Accomplishment

I would never make the grade in Mr. Darcy's eyes when it comes to being an accomplished woman.

As a reminder, Miss Bingley defines the accomplished gal this way: 

A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, all the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.

And then we have: 

“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

Okay, so I read in general. And today I read a little Spanish (boning up before a bilingual test on the 28th) and some Albert Schweitzer biography. And I also accomplished (here used as a verb rather than adjective) the following: slept late to fight off feeling under the weather, got up and fed the chickens and dog, cleaned the kitchen, accompanied D.  to Walnut Creek to visit his declining father (with a side trip to pick up pizza for everyone after we'd arrived), drove the hour plus back, went to OSH to get jars for the next harvest of honey, went to the gym to work out, took the dog to the pet store to give him a bath, ate a healthy dinner, started a more formal will (with software and book from the library, due back soon and because lord knows the old one is out-dated), replied to a few emails, washed laundry, took out the trash, pulled some weeds, and then generally fretted about how little I did today and how the day felt wasted. This is probably some kind of worked-Saturday-cum-Sunday-night-blues.

Okay, so I didn't do any of the many things that are continuing to press down on me. But heck, now that I think of it, this isn't bad. And I should be kinder to myself. Besides, Darcy's taken anyway.

It's Official

I now hold an Masters in Poetry from Pacific University's MFA program.

This is a post I started in January, when that was fresh news, and that sentence was all I have to say.

More importantly, since then, I quit the job I'd held for 19 years and now work for the local county library system, at the central city branch. A simple shift, but a huge one with significant repercussions.

Like so many other changes over the last two or three years - publishing a chapbook, keeping chickens then bees, getting a cat then an MFA - this career shift has enriched my life and has awoken a part of me that had been dormant for so long, one couldn't even call it hibernation. Bears wake up sooner, is all I'm saying. Rather, think about some seed (like a nelumbonaceae) that lies encased in itself for years while conditions are too poor to allow for survival, let alone growth.

As wikipedia tells me, "True dormancy or innate dormancy is caused by conditions within the seed that prevent germination under normally ideal conditions." And the nelumbonaceae family (also known as sacred lotus) is subject to what's called "physical dormancy" where the seed doesn't germinate because it is requires an external force to break through its impermeable coat. "In natural systems, physical dormancy is broken by several factors including high temperatures, fluctuating temperatures, fire, freezing/thawing, drying or passage through the digestive tracts of animals."

So maybe I just had to go through the belly of the beast and some freezing and fire before I could reach this place. This thought may prove helpful in my efforts to move forward without spending much time kicking myself for not having done so sooner. I didn't, perhaps because I couldn't have. And at any rate, I can't change the past. I can only move bravely into the future with (ever increasing) energy and a positive attitude and focus.