I’m back at my studio after two weeks of travel, early school dismissals, and sinus infections. Inspite of the goodness that is family mangement/motherhood. it never ceases to amaze me how that gig can consume every last drop of time for creative pursuits.

It’s bittersweet to be here these days, knowing that I’ll have to pack it all up soon. I got a lot done here, in this room of my own. I grew as an artist and writer. I tried brave new things. But, all in all, all of my bigger goals have gone unmet. I’m still not making money as a writer, or as a minister. After much initial interest, my first book proposal is still drifting around, nearly dead in the water. People ask me to teach, then back down when they hear I charge a standard professional fee (that’s life with non-profits I suppose.) I haven’t figured out the freelancing thing. (I can’t seem to write fast enough to get out the critical mass necessary to land a few articles.) And my Etsy shop was just starting to turn a profit, but now I have to shut it down in January because of the overseas move.

I’m glad, so glad, that I’ve rented this room of my own…but sad too, that I’m still so stuck in my journey to the land of professional writers. I’m trying to embrace the small is beautiful concept that even a small start is enough, but sometimes it’s hard.

What do you do when your goals seem unachievable?

A tiny tin-shrine memorial with a dried rose from my hospital flowers. Made for Dia de los Muertos celebrations at Monkfish Abbey, November ‘05.

“Lord, let now your servant, depart in peace according to thy word. For my eyes have seen thy salvation…”

He was very tiny, about the length of my arm from my elbow to my wrist. The nurse, nervous and new at this kind of sorrow, had eventually managed to wrap him in blankets, one small arm extending outside of the heap, his hand so frail I was afraid to touch it lest I tear his fragile skin.

We had wept so many tears for him, our doomed son. Tears in the dark sonogram room; tears when my knees collapsed in the hospital stairway; tears when we told our parents; tears as we waited all the long week to see him delivered; tears in the cold procedures room as the new nurse fled and we were left to deliver our baby alone.

There were more tears now, as we played him special songs, anointed his head in our own private baptism, sang him chants from my Lutheran childhood. Tear as we set him in the infant warmer — now disconnected and cold — to say goodbye.

Later, a union would go on strike and his ashes would wait for weeks at the crematorium before we could claim them. A small plastic bag in a square cardboard box, sealed tight with a twist tie and silver dog tag bearing not his name, but his case number, long and unfamiliar. We would cry again then, finally retrieving his remains, and dusting the water with him on the edge of the sound.

My mother cried these same tears for her first child, drugged and foggy as she came to from the delivery room. Empty arms wondering where her son had gone. My aggrieved father explaining the still birth, full term but not fulfilled. She never got to see her son, to hold his hand, to say goodbye. It just wasn’t done in those days. The hospital ferried him away without even a gravestone. The nursery packed up and painted before she was released to come home. Even now, he doesn’t have a name.

As a young teen, I read a story where a girl hides from school bullies in the shed of a cemetery. There she finds a statue of a child who had died long ago. The base of the statue read, “Our beloved Benjamin.” That’s how I think of my long lost brother — as Benjamin, uncle to Simeon, who also left too soon.

It is not within my rights to name my mother’s son as Benjamin, but I can name–did name–my own. And today, on this day to remember the dead, I remember Simeon David Chapman, who made me a mother, who is this mother’s only son.

Some people are born finishers. They sew together the sweater pieces they’ve knitted, send their edited articles into magazines, and actually take their packages to the post office. Yes, some people are finishers.

But we don’t have to like them.

Thankfully this last creativity challenge got me moving and I finished some projects. I finished my second embroidered kid’s jacket, and for the first time I knitted something for myself – this pretty lacey scarf made out of Kid-Lin.

In spite of these finishes, the last few days have been slow and frustrating for me. I had four days of bad migraines, followed by one blissful pain-free day which left me in a state of mania as I tried to get a backlog of stuff done. Then the migraine came back so badly that I had to take every med in my arsenal and curl up in the fetal position so I wouldn’t start vomiting and end up in the ER. (Nothing keeps you from getting sick like the idea of spending the wee hours of the night in the ER.) Today Paul and I are both sick with head colds, and tomorrow I’ll spend most of the day freezing my scalp muscles at the neurologist. Then we leave mid-week for Texas and when we return the kids get out of school at noon for ten days. Sigh. On weeks like this I feel like I never finish anything. How’s a person supposed to work?

That’s when it’s helpful for Paul to sit me down and tell me everything I actually got done. This week’s list included cleaning most of the house, folding five baskets of laundry, making it to the post office, buying the dog his special food and shampoo, and making up some shrine kits for etsy. I also pulled apart the hat I finished knitting because it didn’t fit, and I’ve got it about half way knit again.

Because of the migraines, I didn’t get the next chapter of my manuscript written, which is my biggest disappointment. Nor did I clean out the kid’s room for the move, which is stressing me out considerably. Still, not bad for a ‘sick’ week.

What do you do when your time seems to get sucked away by “other “ stuff? What do you decide to finish..and how do you talk to yourself about your accomplishments–or lack thereof? Advice for the poor of finishing, please!