Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
On the first of each month, Catching Days hosts a guest writer in the series, “How We Spend Our Days.”
Today, please welcome writer
ERIKA J. SIMPSON
My tarot card for the month is Knight of Swords, reversed. Which represents being restless, unfocused, impulsive, and burnt out. I wish I could say it wasn’t true, but:
Unfocused
It is 8 am on the second day of “Super Fun Spring Break Earth Quake Auntie Niece Week.” I’ve flown in from Denver to babysit my five-year-old niece during her snow-covered spring break while my sister and her husband are at work. The air mattress I’m sleeping on in the basement has deflated a bit beneath me, and the Massachusetts chill is seeping in. My niece will come for me soon, as she’s drawn up a schedule for us that includes starting the day with “love talk” and playing barbies.
Internally, I’m panicking about work.
Bold font emails antagonize my inbox. I need to choose a date to pitch my television show to a potential network. Problem is, I haven’t finished writing the beats of the pilot because my brain keeps freezing. My editor is waiting for me to approve the paperback cover of my memoir. She is using the word imminent. I’m hesitating because the quotes from more successful authors are starting to get bigger than my name and I’m not sure how to give such a vain critique. There’s a notification that my students have turned in their writing assignments for the short story class I teach remotely, so it’s time to grade. And it’s my turn to respond to my agent, who told me to do some revision before we move forward on pitching my short stories for a collection about fatherless girls. Of course I have to spiral out about my writing capabilities instead.
The tarot card said I was full of energy and ideas but unable to actualize any of it. That I want to be involved with everything but am succeeding at nothing… Felt.
I close my laptop without responding to anything.
Restless
Saraya and I write a book in crayon on printer paper. She’s named it “Jane and the Loose of the Ice Cream.” I make her write the title words herself while I spell them slowly out loud between sips of English breakfast tea. While she colors, I respond to an email on my phone. I choose the latest date in March that they offer for the TV pitch and hit send. Anxiety levels fluctuate. I will simply have to finish writing. My niece demands the phone be put down and that I write her story as she tells it to me. I’m inspired by her. But after four sentences, she declares she’s tired of writing, and I find comfort that it’s tough for everyone.
At 11 am we do experiments with snow from the backyard. In a plastic salad container, we add red and blue food coloring and make purple. We sprinkle cocoa puffs on top, and call it casserole. Afterwards we soak our fingers in warm soapy water to get the red stains off and call it Hand Bath. Wet bubbly hands can’t email or write, and I’m thankful for that.
By 2 pm we’re feeling cagey in the house. My sister Samantha suggested earlier that we go to the library. It’s a 30-degree day, which feels like summer after it’s been cold, so we walk the three blocks down thin slivers of sidewalk caged in snow.
On the children’s floor, we pick out a book called Grumpy New Year, since Lunar New Year was yesterday, plus nine other colorful books about fairies and bullies, and family wrestling matches. We venture to adult fiction, and I point out books I own on the Black History Month table. My Sister the Serial Killer. Parable of the Sower. Chain-Gang All-Stars.
I am curious. The minute the librarian at the desk finishes helping someone, I swoop in to ask if they carry This Is Your Mother and try to say my name like it’s a stranger’s. They do! I gasp out loud when I see my yellow spine under library laminate. I admit I’m the author, and the librarian declares, You’re famous! To which my niece immediately responds, “No she’s not.” Girl!!
Maybe not Kpop Demon Hunters famous, but I’m trying, I whisper back.
Burnt out
Tonight I’m doing a reading for San Diego University on zoom, and I didn’t realize that 7 pm PST would equate to 10 pm EST, so I focus some anxious energy on that. My eyelids are already heavy from playing make-believe even after Sister got home from work at 4:30.
It’s 7:30 now. My sister orders Indian food for dinner. I try not to overeat chicken tikki masala. We watch “Mermaid Magic” with my niece while we eat. Samantha and I get up in arms that the mermaids are about to let a Mama whale die to save the baby. But at the last minute, Merlinda the leader (We joke about naming a baby BlackLinda) uses her missing mother’s memory to summon more power from within and raises Mama Whale up to the surface for air. She lives. My sister and I are totally not thinking of our deceased mother and moved emotionally by this children’s show. Totally not.
My niece chooses me for the bedtime story and Sister smiles gleefully. I can’t stop looking at the time. Saraya bounces on her bed while I read. Still bursting with energy while I fight to drum some up for my speaking engagement. After she goes down for bed, (which here means, reads books hidden in the covers by flashlight), I rush downstairs to put on a nice top over comfy leggings and move my air mattress out of camera view.
Impulsive
There are thirty people at the zoom reading. One student has my memoir cover as his background image, and I giggle in delight. Maybe my niece will consider me famous now. The moderator mentions my love of astrology and that we’re both Cancers! I say I wouldn’t mind if they all told me their signs, and they type zodiacs in the chat enthusiastically. My cheeks are warm.
I rap Eat me Out! like my 15-year-old self while reading one chapter then preach in the rhythm of a southern Black Baptist pastor as I read from another. Bringing it home emotionally, I beg God for the cancer not to take my mother’s life. My eyes are red from fighting back tears. The moderator makes everyone go off mute to clap for me, and then the chat lights up with questions.
The water signs (Pisces, Cancer, Scorpio) ask about happy memories of my mother, dealing with emotions while writing. The air signs (Libra, Gemini, Aquarius) ask about process. My favorite question is what character I relate to the most from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” (Little sister Dawn! Hungry for validation, attention, and love.) We end on a high note, everyone waving from their digital boxes.
I’m left grinning in front of a dark laptop screen at 11:40 pm. I might really be a writer, I think to myself, changing into my night shirt and lowering the air mattress back down. I snap a selfie with the vampire teddy my niece lent me to sleep with and vow to answer my editor’s email the next day. Maybe even write.
~
THOSE SAME 3 NEW QUESTIONS…
1. What one word best describes your writing life?
- Frantic. I battle imposter syndrome too often. Then hop from one half-written page to another from a different project. Working on focus every day.
2. Is there a book you’ve read over and over again?
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There’s a tattered copy of Practical Magic on my bookshelf. The dark blue paperback version with the moon and a black cat on the cover. I could exist forever in a world centered around sisters where magic is real in the softest way.
3. What is your strangest obsession or habit?
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Would my incessant trips to Goodwill count? I go two to four times a week and my main obsession is finding my childhood on the shelves. It’s all about the books. We lost so much to evictions growing up that one original Goosebumps book can lead me to tears. I’ve repurchased paperback X-files books I owned at thirteen, all the media tie-in novels for Angel, Bruce Coville books about six-grade aliens, some Babysitter Little Sister books and even Kicks by Janet Fitch, which got me in trouble in 5th grade for reading the sex scenes to my friends. All these books are nostalgic little time machines. Where Mama is alive and Sister hasn’t gone to college and when things are difficult, I can disappear into adventure. The thrift store brings it all back. I’m owning myself again.
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By ERIKA J. SIMPSONA
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