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 |   Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
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Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland    |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT May 9th What is the farthest you've ever been from the place you call "home?" When I was seventeen, I traveled to Australia and New Zealand as part of the People to People Youth Science Exchange. It was as far geographically as I have been from home. It wasn't until I was waylaid by a stomach virus for a few days, that I realized how emotionally far I was from the home and the people who would normally comfort me. I came down sick during my time in the field at Kangaroo Island. Kangaroo Island is a rustic nature preserve off Australia's Southern coast, perched at the edge of the vast Pacific ocean. It was a mile walk from the barracks to the island's only payphone. My wonderfully compassionate friend Jamie, accompanied me on the journey that took us down a red clay path, tailed by a few of the island's resident red kangaroo population. Relatively docile, kangaroos are surprising large animals. They followed closely behind, close enough to be intimating in my already fragile state. I remember how long it took my call to connect, and how distant my parents sounded over the line. I felt a world apart from them. Oddly enough though there have times when home has not been a physical place, but I have felt that same spacial distance from it. I have felt cleaved from my sense of home and abandoned in my dark places. I have felt alone and apart, even if in geographical terms, I am within inches of that "home". This scenario is marked by the same despair I felt that day, all those years ago, at the edge of the world. |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT May 8th In the future, if space travel became possible, would you want to go? What would most influence your decision whether or not to leave Earth? I have never been as captivated by space, by the limitless of the universe as so many people are. I am largely a grounded child of Earth. I work in aviation and oddly enough, I do not even enjoy flying much. I understand the appeal of flying. I love seeing the passion our clients have for it but it doesn't spark the same desire for me. If I am mildly uncomfortable with my trips up into the blue, then I finding myself in the resounding vastness of space feels like it would be down right panic-inducing. I appreciate the incredibly beauty of the solar system. I marvel at the images of Earth from space, that impossible sphere of swirling blues and greens. I love the suggestion that we are not alone, that there is life "out there". I find that fascinating. I would just defer the discoveries to other people, those who have less reservations about leaving the ground. Without a doubt, I believe that someday commercial exploration of space will become a viable option for those that can afford it. It is just not anything I would put on my own bucket list. |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT May 7th They say art is subjective. What is art to you? Okay...I will try to get through this but it is only 8:45am in my corner of the world and I am already done adulting for the day. My spirit animal is clearly going to be the Honey Badger today....all day.   So at the risk of launching into a rant about how much I loathe some people today..."What is art to me?" I am the granddaughter of an artist. My grandmother is a painter and a poet. She is a crafter of fantastical worlds. She raised me to appreciate art in its many forms, on canvas, in clay, in dance and music and in the language of words. As a result, I think anything that someone creates that can provoke an emotional response from an audience or observer can be considered art in some form. Even though I am not of fan of shock art, I understand the purpose of such installations and performances because I do believe art is subjective. All the same, I believe artists should be self-governed in that their art shouldn't harm or hurt with intention and participation should be wholly optional. People should be able to opt out of art that makes them uncomfortable or is offensive to them. I enjoy art that makes me think, that gets my gears turning when it touches off something inside. One of my favorite artists is Jack Vettriano. He has several paintings that have become very commercialized, like the Singing Butler, but I'm a bigger fan of his larger, less well know body of work. He paints scenes as rich with tension as they are with vibrant colors. He shrouds his subjects in shadows and hints at a darker side of life that compels me. He is not a darling of critics and his back story is as interesting as some of his paintings. Not all of his paintings would be acceptable to hang on the walls of your family room...and a quick google search would show you why. I have a lot of his prints though, and have several of the tamer ones on my walls. There is such life in the every day scenes he paints and they all speak to me in some way. I could use so many of them as prompts for my writing...like this one for example. It's called The Temptress and seems to just beg for a story...  Or this one...my ultimate favorite, titled the Narcissistic Bathers.  