In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
The theme of this week was constantly being reminded that, as Jonathan says in response to pretty much everything, there is a time and a place for everything.
Half the time this drove me batshit out-of-my-mind crazy, and half the time it was wonderful.
But either way, there was a time and a place for everything.
And there is a time and a place for this. THIS is the time and the place for me to sit down and consciously peek at the week that was, to exit with love.
And to cross over into the new thing, in this case the weekend, which may or may not also be a pause.
So. Like it or not, here I am. Hello, Chicken. There is a time and a place for you.
The hard stuff
There is a time and a place for everything.
I chafed at that this week. And, to be honest, most of my hard this week came from this.
There was a time and a place for something to end, except I didn’t want it to end. But that was what it was. An ending.
With a designated time and a designated place.
There was a time and a place for a goodbye in a doorway.
There was a time and a place for realizing that something I thought I missed is actually something I do not miss.
There was a time and a place for making reckless decisions in the heat of the moment, yes, that too.
For me, when I find myself resisting the fact that yes, this is the time and place for a thing and I do not like it…. well, it tells me a lot about attachment and pain.
So. I learned about attachment and pain this week. It was useful. And: it was not especially fun.
Regionals.
It was roller derby Western Regionals aka Besterns last weekend at the Bay of Reckoning.
Gah. I don’t even want to talk about this.
Here’s what I will say. It was incredibly stressful. It was incredibly exhausting. The bout against Oly was just annoying. Not being able to physically be there was also annoying, even though it’s good I wasn’t there for all kinds of reasons.
And then we somehow lost the qualifying bout and we aren’t going to Championships after all, and it was awful and sad and painful and stupid, and this was the one year where it seemed like everything was going for us.
So that was my weekend.
See? There was a time and a place for experiencing this too: A dashing of hopes. A readjustment of dreams. And it SUCKED.
Goodbyes.
Still not very good at them.
Two very different types of goodbyes this week, in the very specific sense of a physical parting from a person I care about.
And lots of very meaningful but hard-to-see goodbyes in the form of letting go of old things. Old memories, old stories, old rituals, old agreements, old understandings of situations.
There is a time and a place for saying goodbye, and a time and a place for not wanting to say goodbye, and a time and a place for being ready to say goodbye before someone else is, and all of these things have their own particular flavor of hard.
Stuck in my head.
Times when I couldn’t access my bliss-heart of tingle-joy, yes. That’s a thing that happens.
But other times when I couldn’t stop analyzing and wondering and what-if-ing and wanting to know.
When it would take me a long time to remember that this is a sign: take it to the red rug for yoga. Take it and sing. Take it and draw. Take it and walk. Take it and dance. Take it and do anything but over-think it.
This week there was a time and a place for over-thinking and regretting the over-thinking and second-guessing the regretting-the-over-thinking. And if I had remembered (see, doing it again!) that it’s okay, because this is the time and place for that, it might have been easier.
Encountering the past in a new form.
My friend was visiting from Tel Aviv and we haven’t seen each other in eight years.
It was mostly wonderful, of course, but it also forced me to do a lot of re-examining of a lot of things from then.
We have the same stories but different versions of what happened.
And so many of these stories ended up leading back to my friend who is dead, and I am so very much not even slightly over that, and then I would have to cry.
So I spent a lot of this week experiencing what it is like to desperately miss things. Tel Aviv. Certain words and expressions and the way I am in Hebrew. People and places and ways of being in the world.
Other people’s desires and expectations.
[I will silent retreat on this other than to say that a lot of people were trying to be inside my head this week.]
Way too much busy, way too little time to myself.
People visiting and house guests and meetings and giving little tours of Portland and going out for drinks.
Each of these things individually was lovely. Taken together, it was kind of hellish.
I already plan in so much blank space because a) I need it, and b) extreme introvert!
But it turns out that I need even more than I think is going to be okay. It’s almost as if my needs for quiet contemplation of grown exponentially since the last time I tested the edges of things.
So: headache and irritable and dying to be alone.
Not enough playtime.
Not even close. Not even slightly slightly close.
Because: busy! And because my playmate was also very busy, and also because, blah, situations.
