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Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins |
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It Hurts When I Stop Talking Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting. Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script. My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier. Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally. “I will.” But, I didn’t. Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was. Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog. |
| Ever feel like the clock skips a beat? The papers are signed and the money was provided in right way -- next step, keys and utilities. Now the physical work will continue non-stop; and I think we will still feel a bit "in-between" even a week from now. My daughter seemed a bit out of sorts last night that I did not have every answer nor contingency plan worked out -- Hey, it's a move, it's not like I have the budget of NASA for a rocket launch (ha, that's a bit of a joke). The funniest thing will be the dance of watching what moves out, some into storage, and just how much stays behind -- as it is furniture and belongings that were just stored here while we rented and much of it not belonging to us. |
| I thought I was pie-in-the-sky a decade ago when I used to wonder how to get into a modestly-priced home in my native California. If only I could have saved every tax refund check from that time forward. Instead, the reality has always been I've settled for a simple desk job for too little pay and met the basic needs of my children. If I am both very fortunate and stick to a budget, I might soon own a mobile home for my later years. The whole search for a reasonable home took all this time, fifty plus days, and it has been scary beyond belief. I have not had to face giving up animals I care for before (knew it was a possibility) but never before faced the shame of it. It is a terrible decision to have to make, and it makes me face how distant I am from people I know -- and shy on top of it -- making it difficult to do more of a "broadcast" about the odd-dog out that will need a home as I move. I truly had not had to navigate the real estate world since the first time I'd been on my own as a young college student. That's been a long time. The world is less friendly and property owners more skeptical, and I remember being totally overwhelmed and afraid then. The same things were true then as now, having available money makes everything go much smoother. It's that fluid money I want to work into my income and budget -- it is essential. Otherwise, you have a place to go but no one to carry you there. |
| Temperatures nice enough by six p.m. to walk home in; witnessing Letterman's band leader steal fire from The Orwells, who made good music, but also blasted fools of themselves in a television debut. Later watching Craig Fergueson complement a Grammy nominated female comedienne, Tig (?), erm, I mean, watching my husband and son battle with mock savagery and a lot of logic.. but also, humor to complete a 5 hour game of Talisman while my daughter and I made a good run of it, but were the first casualties -- not surprising since we were a Sprite and a Halfling. Enchantress vs. Gipsy after the Crown of Command -- where Enchantress and Gipsy proved to be an inspired combo. Hmm...this doesn't sound like a family in crisis. I think my days off are well-placed, and will lead to much good. Time to get down to some business too. |
| Everyone of us (except the doggies) have already made good efforts to sift through our belongings to make our eventual move easier. I have begun the process of looking through last year's expenditures. I need to have a solid idea of what we can afford -- especially if I am not eligible for some form of assistance. The biggest task is finding a location. And I have taken notice of some options, but I have not "stepped off the curb" as yet. I still prefer a sandy beach / tidepool analogy right now. I am letting the good flow toward me and fill me, and I'm waiting for it all to sink in and be transformed by the warmth of the sun. That whole process doesn't take as long as it sounds, but focusing on how things get swirled around in the tide and how time seems to stand still for a time, when I think about it this way -- that does help. Sharing a home with someone, low-cost apts, mobile home parks -- I think those are my targets for the first wave of searching. I also had some clarity about being forgiving of myself -- I realize I have only had two landlords. That makes me feel still pretty new at this. If I was not able to manage current rental rates demanded during an economic downturn paired with a real estate upturn, well, the odds were just not in my favor |
| Anxiety ramped up yesterday and the day before, but today by the time I got home, I was able to insist on talking through a few of the highlights of what items of greatest need in this eviction we have to work on together -- my spouse and I. Still have not had a real talk through with the kids. Only one person at work knows so far too. I am still a bit unclear where I can actually expect help. I can tell the Winter Break time-off is starting to wear on my daughter. Luckily only two more weekdays plus the weekend before she's back to a school-day schedule. I do think I can get a bit of guidance from the school or the district since they have been polling about at-risk for homelessness at the start of the school years for a number of years. The availability and suitability of housing may have to come before the affordability is answered. I am looked for the highest answer; thy will, not mine... |
