robertchapmanblog

The joke ends there. There’s nothing funny about Alzheimer’s.  This blog was started mostly to write about writing and literature and maybe a few life events that can’t escape being blogged. But it never was to be about my wife having Alzheimer’s. There are moments when I smile and maybe even find a moment of humor. Janis and I have shared that now and then even these days. Usually, however, if there is any humor to be found in a visit to her now, it has to do with reminiscence. I will watch her doing something all too familiar, but in a child-like manner,  and I will laugh quietly, followed quickly by a tear or two. She will look at my face and say, “Are you okay?”. This is hard to cover up. Though I try. Because she is so easily drawn into my emotional state. And that can change the entire mood of a visit. Under these grim circumstances, just imagine how it feels to have her be concerned for me. I, after all, get to go home. She will stay locked up.

I think that as I begin writing on Entangled, I may be able to incorporate elements of both into this blog. Now, however, my life is about dementia. I have three great adult kids, and three grandchildren, and they are very much a part of my life. But the hard truth is that when Janis came down with this disease, it took over both our lives. Of course, she is the one with the illness, but in so many ways Alzheimer’s impacts on the entire family. And so everyday, even good days (a relative term ‘good’), are infected with this cruel sickness. When I see her in tears because she can’t express herself, or is just confused by her surroundings, or trying to grasp what I am saying to her, e.g.”You look beautiful today” and she struggles with the meaning of these words or any simple phrase, the more I try to explain the more she becomes upset. Her Alzheimer’s is of a type that is dominated by aphasia, So, I’ve stopped trying to help her understand and instead I re-direct. She’s a young child after all. These tearful moments hit me hard, and so, yes, this disease hurts. Her and me. I can’t be sure what’s going on with her. But, I sure do know what is going on with me. So sometimes it’s easier to describe what I see, hear, smell, or feel. That becomes about me, but it is really about her, through me.

As I start to write on Entangled this symbiosis may become more clear, hopefully it will help me to understand how our lives became so tangled over the half century we have been together. In the process I hope it will be of some help to others. But mostly it is just me writing and that’s what I do. I want to understand how two kids from two different backgrounds, and quite different childhoods meet, become friends, grow up, fall in love, marry, raise three kids, have all the ups-and-downs of that, and start to grow old together only to be stopped in our tracks and thrown into reverse.

Entangled is still in the brewing stage. As always this takes much time to get settled. I risk being too sentimental (because I am), and I always feel doubt at this stage about how I am going to start. Getting a start that keeps me going is important. Finding a fresh start. An interesting start. But mostly a beginning that will permit development. My sense is that this book will be short. And it may become something other than a straight forward memoir. I have numerous notebooks I’ve kept since Janis was diagnosed. They are extremely personal. But that’s the point I suppose, in keeping journals.

Today. I was massaging her feet (edema). She dozed. I looked up and she was peeking through sleepy eyes. She said, “I like looking at you.”

~

Two years have gone by. Time moves from the present to the past.

The world turned inside-out, blown away,  over, out, down. I ask myself, how is it possible? Of course the answer is: it is possible, get used to it. People ask, “How is she doing?” I understand that they are being nice, polite, concerned, curious. They also ask, “How are you doing?” By this time I lurch with emotion. The granite foundation of my old farmhouse wobbles and it starts to rain. The roof leaks. “I’m missing an organ. There is a gaping hole where it used to be.” I don’t speak this. I think it to myself as the only way to describe how I’m doing. How do you think I’m doing? I want them to go away. Leave me alone. Only don’t go too far, I may need your comfort later. Not right now.

Have you had moments in your life that seem like markers? They aren’t particularly dramatic, just simple, ordinary moments, and you think, ‘I’m going to remember this moment for the rest of my life. ‘Nothing especially special. But special for some ordinary reason. I’ve had these moments happen, what makes them so memorable is that they aren’t connected to events in any way, just that you seem to have woken up for a few seconds. Awakened from the hum, the droll, the numbness of the ordinary, to suddenly see the whole field all at once and to know that somehow this is IT . And here you are, smack in the middle of IT and you are awake to the transience of it all. I’ve had these experiences. I can remember three in particular. I was thirteen, it was summer, early morning, sitting on a cement abutment beside the town’s post office. Bike parked at my feet. (Probably just finished my paper route). And sipping on a bottle of Pepsi Cola (further evidence of paper route, collection day, aka payday). The sun warm on my face. My small town was still. Or maybe I was still; wrapped in the moment of silence. I recall thinking, ‘I’ll remember this moment the rest of my life.’ Why? I dunno. I just knew it. Another such moment, age about mid-thirties, on my way to work. Came up behind my mother who was also driving to her work at the small TV station WMTW, Poland Spring, Maine. She saw me in her rearview mirror and waved. I flashed my lights. I had a ways to go to get to my office in Portland. She turned in to her parking lot and I tooted my horn and waved goodbye. See you later. This was the woman, my mom, who had taught me at age five on a long drive to Canada, how to harmonize to the song “You Are My Sunshine”.  I had the sensation that I was not going to always see her later, that someday she would be somewhere else in time, and I would remember this moment for the rest of my life.