More playtime please! This is what I am planting for next week. More playtime and more conducting.
Also too little sleep. Okay. Too little everything, really.
This can’t happen. It really cannot happen.
Sleep didn’t happen. The things that I need to stay grounded didn’t happen. Not enough yoga, not enough dance, not enough of a lot of things.
Because I chose other things. And because — see? — it was the time and the place for those other things.
But I really need yoga and sleep and the absolutely absolutelies that make for a stable, calm, grounded Havi Bell.
The good stuff
There is a time and a place for everything!
You know what, sometimes remembering this helps.
And sometimes it is just true.
And sometimes it is also beautiful and perfect.
There is a time and place for something to get enthusiastically ripped to shreds!
There is a time and place to do something you wouldn’t normally do, or in a way you wouldn’t normally want to do it.
There is a time and a place to take risks, to laugh, to blow off work, to have an adventure, to begin again, to end again, to be exactly where you are in exactly the way that you are.
There was a time and a place for some really truly beautiful and astonishing things this week.
A week that was busy was also packed full of good things.
How busy was this week? I could have written a ridiculously long Chicken as early as Tuesday morning.
A lot happened this week. I mean, a LOT.
But most of it was amazing. And even though I complain about too much and too busy, being busy with joyful experiences and fascinating thoughts and special people…it’s a good thing.
You know what? I still enjoyed Regionals..
So I’m just going to list some good things about Regionals that do not at all detract from how crappy it was to lose, but I enjoyed them.
First of all, an entire weekend of roller derby. Hell yeah.
Second, great skating. Truly fantastic feats of athleticism.
Third, this wasn’t just great skating. It was also what is known as “f***-you-get-past-me” derby.
(If you aren’t familiar with the Society for the Preservation of the above, you can watch the excellent video featuring Juke Boxx that launched the movement!).
But the idea is: no doing that annoying thing where everyone stops skating. No walking in place. WORK IT. SKATE. GET PAST ME.
This was a weekend of that.
Fourth, knowing that the number ten team in our region could likely beat the number three team in any other region.
Fifth! I bet you didn’t know this! Three teams out of the ten playing at Western Regionals had skaters who have taken a Shiva Nata class with me! Rose City, Wasatch and Denver. Awesome.
Sixth! The field of fierceness exercise I ran for Scald Eagle before the bout totally worked! Oh, and I lent her a buttmonster for the weekend and the whole all-star team pinched its butt. This makes me happy.
AND. The biggest deal. This was the weekend that I have been waiting for since last December. So okay, yes, we blew our big chance. But also: Rose City had an amazing season, and a terrific team, and everyone played hard.
PROUD. I am proud of these women.
The holy grail. I found it..
That is, the holy grail for women who live in the Pacific Northwest: a gorgeous warm winter coat that is also WATERPROOF.
But doesn’t look like a raincoat.
In my size. On sale.
Picture the most delighted smile you can imagine. That is me.
I got my day of puttering.
Got my day of puttering. On Saturday not Friday but it happened.
I slept in! I know, what?
Saturday I stayed in bed until eleven! As opposed to what normally happens which is that I wake up on my own a little before six.
This turned out to be fortuitous when my Week of No Sleep Crazy-Busy showed up.
Unbelievably productive.
So it turns out that a great way to get ridiculous amounts of work done is to only have say, an hour during which you can work.
Every day I made my guest go take a tour of Portland while I snuck in an hour of work, and dear god I was so productive it was ridiculous.
Like, Rally levels of productive.
I mean, I have known for a long time that for work to be successful you need a CONTAINER and it has to be relatively small and have entry and exit. I know lots of things about making good containers, and lots of things about lovingly and playfully and setting time limits.
But something about this situation of: Okay, I have exactly one hour in my office, how much can we do?!
It was amazing.
I am going to play with this some more.
I found a response to the thing I didn’t know how to respond to.
There’s been a situation that has been just sitting, because I don’t know what to do with it.
But I committed to the sitting, and I kept fractal flower-ing it every time I did something else (“this hour of yoga will somehow help me find the next step that will help with this!”).
