Friday Retro

(posted Saturday morning...)

Yesterday's writing was only what was done at work, so the creativity was within the scope of business. Which is not to say it didn't engage some of the same parts of my brain as novel or poetry composition does.

Had a traditional Friday family movie night (we rented Tangled). And unlike many Friday movie nights, I stayed awake for the whole film before the inevitable snooze on the couch.

The rain that had been forecasted was mis-forecasted, thank goodness. I'll have a dry(er) garden to tackle this weekend. Looking forward to getting something significant done!

Friday Eve

The downside to posting late at night is that I've usually spent my quota of optimism by then. Left home at 7am, returned him at 9pm. Nearly 12 hours at work. I left with things still undone. But I love my job, and especially my new position. And I did make it home in time to check in with the kids on homework, distribute vitamins, tuck S. in, encourage R. to finish the project due tomorrow.

Going to bed "early" so I can get up early and do the things that I just can't face tonight, but which must be done before I leave the house again. Still won't get 8 hours of sleep, but it'll be nearly that. Hooray!

Is it Gratitude if there are qualifications?

So I'm grateful for every day I have here (ie., on this earth), and today was certainly not the hardest day I've ever slogged through.

There were even many little blessings: laughing with D. at the end of a long unload of our respective challenges, hearing about S. choreographing with her friends (to Laura Veirs' Wide-Eyed, Legless, nonetheless!), seeing R's cute super-short hair cut, and knowing that as frustrated about school as she may be (and oh, how she hates emails home from teachers with their concerns!), she is not giving up and not backing down.

But still, this is a day I'm happy to put to bed!

Tuesday Bricks and Birds

Left home at 7am, got home at 9pm. A long day, and not without its challenges. But I'm home, and there's that "Big Horizontal" piece of furniture that I love so dearly around this time of day. I love you, bed.

But it's telling (to me, anyway) that my first thought upon coming home, besides, "I'm done," is "I have to write."

So even though my daily creative writing snippets are no more than a few lines, and these blog entries are hardly more than that, I feel like I'm building brick-by-brick - okay, actually pebble-by-pebble. And you have to start a foundation somewhere.

Or, as Anne Lamott would say, "Bird by Bird."

Whirlwind year

This year has probably brought more changes in the first few months than any year I can remember. And it looks like the changes are still coming.

I suppose, as they say, even good changes can lead to stress. But so far, even though my head is spinning, I'm kind of enjoying the dizzy feeling that comes with it.

Hang on - wheeeee..!

Sunday driving

Beautiful day, but I spent more of it away from home than at home. The gardening, what there was of it, happened yesterday.

Today it was like this: get up, take the dog to the dog park, then me to the gym, a haircut, the grocery store, Peet's, home to pick up R. and D., R. to riding, D. and I up north for a drive. Then home briefly again, started a water change for the 400-gallon tank, off to get R. from riding, drop her off at home, down to work for an hour or so, home. Dishes still undone, writing put off to the end of the day.

However, the resolve for changes brought on by the good weather and April, is still there. Thus the writing, the gym, and a stick to healthy eating for today. I know all these will be a one-day-at-a-time thing. So, for today: check! done.

Q1

I'd never thought in terms of quarters before. I've never had to. Now, as a manager - and a sales manager, at that - Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 have been added to my regular vocabulary. Or at least the idea of them has.

Eventually, I may be able to stop counting months on my fingers to reckon when one Quarter ends and one begins. But for now I have to subtly move my fingers as though I were playing scales on an invisible piano while I think January, February, March. April, May June. It's the little tick I've been known to have when calculating how much sleep I'll get if I go to bed right now. D. has teased me about it for years. Fingers are handy, this way.

It is April. The rain has stopped, at least for now, and all the green blooming lift of Spring is evident everywhere: bursting up from the cracks between paving stones, and topping the trees along the streets in clouds of white and pink, and completely taking over our back yard. I can't fathom how much weeding and garden preparation lies ahead of me. And coming home when it's nearly dark during the week doesn't help. The few times I've arrived at the house when it was still light out, and not raining, I've grabbed the dog to take him to the dog park or have launched into dinner preparation.

So I've got this new lifestyle in mind: writing daily, getting the family to sit down to a healthy dinner before 7pm, regular visits to the gym, gardening. And I've decided the best strategy for make this lifestyle possible boils down to regimentation. Regimentation and revised priorities. Okay, so the two strategies for making this lifestyle possible are regimentation and revised priorities. And accountability. Three! The three strategies...well, at any rate, those are among the elements that I believe will make the difference between meeting my goals and just talking about my goals.

April Again

Okay, so no one said this would be easy, in spite of the ease with which I'd envisioned it: just start writing. Daily. As a practice.

In order to reach the goal of being a published professional writer (be it poet or novelist). Make writing part of each day. The start of the day, even. Something that happens from five to six before it's time to awaken the family and start that headlong hurl into the next fifteen hours.

But last night was a hard night, with nightmares and midnight anxieties. One of the dark times of the soul, for the few hours that it lasted. And so rising at five seemed, if not impossible, than at least very difficult.

So I told myself I would write tonight. And this, at least, I've done.