Yesterday I had another such moment. I had arrived at the nursing home just after breakfast and I found her among other residents, sitting in the day hall, a gray-haired old woman, overweight from medications, slumped over in her chair, asleep. I thought: this is her now, my wife, my petite, dark haired, hazel-eyed, chirpy-girl wife of fifty years. My high school sweetheart. When I woke her she smiled her special-for-me-only smile and she said, “Okay. Let’s go.” And she took my hand and we walked to her room. Later, as I finished rubbing her feet and massaging them with lotion, in that special acupressure spot to soothe her, she slept. I had a few minutes of absolute silence. I held her naked feet in my hands. Staring out the window at the early spring trees, showing young green leaves, being moved by a breeze . A distant, busy parking lot, and then the moment happened. I looked at her sleeping face. This woman looks the same to me as she has for half a century. I think, marriage is a contract, love is not. It has no boundaries. I will remember this moment for the rest of my life.

On the day that we took her to the emergency room, she asked, “What happened to us?” It broke my heart. Really, it broke. Not into pieces like a plastic heart, or one made of candy. It became all squishy, soppy, throbbing, and it ached. Later, I mentioned this to my daughter. She said, “Dad, Alzheimer’s happened.”

~(for Janis)

Sitting in Zoot’s Coffee Shop on Main Street in Camden, one of my favorite coffee haunts. I’ve spent a few hours here over the past couple of years revising Mother, Night, and Water, while Janis hits some of the consignment shops in town. It is about an hour-plus trip for us from home and we do it periodically during the off-season for a day drive that allows us to come up the coast when Route 1 is not too populated. Summer on this route is notorious, even famous, to Maine’s regular summer folks, for its traffic jam, somewhere in the vicinity of Wiscasset. (Stopping at Red’s for their lobster rolls creates a massive jam-up as folks approach the bridge from either north or south. And, I suspect, unless they have to go to the bathroom really bad, they think this hour or more of dead, creeping crawl is part of the quaint Maine experience.) I’m sitting here trying to focus on the fact that I’m not writing or revising MNW, it’s over;  I’m waiting for Amazon’s CreateSpace team get back to me with the completed product for my book.

Let me tell you what I have done.

I jumped off a cliff. The last two books were published with a seven year contract by a small publisher that gave me little or no control over my book once I signed the contract (not unique or unexpected with traditional publishing, but this small, POD publisher operates as such). I owned the rights, but they had control.  They did a good job and produced a nice product, and they did exactly what they said they would do in their contract. I have no complaints, in fact I almost went to them again. Instead, I took a chance with self publishing, something I haven’t really considered before.

Having control over almost every aspect of the book is exciting and it feels more creative. But it comes with more work. It has been difficult…nay, impossible to access big house publishers. There are several Catch-22’s involved. I don’t have the time at my age to play that whole thing out to the end with those guys, and honestly, I never intended this adventure to result in making fame or fortune (and that’s probably a good thing). What I am interested in is having folks read my books. Period. And maybe make a small income to cover my time and efforts. It makes an excellent retirement occupation, and I try not to regret starting this writing career earlier in life. But. Hey…I’m doing it now. The price of my new book reflects the costs of the publishing and shipping. I will offer some reduced costs if people want to order the book through me. (Contact me via my website and the listed email.)

LATER~

I started this blog entry last month: Since then? Wellll…I received a proof copy of my new novel from the Amazonbook company’s publisher: CreateSpace. It’s a beautiful product. However, as I proofed it ‘one-last-time’, I found some minor errors, and one significant one. Now…I am not going to beat this book up, but I cannot let those little things go. So one more time…and this takes time, folks. It’s a big book.

Revision and proofing is a dreadful part of the process. (I like the first revision, it gives me satisfaction, but three or more times and I find the book tedious. Of course, maybe it is anyway.) I had a proofreader and I did some myself, still, with a book that is 127,000+ words, little things will be missed.