Now I know what I want and I know how to respond with love.
Time and time passing is an astonishing thing.
We all have experienced the mysterious healing properties of time: when something hurts and hurts and then it doesn’t. Or not as much.
But this week I was extra aware of how fully things can change.
Someone who felt so strongly about one thing four months ago and thought they would need years to adjust to [Big Change] is already fully adjusted. Me from eight years ago who thought she would never get over [Big Loss] actually forgot about it for several years.
I like to wear the ocean on me.
I like to wear the ocean on me.
I like to eat without cutlery and make a giant mess.
Both of these things are literally true and also they are proxies.
And I did them this week, all week, literally. But also as proxies.
Happy.
Friends in town.
My friend who shows up suddenly and unannounced, the one who makes everything simultaneously worse and better but mostly better?
The one who was came last week and then left town almost immediately after. We painted the town red. It was the time and the place for painting the town red.
Then Rami was here for a few days and we shared nostalgia about Tel Aviv and all the places and all the people and all the shared memories from then. We caught up. We rewrote memories.
It was fantastic.
Speaking Hebrew again, all day every day..
Okay. Obviously I am not unaware that I miss speaking Hebrew. I spent a third of my life in Tel Aviv, there was a time when Hebrew was infinitely more comfortable for me than English.
And there are lots of times when I reach for the just-right word, and it isn’t there, or I miss certain ways of describing things.
But I had not realized just how much I miss living in the language. Seriously. It is the best. More importantly, I am the funniest in Hebrew. It’s like there are certain aspects of my sense of humor that don’t even … crap, see, now I am losing words again, they don’t even ba l’iyde bitui, they don’t even come into expression in English.
Almost as if there is this certain hilarious, cynical, talkative, self-referential part of me that for some reason only lives inside of that language, and it was so much fun to have it back. To have me back.
I’m also sad about it going away again. But it was great.
DO-OVERS. They do exist after all.
The other week I was writing about how we can’t get do-overs on certain situations.
Instead what I get to do is to practice do-overs by changing how I react and respond to things now.
But this week? I got actual do-overs.
Two of the four goodbyes in my life that I have the most … regretful conflicted thoughts over.
Two of the four goodbyes that I would definitely definitely do over if I had the chance. This week I had the chance.
And I got it right this time. I mean, what does that mean? I don’t know about right. But this time there was sweetness and presence instead of fear and pain.
This time I didn’t hide and I didn’t run and I didn’t cry and I didn’t lash out and I didn’t mourn. This time I smiled and was there for it.
It was the time and place for a real second chance, and I took it. Thank you thank you thank you thank you.
Bryan.
Speaking of people I haven’t seen in years and years, remember Bryan? He was in Portland this week and I went to play.
Sweet sweet yoga, sweet sweet reminders of what is true. Peaceful body and peaceful everything.
So many wonderful things.
A lost thing returned. A stone returned.
A thing that was much hoped-for (it even involved the wearing of Hopefulness Hats) finally actually happened, and it was just as sparkly and beautiful as imagined.
I feel happy and content and appreciative.
It all worked out.
Not in the first part of the week but…
Eventually I got playtime and body time and sleep and yoga and dance.
I got the things I needed, in a variety of different forms. And I feel incredibly grateful about this too.
Playing live at the meme beach house — it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
Background? Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once translated “people will hate me and be jealous” to “they’ll hang out at my Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.
This week’s band emerged from a playdate, and they are just as much fun as they sound:
Closet Full Of Pow.
They’re loud and raucous and I adore them. You should get their last album, it’s called Moments of No.
And, of course, you probably already guessed it but I just found out that it’s just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
I have stuff coming up that I want to tell you about but one more reminder about the monster manual and coloring book.
It works. It works. It works. And it’s fun. And also you get to color.
That’s it for me …
Join my Friday ritual in the comments if you feel like it. Or call silent retreat!
We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. And we don’t give advice (unless people specifically ask for it).
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
Follow
Oooh! Oooh! Roller Derby skaters pinching buttmonster butts! Love love!
Thank you for that visual, Havi!
Goodness – what a week all around!
The hard
Realizing how much we really, really a change of scenery.
