Sunday Scribblings-Yes!

Yes indeed. This word slips off my tongue far too easily.

Yes, I'll be sure and get all those reports finished by Tuesday (even though it's Monday night).

Yes, I'll be happy to pledge to your disaster relief/homeless shelter/mission trip/fund for wayward pandas.

Yes, I can come to extra rehearsals on Sunday afternoons (even though that's my only free day all week).

Oh, yes.

Some years ago, a friend of mine gave me a promotional pen he'd received in the mail.  It was from a local anti-drug coalition, and it had the words "Just Say NO!" imprinted on it in big red letters.  "Keep this by your phone," he told me, "and when someone calls and asks you for something, read this to them!"

You know, it actually helped.  This was back in the days when telemarketers were calling all the time, and I was a huge wimp about saying "no."  Anybody with a programmed sob story could get money out of me.  But I started gripping that pen tightly in my hand and screwing up my courage.  After the first few times of saying "sorry, I can't donate right now," it got easier and easier.  Pretty soon, I was grabbing the phone and saying "I'm sorry, we aren't making any donations on the telephone" before firmly hanging up the receiver.

 The yes word still gives me trouble, though, especially when authority figures are involved.  "You've got to start telling her no," my husband told me the other day, referring to my boss.  "She has to learn that you're not going to accomodate her unreasonableness."

Well, easy for him to say.

However...the other day she made a rather unreasonable request, and I don't think my response was exactly what she's come to expect from me.

"We can make that a goal," I responded in reference to the new deadlines she was requesting.  "But I think it's going to be very difficult most weeks to actually make it happen."  I had several solid reasons to back me up, and she (grudgingly) allowed that we should "just do the best you can" toward achieving it.

Being a people pleaser is just part and parcel of my personality, and it's the thing that makes saying "yes" so easy.  It's not even so much that I want people to like me, it's that I want to feel important and approved of.  I genuinely want to help people, I want to be seen as the kind of person who gets things done.  When I complete some of these tasks, even though they may have cost me time or money or considerable effort (or all of the above at once!), I feel good about myself. 

It means I really can do it all.  Mission accomplished. 

But, at some point I'd like my mission in life to become more about saying yes to the desires of my own heart.  After all, charity begins at home.

Yes, I'll take two weeks off at Christmas time so I can spend more time with my family.

Yes, I'll stop bringing work home so I can spend Sunday nights reading or meeting friends for dinner.

Yes, I'll ask my husband to do the grocery shopping even if I'm not working so I can get my hair done or have a pedicure.

But will I be able to stand firm amidst the continuing onslaught of  demands for my time and effort?

Yes, indeed.

Hell, Yes!

for Sunday Scribblings

Write On Wednesday - Risky Business

Funny topic for me to choose, right?  Y'all know I'm no risk taker.  Probably the riskiest thing I've every done was walk out of a fancy-schmancy restaurant without paying the check.  (long story)  Anyway, I've always played it safe. Chosen the road well traveled by, rather than the untrod pathway.  But there have been times when I've been filled with  a burning desire to "go rogue" ~ I recall my teenage years when I became an anti-war sympathizer (that would be Vietnam war), and a women's rights activist.   But ditching college after freshman year to get married sort of put paid to all my counter-revolutionary tendencies.

The risk taking has remained all in my mind.  These days, I dream about tossing aside my job and going bohemian, living off my savings, maybe traveling around the world a time or two.  Dusting off those novels gathering dust on my "C" drive.  Living the life of the artist...

But I know I'll never be brave enough to take the necessary risks to make that happen.  After all, I was raised to be responsible and practical, to be safe and sound.  Alas, after 50 some odd years, those are hard habits to break.

How about you?  Are you a risk taker? Or not?

It's Wednesday - write about it.

Risky Business

Remember this movie starring a young Tom Cruise, and that famous scene of him sliding across the floor in his tighty-whities, playing air guitar?  That was quite a risky (or risque!) move, wasn't it?  What's the riskiest thing you've ever done?  What risky think would you like to do? What's a risk you're just too afraid to take (although you really want to?)