The book will be delayed just a little past my deadline of April. I now expect it to be published early May.

My next book is a smaller one to tackle. I have three ideas in the pot, and one of them has a fifty page commitment. Still, I want to try something different – again. This is a learning process, and to paraphrase Steinbeck while writing East of Eden…I wonder if it will be interesting, to anyone else that is…

I’m nearly finished with the publication of a paperback copy of the ebook MNW and it’s now time to get back to the next book. The working title for this new novel is Esme`. And right off the bat I have created a stumbling block. If I use this title and the name, I’m stuck with some interesting problems. That little ` grave accent at the end of this french name becomes not so little. For instance, I have to stop and use that little bugger every time I use the name in the text. Well, that’s not so bad, but add to that whenever I use the possessive of the name, it’s another detail I fear will become an issue in the manuscript as I move through the book. (And then there is the proofing.) I know I’m being petty, but really, as I’ve thought through this and asked around I see problems ahead. I thought of just dropping the  `  from the name, but others have cautioned me on that. (Of course, they don’t have to write the thing.) I need to think this through more. I have other possible titles for the book, but the character’s name is stuck to me, and I like this title more.

Anyway, as I put MNW to the shelf and turn to this new novel, I am reminded of John Steinbeck’s journals he kept while writing East of Eden. He made the comment above to his agent in a letter. It is slightly reassuring that Steinbeck shares some of my concerns. Of course, Steinbeck had little to worry about, but I guess he didn’t know that. (Doesn’t mean I consider myself in his class, but then again, that’s the point, isn’t it?)  I suppose there are writers or painters or sculptors or actors or other artists out there who suffer no self-doubt. I’m not one of them. And apparently, neither was Steinbeck. “I have the fear that comes with starting and the usual lack of self-confidence (Really? Steinbeck?). But also there is a kind of craziness it is hard to peg down–a willy-nilly, fly-off-to-the-ends-of-the-world feeling.”  Hmmm. Maybe he never read his own books.

It is difficult to evaluate my own work. I try not to, but that doesn’t work out very well. As the book becomes available to others, I think all kinds of things. Most of them are pretty pathetic thoughts. But, in general I have learned to let go of that some and try to simply enjoy the fact that I completed the novel; the characters now have to live with their lives inside the covers (or the virtual covers in the ebook) as I have left them. And I have to get on by reminding myself that I just have to write. And learn as I go with each new book. I really don’t have the luxury of time that I would’ve had if I’d started younger at this incredible adventure of learning how to write a novel.

Hemingway, in a letter to F.Scott Fitzgerald, said: “Look how it is at the start–all juice and kick to the writer and can’t convey anything to the reader–you use up the juice and the kick goes but you learn how to do it and the stuff when you are no longer young is better than the young stuff–”  (Note the lack of commas? Classic Hemingway.)  I go on. Trying to live up to some standard that I don’t understand myself. See, I grew up with the writings of another era. I love that Russo has put another standard out there for writers, as have others, like Harper Lee, Dillard, John Irving, but the early writers are still in the back of my brain and keep me drawn to a craft that I probably am wasting my time at. I don’t really see it that way. There is something about the process of writing that is nearly addicting to me.

Mother, Night, and Water is about to come out as a paperback. I hope that it is interesting–to others, I mean. But, in the end, I am satisfied that I wrote the damn thing. And I will gain from the experience in a lot of ways that have nothing to do with the end product or what I or others think of it. And I believe that as artists do what they do, some will always remain just artists, and do it for the love of it.

Sitting down to write a full length novel is a daunting experience, and, of course, a little bit exciting as well. An adventure. Not really knowing what is going to happen inside the story as well as outside on the otherside of the keyboard. But in the case of Mother, Night, and Water, three years in the works,  I have to confess that I struggle with getting the ebook into a hard-copy book, and then getting the end product(s) into a market. This is primarily because of the time and energy it takes to pursue publication, and follow through to get it out to the public. In my case, not so much for any profits as much as for wanting to share the end result; hopefully to reach an audience who will be entertained and perhaps experience something in the process. For those who have never tried doing this, it emcompasses a variety of skills: writing the text and doing the first proofing and preliminary editing, getting it to a good proofreader, and maybe finding help with going over the revisions (plural, folks, plural…many revisions, I’m so tired of looking at MN&W, I love my characters, but… and I’m still working with publishers who want copies) sales, marketing, using the internet (my sorry skills in this department leave me at a disadvantage, but I’m learning), and so on.