Things. Just stuff. Silent retreat.
A million things to do, and feeling cruddy.
My cunning plan involves working for about an extra hour a day – which isn’t too bad, right? Except when I’m cold and fussy.
Missing people
Saw lots of old friends this weekend, and got smacked again at how terribly I miss them. Some of that is missing a point in time, but really – we have a great time together.
Computer went pop.
Really. Pop. And then died. Which wasn’t the best way to start getting all my plans out of my head and into reality!
The good
Coming home
I love travel. And, I’m not always happy about where we currently live. But September gave me a few reasons to think about what home is, and I’m pretty happy with my answers, and to be back where I belong.
My friend’s wedding
Saw wonderful people! Cooked and sang and hang out, and it was a good thing. Pretty much a house full of people I’ve known for two decades or so, through wonderful times and terrible ones, and its fantastic to know I can be away for a couple of years and we all fit back together perfectly.
Making progress with projects!
Really! Two things are ready for betas. And other projects are moving. And I have a new system for keeping everything more or less pulled together between now and the end of the year, and it just might work.
Two year anniversary!
And unlike two years ago, I’m not exhausted from cooking and flower arranging and all that. Amazing how life can change.
Rejoicing with you for the holy grail!
Hard stuff:
–One of my partners got laid off. His paychecks will run out in a few scant weeks; they’ll stop paying his health insurance at the end of October. I don’t want to move, but if he’s going to get something in his field at a comparable salary, we just might have to. Scary, scary stuff.
–Money argh money argh argh argh.
–An unexpected and frightening couple of hours concerning a family member. Silent retreat on the details.
Good stuff:
–New contracts coming in.
–Lovely weekend party, and for a change I was not the host, so there wasn’t that added pressure. I also seem to have crossed a bridge somewhere: some very specific insecurities that have been clouding my enjoyment of many recent gatherings simply were not there, and I was able to really relax.
–Affectionate snuggles with my daughter.
Another week down the tubes. Or something. Finished and put away?
There was hard and there was good. More of each this week than usual, it seems.
Hard:
Things that should have been simple and straightforward were not. And they all involved the Boomerang Boy in some way.
Physical and emotional exhaustion from that.
Medical things for MrB and me both; we had to have exams and procedures that were not fun. Mine was a lot less bad than in the past. Now I’m worried that this wonderful health provider will move on. (Borrowing trouble, since I can’t do anything about it.) MrB’s procedure took a lot out of him and he had trouble even getting out of the car when we got home.
Too much to do, mostly for others, but it’s stuff others can’t take care of so it has to be me.
Not enough Me time, not enough alone time, not enough time to work on my things including the ones I do when others are around.
Weird sleep patterns again.
Missing my friend J; we have not been able to get together for several weeks, including on her birthday!
Good:
Two asks to do cool/interesting things that are Public and will put me in touch with new people.
Early start on Christmas shopping, buying some things that certain family members could use now instead of later. I told them I’d take a picture of those items and put it in their Christmas card.
I’m getting nice comments (in person) about my FB posts about language.
Found a couple of books that I needed.
Great talk with MrB about future activities.
MrB is opening up in new ways and in ways that I have not seen since his health became the major obstacle to his doing what he most wants to do. I’m realizing that although we have both worked to keep it from limiting his activities, it has done so in ways that I didn’t realize until now. So happy to see this aspect of him again.
Interesting plans for the near future.
A useful insight about the grieving process so that everything is different now.
Good weekend to all! Pineapple upside down days, puttering days, refueling days wished for all the chickeneers.
Chicken!
The Hard:
– I had planned a day filled with all the things I wanted to do, with the people I wanted to do them with. And then the night before I had a complete freak out and didn’t sleep at all and was in such a bad place I couldn’t do any of the things.
– Giant doom pattern of feeling left out and sad. And knowing I’m not actually being left out, and not knowing how to ask to be included because of all the stuff (mine) flying around.
– Thursday. The day that I refused to allow to be ruined. But it sure felt like life was trying. Every time something kind of recovered, something else would go horribly wrong… I spent a lot of it repeating “ohgodohgodohgod,” and crying and reminding myself quite fiercely that it’s not ruined until I say it’s ruined. And it wasn’t. But close.
