What are you doing, waiting for a car to come?

Decision making for the unmoored

Before we begin…

You’re seventeen again and about to step into the world of adulthood. Are you ready? What decisions did you make for yourself and which ones were made for you? What helped you most to make your decisions then? What helps you most now? 

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First, a big thank you

Two subscribers, Jen E. and Janice M., have come on board as founding members and I am touched, grateful, and excited to keep working on this project. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

Frozen at the crossroads 

One Easter Sunday morning, when I was seventeen and living with friends of friends in Delray Beach, Florida, I agreed to drive one of my roommates, Suzanne, to her parents’ home in a car loaned to us by another roommate. I headed down Atlantic Avenue and stopped at the intersection with AIA. It was early. The road was empty in both directions. Before me lay the beach and beyond that, the Atlantic Ocean. There was no light, only a stop sign. I was to make a right turn but I didn’t move. 

Source: https://www.sweetwaternow.com/deer-in-headlights/

“What are you doing, waiting for a car to come?” my companion said. 

I realized that was exactly what I was doing. An oncoming car would trigger the lessons I’d learned about gauging when it was safe to pull out onto the roadway. In its absence, my mind was struggling with the empty roadway and its confusing choices. It was the story of my life at the time. 

Having liberated myself from the daily supervision of my parents months earlier to live on my own, I found myself a bit lost without obstacles to confront, without parameters to bump up against. Of course, I didn’t see that then. At the time, Suzanne and I ended up laughing our heads off all the way to her parents’ house where she would unexpectedly go into labor at the dinner table surrounded by relatives who had no idea she was pregnant. Another story for another time. 

I don’t know exactly why I’m sharing this moment with you now but it has something to do with a section of my novel-in-progress that I finished this week. This chapter, new and entirely unplanned, revisits a moment in one character’s life when she was seventeen. She must make a choice and her decision is colored by her fear and uncertainty. She doesn’t truly see that moment for what it was until years later. As I came to the closing line of the chapter the rest of my novel snapped into focus. I am impatient to keep writing. These pages may or may not end up in the final version but the final version feels so much more in reach because it exists. 

“A few minutes later, Charlotte sped down the main road towards Gershom, the windows of the Nova wide open, zooming past fields of cows and stands of poplar, maple, pine - the same familiar ones she’d seen every day since she’d been born. Then she realized that they weren’t at all the same. They couldn’t be. Trees died or were cut down. New houses went up. Calves grew up, were eaten. Even the sky, so clear when she pulled out of the driveway, was already fringed with puffy clouds. Nothing stayed the same. Charlotte was overcome by a sense of weightlessness, as if she were a balloon that had come unmoored. She sped up, glad for the control she felt when she pressed her foot on the gas pedal and felt the Nova accelerate.” - From rough draft of The Replacements, my current WIP

I feel for my character, Charlotte. I get her in a way I didn’t even after writing hundreds and hundreds of words about her. She made me remember that feeling of being “unmoored.” She’s making me wonder all over again about what we reach for when we make decisions big and small. 

Lately, I’ve been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I’m learning more about grief as the weeks roll on. I’m reliving the joy of spending a recent weekend with my son and another week with my stepdaughter, her husband, and my sister. I’ve been unexpectedly thrilled with how my novel is going. I have been reading books again, marveling at how they seem to be talking with one another and to me. It’s all wonderful but it has also left me feeling detached, “unmoored.” I’m easily tired or distracted. Sitting down to work on this edition of Spark was a little like sitting at that intersection years ago. I was surrounded by options but was waiting for something to make my next move clear to me. I wish I could tell you that all became clear but it hasn’t. The only thing that was clear was that I wanted to connect and I did not want to miss a Saturday without a very good reason. Turns out, that was enough.

What about you, have you ever found yourself unable to move one way or the other? What got you moving again?

Did you know…

… that Kate Atkinson has written another Jackson Brodie novel and I am about to start reading my advance copy on Kindle. Thank you, Netgalley. I can’t wait. 

Pub date: September 10, 2024

Remember that jobs question? Here’s another for you

This very funny and surprisingly illuminating query from

Amy Stewart

plays right into the jobs question from our last edition of Spark. In it, she shares five nonexistent jobs she is uniquely qualified to do. Check out the comments for experts  you never knew you needed. I offered this: 

I am unparalleled at removing dog shit from any surface but especially shoes. You will be able to wear your shoes without fear of embarrassment or,more importantly, without feeling as though you are being shunned. My tools vary according to amount, consistency, shoe material, and where we are when the disaster occurs. 

What job would you ace if only it existed?

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Lines that linger: let’s play

Let’s play. Share a sentence from anything you’ve read (or re-read) this week along with the source. No need to add any context, the fun part is getting to see how it impacts others. This week I’ve got a few, all from the books I’ve been reading since we last connected here. They’ve surprised me by the way they seem to be talking with one another. Here are just a few examples:

“There is a man who travels around the world trying to find places where you can stand still and hear no human sound. It is impossible to feel calm in cities, he believes, because we so rarely hear birdsong there. Our ears evolved to be our warning systems. We are on high alert in places where no birds sing. To live in a city is to be forever flinching.” - The Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill

“Among pandemic hobbies, birding rose high on the list of most popular…Part of the charm came from paying close attention to something one had always been to distracted to notice before. Something ordinary. Something beautiful. Nest building, mating, squabbling, feeding to think that all this had been going on just outside the window. And with the usual racket of human activity stilled, how much easier to appreciate birdsong.” - The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez 

“At the sound of these disembodied noises, a third of the usual (migrating) birds stayed away. Many of those that stayed paid a price for persisting. With tires and horns drowning out the sounds of predators, the birds spent more time looking for danger and less time looking for food. They put on less weight, and were weaker as they continued their arduous migrations.” - An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal The World Around Us by Ed Yong.

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Ciao for now! 

Gratefully yours,

Betsy

P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…finding a way through

Photo: Betsy Marro

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”: 

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone  -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed. 

I can’t wait to see what you send!

And remember, if you like what you see or it resonates with you, please share Spark with a friend and take a minute to click the heart ❤️ below - it helps more folks to find us!