Beauty, like Art, is subjective and not all art is beautiful by design. I happen to find beauty in Vettriano's work but others might not. I think that is the point of art...it can evoke things in one person but not the next. It can inspire and it can also offend. There is a wonderful power in art that way. |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT May 6th Regarding your craft of writing, is there something specific you want to improve on or give more attention? What steps will you take to motivate yourself? As far as my craft goes, developing discipline is the number one thing I need to work on. I need to learn to be more deliberate in making time to write, in writing submissions against deadlines and sticking with something until it is a finished draft. I believe successful novel writers make time for their craft. They write as they would show up to work any job, on time and on schedule. I feel that is isn't enough just to write well, you have to be accountable to the craft and to yourself. Writing a blog and keeping up with challenges like this one, I believe are helping me to build writing into my life in such a way that it will enable me to develop the discipline and dedication I will need to produce the novels and novellas that lie in wait for me. I believe I have the spark, the idea but I need more to carry it all through. I have visions of wrapping up my day in my writing nook, banging out several chapters a night towards a goal. It is a lofty and luminous fantasy however, as life always seems to intervene. There is always something that seems to drive a wedge between a productive night of writing and me. Everyone lives life under a mountain of different demands. I have taken steps though. I've created a space for myself - a corner of the house where I can go and work. Now all I have to do is carve out a schedule and stick to it. |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT May 5th Happy Sunday! Take the time in your blog today to reflect on your week. Share one thing you accomplished this week and one thing you hope to accomplish next week. This past week was crazy busy at work. I feel the list of what I failed to accomplish might be easier to come up with if I am honest. This was a week where the days simply did not have enough hours in them to check off my list. I did managed to almost blog every day (I missed Sat, and had to catch up today) and I plan to have more success at that next week. Trying to establish some measure of discipline is something I really need to work as a writer I know. I also managed to get more steps in, more activity rather than letting myself stay trapped behind my desk at work. That is a trend I hope continues into next week and beyond. Next week I hope my weigh-in goes well although I anticipate it won't. It has been difficult this week to cook or prepare meals and I've not made the best choices as a result. Long work days coupled with a tweeked back and host of school related activities have distracted me from the plans that I so needed to follow to ensure some measure of success. So with four days to go before I face the scale, and that room full of peers, I'm just going to walk my butt off (literally I hope) and stick to my meal plans and meal prep like there is no tomorrow. Hopefully that will save me! |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT May 4th Stand outside for two minutes. Make a list of ten things you can smell, ten things you can hear, and ten things you can feel. I feel a little like I am cheating because I am doing this one a day late and I'm not standing outside because once again, it is raining. All we have had here in the Northeast is rain, rain, torrential rain and more rain. I do have my window cracking in my little writing nook though and so I think I can manage to tackle the prompt without dragging myself outside into the wet Spring. Ten things I can hear: 1. Birds, and lots of them. We moved last summer from a largely urban lot to a much more rural neighborhood. It is amazing how many more birds you can hear without the drone of traffic, ambulance and police sirens and the general ambient noise of living near a small city. The birds are my favorite sound now. 2. Rain...the consistent soundtrack of my days. I can hear the rain falling on the slate walkway, dripping down from the trees and pattering the windowsill. 3. My mother-in-law is in the kitchen washing the breakfast dishes and I can hear her trying not to clank them together as she puts them away. She has a reputation for breaking things that she is actively trying to amend. 4.. The little dog is snoring remarkably louder than one would imagine. 5. My mother-in-law is now shouting at said little dog, obviously she has found any number of bad things he might have done...the garbage (his garbage-diving skills are the stuff of legends), an accident (he loathes pooping outside in the rain) or some new evil surprise he has left just for her. 6. My neighbor across the street is tinkering loudly in his open garage, most likely aggravated that the rain is once again keeping his yard work at bay. 7. Somewhere there is a child laughing loudly, possibly the house behind us. 8. The subdued roar of a plane passing overhead, something big and high in the sky. 9. A car has just driven by, too quickly for the rain. They are far less frequent than on my old street. 