– My friend got in a car accident! (Thursday) And it was really scary.
– Last Thursday, which was going to be awesome and redeem the day, was actually kind of meh. I happen to care very strongly about not having Fluoride in my water, but I care oh so much more about not being approached by people with clip boards 8 different times trying to get me to sign about this. And those were only the Fluoride people. Don’t forget the vote-registers, the party-advertisers, and the haunted house people. I just want to walk down the street! Stop with the space invading.
– Wanting something that seems impossible. And still wanting it. Actually that happened a lot this week.
– Feeling so incredibly sexy and full of life and vibrant and then everywhere you go old ladies tell you you’re adorable. Which is fine, but the disconnect is trying. I’m not adorable. Or precious. I’m sexy!
– The mall. Going to the mall was bad.
– Not *only* do I keep growing out of clothes/not fitting into clothes that absolutely *should* fit, but I also stained ANOTHER one of my shirts. This is getting ridiculous.
The Good:
– The dictionary! THERE ARE SO MANY WORDS!! Militate! Eupatrid! Eupnea! THE PREFIX EU!!
– I am so freaking amazingly good at helping people adopt the right cats for them. It feels like being in my element in pretty much every way. Just exactly what I need to be doing. Also: kitties!
– Learned a lot about “being in your place.” Which is a bigger version of a superpower I asked for at Rally. And also a very difficult concept for me. But it’s landing really nicely and changing everything, especially my previous concepts of it. Yay!
– Watching 4000 Vaux’s Swifts funneling into the chimney at the Chapman School ahead of the hawks. Fireworks, fractals, football games… nothing comes close to as exciting as those birds were. Nature wins. Also: I wanted to be excited about fall and celebrate it with rituals. This totally counts.
– My website is speaking to me again! YES!! (Thanks, Stompopolis and the Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic)
– Most intense yoga class ever. Working myself to completely blissful exhaustion from a place of joy and love instead of fear and obligation. Intensity and I are having a re-acquainting.
– Being deeply in my body in general. With this tingling heart-open craving for life, for intensity, for experience. Spontaneous dance parties, singing at the top of my lungs, 3 hour walks…
– This song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQkBeOisNM0 on repeat in my head. And my iPod.
– We did hear *some* news about the Purple House. Enough that we don’t have to go look for another house yet. Though the phrase “3 days to 3 weeks” is both hopeful and depressing. BUT I’m feeling really certain that this is our house no matter what the bank says. The bank’ll catch up.
– My main romantic relationship has been a little rocky the last…two months? Not too bad, but not anyone’s wildest dreams. And I’ve been certain it’d find some new way to be exciting and connected and deep and fulfilling eventually. This week it did, and it feels like falling in love all over again. I’m so excited I get to be with him.
– Several of the unreasonable things I want are getting all kinds of unexpected support. I might end up with my own office *and* my cat coming back to live with me! Other people also want this for me and are doing things to help me make this happen. (Also other equally exciting things that need silent retreating.)
– I got new pajamas! They are the sexiest! By which I mostly mean the most comfortable. I can’t believe how much better I feel sleeping in clothes I like.
– The Floop is the absolute best and completely responsible for Thursday’s eventual not-ruined-ness, along with many other good things.
I had a week of surface nothing, but deep LOTS. And the reminder that things are quiet until they are done, and I am in quiet time right now. Silent retreat!
The different self in a different language? SPARKS. Oh my goodness yes. I lived five months in Germany and became fairly fluent (to the point where I dreamed in German, which… was interesting), and it’s not just that I pout when I speak German. Nor that my voice gets lower (as it gets higher and sing-songy when I speak Spanish). There is a different mind/self for me in German than there is in English or Spanish. It actually also goes for the me who speaks with a British accent, she’s a different aspect of self too. (Eleven months in the UK when I was 18.) This is a deep belief of mine, that living in another culture, fully participating as best we are able, changes who we are. Also speaking more than one language. Language affects how we think, and culture is embedded in language.
