Don’t ask.
At some point I just got weirded out by the public-ness of my own blog that I stopped blogging.
At lot of shit has happened since.
Like I got engaged. Crazy!
I’m back and (still) trying to maintain my sanity. I’m also up at 2:40 a.m., insomnia-ridden.
Updates to come, slowly.
No day, no job, no life. I have some quiet time to myself tonight and am looking forward to thinking of ways to comfort myself in spite of this.
I ended my week with one of my favorite clients, a new one who signed up a few weeks ago. She’s got a great attitude and works really hard! She shows up early, eats healthily, and already does yoga a few times a week. Those are the clients that make it easy to help them. Positive, enthusiastic, appreciative; as the saying goes, if only I had ten of you!
Other clients–actually, just one–I want to scream at and punch in the face. I congratulate myself at my own superb restraint. I should get a medal.
It’s hard to help someone when you don’t really like them. It’s hard to help someone when they don’t really want to help themselves. And you can only help another person as much as they’ll let you. I’ll leave it at that.
Note to self: Get out of jobs of service ASAP, or just get to a point where you don’t have to work so many hours, or feel compelled to take any work that comes your way. What irony that artists often have to wait tables, take desk jobs, etc. while pursuing their art. I LIKE training, it’s awesome, but–like tutoring/writing coaching–sometimes you get more than you signed up for (umm, when did become a therapist, too??). Sigh.
I’ve got a writers’ group meeting Sunday, and I should’ve been more preparing for that this week than anything. I’ve really got to apply for more award money…
This is the totally type of 11th hour shit that I am capable of. Why did I write my MFA thesis in like, 2 days, and why am finishing up this really important grant application super-late? As in, I will sending this off with a prayer for the post office, for smoothly paved roads and fair weather. Clearly, I am a self-saboteur. Clearly, I keep putting myself under near-unrealistic expectations and then am upset when I cannot produce OR lack the power to teleport. ARgh!
Or maybe I will just lose a few hours’ sleep and maybe I’ll get back into good healthy writing habits. Whatever those are.
I have one of those deadlines that should’ve been enforced way, way earlier. I don’t want to look at any of my writing.
When I was at Hedgebrook, learning to make awesome fires with my wood stove, there was a moment when I wanted to throw my manuscript right into the flames. The idea of it felt cleansing. Look, I’m just gonna let it go. No pressure to make this beautiful or publish it or try to be a “real writer.” Off it would go, soon to be ashes and maybe good fertilizer for the flowers.
A friend just told me: don’t worry about making it good. Ok, easy enough. I’ve been away from the story, the characters, for the most part, although I think of them often.
Back to the keyboard.
Wow, is it easy to fall off the blogging bandwagon. After a week and a half of hanging out and generous eating, I’m finding myself unsurprisingly unmotivated to leave my bed. I am mentally exhausted and just discovered I can rent movies on iTunes. I am in trouble.
Ending the year on a positive front, I joined a small but close-knit writers’ group, and, thanks in part to Bruce’s influence, am sort of back on a writing schedule. The problem with me is I’m either all or nothing, writing all day to meet a looming deadline or watching a Law & Order marathon because I can’t look at a blank page. Terrible.
The blogging hiatus was definitely unplanned, but so are a lot of things. I’m recovering from a cold and taught my first fitness class (while I was sick!). I had a good holiday–hope you did, too.
Living is really difficult. Sometimes I feel like, where did I go wrong? Why didn’t I try freelancing 10 years ago when it would’ve slightly more acceptable for me to be constantly broke? And, had I started this process earlier, today I might not be broke.
Once a teacher told me people changes careers many times in a lifetime, so not to worry. I take heart in that.
Election drama is not helping. Usually I shut the news off because I just can’t bear it but I’ve felt compelled–for obvious reasons–to read up on as much as I can on everything. As DLlo said the other day, “I’m ODing on outrage.” Yeah. I won’t feel at ease until November 4th at midnight.
Like you should have a long time ago.
**N.B.: Sihing was recently promoted to Sifu, Sifu to Sigung. All these multi-degrees of black belts!
I was in a rut today. Writers, artists…we are wont to do this. (It’s all the self-reflection, I guess.) I felt like taking a nap instead of going to class; I’m glad I got my ass to the dojo, because I feel much better.
Something about kung fu sets me right. Just like something about writing sets me right.
Sifu had some great one-liners today, maybe even a few more than usual. I remember, at one point during the drag-leg side kick to spinning heel kick, he actually told me, “Stop thinking so much.” Yes, the brain ironically getting in my way, yet again. Then there was the terse and true, “Focus where you going.” My life’s faults manifested in kung fu. Sigh.
At the end of class he made a funny comment about having to show up, that if we could learn all this stuff at home we wouldn’t even be here: “Otherwise, you’d just be some kind of…living room ninja.” LOL. I guess I kind of am, anyway, but if I ever want to do that out of the living room, to class I must go. Training is daily, not overnight.
**
Friday I went to see Junot Diaz at Barnes & Noble with Bruce and Janet. I’ve heard him read in person before, and each time he’s given sort of a mini-master class on writing and being a writer, and sometimes on life. He said that our world has taught us to judge ourselves based on how we perform and on what we consume instead of what we practice. My eyes opened wide; he was so right.
What am I practicing?
**
“If you’re hungry, I’m gonna feed you,” said Sifu last week. Tonight he mentioned a few of us haven’t been the same since Vegas. He wants us to be hungry again.
So here I am, back to the blog, and maybe back to some other things after I shower, eat, write a few checks (sigh), and hope for a few more to come in the mail tomorrow.
I went to Junot Diaz’s reading to fill my writerly well again, but some days I think I’m trying to fill too many wells at once. I hate that I didn’t figure so much about myself out until now. Everything seems too late and too difficult. I want to soar. I want to survive. I have so many appetites to satisfy.
One of my neighbors likes to sing on his front porch. He’s singing “Amazing Grace” in a quivery, 90ish year-old voice while playing on guitar: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…
We used to sing that in choir. The line also can go: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a soul like me…
I forget when I made the conscious decision to always use “wretch.”
…but waiting for disruption. I can feel it’s on its way. And sometimes that’s a good thing.
the mel mystique 