I SUBMITTED my book!! That means I submitted the first fifty pages and detailed summaries of every chapter, plus a summary of the book as a whole to She Writes Press. It is a hybrid publishing company so somewhere in between self-publishing and going through a traditional publisher. I still need them to accept my book and want to publish it, but I will have a bit more control over the whole process after that. And now I wait. It will be at least 6 weeks or so before I hear if they want to work with me at all.
Sarah likes to talk about how the panda pictured on her wall misses her and waits impatiently for her to return, tapping its paw and pressing its nose to the window as it watches for her. I feel a bit like that panda. Has it been 6 weeks yet? Now has it been 6 weeks?
Yesterday Sarah was watching basketball with Carl and created many digital drawings of Baby Tiger playing basketball, being cheered by multicolored tigers in the stands. The earnest joy that can come through a smiley face or stick figure never ceases to amaze me.
This morning the girls had a great time playing Mario Cart with their uncle. While I marveled at how my brother could join us virtually even when he lives many miles away, he gently chided me that there is thing thing called the internet.
Overall the week was good in terms of the kids, school, rehearsals, swim lessons, and piano lessons. Amy started roller skating in one of her classes at school. She is almost as tall as I am when she is wearing her skates and is getting ever more adept at moving smoothly, even if I still wish I could pad her butt with bubble wrap. Towards the end of the week, I felt like I was rather out of juice, being the grown-up repeatedly when really I just wanted to be done. And sometimes I didn’t even do a good job of being the grown-up, yelling at Sarah because the bus was waiting as she was yelling about not wanting to wear her school uniform socks. Sometimes I have so much easy enjoyment of Sarah and her repetitions. Sometimes I’m able to let her emotions just be there and blow on by, without getting my own feathers ruffled. And other times I am not able to even imagine being a person so unruffled. Perhaps the biggest thing I want to remind my future self is that these hard times always do pass and I find my way back to connected enjoyment again. Very often it is reading my own past words of wisdom that lead me back to who and how I want to be. I’m still not back to the full ease I prefer. Sarah has been talking (as she often does) about when she wasn’t feeling great at school or when we heard her making seizure noises. Or she goes slowly on stairs and says that her hip hurts. When I ask if she is pretending to be me or if it is real, she says it is real. But then other times she moves as if nothing is wrong. The hardest part is feeling like I can’t trust what she says. Real and pretend may be slightly mixed up because she sometimes asks me to do a real sneeze like Daniel Tiger’s mom. And yet, of course she is asking me to pretend to do something real.
Luckily Carl has had energy and space for all of us and all of our feelings lately. He has also put in countless hours editing my book and giving me thoughtful, helpful feedback. Sometimes I protested and grumbled, but he was usually right and I know the book is better for all of his input.
I hope your days are going well and that you feel like you have multicolored tigers cheering for you from the stands.
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