10. The gentle whirling of the dryer comes through the floorboards under my feet. Another perk of the new house is a washer-dryer on the main level instead of in a creepy basement. The noise of the machines is strangely calming. Smelling is harder...I smell rain, the clean Spring scent of wet grass. I also smell the remnants of the breakfast just cooked that pretty much hangs about me and reminds me that I need to shower the smell of Turkey bacon off me soon. As far as ten things I can feel...the list is equally short. I feel blessed. I am sitting in front of an open window and the world outside is green and full of promise. Yes, it is raining but it is not snowing...and it is not humid. I have a managed to find a few moments to write and that is the very best feeling. |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT May 3rd Tell us a fact about one of your ancestors. Where does your family come from? How far back can you trace your ancestry? My ancestors on my father's side are all French Canadian. I had a great grandmother who still spoke in her lilting native tongue and welcomed station wagon loads of relatives to our homestead each summer when I was a child. They would arrive, speaking in rapid fire French, to grab our little faces to plant kisses on both cheeks. It was interesting... I have long planned to go to Quebec to see where my family really comes from. Our name was actually spelled differently but was modified on my great grandfather's trip through immigration and customs. There are still roads and parcels of land there bearing my family's surname. My great grandparents came here together, a young couple who worked the land. My great grandmother in particular was the strongest lady I ever met. She was very independent. She never missed a day of church and demanded my father open our pool up in April. As soon as the cover was off and the chemicals cleared, she'd come marching up the drive in her bathing cap and suit and in she would go. It had to be frigid and we would watch her from the windows in absolute awe. The most interesting ancestor though had to be my great-great-great grandmother on my mother's side. She hailed from the Azores. She spoke seven different languages and apparently worked for the government as a translator, something nearly unheard of for a woman from her time. My grandfather would talk about her in this revered way, this tiny, fierce lady who had the most gifted of brains. |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT May 2nd Remember bringing something from home for “Show and Tell” at school when we were little? Today, I want you to do the same in your blog. Pick an object that means something to you and describe it. What does it remind you of? How did the object come into your life? Does it bring you comfort? What is the story behind the object? I am a little later to the party today than usual but I threw my back out, or tweeked it, or otherwise messed it up and so I've been laid up for most of the day with the dogs and my heating pad. Show and Tell was one of my favorite school memories. We would sit in a big circle on Ms Poirot's Picasso-colored rug, each of us clutching our treasure of the week and waiting for our moment in the spotlight. I distinctly remember my mother reviewing every potential show and tell item to be absolutely sure it was acceptable and would not embarrass her in any conceivable way. Other kids parents were not as over-reaching, which made for some memorable shares... If we got to do real, adulting versions of show and tell...there is a multitude of potential items that come to mind and none of them would make my mom's approved list for sure! Life is short, best to make it interesting. My share might be my first ever publishing cred which happens to have been in an erotic horror anthology cheekily titled, "Nailed" for example. It is special because it felt like a coming out moment for me...a throwing open of the curtain and crying "yup, here I am!". More than likely though, I would share something sentimental like my grandfather's pipe which has graced every mantel in my home since his suicide. It serves as a reminder of love and forgiveness. It reminds me of a man who, despite his gruff exterior, made me feel special at a time when I felt unseen. Or, the pawprint impression of our first rescue puppy that we lost too soon to cancer. Our big, beautiful Shepard mix Ricky Bobby, who stole all of our hearts and taught me that saying goodbye is sometimes the greatest gift we can give to them. As I am writing this, I realize that blogging is really a lot like show and tell. Each day we come to share a piece of ourselves. we read the prompt, reflect and then we craft our moment. We put it out there. We "show and tell" in our words and our electronic ink. |
| 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT May 1st Crazy as it may sound, we are now officially 1/3 of the way through 2019. Write about some of your goals and plans for the remainder of the year. What are you looking forward to? 2019 has moved at a break-neck pace for me so I am hardly surprised to find that May 1st marks the 1/3 til over mark. I have set up some goals for myself, but they are more lifestyle changes rather than things that I planned to do before the year is out. I have a few short terms ones though, like hit every day in this blog challenge...even the weekends which have been historically harder to do for me. I plan to ride out the last few events and commitments for my role of Treasurer in my daughter's PTO. I will wrap it all up in a bow and hand the role over to the new victim without seeming too gleeful or ecstatic as I actually feel inside. I am really looking forward to getting that monkey off my back after two LONG, LONG years of service. I have learned several key things from the experience...