Write about ~

Taking Risks

Settled In

January is half gone, and I suppose I've settled back into my usual winter time routine.  There's work (and lots more of it than usual for this half of the family), rehearsals for various and sundry musical things, playing indoor games with the dogs  since it's so difficult to get a decent walk in these days (hide and seek is the current favorite).  My guilty pleasure TV show is back on, and so are some of my favorite  dramas. Although I don't really like winter, I like the way it gives me good reasons to hibernate.  There must be a bit of grizzly  in me, because I love nothing better than digging in during these long winter nights, pulling on my fleecy pants and flannel shirts, making hearty soups, stews, and casseroles for dinner, brewing pots of strong, dark coffee.  We see the sun about once a week on average around here and on the other days the sky is do heavily leaden with clouds, I fear it will fall on my head if I venture outside.  So when I do have to emerge from the cave, especially for errands and trips to the store for essentially boring items, I have a tendency to become as cross and cranky as any ol' black ba'ar.

A lot more writing happens in winter. After quite a lapse, I've gotten back into the habit of doing morning pages, and I'm once again amazed at they way this exercise jumpstarts the creative process, so I sometimed end up with three pages of ideas for things I want to write about ~ when I have the time, of course.

A lot more reading gets done in winter, too.  Although so far this year I've been enmeshed in a huge potboiler of a novel, which I started before we left Florida, and finally finished just today.  (Well, it was 674 pages long!)  But now I expect to start flying through the bookstack that's been waiting patiently for me, starting with Lit, the latest installment in Mary Karr's memoir-able life, which I picked up from the library today.  I have to read it quickly, because apparently it's in "great demand" and I have it on loan for 10 days only. 

I've been trying to keep up the exercise program too, and now that I've found a series of workouts I can do at home I'm lots more successful in making a habit of exercise.  Going out to a gym is just not my thing - especially in winter.   (My friend M. has been going to Curves three times a week at 7:00 a.m. for the past four years! Can't imagine doing that...)

Life has settled into it's normal routine here chez Becca. I'm appreciative of normal, especially when confronted with news of  horrendous disasters like the Haitian earthquake.  I'm happy to be settled in my old house here where the earth, though cold and frozen, stands perfectly still every day.

How about you?   Are you all settled into the new year?

Guiding Light (Write On Wednesday)

Way back when I was a kid, my friends and I spent most of our summer days outdoors.  From dawn until dusk, we'd ride bikes, swing on the swingsets,  draw on the sidewalk with chalk, bang tennis balls against the side of the house - anything and everything our imaginations would allow. Though we all came from different size families and backgrounds, there was one universal rule we each had to follow.

When the streetlights came on, you went home. 

No ifs, ands, or buts. 

Along about dusk, most of us started keeping one eye peeled toward the lamppost on the corner.  "It's not on yet!" someone would yell.  'Let's play one more game!  Hurry up!  We don't have long!"

The excitement intensified as the sky darkened - we knew time was short, and we were desperate to make the most of it.  So when the dim bulb in the street lamp magically popped aglow, a chorus of "See ya!"  and "Bye!" was heard round the cul-de-sac, as dozens of kids separated themselves from their friends and their games and headed home to bed.

The street light sort of ordered our days back then, provided us with a guide, a way to end our day independent of our parents, a signal by which we steered our way home.  Sometimes, I was guiltily glad to see the light come on.  Truthfully, by the end of the day I was often tired of noise and confusion, weary of the loud voices of my friends and their tiresome demands.  I was ready to head for home, a warm bath, the comfort of my books and my dog.  But I was afraid of being called a loser or a wimp if I went inside before dark, if I gave up on the games before my friends wanted to call it a night.  So I stuck it out, gazing longingly at the street light all the while.

Lightposts are good.  We need them.   Sometimes now when I get weary of life and wonder what it's all for anyway, I think about the people who need me most- my husband, my mother, my dogs - and I'm inspired to pull myself up and soldier on.  When I get frustrated with my job and all its petty requirements, I can sit down at the piano and play, feeling the satisfaction that comes from doing something I love.  When I get lonely and feel misunderstood, I can have a glass of wine with a friend and share my sadness, let her pull me back to earth.

There are guiding lights everywhere in our lives.  Like that corner lamppost long ago, I try to keep my eyes on mine at all times.

How about you?  Are there guiding lights in your life? 

for: Write On Wednesday