Where Things Stand

...or sit, or stagger. Take your pick.

But the current surface-skimming state of affairs - or at least what comes to mind - is this matter-of-fact update:

D. works.
I work. I drive - about 100 miles a day during the work week.
The girls are in school.
R. plays soccer and rides when she can. She also volunteers with a local equestrian therapy center.
S. dances, and was just put in a good role in the Nutcracker. She also continues to make progress with her bass, that fog-horn, cow-lowing instrument that I've come to enjoy listening to while I fold laundry.

I don't write as much as I long to, and lately I feel that this not-writing-ness is less a casual burbling stream outside my window than a full-throated river quickly gaining speed as it crashes toward the sea of Lost Opportunity. And I'm tired of walking along it or sometimes putting a toe in the bracing water. And I don't want to build a bridge. Instead, I want to dam it and channel that power into words on the page, words on the screen, and Something of Worth (intrinsic worth, mind you - not just that false worth suggested with capital letters). Otherwise, what's the point?

Worse than writing without any spirit in the words, worse than writing poorly, is wasting the drive to write.

I think I want the writer's life. I could be wrong. But I'd like to test the theory more than I have in the last year, anyway.

Hurry up and Wait

I realize that saying how long I worked today or how little I slept last night is a symptom of insecurity. It's fishing for sympathy. So I'll temper it with lack of detail. But I'm starting to feel it, here in the coffee shop with my writer pals, trying to remember the plot of that old novel that needs finishing...

Someone observed last week that my "self-awareness" was so extreme as to be crippling.

So is shyness or claims of introversion a manifestation of narcissism? Self-exiled in self-involvement? I think maybe yes.

I miss Wales with an physical ache. The Welsh call it hiraeth. Heart-sick homesickness, even if its for something that isn't technically your home. Writing something set there both helps and makes it harder.

But I have these characters in limbo between plot points who I feel have been looking up at me expectantly over crossed arms, occassionally checking their watches and sighing heavily. Like, Hel-LO? Remember us?

So I'll see if I can move the ahead a couple of squares on the board.

Bird by bird.

Fallen but Rising

Last week I was hit hard by a fresh reminder of how we are all, to some degree, morally compromised. Flawed, yes. And sometimes really ethically broken. But also, even the best of us, scarred by a thousand little cuts--nicks in our integrity. Does this make us human? Or keep us from being human? Or is it the recognition of it, and how we respond to that, the test of the caliber of our humanity?

I spent a couple of days feeling old and as in mourning. I think it was over the loss of another layer of innocence. Is there any going back?

But this is, after all, a time of change for me. After a year plus being dormant in so many ways, I feel new things coming. New and good, slowly building up like green seedlings pushing through the damp dark earth toward light. Have I said this before? If so, I hope I can attribute it to the cyclical nature of things rather than neurosis. I'd rather believe it's a valid rebirth happening, and not same-old-tune mutterings like a drunkard's forgetful promise.

(a piece of garden, 4/09)

Does this count as redemption?

There's something like absolution (although self-given) that comes with deleting the worthless placeholder posts from last month.

As always, taking the pressure off of myself for not blogging daily leads to a higher likelihood that I will blog. And so removing the reminders of where I fell short of my own standards feels like me forgiving myself and erasing a poor record.


The weather is wet and cold and oddly autumnal for nearly mid-May. It's wonderful weather if one is inside. No need to water the newly planted garden today!

Ballet & Bubbles Press

Check it out!


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And this is Wednesday

Having posted daily recordings of nothingness, while the days themselves have been anything but...

It's Wednesday. D's truck ("Big Blue") is currently broken down and will need to be towed to a repair shop.

The girls are playing violin and bass in the livingroom while D starts a fire.

I haven't looked at my personal email in days and haven't logged on to FB for probably weeks.

By the time the sun sets, I'm done.

But I think getting back into running 3-4 times a week will help. It's been way too long, and my plans for walking and running without the benefit of a treadmill (and all the reading I can get done while on said device) have come to little.

Sad but true.

The change in the time on Sunday will mean it will feel like 4am when I get up in the morning Monday-Friday, but it will also mean more light late in the day, so more time to run and to take the dog to the dog park before my energy completely wanes with the setting sun.

Sunday, more cleaning, Moon Circle

Saturday, spring cleaning, Alice

Friday!

Dydd Dewi Sant 2010

Happy St. David's day, one and all!

Brought daffodils, scones, muffins & Welsh flag to work today to celebrate.

Another afternoon of running around and evening of caring for the family. But in spite of some bumps along the road, we're all well and reasonably happy. And overall, very silly.

Dydd Dewi Sant hapus iawn i chi!

Diverse day

Got up early, took dog to dog park, went north to help lay Marley floor for dance competition, came home & made breakfast, gardened, went to friends' house to watch the hockey game, went north with the girls in tow to watch 2 hours of ballet competition, dinner out, home, bedtime routine, bed. That's all.

Saturday, actually Monday

Two days after the fact, but let's pretend it's Saturday night. This is ironic, because Saturday was the day in the last week or two when I have done the most actual writing. And yet, in spite of working on a poem for an hour or more, I didn't post here. Until now.