blog
some thoughts on 35 {6/30/14}
Kelley Clink
For a while there I was an early bloomer. I finished college a year early and got married two weeks after graduation. By the time I was 24, my husband and I had graduate degrees and jobs, owned an apartment, and were getting ready to start a family. I was leaping over your classic American middle-class milestones as if they were the 100 meter hurdles.
Then my brother died by suicide, and it was as if someone dropped Mount Everest onto the track.
I quit my job and got a new one. Then I quit that job and got a new one. Then I quit that job. I still wanted to have children, but my heart was torn open raw and, honestly, I wasn't sure that I should. I wondered whether my own history of depression meant that I wasn't fit to be a parent. I worried my potential offspring would inherit my crooked genes. And, most of all, I feared that my years were numbered, that the same ocean of anguish that had engulfed my brother would pull me under, too.
Meanwhile, all around me, friends and family were still running. My husband and I were invited to weddings and baby showers and housewarmings. Holiday cards turned into piles of smiling family photos and letters detailing activities and adventures. It seemed that every year everyone had racked up a stack of accomplishments. Everyone had gained ground.
I, on the other hand, was still working toward base camp on Everest. This, I realize now, was also an accomplishment. Each day that I got up and faced, each day that I survived, was a victory. It didn't really translate to a holiday card, though. (Merry Christmas! This year we are...still alive.) And the work was so subtle, so slow, that I felt like I hadn't budged an inch. Eventually I realized I wasn't on Mount Everest--I was on Mount Grief. And Mount Grief, it seemed, was made of quicksand.
Still, I continued to look to the future. Surely I would conquer this mountain before I turned 30. After I turned 30. Before I turned 32. 33, at most.
One of my favorite Instagrammers, Jo, says that age loves a filter. I will add that age loves it when you plan to create a series of self-portraits on your birthday but forget until just before bed and end up shooting a single photo in super low light with your iPhone.
Yesterday I turned 35. My book is being published and I am finally expecting a child. In some ways it looks like I've made it over the mountain. In some ways I have, and it's wonderful and I am grateful. But I am also aware of the mounting pressure to reenter the race--and that's something I don't want to do. As painful as it was to feel so removed, so stagnant, there was freedom in not comparing myself to others (when I could actually manage it). There were pleasures and joys in a life that wasn't driven by the usual markers of "success." Part of me wonders what it would be like to blot out that slow-motion decade and dive back into the sprint. Most of me knows that it wouldn't be any easier or make me any happier. And all of me knows that it isn't possible or advisable. Why would I want to work to forget everything I've learned? If anything, I'd like to work harder to remember.
The expectations are still there. The anxiety about lost time is still there. The hope that I will never have to climb a mountain like that again is a nervous bird trapped in my chest.
But when I stop to think about it, I'm a much better climber than a sprinter. And that's not a bad birthday gift. Not at all.
blog hop {6/23/14}
Kelley Clink
Yikes--I can't believe it's been over a month since I've posted! Thankfully, my good friend Annette Gendler tagged me in the #mywritingprocess Blog Hop. Started by Carol Malone back in February, the hop asks writers a series of questions about their writing process.
where the magic (sort of) happens (sometimes)
1) What are you working on?
Funny you should ask! After nine long years my memoir, A Different Kind of Same, is being published by She Writes Press. It is slated to come out in May 2015. Currently we are working on cover design, proofreading, and preparing my marketing campaign. It's a lot of work, but really exciting. In the meantime, I'm taking the first few cautious steps toward writing some new pieces. It's all very preliminary, and will likely be on the back burner for a few months, but there you go.
2) How does your work differ from others of its genre?
Hmm, this one is tricky. Truthfully, I'm not sure it does. I strive for a balance of informality of lyricism in my writing, but I don't think I'm the only one who does that. I've been told that I manipulate punctuation to an obnoxious degree (especially dashes--love the dashes). But overall I'm not a genre revolutionist. I write memoir because I am drawn to introspection. I think the internal journey is as interesting and relevant (if not more so) than the external one.
3) Why do you write what you do?
Because I have to. Because if I didn't, all the weird, scary, depressing, joyful, luminous, divine stuff rolling around inside and outside my head would sink me. Also because (in spite of the fact that I can't shut up) it takes me a really long time to figure out what I am trying to say.
4) How does your writing process work?
Big picture-wise, I tend to procrastinate until the thoughts and feelings I'm avoiding become so painful, disruptive, and nagging that I can't help but turn around and face them. It took me two years to sit down and start writing A Different Kind of Same. I imagine some more time will pass before I tackle all the crap that has happened since then.
Once I feel ready to start working, I tend to journal on a regular basis and set small goals for myself outside journaling, such as 500 words a day. I give myself weekends off. But one thing I've found is that I need to be really flexible with my process. Life's demands change constantly--lately I've just been squeezing things in where I can when I feel like it. Probably not a recipe for Stephen King-level prolificacy. Good thing I'm not Stephen King.