There are so many ways to get published these days. The big house publishers are extremely difficult to access without some serious networking, and having professional literary agent support, not to mention a good product. But, let’s be honest, there is a lot of bad writing getting published by big house publishers…so having a good product means, really, having a product that is marketable. It’s corporate, and making profits is primary. One editor said (in an article) “Give me a fair story/mediocre writing, over great writing/mediocre story and I’m interested.” Many very good authors, even award winning authors, only just make a living at their craft. (Great writing/great stories?–Think: Dreiser, Steinbeck, Pynchon, Hemingway, Cather, Mansfield, Dillard, Smiley, Oates.) Still, today’s technology has opened opportunities for beginning authors that did not exist a decade ago. Ebooks is one of those opportunities.

I am close to getting MN&W into a hard copy book. (Stay in touch, that could be soon.) And when that happens, somehow, that will seem more like a book. A product that I can take to book signings and readings and visit with real hard copy people who share my passion for books and reading. Let me suggest that you keep an eye out for a new website very, very, soon. In the next week or two. Look for it and watch for a section of the website that says: Upcoming Events (or something of that nature), because I want to get to meet up with old friends who are reading my books, and to meet some of you readers out there who have been in touch with me, that I don’t know yet. 

The new website will be: robertwchapman.com

I will keep the Facebook page: Maine Novels by Robert Chapman, and I will also post any events on there as well. 

Spent the day in San Francisco and had dinner in a small Italian restaurant in Mission. Been here a number of times over the years. Never see enough, though. I spent two hours in a coffee shop working on MNW while Janis shopped with her brother. It always surprises me how time stops (or flies?) when I’m writing. It’s all consuming. I love it.  And once again I will say it: I’m nearly done. Nearly. The revision is  more than 3/4 complete. I may go over the first half of the novel again before turning it in to Michelle. I think I did a better job in the second half of revising, partly because I was able to squeeze out longer blocks of time to work on it. I finally have convinced my part-time work at Bowdoin, to cut my hours down. I need to remind myself that I’m retired, and my objective in retirement was to write!

Stacia, Tim, Bo, and Robbie are on their own schedule, while we are staying at Jody’s house in Concord. Nice weather but surprisingly Maine-ish. Cool and breezy and foggy in SanFran today. Couldn’t find my way into this blog this morning, for the life of me I couldn’t get the password correct. I don’t use it enough to recall it (which is telling me something) and I have it written down back home in Maine, which does me no good out here. I texted Maya to get it from her, but she texted back that she was in the same circumstance … only she’s in Vermont.  Sooo…

Hey… book recommendation: Tinkers by Paul Harding. A Pulitzer Prize novel (2009).

For decades now I have watched adults in positions of political power betray children who need responsible care, if not by their parents, then by society. We as a species have a responsibility to step up and care for children whose parents are either unable or unwilling to take proper care of their progeny. This responsibility is not just a nice thing to do, it is fundamental to the survival of a healthy society. Government, regardless of your political persuasion, does have a role to play in the development of healthy people. That is the plexus of a society. While we argue politics, children suffer at the hands of the very people that are there to protect them. And as adults they will bear the scars, usually invisible, until they act out or act against themselves. This accounts for both the anti-social element as well as the physical and mental health component for the care of these children as adults.  (A massive social and financial expense to society, not to mention the suffering of these individuals, often for a lifetime. See the ACE study, Gold into Lead,  by Dr. Vincent Felitti, MD, Kaiser Preventative Health, San Diego.) Someone said that a measure of the dignity of a species is in the way they treat their young. As we go to the polls and elect our officials that represent us (we have a representative form of government; sometimes the politicians forget that) we need to think first–how does this person stand in this particular paradigm for posterity. After more than four decades of work in the field of child welfare, I’ve come to trust that if we can find a way to eliminate (I’m not an idealist, so …) or at least minimize the abuse of children in our world, most other problems will resolve themselves.

“There can be no greater betrayal than the betrayal of a child by their parent.” Fm the Preface to A Certain Fall

Note posted above my desk:  1. Rewrite/Polish   2. Minor errors   3. Scenes/Separtate/One POV per scene                4. Check seasons/Pace   5. Need genogram.

I passed page 100 this morning.

Tip:

“The rule is: don’t use commas like a stupid person.”  ~fm Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss.  A fun book to review grammar.

Also, I like Stephen King’s book On Writing.  Part memoir, part writing as a craft; a great read on the nuts and bolts of writing, particularly fiction. Another fun way to learn or refresh yourself on the creative process of writing. I don’t read a lot of King’s work, but this may be his best work.