Every Day Habits

I have a thing for notebooks.

Moleskin brand specifically. Soft cover, black. Understated but bold. September 19, 2021 I began filling one up with notes and recording hours spent on a very special project. Research topics, timelines, chapter break-downs. Tears. Words flooded page after page as a story began to unfold and take shape of my father-in-law Richard’s childhood in Poland and later on in Germany during the second world war. A biography of the Schmidt family.

I have a day job. So this was an after-hours and weekends type of project. It was when I could steal 10 minutes type of thing. It was on my lunch break from work and in the middle of the night if something profound stuck me. I thought about it all the time.

It sounds like every spare moment was spent writing this story. That’s not how it unfolded. There were many days that I couldn’t bring myself to write one word to advance the story because I was so tortured by my own lack of ability. I was struck by my profoundly poor writing skills. I was 100% sure that someone, anyone else should have undertaken this important work because I was going to butcher it beyond recognition.

In the notebook on Oct 14/2021 I write…feeling very overwhelmed today

In January of 2022 I enrolled in a course “Writing the Lives of Others” led by the fabulous Anne Zimmerman through Stanford University. I knew I was in over my head. I had committed myself to something I was incapable of completing so I decided to learn what I could and pray that some of it stuck in my post-menopausal brain.

The most important thing I learned was to write every day. It didn’t even have to be on the biography, just put words on a page every single day. Train your brain and your body to sit and create, Anne told us. Give yourself permission to dream and express. Pull the reader in and make them care. Fill in the black and white with some color and light, shadow and cliffs.

I began breaking the story down in chunks. I didn’t know how to construct a scene so I worked on topics and ideas unrelated to the story altogether to practice tempo and style. My practice led me to Gloria. A figment of my imagination. Can I introduce you to her?

She was part of the furniture, that’s how long she had called this small country church, home. She was there long before my time and well after it so far as I was told. Her bright red lipstick always slid off the edges of her lips as if in some effort to escape the thinning lines that bespoke her age. Her bushy hair crammed under a pink straw garden hat with a fake daisy tucked into the band gave a comically put-together look that she wore with sass. The orange shade of her hair a testament to her faith in a home dye job.

She shouted my name from across the foyer every time she saw me. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I were at a park or in a grocery store but church was sacred, hallowed. Very Hushed. No shouting allowed because God was silent and punishing and definitely not as happy to see me as Gloria was. My momma always yanked on my arm, her fingers pressing into my skin when she saw Gloria lumbering my way. It hurt terribly. Momma wanted to shelter me from that “crazy woman”. I felt sad for momma because I knew she was afraid. Afraid to feel free and dance in church. Afraid to laugh out loud and live wild like Gloria. Momma was too busy being what everyone else wanted her to be. 

Often when Pastor was preaching Gloria would stand up and raise her hands, her ample bosoms sliding from one side of her body to the other as she shouted Halleluiah or Praise Jesus. At the conclusion of the service each Sunday Pastor’s baritone voice recited the benediction, Gloria’s voice eclipsing his as she passionately joined in.

The benediction made me homesick for things that were deeper than my young heart had experienced. It made me uncomfortable and itchy. My eyes would crinkle and water but I held back the tide, sure that getting caught up in that mighty river would have me end up like Gloria. Very alone. Eccentric is what momma called her. Daddy called her just plain weird. Twelve year old me called her mesmerizing. 

I had no ample bosoms and I had no pink straw hat perched on orange hair. I was a mouse, she was a magpie. We used to be best friends. 

Practice, practice, practice. Write. Re-write. Scratch out. Start again.

Soon my pages filled with precious snippets of the real story, the biography I was working on. The scenes emerging from the black and white of transcribed notes and hours of recorded interviews.

At the end of March after spending enough days sitting in front of my computer, I finished the first draft of the manuscript. Since then it has been all re-writes and edits with an editor. We’re closing in on the finish line.

I guess my rambling today comes down to this. Habits are made whether you are doing the thing or not doing it. Writing each day builds a habit. But avoiding writing each day also builds one. Reading your Bible each day builds a habit, so does not reading it. Loving people purposefully builds a habit, so does ignoring people’s pain.

Working on this book drove home the realization that each day may feel insignificant but it is not. I think that’s how we get lulled into complacency and lose out on all that God has for us. We think today isn’t that big of a deal. If I don’t read the word today, no problem. If I don’t pray today, who cares? If I don’t write today, what does it matter?

It all matters. YOU matter. Every single moment matters because we’re building habits that build lifetimes. And lifetimes build legacies that ultimately either point towards Jesus or away from him.

I was hugging one of my grandchildren the other day and she grabbed ahold of my arm. Nana, why is your arm so soft and squishy, she asked. My other grandma’s arms are hard.

I’ve been building a habit of avoidance with exercise and just got called out by a 5 year-old. Ouch.