Thursday, March 7, 2019

I am procrastinating


I sat doing a jigsaw puzzle, the winter sun pouring in. I felt guilty about not working on my proposal. I have completed the overview and am now working on the chapter summaries. In truth, I was thinking about them, and the arc of the book's narrative, as I hunted down puzzle pieces. As I've said before, a jigsaw puzzle is an excellent metaphor for figuring out a book. A piece at a time, the picture comes into view.

Last weekend was great fun, especially the engagement party for my son's friend and his fiancee. The guests were mostly drawn from the boy families in my son's middle school class—I suppose the moms in these families wrung our hands and puzzled out boy behavior together. It's the moms who stay in touch now, gathering sometimes and occasionally bringing the rest of the families together. The boys, now young men, almost without exception brought their girlfriends, almost all of them meeting the former middle school crew for the first time. My son's girlfriend, who is white, was taken aback to walk into a gathering that was almost all white. She knew my son went to a private school in the city but she'd imagined it to be more diverse than it actually was. She attended a very diverse public school in New Jersey, was the only white girl in her friend group, and is used to gatherings that include a more varied and multihued range of folks. We had an interesting conversation afterward about how people who don't know might have judged my son's school experience and her school experience to be exactly the opposite of what they were. Everyone adored her, of course. We all love her dearly and she gets my son. And there's a great bonus: She gets me too.


10 comments:

  1. beautiful blog to read today! You made me smile!

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  2. I love your family so much. In different ways, we both have very diverse families. We also both have very loving families.
    We are the lucky ones.
    I think that doing jigsaw puzzles are your meditation. As you fit those pieces together, you are fitting together an altogether different picture in your mind. I love it!

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  3. That is the best photo of the three of you that I've seen. Your son has a wonderful smile, as do the two of you. Much happiness!

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  4. It is such a wonderful gift from the universe when your child's significant other loves not only their partner but their partner's parents too, isn't it? You have hit the jackpot there.

    That is such a great photo of the three of you, very natural and full of happiness.

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  5. growing up all my friends were white, went to a white school. my two kids went to schools that were equally racially divided because of the program they were in and had just as many black and latino friends as white and my daughters kids went to racially diverse schools, heavily latino and also have friends across the board. I am so proud of them. and how wonderful when your kids loves fit so wonderfully into the whole family. my daughter-in-law was never interested in becoming a part of the extended family, sort of cut my son from the herd but she has mental issues, is a shut-in.

    before we retired I would do the same, work on designs in my head while seemingly wasting time on other activities. and I love jigsaw puzzles!

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  6. Sigh. I feel so much beauty emanating from your website -- they are, you are, everyone is.

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  7. Truly, so much beauty here. I love your puzzle metaphor. It helps me feel less panicked about the pieces that aren't in view yet. (A good metaphor for life, too.)

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  8. A lovely photo. I'm glad you had a good time.

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  9. I can totally see how you could be "working" in your mind while doing a jigsaw puzzle. Time to think things through, to better envision the project, is essential! Don't you think?

    I envy kids who grow up amid a mixture of races and ethnicities. Where I went to school, we were virtually all white, and either catholic or protestant. It seems bizarre when I think about it now.

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  10. I love the puzzle analogy to the writing process. Yes, that's truly perfect. I may send a link to this to my twin brother who is a published writer. I also love your family and the friendships that have been made over the years. You remind me that my first three years in public school in Newark, NJ in the late '50s was very diverse. It was really a great way to begin to see the wold. When we moved the suburbs in 1960 it was definitely not as diverse. Sigh.

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