I could walk away without a word and return another time. Thankfully, though, the negative force was nowhere to be found, and I had sweet peace in the garden. I nearly wept with joy, as though reconnecting with a dear friend. I wrapped my cover crop of self-compassion and protection around me, reminding me that I am strong. This, too, shall pass.

 

Birthday Reflections

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Yesterday I turned 54, a number that I find somehow surprising. Physically, I feel no different from when I was younger. In fact, in many ways I am stronger and healthier than I was then. I’m still limber enough to surprise an unsuspecting massage therapist who decides to stretch my legs. It wasn’t always so. At age 26, when I first took up yoga, I couldn’t touch my toes, so I’ve gotten better with age.

Mentally, I feel smarter and wiser, though part of being smarter and wiser is knowing that you’re not so smart or wise. I still take delight in learning new things. This year, my education centered in the home as I learned the arts of canning food and spinning wool.

We took a big step several months ago and moved from Houston, where I had lived for 30 years. I never thought I would stay there for the rest of my life, but this year, I finally knew where I wanted to go. It’s been a good decision, and I’m excited about where I live now.

If there is a looming discontent, it’s about the increased urgency to leave a legacy. I’ve putzed around with my writing this year, and I’m ready once again to get serious. I don’t want to beat myself up about it; after all, moving cross-country, from a red state to a blue one (sigh of relief), from a major city to a small town, takes some getting used to. Even though I didn’t write as much as I wanted, I felt as though I was gathering new material that would turn up in my stories. Now, though, I want to roll up my sleeves and git ‘er done. I have several books in process and a Google doc file full of ideas, so I need to get on with it. With my health, I can probably expect many productive years left, but we never know at this point. I’ve said goodbye to friends who didn’t make it this far, so I don’t take my life for granted.

I just started reading Neil Young’s book, Waging Heavy Peace. Though I’m not too far into it, what I find most interesting is that he’s looking forward, engaged in new projects that excite him. In fact, he covers quite a bit of ground before he gets into the “memoir” part of it because he’s so involved in what he’s doing now. I love his restless, chaotic, inventive spirit. As I begin another year in the unstoppable march of time, I hope that I can follow his example.