Birthday Boy

              ~Wishing a very special  boy  man a very special day!

Today my son celebrates his 29th birthday, and though he's living in Thailand right now I suspect the day will still involve some of his favorite homestyle things...good food, some "down" time to spend with his family, more good food, time playing computer games, some good food, maybe an evening at the movies, followed by even more good food...

Birthdays should be all about celebrating, and I hope his day is as wonderful as he is!

                                     ~ Happy Birthday, Brian!~

At Random...

Today's threatened promised snowstorm has finally begun, and, having made plans to spend part of the day cleaning out badly cluttered cupboards in my kitchen and bathroom, I thought it behooved me to clear some thoughts which have been gathering dust in the corner of my mind.  So, here goes...

When the school year began, I was a bit concerned about my dearth of opportunities to make music, fearful of becoming an office drone with not enough outlet for my creative energy.  Well, as my mother often tells me, be careful what you wish for.   Last week I was out for rehearsals four of five nights.  During the course of February, I'll have played (either piano or handbells) at three different church's (none of them my own).  Plus, several weeks ago, I agreed to accompany the high school choir for the remainder of their year.  And while part of me is loathe to admit that I've returned to this old ground once again (for the third time!), there's another part that has been energized by my association with these young people and their bright, excited  instructor.   One of the reasons I left this position, aside from scheduling concerns, was that I felt the need to move on in my music, try some different opportunites.  I've been able to do that, thanks to a former student who is directing a musical at a local community theater group and invited me to accompany for them.  Working with these adults has been an interesting and rewarding experience. 

What I've learned the past few weeks is that even though I'm extremely busy with all this, I feel less tired and dragged out than during the fall when I was home every night.  It shouldn't surprise me- playing music effects me like taking a handfull of amphetimines.  I worry less, I eat less, I write more, and I'm happier overall, when I'm actively engaged in this work that I love. 

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My work life is about to become much less stressful, with the return of my former assistant and partner.  K., who left our company two years ago to work full time at a big insurance agency, decided to come back to our little group, and Tuesday was her first day.  During the time she was away  the scope of work in my department enlarged (while the personnel shrank!)  In essence, I was the only one shouldering the majority of the department's work.  Indeed, I was the only one in the company who even knew how to do much of this work!  A huge responsibility, especially for one who is only supposed to be part time (20 hours/week) and one who has a second home in a sunny, southern state.  I am now officially freed from the burden of indispensability.

Big sigh of relief.

Perhaps now I can begin to move on with some of the personal,creative projects which keep flashing in my brain...things like another blog (or even two!)...a new novel project...

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If all this sounds like my life is manic, believe me, sometimes I think that myself.  Because stuffed in between the work, and the rehearsals, and the writing projects, are a husband and two dogs, as well as an elderly mom, aunt and uncle who require assistance in varying degrees.  (Although truthfully, my mother is probably more help to me than I am to her, what with all the dog-sitting and meal preparation she does.)  

So I take full advantage of days like this one, when it's snowing outside and I have no place to go. I look forward to them, in fact, these "snow days," when I can happily read, write, potter around the house, maybe even cook dinner myself for a change.   It's a nice change of pace from the daily busy-ness.

And on that note, I'm off to enjoy the remainder of the day.

But before I go... have any cobwebs you'd like to clear from your mind?  Stray thoughts are welcome here anytime!

Indulgence

I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on the water.  (from Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert)

"Indulgent."  That's what Simon Cowell would say about that sentiment and the way it was written.  He uses the term to censure American Idol contestants who choose to sing songs with some great personal meaning, instead of attempting to present something the audience will understand.

I've been re-reading Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert's very popular memoir about her own epic spiritual journey, and I suppose you could consider the entire affair a bit self-indulgent.  Really, how many people have the opportunity to spend a year abroad - four months each of pleasure seeking in Italy, spirit seeking in India, and heaven seeking in Indonesia - completely funded (with the stipulation that you'll write a book about the experience) by one's publisher ?

 Gilbert's writing is fun to read (hence the re-read, I guess). She's never pedantic, and in fact has a wicked sense of humor about herself and her journey.  And she definitely has a knack for pulling the reader into her world of the moment.  During the past few days, I've had a definite craving for pasta, and have to bite my tongue to keep from calling out "Ciao!" when I leave the room.

But now I've followed her to the ashram in India, where she's attempting to get her spiritual house in order.  And though our situations couldn't be more different, her spiritual quest strikes its own chord with me.

I wasn't raised in The Church, although I occasionally went to my aunt's little Baptist church, but I was never very fond of the church- going experience.   I always felt a bit like an imposter, because I wanted to buy into the concept of God but somehow couldn't quite get it.  As an adult, I began attending church regularly almost 20 years ago, but I'll confess that the main impetus for my attendance is the sense of community I've developed.   That, and playing music.

I don't find God at church. 