And I must think Very Hard about containers for working, because this practice of sitting to work for ten to fourteen hours a day is not productive and I’m tired of it.
Yayyyyyy, chicken. This was a week of on Tuesday, “Wow, it’s only Tuesday and look how much I got done!” and then on Thursday, “How the hell is it Thursday already?!” But this all seems to have resolved itself in… Friday! Here we go.
The Hard
-Yeah, my dad had heart surgery. Terrifying. 99% blockage in the main artery. I wasn’t even home! But he is home and okay now. Even if every time I talk to him he’s going on about second chances and life/death and that kind of thing….
-Lots of crying, mostly just because I’m still in the transition space. Coming out of it, but sometimes the nothing is just hard even when you know the something is really close. And then you just have to sit and cry it out. So I’ve been crying it out a lot.
-Ended up living with my friend’s parents for a few days because they didn’t go away when they were supposed to. Crazy crowded house. Lots of people. Really really hard. Forcefielding took up so much of my energy last weekend and the early part of this week.
-My articles for the month got cut in half. I hate writing them, but I was counting on the money. So this is half hard and half good.
-New Mexico spider crawling out of my dance shoe bag when I went to a west coast swing class the other night. THere is a potentially dangerous spider at the Powerhouse event space in Boise.. just FYI.
-Why is it still 80+ degrees during the day?! Where is fall?
The Good
-Dad is okay!
-Got the articles done.
-Dance. Lots and lots of dance. So much dance. I know over 20 line dances at this point.
-I slow danced with a cowboy named Buck. No, really. I’m pretty sure this could only happen in Idaho.
-Meetings in the pool. Because there has to be a benefit to being an entrepreneur… and being in a place where it’s almost October and still 80+ degrees during the day.
-My friend’s brother’s girlfriend knows one of my friends from back home. I love the 6 degrees thing!
-Convo with Grandma = intense clarity.
-Knowing what I want! Knowing what I want!
-Did I mention dance? You can dance every night of the week in Boise. Seriously!!
-Boise has the best coffee shop ever with honey lavender lattes and gluten free croque-monsieurs. (They don’t call them that, but it’s what they are.) Oh, and wine for when you reach that point of the day.
-I am part of a larger vision… this is not just a project. So many hopes and dreams and beautiful projections that are just starting to come true. It feels amazing to be a part of this.
-Oh and I got my first paycheck!
-Did I say dance? Yeah.
Happy weekend everyone!!!
“There was a time and a place for realizing that something I thought I missed is actually something I do not miss.” It is interesting when the time and place for that sentiment naturally arises.
I too am somewhat of an introvert and get over-stimulated around others easily if I don’t get enough mental time alone.
My peace of mind is more important to me as I get older and over-thinking things has been a bad habit for a lot of years and I am finally letting go of it and getting into more action and keeping myself moving forward, even if I don’t want to or feel like it.
The kitchen timer is one of my best tools. Set the time and work on one area of endeavor at a time….
Hard:
* Didn’t feel I could take time off when I wanted to
* Reciprocity issues
* Snottiness aimed at me because I was doing my job
* Mojo still somewhere I am not
* Bike is languishing
* Feeling badgered
Good:
* A nice review of my book, at Moment
* Being able to hang out with my dog for hours as I work
* Unsolicited compliments
* Scale moving in the right direction
* House is cleaner than it was
* Projects are progressing
Shabbat shalom, y’all.
The hard:
Revision. Like slamming into a brick wall going fast on rollerskates!
Hypervigilance and transformation/renewal/newness/creativity/my mission are extremely interlaced and difficult to separate
HSP forcefield issues with the side-eye expert and a young and restless neighbor
Sleep issues
The good:
Revision
Concept of shaping a beautiful thing rather than chasing perfection helped ease me into revision more
Wholly new process of writing happening, where the perfectionistic hell pit is removed from the equation
Tons of shivanata, every day
Exposition stuff I forgot about was there to help me when I needed to fill it in, thanks to me of January 2012
Progress on (silent retreat)
EMDR on overwhelm: realizing hypervigilance happens to a not so good degree really only when my environment is sucky, specifically: hellish ivy league white people overload. In a decent environment, it doesn’t happen. I’ve used it the way people use a drug to numb through something inescapable. . . . amazing to see
I am feeling extremely grateful to the knowledge and health care I have wonderful access to–stuff people battle with for a lifetime, my practitioners have these incredible answers to that clear things up quickly–it is sad that it is easy for me to forget the total miracle of this but so good that this is part of my life
Fired up about the next thing after this book. Pissed off that a publisher is eating its young via lawsuits in a totally new and egregious way–this is somehow spurring me on in a way that feels positive. Irritation is the mother of invention. Cultural crisis be damned.