#1. If you step up to volunteer, no one else ever will. #2. The PTO will not gain you friends or influence so you must take from it only the gratitude of service and the knowledge that you have done your part. #3. Get out before your burn out. Seriously....because it will burn you out especially if you have other responsibilities, like a job, or kids, or a marriage or a pet or a plant! I also started Weight Watchers. It is time, so much so, to shrink my ass and get fitter. My 40-something year old body has been protesting loudly for too long. My goal is to get to an acceptable weight so that I can ride with my sister and my daughter this summer. I have too much respect for those horses to put myself on their backs at my current weight. I'm doing it with my little sister and I feel like that is key, having a partner in the long fight. My sister and I always have each other's backs - who better to keep me from driving off a cliff or eating a donut! So the remainder of this year for me seems to be largely about shedding things...weight, extra responsibilities and lame excuses for not doing the things I want to, and need to do. I am eager to see how my world looks and feels by year's end. |
| As a parent, there are a few of those milestone moments you know are coming down the pike. Some of them are terrifying to contemplate, like the onset of puberty and all those awkward talks you just know are waiting in the wings. Then there are those moments you look forward to with sweet contentment, like the day the training wheels come off their bike and they learn to ride. You think you know how it will go. There will be a few bumps and bruises but they will turn their little faces to you, ready to sop up all your sage advice and guidance. You will encourage and empower them and they will be determined and grateful. Then comes the reward, watching them glide away from you, the wind at their backs and their gleeful voices singing your praises for delivering them to this amazing new world. You have been their guide, their teacher, their hero. It was an amazing parenting win. When I pulled my daughter's bike out of the garage, I fully expected the experience to live up to my expectations. I eagerly waited for her to don her helmet and knee pads. I was so sure that this would be the Rockwell-esque version of the milestone I had dreamt about. Here is how it actually went down... As it turns out, my daughter would have been content to operate her bike with training wheels until she was ready to trade it in for a car. Needless to say, she took to the task of learning with barely contained resentment, barking at me each time she wobbled or got banged on the knee by the pedals. If I tried holding her seat, I was doing it wrong. If I tried giving her advice or encouragement, she frowned and snapped at me. Several times she broke into frustrated tears and more than once, I had to walk away from her as she bristled with child rage and hit with me a litany of excuses. The seat was too high, too hard, too crooked. I was holding her wrong. The driveway was to uneven. We finally decided to take a break. She abandoned the bike and her helmet in a heap by the garage and I went inside to nurse my disappointment. It was several weeks later before we tried again. The day was the perfect harbinger of an early Spring with a cloudless cerulean sky above our heads and a warming sun on our backs. This time I had reinforcements, my husband took a break from the yard work to lend a hand. I warned him she was liable to be difficult, even a little mean as she struggled hard to master something she believed she should just "get right out of the box". Even with my warnings, he was surprised at the level of open hostility she directed toward the lesson, and us, as her repeated attempts to gain her balance met failure again and again. I could see the collapse of her confidence in her bowed head and welling eyes. My requests for "one more try", were met with deep frowns and groans but we knew we could not let her quit. As everything threatened to collapse, we decided to try another approach. This time we took it to the street, at least the straight strip of pavement consisting of 100 feet between our neighbor's mailboxes. The roadway was level and the path open wide in front of her, no turns or inclines. We told her to get her feet in position and just get moving forward. We encouraged her to keep going, even if she had to take her foot of the pedal once or twice along the way. After a few wobbly attempts, she managed to stay upright and pedal for about seven feet. I saw the first smile break at the corners of her mouth and the glimmer in her sea change eyes that signaled the return of a little of her confidence. She had done it, just for a few seconds, but it had been enough. I watched her rally then, engaging all her young grit and determination. She immediately dropped the attitude and began to really listen to our advice and encouragement. After a few moments, she was managing to go almost the full span between mailboxes, pedaling and maintain her balance and at last, she was really smiling. The last pass she made she cheekily told me to "watch out" in case she ran me down. Then, just like I told her she would, she was doing it, riding a bike on her own. Just as suddenly, we were those celebrating parents from a Hallmark movie or sappy commercial, bouncing on our toes and clapping in the middle of our street. Watching her riding away from me, the wind at her back, knowing she was smiling under that helmet and feeling accomplished... I had my milestone moment at last. It might not have come to me the way I imagined but when it came it was no less sweet. |
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