Late bloomers

I just read (in the New Yorker, natch) about Kay Ryan, the U.S. Poet Laureate (the 16th one, ever). Her poetry  wasn't "discovered" until she was 54. Nine years later, in 2008, she became poet laureate. Reading about her gave me a great idea that there is still hope for me. I could be a late bloomer, and my genius might still be discovered!

Producing great art, making your mark late in life, is sort of a reverse Mozart situation. He died at age 35, so indeed the world had only a small dose of him. We lost a lot of geniuses at an early age. Van Gogh was 36, Keats was only 25, Schubert was 31, Byron was 36. But then there are those who didn''t reach full flower until later. Raymond Chandler published his first short story at age 45; Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't write her Little House on the Prairie books until she was in her 60s; Daniel Defoe came up with Robinson Crusoe at age 61. Maybe the work, the genius of the late bloomers balances out the lost art of those who died young.

The important thing, no doubt, is to believe in yourself. Kay Ryan had to self-publish her first book of poetry, and apparently no one paid any attention. But she kept writing. Ditto Emily Dickinson. She wasn't even discovered until she was dead! So there's still hope for me. Now if I could only figure out what I should start doing that I might become famous for.

The Happiness Scale: Childcare or Doing Dishes?

A recent New Yorker contained a review of two new books on happiness research. We learn along the way that happiness research is an actual field of scientific study, more or less launched by a seminal paper published in 1978. Who knew?

These juicy tidbits, tossed our way so effortlessly by New Yorker staff writers, are precisely why I read the magazine cover to cover. And precisely why I suffer so every December 31 when I collect the year's unread issues from the bedside, the bathrooms, the coffee table, and the handbags and force myself to throw them out, an act showing considerable strength of character, in my view. I have to fight against the Grandma Myrtie gene.

Grandma Myrtie read the Lansing State Journal every day, and at some point--she must have been in her eighties--she could never quite finish the day's paper. But she refused to discard them because she still wanted to read them. Was still sure she would read them. By the time she was 90, the newspapers were stacked waist-high against walls and heaped on every chair and couch. My house would be thus littered with New Yorkers if I followed my genetic impulse.

Back to the happiness research (yes, we're still on that topic, and I'll soon get to the point). Not eight lines after the field-of-happiness-research tidbit came this wow statement--offered only parenthetically, mind you: "Studies have shown that women find caring for their children less pleasurable than napping or jogging and only slightly more satisfying than doing the dishes."

Ah, scientific support for what I have believed for years.

Recently a friend with a toddler posted on Facebook: "Eat breakfast, have playdate, walk to park, eat lunch, take nap, visit grocery store, push trike, eat dinner take bath, read story, hit sack. Repeat."  I commented: "That's what I now refer to as Parent Prison. You're in the hard labor part--on the chain gang." I knew my friend would recall our recent coffee date (sans toddler) when I had pointed out that a young woman, juggling coffee and a squirming child at a nearby table, was in Parent Prison.

But after my clever post, other of her Facebook friends weighed in with positive comments on motherhood and toddlers. I felt, once again, that I am the only one who thinks putting Cheerios in a Ziploc bag and scheduling my life around naptime is akin to hard time on the rock pile. OK, maybe not that bad, but go with the hyperbole.

I considered posting a follow-up explanation on Facebook, explaining that I do think having a kid is thrilling and worth it all and something I would not trade for anything.

Thank you, New Yorker. I am vindicated. I was in the mainstream all along when I was a lot happier taking a nap than playing Candyland.