Big hugs to all the chickens xo
Fridaaay. And *almost* the end of Septmeber. Wait, I thought it was still July? Oh well.
The Hard:
– The icky hard [thing] that I’ve been wrestling with intensely for five months now. More redundancy. More pointless phone calls. More intrusion. Trial and error with this pattern and the very sad realization that there is *nothing* I can change about this except my relationship to it. Sigh.
– All the not-fun aspects of being the village idiot at my new job. Also, being set up for failure and then blamed for it, which was just not fair. I know the shoe wasn’t aimed at me and that I just happened to be in the line of fire but oh my god! Angry me was angry.
– HSP-me needs LOTS of recharge time when interacting constantly with the public, and I did not get enough this week.
– Puppies = so. much. work.
– The inbox iguana of doom.
The Good:
– An important date was finally set this week, which gives a shape to the coming months, and hopefully will be the beginning of a change in this icky [thing]. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
– Several heartfelt and unexpected emails.
– Anniversary lunch with one of my partners. Glowing and radiance and delicious Greek food.
– My grandparents are visiting the valley. Hurray!
– I have a job! Where I get to met dogs and geckos and puppies every day! Which totally outweighs the bullsh*t that comes with being a corporate employee.
– First rehearsal meeting for the theatre company. Great energy, fun people. I am so excited to get started on this production!
– I’ve been looking for a rehearsal space for our theatre company for months, and each space I’ve come across has been too expensive or too small or too remote etc. Until today, when my lovely landlord offered the use of their hayloft for free!!! Outdoor stair access! Weather-proofed! Working lights! Beautiful wood floor! Private! I am so psyched to get in there, clean up and get things rolling.
Happy weekend chickeners 🙂
Oooo Saturday!
The hard:
Oh, I think I’ll start with the Sh*tting in the Woods Incident. Which is not a metaphor. And the subsequent feeling all yicky and ill and exhuasted. Bah.
The point where my cat ‘playfully’ whacked me in the mouth with her cute little pawsie.
Epic amounts of being incredibly demotivated to do anything for my business, and some associated ‘doom!’
Oh focus, where art thou?
Having to walk 45 minutes each way into town on a day were there were weather warnings for rain and wind – whilst feeling fairly unwell.
Sleeping on bed linen that was far grubbier than I would normally tolerate.
The good:
In retrospect the Sh*tting in the Woods Incident is actually quite funny.
And the rest of walk was beautiful.
Having lots of awesome books to read at the point where all I felt I could do was flop in my bed.
Getting to meet the wonderful Reba in person and spending many happy hours talking and consuming tea.
An inspiring meeting yesterday.
Our tumble dryer is fixable! It is being fixed!
Mmmm….love + sparkles to everyone who wants them!
Cluck.
Hards
– clarity.
– holding onto stillness while thoughts run around making noise because I’m allowing myself to be still instead of engaging with them. They are unused to this.
– low energy.
– sadness.
Goods
– the line has been crossed. It is done.
– stillness. Allowing life to hold me, carry me. Bearing witness instead of trying to wrestle it, control it, master it. (Related: singing Que Sera, Sera in best Broadway voice at top volume while driving, with full orchestra of angels and strings in my head.)
– love. It is my home. Sadness is love. Always. Two sides of the same experience. I am sad because I love. I am in joy because I love. It is all love.
Om baby.
xo
This week was hard because Petty Tyrant (who I am grateful for a la Carlos Casteneda) decided I do not do enough work so orchestrated an Attack and changed the website colors back to homemade and hideous (not my website home which is pink and white sweetness) to green and blue text gross. Blue on green is so 1990s no designer!!! But he isboss so my inobtrusoce helpfulness of making it attractive just cut.
