Here is an interview with my friend, Isaac Rathbone, who is a playwright and screenwriter, conducted by Boomerang Theatre Artistic Director Tim Errickson. Their discussion is about the balance of writing and parenting.
Category: Parenting
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Reading Challenge for Fall
The one thing that I am really sucking at right now is reading books. I mean, I do read, but with everything going on, I have not been consistent. And what I am reading right now is the news, and news related publications. I used to read before I would go to bed, but now, I’m exhausted and overwhelmed at the end of the day, and I just zone out with stupid TV, and fall asleep.
I know that is no excuse, as reading needs to be a habit. Or at least that’s what I tell the kid. Yeah, I’ve turned into a “Do what I say, not what I do” parent.
Then the other day, a writer friend posted that she was going to use the Fall to immerse herself in the work of a writer that she should have read, but for whatever reason never got around to. I thought that was a very intriguing challenge, being that there are so many great writers that, for whatever reason, I never get around to as well. The first name that popped into my head was John Cheever. I know a good deal about Cheever, but I have never read a word of him, not even a short story.
I think for my mental well being, I have to have a goal attached to my actions, no matter what the action. This will be the Fall of John Cheever. I want to see how much of his work I can read. It’s like I am trying to make 2020 the year of accomplishing. It just might be the only control I can exude over my life right now.
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Journaling at the Park
Yesterday, it rained in the morning, which meant that we didn’t get to have our early park time. No running around for the kid, and making new friends. And no sitting on a bench and writing in my journal. Over the course of this pandemic, park time has become a very essential, and needed outlet for the kid and me. She gets to burn off energy and have social interactions with other kids, and I get to start my day with organizing my thoughts.
It was a slight monkey wrench to our day, but the sun did come out later, so we were able to make a late day park visit. The later time allowed us to discovered a whole different group of kids that my daughter loved playing with, and I got to have the introspection from the end of a day, rather than the beginning.
I have been writing in a journal since I was 18, and I have over 30 notebooks filled. I like to think of myself like Thoreau when it comes to writing in a journal, but do sometimes wonder if I’m not the crazy recluse guy in the neighborhood, jotting down meaningless things in his notebooks. (It’s a fine line.) I have been journaling so long, that it is an engrained habit. But they aren’t reference books. Only rarely do I pick one up and go through it to see what I was thinking way back when. And I don’t use them to work out “story ideas” or anything like a creative workbook/sketchbook. It’s just a catching place of ideas, thoughts, sketches, and feelings… maybe a little documentation of events, but not very often. Journaling for me is a cathartic exercise. It is immediate, spontaneous, and in the moment, which again and again, I seem to discover is a theme for me when it comes to the art I enjoy. With everything going on in the world right now, I need to have an outlet for all of these pent-up emotions, and hopefully, I can find a constructive use for them.
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NYC Schools Delayed, And a Normal Schedule?
Things have changed yet again in NYC when it comes to the public schools. Looks like the Mayor and the teachers have agreed to delay the start of school a week, and in person classes for 10 days. I think this is the right decision, as far as I hear from my teacher friends, the schools are not physically ready for students, and this delay will help get things ready. This doesn’t change our plans; we are going to continue with the remote learning for our kid, and then see if she will rejoin her class in November. Hopefully, this will make everything safer for the teachers, staff, and students.
The wife’s new job is planning to open up their offices in October. The rule they will be following is that only 50% of the staff can be onsite at one time, which will mean that she will be in the office 2 days out if the week.
Looks like we are slowing beginning to see what our Fall schedule will be like, and this also feels like for the first time we have a glimmer of the tiniest speck of a shard of light of having a small amount of normalcy.
Not that I am holding my breath.
But it would be nice.
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Covid Confession
This has been a tough and trying day. Nothing really has gone the way any of us have expected.
Except for the laundry. I got the laundry done on time.
Today is the wife’s official first day at her new job. Being that she is still working at home, it doesn’t feel like too much has changed.
We are down to the final 10 days before the kid starts school. And again, as she will be learning from home. It won’t be an enormous change, as she was learning from home in the Spring, so that doesn’t feel like it will change anything.
Me, on the other hand, each day is pretty much the same. So, not much has changed there.
Which means we all feel rather stuck. And it isn’t too hard to believe that. We have been doing the lock down for five and a half months now.
No end in sight. Just plugging away.
Ahhh…
When I wake up in the morning, I do have this feeling of dread that there is this mountain of things that I have to get done, and also at the same time, I have the feeling that there is no way I will get them done.
But I have to make sure the kid is okay, and that the wife is being supported, as she is the bread winner now and going to school at the same time, which is a huge burden/responsibility that can completely stress her out. She’s a good wife and mother.
I just keep hoping that things will get better; at less stressful.
One day…
