october theory

art mother / art monster

“It’s almost like this nudge when you’re at the edge of a cliff to take the leap and do the thing,” Monica from TikTok. 

According to the Internet, October is the month when people decide what things need to be set into motion, such as committing to a new relationship or starting a new job.  I am seeking neither, but the sentiment reigns true.

My students write about a Call to Adventure they received. Did they refuse the call? Did they reluctantly accept? How did it change the trajectory of their lives?  I put five minutes on a timer and let them write.  I drink a cold brew to cure my headache. 

I dream that beetles have infested our home.  The meaning of beetles in dreams varies, but some say that dreams about insects in general can indicate a need to be free from anxiety or a lack of control in a person’s life.  If a beetle appears in your dreams, it could be a sign that a major change is about to bring positive transformation into your life.  In the dream, I take our Dyson vacuum and suck up the beetles one by one.  There are hundreds.  Each one disappears into the belly of the vacuum.  The sound they make, their clicking and tapping, is unbearable.

I plug in the address for the chapter of my sorority that is housed on campus in Westwood.  But when I drive by, there are no letters on the house.  It’s pink and in the right spot, but there is a vacancy sign out front.  I can’t help but wonder if it’s because we are a Jewish sorority.  I’d wanted to visit, like I’d done back in 2011, when a sister led me inside and we chatted.  I’d wanted that again, that feeling of belonging.  And when I pull into campus, there is a massive demonstration, police everywhere, helicopters swirling above, and I wonder if I should cancel class, and then I know I should not, and so I go to the convenience store and buy a can of Coke and by the time I get to my classroom and open it, I am already thinking of how October holds so many things, like how it was the month my brother tried to leave himself.

On the highway, I drive next to a truck full of cows.  My daughter knows what sound a cow makes.  She keeps her mouth closed for the moo, a more accurate noise.

 

I call my doctor’s office back in Tennessee.  I feel ready to speak to them about what happened to me in June of this past year.  The last message I’d sent: I am on my way to the ER I think am having a bad reaction to the IUD.  Can you please call my husband.  They did not call.  In the morning, someone from the clinic sent a message back asking what hospital I’d been to.  I was recovering in my bed.  I wasn’t able to respond yet.  They never called. It’s been four months.

At our 12-week appointment, my doctor listened to the baby’s heartbeat.  It was strong, she told us.  “There is no longer a concern for pregnancy demise,” she’d said, the same doctor who would improperly place my IUD and almost end my life a year and a half later.

When I first started publishing my work, I would copy and paste the link to my piece into a word document called “Publications.”  This was before Instagram, before I had a website.  I can still barely tell people I'm a writer.  When someone asks what I do, I say I'm a teacher first despite having two books published.  What if those two are all I ever get?  What if there are no more books to be published?  Not because they aren’t in me, but because it’s not in the cards?  What if I'm not a novelist?  What if I'm just a person who writes and has had books published?  I didn’t care about any of this when I was in the hospital being rushed into surgery.  But I can’t almost die every day so that I can remember what is important. 

I listen in on a seminar by my friend, Leigh Lucas, called “Art Mother/ Art Monster.”  We read work by Rachel Yoder and Sarah Manguso and discuss the accumulation of details that occur each day, the minutia of how life feels, smells, appears, sounds, and tastes.  During the seminar, my husband texts me a picture of an accident report from our daughter’s school.  Our daughter was bit by another kid.  She was given TLC and water.  The bite did not break the skin, but it will leave a bruise.  Something inside me drops like a broken elevator, something like getting stuck between floors.  And this has happened to me once, in France, in a lift, and the doors had to be pried open so everyone aboard could be pulled through to safety.  This is what it’s like with your child, this feeling of having to pry something open so you can exist.

I am texting back and forth with a friend when I realize the conversation is making me feel unwell.  What started as harmless gossip has turned into a manifesto of bitter resentment on my part.  I want to walk away from it, but I am the one who created it.  I started it.  So much of my life now feels like wanting to back out of rooms I voluntarily entered into.  Maybe I feel like if I can be the stronger party, the one who endures, then I will be deemed worthy.  But is it also strong if you finally block someone you hate?  Is hate too strong a word?  What about I prefer if you didn’t exist in my realm?  I feel cheated of something, or more so like I am owed something for the misfortunes of the past.  But the truth is that you are not rewarded for any time of woe.  The reward, maybe, is that you did not die.  The life, getting to have more of life, is the reward.

How come when I publish a piece online, it seems like no one cares?  Or it seems like not enough people care?  Or the people I wanted to care don’t care?  How come when my friends publish something, it feels like the world is pooling at their feet, like they have finally found God and glory and are able to be at peace in their bodies?  How come other people seem okay?  Steven Pressfield says that if Arnold Schwarzenegger was having a “freaky day,” he wouldn’t “phone his buddies; he’d head straight for the gym.  He wouldn’t care if the place was empty, if he didn’t say a word to a soul.  He knows that working out, all by itself, is enough to bring him back to his center” (War of Art).

Excuse me, but where is my center?

