And sometimes Barry clears our walk too, if I don’t beat him to it. The new mother across the street might be wrestling her stroller out there right now, her child encased in clear plastic like a bunch of bananas. I should get up and shovel the walk, I told myself as I lay there ruminating, the term Katrine prefers. On the other hand, I do not trust people who never doubt, who just plunge on. On Tuesday the same words look contrived and flat. On Monday the words look supple and fit, a fine dancing partner. I should be starting something new, but I don’t have the heart for it.Īnother thing I realize is that writing is a mirror you can’t trust. And I’m still waiting to hear back from that e-publisher about Havoc. Eric’s affair (I mean, his recent remarriage) is still livid in my mind, like some ghastly patterned wallpaper that you can’t not see every day as soon as you open your eyes. I can feel my thinking shift ever so incrementally toward the light, an ocean liner changing course. How can I be sarcastic even with myself? I know it’s important to take the exercise seriously, but it feels like I’m joining a cult of one. “I’m grateful to have started my gratitude journal” was the first entry. I repeated this to myself: “Not the bottom.” My therapist, Katrine, has instructed me to take every negative thought I have and turn it into a positive one, like doing origami. The last time I checked, The Bludgeoning was in 789,470th place. I’ve been trying to stop tracking my novels on Amazon. I turned on my phone, then turned it off. The wife is saying “Surf’s up, at least.” Too negative, Leanna said. I gave her a little cartoon that I’d drawn, of a couple in bed beside a big standing wave in the lap pool. “We’re co-creators” she always says before slashing away at my copy. “No more sand in your suit” didn’t do it for Leanna, who oversees me.
I was still in bed, dragging my heels about getting the ad copy in for Flo-Q’s new line of indoor wave pools.
Sometimes it’s a lovely sound, shoveling. Our neighbor Barry was already out there, even before the snow had stopped or the plows came through.
Then I heard the scrape of a shovel, like winter clearing its throat. If it snows overnight, the silence in the early morning has a different quality, as if a duvet has fallen over the city. She has also published three nonfiction books, including the bestselling memoir, The Mother Zone (1992). For much of her career Jackson has worked as a journalist, winning numerous National Magazine Awards for her humor, columns and social commentary. The following is from Marni Jackson’s novel, Do I Know You?.
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