Momentum

Have you ever had one of those days where you wake up early and and spend the day accomplishing everything on your list? I mean, you are just knocking those errands out, crossing things off the to-do list like crazy, because you, my friend, have momentum. On the other hand, have you ever had a day when you just couldn't get started? When, no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't get the lawn-mower working no matter how many times you pulled that cord? The difference is momentum.

Lots of things can hamper momentum. On a small scale, fatigue can make it hard to get going. Sickness can do the same. Having a bad day or running into a person who just saps all of your energy are also culprits. On a large scale, momentum can be hampered by fear, depression, or anger: the same three things Yoda warns Luke about when they're having their whole "Dark Side" convo. Do you have any idea how many people in the world don't follow their dreams or stay at their dehumanizing jobs because of these three things? The only kind of momentum you're going to find under these conditions is the kind that leads you right down into the pit of despair and, below that, good old rock bottom. Angry people are too pissed off to get anything useful done. Fearful people are too afraid to do anything. Depressed people aren't your movers and shakers. When these obstacles lie in your path, you have to do whatever you can to remove them. Life moves. It does, and in order to move with it, you need some momentum.

Right about the time I started my dissertation, my friend D was finishing hers. She mentioned to me that there would come a time in my dissertation-writing--towards the end--where I would feel a wave of momentum carrying me to the end. I was still at the beginning, so I didn't really know what she was talking about, but damn it if she wasn't right. Somewhere, after all the initial research is done, after the chapters have been laid out and sketched out and drafted, there is a wave that carries you to the last word. You'd think that would be the point at which you are the most tired, the most depleted of your resources, and you are. You absolutely ARE! But then, it's like those runners who get that last kick in just before the end of the race. I don't know if it's a rush of adrenaline once you see the end is in sight, or if you finally find your way through to what you want to say, but it's a unique feeling.

Since I finished writing my dissertation four years ago, I've had a few friends call me up for advice on how to keep going, how to keep the mometum up, while writing a dissertation. It's a lonely long-term project that requires a lot of self-discipline, so I understand why one might need some sideline cheerleading now and then. When I get calls or emails like this looking for help, I always tell my friends, keep your head down and keep working while you wait for that final kick. Don't anticipate when it will come. Don't keep looking back over your shoulder for it. Just keep your eyes on the prize and trust it will carry you away. When you're at the end of your mental and physical resources, your momentum will take you home.

I'm late posting this blog because I myself am feeling that momentum. I am very close to the end of my second YA novel. I am, in fact, within pages of the ending. A couple of thousand words away from the resolution. And I can feel it. I can feel an inevitable pull, a great wave of momentum to the end. I've been feeling it since I hit 42,000 words. Like a magnet getting closer to another magnet, I know the nearer I get, the more forceful the pull will get. So even though I know I must teach and pack for my conference and grade papers and do the dishes, that momentum will take me to the last word whenever I have a few hours to sit in front of my computer.

I can't tell you how much I missed this feeling.

The Good Old Days

I can't believe I'm saying this, but many moons ago, when I was growing up, the world was a very different place. The internet didn't exist, and the home computers my family owned (the Commodore Vic-20 and the Commodore 64) had less memory than your typical iPhone app. The part of Queens where I lived didn't get cable until I was in my teens, and the best we could do for On Demand viewing was our VHS collection and trips to Future Video. I grew up on books, network TV, and video games that were laughably simple. In the summer time, when there was "nothing to do," my sister and I read Mad Magazine, wrote comedy sketches, and watched Raiders of the Lost Ark.

For fun, I made crafts that I found in a volume of our Children's Encyclopedia or elsewhere. I mixed flour and water together to make dough. I made sun pictures. (Put shapes on construction paper and then put the paper in the sun. The sun fades the exposed construction paper and leaves the parts you covered the original color.) My sister and I melted crayon wax into bottlecaps to make gliders for a street game called Skully. (Wikipedia has a page for this game, I can't believe it! Apparently, it's regional to New York.) I used sidewalk chalk to make hop scotch boards. I jumped rope, and played handball against the side of the house. I collected leaves. Whenever I was bored, I knew it was up to me to get un-bored. Luckily, adventure was as close as the public library or the stack of books in my room. My sister and I got along well and entertained each other. We also visited our friends' houses and went for pizza in the neighborhood.

I didn't have cable, a cell phone, the internet, or an iPod. For school papers, I looked stuff up in the good old Collier's Encyclopedia. My mother often helped me type up my reports on a heavy electric typewriter we kept on a rolling metal table. If you look at the way children grow up now, it's a lot different. When my niece is bored, she goes on the computer and plays the games on the Nickelodeon website. If her TV shows aren't on for some reason, my sister can find play a DVD of her favorite series or turn to On Demand. When I was young, I was at the mercy of the television schedule. When The Price is Right was over at noon, The Young and the Restless came on, and that meant there was nothing on until Little House on the Prairie at 5:00. I'd walk to the television set (no remotes, you see) and turn it off for a few hours.

You might be thinking at this point that I'm about to get to a place where I say kids have it so easy today, but I'm not. Or you might think I'm going to declare how much better it was back then because it was a simpler time. I'm not saying that either, necessarily. What I am saying is that a childhood, whether spent playing skully, World of Warcraft, or tiddlywinks, is a special time. It shapes you in ways that are difficult to quantify. I still think Play Doh is pretty cool. I still like to do crafts, only now I get my ideas off the internet. I still turn off the TV in the middle of the day--a long holdout from the days when Soap Operas were all that the networks played between 12 and 5. If I see a hopscotch board drawn on the sidewalk in my neighborhood, I WILL jump and hop my way through it. Future Video has been replaced with the much more convenient and forgiving Netflix, and VHS has become DVD (and probably soon, BluRay). Reading is still one of my favorite activities, although if I want to own a book, I buy it online from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

My childhood was very low-tech compared to the childhoods happening now, but that's okay. It was a rich childhood regardless. I don't begrudge today's kids their online encyclopedias or texting or DVDs of their favorite shows. I won't say I'm a better person for having had less technology when I was growing up, but I will say it's helped me to appreciate what I have now even more. And far from making me feel further away from my past, the internet can help me experience parts of my childhood again. I can buy the Weeble's Treehouse on eBay. I can watch old commercials on YouTube. For this blog, I wanted to find out the correct spelling of "skully," so I Googled it, and found Wikipedia has a page dedicated to it, a chain of events that made me incredibly giddy. In writing this blog, I am using the internet to do something else I enjoy: reminiscing about the "old days." 

But that's enough of a stroll down memory lane for now. Or is it? Excuse me while I go search on eBay for that metal BeeGees lunchbox I used to carry around in kindergarten.