Monday Come and Gone

Well, Monday. You lived out your reputation today.

You brought me internet and automotive failure with broken crockery and dog vomit thrown in for good measure. It was a day of subtle - and not so subtle - annoyances, the kinds that make you throw your hands up and say “What next?”

As I was on my hands and knees gingerly cleaning up shards of glass (where just moments before I had been cleaning up the aforementioned dog vomit), I fully expected the phone to ring with news from my accountant of a Ginormous tax bill.

Oddly enough, it didn’t. (Although the night is not over yet.)

Some days it’s hardly worth getting up in the morning. But life undulates like waves on the ocean that I love so much. The natural rhythm of the world lives in our spirits, I think, and keeps us ever mindful of opportunities for things to be better.

Otherwise, how could we go on?

With what remains of this Monday I will take some deep cleansing breaths, curl up in front of the television (Dancing With the Stars, y’all) with a warm puppy on each side of me, and let my mind sweep and sway across the ballroom floor.

Later I will sleep and dream of a tomorrow that is better and brighter and less fraught with wrongs.

How about you? How was your Monday?

Open for Business

“Open Easter Sunday, from 12:00 - 8:00."

So read the sign at PetSmart yesterday when I took Molly in for her bath and haircut.

So read the sign at Bed Bath and Beyond this morning when I went stopped in to shop for a new doormat.

So read the sign at Home Depot when I drove by on my way to lunch at Panera Bread.

I’m certainly no authority on Christian doctrine or history, but I’m quite certain that Jesus would not have arisen from the tomb and felt the need to go shopping at PetSmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, or Home Depot.

To parpharse a once popular song -“What’s shopping got to do with it?"

 Whether or not  you observe Easter (or Passover) from a religious standpoint, these holidays give us the opportunity to spend time with family or friends, to step back from everyday concerns and focus on something more meaningful than the mundane tasks of life. When stores remain open on holidays, they force their employees to choose between family time and work, a choice they already must make far too often. Plus they encourage the rest of us to forsake time we might otherwise spend more fruitfully.

At the risk of sounding like a cranky old Grandma (wait - I am a cranky old Grandma!) I recall when retail stores were never open on Sunday, or even after 5:00 p.m. (except on Thursdays and Fridays). Would it really be so  bad if we couldn’t wander around the mall on Sunday afternoon? What would we miss if we weren’t able to buy cosmetics, or electrical equipment, or tennis shoes until Monday morning?

Instead of shopping and spending money most of us don’t have anyway, perhaps we could go to a concert or movie, play games with our kids, try out a new recipe. Take a nap. Take a walk. Read a book.

Naturally  from a business standpoint it’s all about making a profit. But from a human standpoint, I think we need to be about another business entirely.The business of living a meaningful, fulfilling life, one that enriches us, our family and friends, and the wider world around us.

I just don’t believe shopping has anything to do with that.

Excavating

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms or like books written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them...Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. -Rainer Maria Rilke

 For several years now, I’ve made a practice of sitting down to write each morning. I do this shortly after I wake up -before my walk and after my coffee-while the impressions of sleep still swirl in my subconscious mind. This morning writing is not for public consumption, will not appear in essays, or on any of the blogs, or even on Facebook or Twitter. These words are just for me, and they come from a place so deep inside that I couldn’t consciously find my way there.

More times than I can count, I have learned something new about myself during this writing time. There is some connection between my spirit and the pen, some alchemy that occurs when my hand starts moving across the page which causes truths to rise up from the hidden levels of my soul and appear in front of me on the page. It connects me with the deeper questions about what is “unsolved in my heart” and allows me the patience to observe them from different angles.

I come to this writing time with great anticipation, because it’s the one time of day I can sit with my own thoughts, the time of day I allow myself to dig deeply for thoughts and ideas and feelings. The paper and pen become my tools for excavation, sweeping across my mind for hidden nuggets of gold.

There is so little time for stillness in the everyday world. We itch to fill every second with stimulation or productivity, and modern technology certainly gives us ever opportunity to do just that.

Whether it’s the actual writing itself, or just the 30 minutes of quiet, I rely on that sacred time to help me unearth my most important feelings and thoughts, and bring them with all honesty to the page.

How about you? What does writing bring to light for you? How do you excavate your deepest thoughts and feelings from the safety of their burial place?

Write On Wednesday: Excavation

There is some connection between my spirit and the pen, some alchemy that occurs when my hand starts moving across the page which causes truths to rise up from the hidden levels of my soul and appear in front of me on the page. It connects me with the deeper questions about what is “unsolved in my heart” and allows me the patience to observe them from different angles.  ~Write On Wednesday

You’d probably be surprised at the number of blog posts hidden away in the “Drafts” section.

Sometimes I’m surprised by them.

These are the bastard children of my writing life, written when I’m angry or downtrodden or feeling as if I’ve completely lost my way. These are the things I sometimes long to tell you, friends of my heart, and so I pour them out onto the page, filled as they might be with doubt or recrimination.

But then I have second thoughts.

Who wants to read my sad story? I think.

And what right have I to complain? I chide.

So instead of clicking “publish” I click “save to draft.” Or I just “x” out of Wordpress, ignoring the little pop up window that warns me “my changes will not be saved.”

No, don’t save my changes. Throw them recklessly to the wind, those long-winded episodes of malcontent.

Who needs them?

There is supposed to be something cathartic about writing out our feelings. Most of us have been advised at one time or another to write a letter to someone who has hurt us, a letter that spells out all our feelings and gives vent to all the anger. Instead of mailing the letter, we’re then told to destroy it, perhaps set it aflame and watch the bad feelings melt into ash. The act of writing is known to be good for the soul, and even if you don’t consider yourself a “writer,” putting pen to paper has a way of clarifying those thoughts and feelings that otherwise whirl like a funnel cloud in our hearts.

Dorothea Brande writes that “If you are unwilling to write from the honest, though perhaps far from final, point of view that represents your present state, you may come to your deathbed with your contribution to the world still unmade..."

It seems to me we sometimes need to express the “point of view that represents our present state,” even if that state is one of confusion and pain and sadness.  In expressing it to ourselves we come to a greater understanding of who we really are underneath. It is this awareness that then gives fire to the real work of our art, and brings us one step closer making our contribution to the world.

March Madness is Officially Over!

It is with great glee that I report the manic month of March officially ended. Friday was a fitting end to the Maddest Month in Memory, what with doing an all-day training session at the office and then a bell concert at night. In a complete reversal from what I expected, the training session was actually the more satisfying of the two events. Last night’s concert was missing something – that undefinable “it” factor that makes art come alive. I know I didn’t have it, and no one else in the group seemed to either. Instead of energizing me, it was more like a long slog through a muddy field.

Oh well.

And now life returns to some semblance of normal, at least for a couple of weeks. I say “some” because the month of April has a most unpleasant task in store. We’ve sold our home in Florida, and by the end of the month will have to dispose of all the furnishings.

Big. Huge. Sigh.

I can’t think about that too hard right now, or I will start to cry. And I’ve worked too hard during that last month to start April off with tears.

The best part of the weekend occurred earlier today, when, courtesy of the magic of the internet, we had over an hour long visit with the wonderful, marvelous, spectacular Mr. Connor. He smiled, he cooed, he burbled and blubbered, he demonstrated his brand new Jump-a-Roo, and almost rolled over.

In other words, he put on quite a show for his weary grandmother, who has been moping around in a fierce bout of melancholy.

Spirits were duly lifted, Mr. Connor. Such power you hold, for one so tiny.

Here’s the coolest little dude in the land...

How about you? How’s your April shaping up?