Been a long time...

It feels like ages since I've written anything here, as well it should. Apologies for the long delay, just when I'd actually started telling people about this and have gotten nice feedback. Merci.

I'm in a transition stage right now, and transitions are hard. Somewhere on one of my bookshelves is the title Transitions, likely nestled among its self-help brethren, most of which had been recommended or gifted to me by someone I trusted, and nearly all of which I have barely thumbed through. Or I've read enough to get the gist, kept the book(s) on my nightstand with a few half-abandoned novels and journals, wiped off the dust and found them homes on my shelves. Realizing that changing our reality, to any degree, is universally challenging makes it perhaps a bit easier to navigate. It's like quitting smoking - knowing it's going to be difficult, accepting this, and deciding to move forward anyway is half the battle.

I'm in the process of shedding my old skin, as it were. And becoming something better, calmer, more centered and productive. And that's exciting. I used to shy away from verbalizing my inherent optimism. My fear was that if I assumed the best, some higher, not-very-nice power would prove me wrong, for its own amusement and to teach me a disappointing lesson. It has taken me a while, but I have come to realize that there is no such higher power, that any higher power that does exist is on our side. Our job is to be open to it. It may sound trite or corny, but I believe in this. The times that I have been open to whatever you want to call it, God, a higher power, the universe, the messages have come through loud and clear and have energized me. Coincidences and serendipity abound during those times. We meet the right people -- or maybe the right people find us. And everything positive in my world has come to me through people I know.

I will write more soon. And perhaps it will be about more tangible things, like my favorite new eye cream and my upcoming vacation. Perhaps not.

Let me count the ways ...

I'm awfully attached to my dog. Here are some of the quirkier things I love about him:

-He loves to watch the raindrops plink into puddles
-He loves broccoli, as well as apples, soybeans, and asparagus
-He used to get really excited when the theme to "Crank Yankers" came on; he'd run into the room and stare at the tv
-On the rare occasions that he gets to eat something like chips or pretzels, he makes excellent crunching sounds
-He's a bit clumsy at times, like me
-He looks at people and holds their gaze for an impressively long time
-He has an extensive vocabulary, including hedgehog, dreidel, other room, country, broccoli, cookie, water and are you hungry?
-He answers to "Knute Rockne"
-He has an incredible memory for tennis ball hiding places
-He likes to sit in his window seat and watch the goings on outside
-He sleeps on pillows, when available

Much, much more to say on this topic, but I'm going to post this, do some of my required reading, and write more later. Not about Lou -- I promise.

Dogliness

If you can, ignore the tv noise, and look how smart our boy is:

By any other name ...

Neil has renamed this my knoblauch, which is German for "garlic", and sounds kind of like "non-blog".

An Unquiet Mind

Here I am, as I said I would be. I had so many ideas throughout the day of what I wanted to write about, and of course now they've more or less scattered.

A close friend and I were discussing what qualities differentiate people we connect with from those acquaintances with whom we remain on the "surface" -- superficial in its truest sense, not implying materialism. We came up with this: it's difficult to really, deeply connect with people who are not passionate about something. Anything. Whether it's world events or literature, a dog, a child, gun control, music, our friendships -- the point is that one's life becomes exponentially richer and fuller when it's infused with passion.

I think my biggest passion -- other than my loved ones -- is self-betterment. I got off to a late start figuring myself out, but after an extraordinarily rocky beginning to this new year, I recognize that I've made great strides in that department. It's hard to do everything we want to do, let alone the things we should do: work, work out, eat well, recycle, volunteer, relax, spend time with family and friends, cultivate hobbies and interests, keep up with current events, be organized, be nice, be happy ... but it's doable. As we all know I am a great procrastinator, and this period of intense and unexpected self-reflection has made me realize that one of the things I've dawdled on the longest is viewing myself as a fully functional human being. It's easier to be "the crazy one". It's a self-generating excuse to sleep in, for one, and to be distracted. But I am not crazy. Scatterbrained, disorganized, emotional -- and sane.

It would be easy to tell myself that I've "wasted" time -- years and years -- not having realized this. But I refuse to have regrets, only learning experiences and fodder for my creative mind.

We're doing The Artist's Way -- Neil, me, Michael, and my mom. If you've never explored it, do. It's a book and a self-taught class on living a creative life, which will, hopefully open up the channels for my (our) writing. The two primary elements are the morning pages and the artist's date -- the first being three pages daily of automatic writing first thing in the morning (which is, of course, a relative term), a practice meant to clear out the cobwebs and clarify our thoughts. Three pages handwritten, which Mags and I estimated to be about 1 1/2 typed, or roughly 400 words. Does that make sense? I'm bad with the word-count thing.

The artist's date is two hours, weekly, of creative ... cultivation, for lack of a different word. Alone. A trip to an art gallery, a movie, sitting in a garden -- anything. I'll know more when I actually read the chapter.

Here's a poem I love, that* was introduced to me by a dear friend. It's by Mary Oliver:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

*Technically that should be "which", but I'm allowing myself creative liberty in this forum.

Lou

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to live his or her life; this just doesn't look comfortable:

More to come. Later today.

the great procrastinator

Writing in progress ... I will update today.