The bite mark on my daughter’s arm looks like a cartoon.  It looks like something that would happen on a Nickelodeon show.  The bite looks fake, but it’s real.

When I get my hair colored, the hairdresser asks if I had any postpartum hair loss.  No, I say.  “Oh, but it looks like you’ve got some here,” she says and for the first time I see a halo of wispy hairs at the crown of my head.  “That’s the hair trying to grow back,” she tells me.

I have lunch with my husband on a weekday.  I order stupidly and regret my choice.  He lets me share his chopped Italian salad.  After, I stroll into a shop and buy a matching leisure set to wear at home, out for errands, whatever.  The purchase becomes a paper bag in my hand and by the time I make it to the car I am no longer fulfilled by it.  I put the bag in the trunk and hope that when I rediscover its existence later in the afternoon, the item will reenergize me.  The object will heal me all over again.

They don’t carry my books at the local library, but an app can notify me if they do.  What if when I'm dead, they started to carry my books?  What if in a hundred years, my novel makes a comeback that nobody expected?  What if none of this matters and instead I should enjoy the sun in the sky and the leaves on the trees? 

Time stops when my daughter is in the bath.  She picks up foam letters from the water and places them on the glass, on the tile.  The ordering of letters is not intended to spell out words, but to get her used to their shape, their sound, the way they look.  When all the letters are up, she takes them down one by one.  What if I only typed things just to erase them later?  No, back to the bath, my daughter is splashing in the water and looking at me for approval.  Big splashes.  So big.  I don’t want bath time to end.  I'm sure we share this sentiment.

In October, I get Botox.  I get a gel manicure and a regular pedicure.  I get a haircut.  I buy new clothes for work.  I buy new shoes from Nordstrom Rack.  I make a pile of my old clothes and try to sell them to a consignment store.  I donate the clothes they don’t take.  I rotate out my daughter’s toys so things she hasn’t played with in a while seem like new.  I trim her nails while she drinks her milk.  Hup! she says, and it means Help!

My OCD tells my brain a story.  Or maybe the OCD is the story.  Maybe OCD is why I'm able to finish all my manuscripts.  If I don’t, then X will happen.  X is always something really bad. I'm not afraid of dropping my child on her head or setting the house on fire accidentally.  I am afraid of not doing something “right” or “the right way.”  I believe there is one certainly good way to do something and if I mess it up and get it wrong, I will not be okay. 

In my personal essay class, one writer asks if all essays stem from trauma, or if she can write something happy because she wants to write about the experience of joy.  I don’t know how to tell her that I think she’s in the wrong room.

“It takes our good moods, our playfulness, our motivation, and the possibility for connection,” my friend says after we vow to no longer hate-gossip.  Jealousy is no longer an option.  “We just can’t live this way!!!  But with social media and seeing all these projections of perfect lives, it’s hard not to.”  I like the text and then proceed to tell her that I'm getting a haircut tomorrow so I should be cured by 1pm PST.  “Okay yeah see it will all be different by then,” she understands.

Post vitriol haze, I get the mail.  The mailbox is empty.  We have no mail.  Last week, I told my husband I was addicted to my inbox.  I told him I check my email so often, sometimes once a minute.  I am waiting for an email of hope, I told him. 

I have the dream again where I am boarding a flight unsure of its destination.  All I know is that the aircraft is made for longer than usual travel.  It has a ballroom and a dining hall and a viewing area so you can look out the windows from time to time.  Someone asks me if I'm excited to reach my destination.  But I don’t know where we’re going, I say and the person laughs.  I notice that the aircraft isn’t moving yet, so I make my way to the exit.  I want to get off the plane, I say, but then we suddenly begin moving.  The plane angles itself toward the sky and passengers scramble to their seats.  I press my face against a window and feel the cool on my cheek.  All I see is water, pools of sapphire glistening as we hurtle upward with great speed.

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So honored to have my essay “Dramaturgy” published with The Racket. From Noah: “In “Dramaturgy” Ackerman delves into the gray space between friendship and relationship and the emotional freedom we’re allowed as we walk that thin line.” <3!

The first installment of Treat Yourself is now up at Write or Die! Treat Yourself is a monthly column on process where I explore the notion of self-care. How do we treat ourselves when we write? How can we take care of our physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being as writers? Is it possible to find peace in our daily lives by balancing what we give to ourselves versus what we give to our work?

I’ve got another Lighthouse Writers Seminar coming your way: Writing the Nonhuman on Saturday, November 2nd @ 9am PST/ 10am MDT/ 12pm EST.

And finally—Come join me Write or Die’s inaugural CARPOOL on Wednesday, October 23rd. “Parenting is one of the most enriching and illuminating experiences, yet it is also full of challenges and trials. Take, for example, finding the time to create and make art.  Regardless of what stage of parenthood you’re in, we want to create space for conversations and room to share our struggles and our joy together. There will be group discussions, writing prompts, short readings, and time to chill, breathe, and reflect. CARPOOL is open to all parent writers. We will meet seasonally online with a few in-person meetings in the Los Angeles area. We hope to build this group so that many parents in many different places can connect and meet and laugh and cry and write.” **message me for more info!