In fact, if I were to say I feel close to God, feel the power of a Divine entity, it would be much more likely to happen standing before a sparkling clear lake, where the sunlight "amuses itself" on the face of the water, sparkling like a kazillion diamonds.  Or walking in the park near my house on a bright summer morning, letting the dogs run free in the valley, a soft breeze rippling our hair and caressing our cheeks.

But like Elizabeth Gilbert, I long to feel that true spiritual connection with God, yes, the one they used to talk about in the Baptist church.  I long for that promised metamorphosis when you "let Jesus come into your heart."

 "I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate," Gilbert writes.  "I don't want to hear it anymore.  I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances.  I just want God.  I want God inside me. " 

"I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on the water."

Indulgent?  Perhaps.

In the Christian calendar, we're coming upon the season of Lent, the period of time before Christ's betrayal and crucifixion.  The darkest time in the history of Christendom, when the sins of mankind were heaped on Christ's shoulders.  During this period, it's customary (indeed, it's de riguer  for some) Christians  to "give up" something - to make a pertinent sacrifice to remind them of Christ's ultimate sacrifice.   I grew up in a very Catholic neighborhood, and clearly remember my friends having major discussions about what was right and proper to sacrifice for the season.  Naturally there were the jokesters who tried to give up washing dishes or doing homework...of course that didn't fly.  You had to relinquish something you really loved -  if the sacrifice didn't hurt, it didn't count. 

It's all I can do to drag myself to church during Lent.  I dread the focus on doom and gloom, the dirge like hymns whose poetry is dark and despairing.  I hate the refrains about betrayal and death, of pain and suffering.  On Sunday mornings, I want nothing more than to stay in bed drinking coffee and eating some sinfully delicious pastry.

"But then there's Easter!" my friend Millie said to me once, when I complained about the concept of Lent.  "That's the reward for all the sorrow!"

Fooey.  I don't want to be reminded that life is filled with sorrow, and that sometimes only suffering can fully enable us to experience pure joy.  I don't want my face buried in six weeks of sadness, just so I can have the light for one day.

Indulgent? Probably.

But in order to make it through the next six weeks, I think I'll need to indulge myself.

Write On Wednesday

Write on Wednesday is revived...a new prompt awaits.

Resurrection

You have to keep your writing on life support, and give it oxygen.   Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint it Black

Write On Wednesday has certainly flat-lined over the past few weeks, hasn't it?  The rest of my life, however, has gone rushing past, reminding me of those scenes from ER when the paramedics come crashing through the doors shouting "GSW to the chest!  He's tachycardic and bleeding out! Get me an amp of epi! STAT!"

Happily, nothing that serious has occurred for me, but in the midst of general life busyness - training a new employee at work, rehearsals for three new musical events, a week's vacation with a friend - the last few Wednesday's seemed to come and go in a flash, and writing on that day was truthfully the farthest thing from my mind.

Just as life sometimes mirrors the chaos of a hospital trauma ward, so does ones artistic practice occasionally wither and languish from neglect.  When that happens to me, I panic a bit, and tend to rush in with haphazard attempts at revival.  These include everything from searching through my "How to Write" library to rummaging around the web looking for new writing prompts.  I go out and buy myself new notebooks and pens.  I download lots of  podcast interviews with writers. I re-read some of my favorite authors.  Basically, I transfuse myself with inspiration from other writers - the famous and the not-so famous.

When I get the pulse going again, it's time to look at prevention.  How to protect myself from suffering this same disease in the future?

Most often, neglecting my writing occurs when I allow daily life to overwhelm me.  For example, Sunday morning while I was unloading the dishwasher, I thought of a novel to write.  Research would be required - lots of it, but that's all right, I love research.  I began thinking about the biographies I would need to read, the historical period I would need to study.  Some of the very books I needed were on my bookshelves, I could get started right away.

But first, there was church, and I had to be there to play duets in the service.  And then I had promised my aunt I would take her grocery shopping that day.  Of course, I really had to work at the score for Sweet Charity, since rehearsals at the community theater were beginning Monday evening.   Sunday drifted by, and Monday too, with an extra day at the office thrown into the mix this week.  Now it's Wednesday, and there's work today, and (not one, but two!) rehearsals this evening. 

Daily life has a way of infecting my writing life with a deadly virus.

"I have spent so long erecting partitions around the part of me that writes - learning how to close the door on ordinary life when it's time to start writing again - that I'm not sure I could fit the two parts of me back together now,"  wrote novelist Anne Tyler, in an essay entitled Still Just Writing.   Perhaps I should put the writer part of me into quarantine occasionally, construct my own version of an isolation unit and admit myself when it's time to start writing.

Perhaps that's what I'm doing "write now," sitting in my study at 6:30 a.m. while the rest of the house still sleeps.

How about you?  Is your writing life healthy these days?  How do you keep your writing life alive?  What are some of the remedies you use to revive it?