BENEATH THE SKYLINE

TAKING ROOT

Deborah Good

One thing at a time. I will do only one thing at a time.

A friend of mine decides this is the principle that will ease her stress level. I try to imagine her applying it to her life—sitting and playing with her one-year-old instead of nudging a ball with her toe while opening the mail and throwing together some supper; or waiting for the trolley and doing just that, instead of pulling out her electronic calendar (which handily doubles as a cell phone) to schedule a meeting.

Someone recently told me that a hormone released in nursing mothers actually improves their ability to multitask, and I believe it. I have seen more than one woman trying endlessly to use her time well, down to the last drop.

I have been confused recently about time and how I spend mine. It has been nearly a year and a half since I had a "conventional" nine-to-five. Instead, I have had more part-time, temporary, and odd jobs than I care to list here, while attempting to be what some would call "a writer." And as a result, for nearly a year and a half, I have been in charge of my own time more than most people I know.

You have probably heard the story: James Frey wrote the book A Million Little Pieces and called it a memoir. A watchdog website revealed (and Frey himself eventually admitted) that much of his memoir was actually fabricated—that maybe it should, in fact, be considered fiction. Several lawsuits surfaced, including one in which Seattle readers are taking Frey to court—for their "wasted time."

Their wasted time? The charge first amuses and then exasperates me. If I could sue everyone who has "wasted" my time throughout my life, I’d be one wealthy woman. Yet I know it is true: We think time is a commodity. We have it or don’t have it, use it, spend it, and waste it. (Now insert "money" into the same sentence and find that it functions just as well.)

Our minutes, hours, and days are worth more or less depending on who we are and how we spend them. As I write this, I am amid negotiating an insurance claim related to a December car accident. How much time have I spent in doctor’s appointments? they want to know. And how much is each hour worth to me?

My dad died last July at 61, after a short and unexpected fight with cancer. People have told me that grief comes in waves, and I am finding this to be true. It rolls in without advance warning, and crashes on my inner shores. It comes as anger. It comes as sadness. It always, always comes as exhaustion.

And, oh, God, what shall I do with my

grief?

I was invited to write and then read a "lament" for a Sunday morning service on the Psalms.

What shall I do with that deep ongoing

ache?

Shall I weed it out of the messy garden of

my life—

cut off its heavy buds

and toss them in a heap?

This is the question, isn’t it? I could fill my time with work and meetings and parties. I could push myself through, weed it out . . . cut off its heavy buds and toss them in a heap. Some have told me that they survived the terrible waves of sadness by keeping busy.

Or shall I nurture it, let it blossom,

and then sit for hours, breathing in its

petals,

tears a river down my face?

I decided recently that one of my part-time jobs was wearing me out, that my time was too full and my energy too depleted. I needed to pay attention to my sadness, to nurture it, let it blossom. I resigned.

Not having a well-defined job has me asking again a question I inherited, like skin, from my Mennonite family line: What am I contributing to the world?

Yesterday I spent most of my time at the Philadelphia city court building for jury duty. Probably 200 of us waited together with little to do or say; the room was practically silent. I made an attempt at conversation with the young man sitting beside me. "Have you done this before?" I asked. We talked briefly about jury duty, and about the weekend’s snow storm. He didn’t seem interested in more, so I amused myself instead with my curiosity about him, imagining who he was and what made up his story.

I noticed the large black letters he had printed under "occupation" on the jury selection form: "bakery worker." What kind of bakery did he work for? I wondered. Did he bake? Deliver? Run the register? Mostly, I wanted to know if this was his real work, or just what he did to make money. What was his life really about? Perhaps this is forefront in the minds of all of us fishing for an occupation.

Sometimes I find it helpful to think of the world as a huge power grid with currents of energy moving this way and that, making things happen: lights go on, coffee gets made, newspapers get printed, people and places everywhere influence and transform one another. If the world is a power grid, I think to myself, then I am a cord wishing I could plug in.

Work is happening everywhere around us. In Philadelphia, where I live, the hard work of change is always bubbling beneath the surface. She speaks through poetry, hip-hop, and the murals and gardens that reclaim broken neighborhoods for beauty. She is happening through door-to-door organizing and meetings in church basements; through websites, email listservs, and nonprofit organizations.

Today, Latino immigrants and others filled the plaza across from the Liberty Bell, opposing a senseless bill in Congress and calling for immigration reform. I joined them for an hour, mostly a witness to one current of the world’s people-power, mostly feeling like a cord, wanting to plug in.

As I sat with the other jurors yesterday, I read in The Sun magazine about one writer’s experience of a small-town flood: "We were so busy being flooded," writes Sparrow, "we didn’t hear that the pope had died."

I have felt that way more than once this year. Some days recently, I glance at the front page of the newspaper, only to set it back down with a sigh. It’s as though the part of me that cares has spent so much of itself this year, I have only a little left. It’s as though what is going on in my own head is enough.

I unconsciously believe, as many do, that the best response to our city’s voluminous pain and our global nightmares is to do, do, do. Contribute to the world. Plug in. Follow the news, analyze, organize, act. But grief is teaching me another way.

One thing at a time. I will do only one thing at a time.

I was thinking about all of this as I took a shower one morning last week. The radio was on and a woman, Mary Cook, was reading a three-minute essay, part of a National Public Radio series called "This I Believe." I stepped from the shower and stood there, dripping in my towel, as I realized what Cook’s essay was about. Her fiancé had died suddenly several years ago. She felt mortified and guilty for being so immobilized by her loss. She worried that others would think her lazy.

"One very wise man once told me," I heard her say, "‘You are not doing nothing. Being fully open to your grief may be the hardest work you ever do.’"

I had just resigned from my job. I ran from the bathroom to write down her words.

Later, I have coffee with a woman from church, and she tells me about paper-white bulbs, how they look scrawny and unimpressive—ugly ducklings of sorts—when she first plants them in a vase of rocks and water. They appear to do nothing for weeks, but all the while are quietly sending down their roots. Suddenly they shoot upward into beautiful white blooms. Somehow the image is almost enough to make me cry. Of course, I write in my journal that night, I am a bulb!

Sometimes blossoming is only possible after weeks of root-growing. Wasted time? Perhaps we need our wasted time—seasons to let our fields sit fallow, allowing the soil of our lives to recuperate. In these days of doing less, in these days of grief, I just might be taking root, building resources of energy that will later send up green stems, shoots, and tender, beautiful blossoms.

—Deborah Good, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is working on family writing projects based on interviews with her father and grandparents and is open to suggestions for what she should be when she grows up. She can be reached at deborahagood@gmail.com.