| Fifteen chunks of four days, maybe that's my realistic goal for documenting this sixty day journey. TODAY seems to be a day where I see absolutes and know the ego and falseness that have influenced decisions up until now. Those things can fall away. Yeah, I tried to meditate today. Did it before sunrise, and before I let myself on the computer. Here's an interesting observation, it was not before I'd already gone into cleaning mode on a pile I knew needed to be dismantled for the spouse's de-cluttering plan to progress today. Yes, that's right, I was basically cleaning in pre-dawn light. This is what a call to action, like eviction, does to me. |
| Needing to talk; appreciating my comfortable space of writing things out. That's here. Knowing publicly might not be the best place to vent. Maybe I can be here and not posting (not yet). Maybe it becomes a sixty day study in which I post to the blog but wait to make it available to read. Maybe my problems are so commonplace it's a whiny mess and currently I'm placing too much self-importance toward it? |
| When we find ourselves in the season of winter, there is often the feeling of something dogging us. I'm not sure it is supposed to feel this way. The other option is to hibernate -- but I know that is not supposed to be human nature. Having fewer hours of daylight, completing tasks can feel more difficult as the day becomes compressed, and the night hours seem to drag on endlessly. What if there was a way to feel at ease in the darkness? Entangled in Darkness: Seeking the Light by Deborah King describes the work of energy healer Deborah King, and encourages others to bravely look at where the darkness in one's own path can be transformed by walking in the light. Besides the confidence with which the author relates to the reader about her own spiritual growth and experiences healing, the book has some valuable advice about avoiding those that would take our energy over, robbing us of our own power to heal. I was hoping that Entangled in Darkness would deal in a straight forward manner about the darkness we bring onto ourselves through the choices we make. However, instead it offers some frightening descriptions about possession in the forefront. Having had no previous experience with the work of Deborah King, I was not sure what to make of her beliefs. The part of this book I would most like to share with others, even one as young as my teenaged daughter is Mrs.King's strong recommendation to regularly meditate and pray. She is a good storyteller, and like some people you meet and just enjoy hearing about their opinions on life, she works this area admirably. I struggled to read the first half of this book, but was able to read the final seventy pages quite readily. I believe that this book might have been helped if an important detail about the author's life was disclosed early on rather than within the final summary. She captures the reader with her first chapter describing in part her early career and battle with cancer. By the end, in which she gives an outline of how to manage the whole mind-body connection in seven steps, she then makes an admission about her bipolar diagnosis in college which first lead her onto a spiritual path. Although that admission, for me, made the presentation of the facts backward, I still do not doubt her ability to clear people of dark energies. I acknowledge that I received this book for Hay House in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion of this book. |
| I just made a reply to the Tinsel Blog on Patheos regarding some discontent about the new movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tinseltalk/2013/12/review-secret-life-of-walter-mit... This was my comment: Since you're the one that brought up the hurdles needed to help an audience relate, consider that factor alone as a reason this movie is neither James Thurber's or actor Danny Kaye's Mitty. Quoting The Hollywood Reporter: "Stiller says, What I liked about Steve's script was the idea that Walter wasn't really imagining himself as someone else, he was imagining a better version of himself. It's a very relatable idea." We are neither a homogenous society trying to all dream the same dream and declare ourselves "inscrutable to the last," as the literary Mitty seems. And we are also not the bored Post-WWII Americans in the midst of McCarthyism seeking escape from over-protective mothers. And I'm glad this movie is exactly the family movie for me. My husband and I, plus my fourteen year old daughter and twenty year old son really enjoyed it. We all recognize the changes in the world. Now we also see how we must better ourselves to meet reality with a good dose of imagination. |
| I replaced my glasses on the 13th, so of course on my first day of a few off from work I found the pair that had been missing since the end of last month. They were very close to the laundry/dressing room location I blogged about checking. But, that doesn't bother me in the least. The young man who took the time with me to pick out new frames, have them properly adjusted so they fit snugly, and do everything he could to get them into my hands in a jif -- well he was an ace. I prefer my new glasses now. They only assist me in seeing far. I have always been near-sighted. It is funny to me that at a mental level, I would say I am always far-seeing. Especially when I worry something is not going to work out as expected, my mind has already traveled far into the future instead of focusing where it is so much easier to perceive the greatness of NOW. Because I concern myself with the what-ifs of the distant future, I delude myself into seeing that false, not yet space. I should really study the existing space instead. |
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