For the next hop I'm tagging my friend Britta Froehling. Britta is a painter, photographer, writer, and philosopher. Her work and her attitude toward life inspire me. Pop over to her space and say hello!
last week's assignment {5/12/14}
Kelley Clink
It's been so long since the weather was good enough for photography. Last week I gave myself a simple assignment: 1) Walk. 2) Shoot. I used my SX-70, my Land Camera, and my digital. Behold: spring in the city.
reflections on a decade {4/30/14}
Kelley Clink
Today is the tenth anniversary of my brother's suicide.
For the first five years after his death, this season destroyed me. The snow would melt, the leaves would unfurl, and time would tear him away all over again. But eventually the grief softened. Writing the memoir helped immensely. Discovering meditation and Buddhism did, as well. But maybe it would have turned out like this even if I hadn't done a thing. Maybe time itself turns someone's absence into his presence. I don't really know. What I do know is that I miss him a little more keenly every April 30th. I miss knowing the person he would have become. I miss him knowing the person that I am.
This year the ache is especially poignant. After five years, three surgeries, three rounds of IVF, and hundreds of tears, my husband and I are finally expecting our first child. I find myself wondering if I will see my brother them. I wonder what kinds of questions they will ask about their uncle. I wonder how I will answer them.
Ten years after Matt's death, I want to share a a complicated truth: I hate that my brother is dead, but I love who I became because of it. With one action he cracked my foundations, and over the years my walls came tumbling down. Those years were pure terror. I was broken, bleeding, and exposed. Life--every moment of it--hurt.
But that pain led me to compassion. That pain led me to change. That pain forced me to accept myself for who I am, allowed me to find the beauty, joy, and love at the root of all my grief.
I won't say it doesn't still hurt, sometimes. I will say that more often than not I am grateful for the pain.
I love you, little brother. Every motherfucking day.
april showers {4/6/14}
Kelley Clink
a long wait {3/31/14}
Kelley Clink
On this, the last day of March and the first day it's reached 60 degrees in Chicago this year, I've been thinking about how hard it is to wait for change.
Change almost always takes longer than we want it to. Longer than we think we can stand. Gray day after gray day we wait, and the branches stay bare.
Sometimes it feels like change will never come. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes it takes decades.
Sometimes we find beauty in the bareness. Sometimes we find peace in standing still.
But a lot of the time we rail against the darkness. We cry for life to be different. We grieve for wanting unfulfilled.
Though the branches remain bare, the sky is blue today. The warm breeze promises blooming. No matter where you are in your life, change is coming. Fight it, grieve it, welcome it, embrace it. Whether it melts away the darkest winter or strips the blossoms from the trees.
grammer {3/19/14}
Kelley Clink
I've written in the past about how much I dislike social media. If it were up to me, Facebook wouldn't exist. And don't get me started on Twitter. Don't even get me started. (hashtag 80s standup). But there is one social media program I actually love, that I check every day and would miss if it were gone: Instagram.
For me, Instagram is like a conversation in pictures. You show me a piece of your world, and I'll show you a piece of mine. I mostly follow friends, but I also follow artists, photographers, and complete strangers who happen to take lovely photos and often pair them with lyric captions. I only check my feed once a day, first thing in the morning, while I am still in bed. It inspires me to start the day with my eyes open, to look for those moments where (as Cartier-Bresson says) the heart, eye, and mind align.
Or to see cute pictures of my friends' pets.
Either way, I like that Instagram urges me to live in the moment. To look for bursts of color and patterns of light and shadow. To tell a story with an image. To clip a piece of my experience and toss it into the wind.
I've added an link to my Instagram account here (check out the social media bar on the left). Let's share pixels!
all you need {2/14/14}
Kelley Clink
Maybe it's because this holiday isn't quite so kid/family centric. Maybe it's because there isn't as much societal pressure to participate. Maybe it's because it isn't commercialized on the level of Christmas. Maybe it's because I need a splash of red in the middle of winter. Or maybe I just love love. Whatever the reason, I'm a sucker for Valentine's Day. Hope the love of friends and family warms your heart today!
spring is coming {2/1/14}
Kelley Clink
As much as I'd like to live in a milder climate (and believe me, this year it's at the top of my to-do list), there is something compelling about the weather extremes of the midwest--particularly the transition from winter to spring. For nearly half the year the world seems dead: bare branches, snow-buried grass, gray skies. And every year it feels like we are trapped. Like THIS IS IT. This is the year that winter will go on forever. But the days get longer, the sun gets warmer, the snow melts, the birds sing, and the trees unfurl their leaves. Spring. A miracle.
When life's pattern is smooth, predictable, it becomes easy to take things for granted. But these seasonal transitions remind me that nothing is permanent. Not depression, anxiety, or grief. Not joy, happiness, or peace. These seasons remind me not to cling to what's pleasant or push away what isn't. They invite me to be with what is.
(They also invite me go through old photos and reminisce about summer. I guarantee if Buddha had lived through three polar vortexes, he would have done the same thing.)