An it turned out when I accounted for my time I am indeed doing 30 hours and so I don’t have to do cold calling !!!
Hahahahahaha there
Oh and also PMS.
Next week please.
I need more absolute absolutelies.
Whew. Weird week. I think. It feels like a blur now!
The Hard.
Bronchitis. I has it.
Fuzzy-headed confusion without drugs. Discovering I weigh more than I thought (damn you, doctor’s office!) and my blood pressure’s up. Monsters of family-history-of-heart-disease-and-now-it’s-you-DOOM suddenly popping up and singing a la Bohemian Rhapsody.
Busy busy busy. Lots of phone calls, lots of editing, piecing together a plotline for upcoming novel. Tiny panics and trying to figure stuff out. While fuzzy-headed and tired.
The Good.
Convening of the first Skype Virtual Writergirls! Much laughing and random flashing and general silliness, and it was nice to be there even if I couldn’t physically be there.
Meeting with good friend, who helped me nail down my plot points. Mwah!
Phone calls! I got to talk to most of my students and help them sort out plot points, which is one of my super powers and also one of my favorite things to do in the whole world. I hate talking on the phone, but I love love love plot sessions!
Bronchitis is not whooping cough. Woot!
One of my clients/friends posted blog about working with me, and my non-fiction writing manual. Blushing and feel like I need to hide behind a grown up’s legs at the attention, but also nice to see 1) writer is confident enough to blog, where he didn’t used to be, and 2) that I have been helpful and touched a writer’s life. That’s nice.
So much more good than hard. Good week. 🙂
How the incredibly hard and incredibly fun sometimes go hand in hand!
Fall is bittersweet like that for me. Trying to desperately enjoy the warmth, knowing it will end.
Successful work needs a small container! Aha! That explains why I got more studying done in the 10 minutes I was heating lunch than in the 6 hours before that!
This weekend is a small-ish container for finishing my final exam. Yay for the month of learning and squeezing out its last juicy goodness! My Playground calendar has many stars for all the days I learned this month (in the formal sense).
I had forgotten that sometimes accomplishing brain tasks feels really whole-body good. I squeezed out anxiety. Yay, squeezing!!
I played with “good enough” this week. Well, actually I stared at the homework until I figured out how the teacher was inconsistent. But I was aware of the quality of “good enough”, lurking in the corners.
This class won’t make me an expert. I am letting that fill me up. Dilettante debutante! Novice Nora! Dabbling dabble-muffin. My master of mastery doesn’t need to be in the front of the V; he is just coasting in the tailwind until he is needed.
Yay for my unstructured chicken–good enough!
Although behind in studying, I am ahead in gwish-making. It is a post-it note waiting for me in October. I am transitioning into transition mode and will try to talk to my VIP about “it” (the current iceberg, not the future deck chairs — a Titanic reference for the ocean-wearers). My voice will brim with the integrity of I’m-OK-you’re-OK wholeness, for a change.
It’s been a strange, rough week, but it feels like the precursor to a lot of good.
My Ouch Hards:
– 2-hr evening commute home on Monday that turned into a 4-hr commute.
– And cold hotdogs all I could manage for food at the end.
– All the kitchen appliances are broken. It’s very difficult for me to eat in a healthy manner when my refrigerator is d-e-d-dead (for 8 days, no less).
– And therefore not eating healthy and the body woes that go along with that.
– Workstress from an entirely unexpected direction. Getting distracted due to it.
– Major body tension during work Tuesday and Thursday that expressed itself in back cramps, jaw pain, and strange discomforts.
– The erosions in the crook of my right arm are scarring oddly.
– Lack of enough sleep. Soooo tired because of it.
– Feeling useless where cleaning and organizing is concerned. I’d made terrific progress on the cloudforest, and then in order to clean another room I brought a bunch of stuff in here and uuuuugh. Ugh.
– I do believe I am deeply depleted.
My Whee Goods:
* Some great storyfletching this past weekend.
* I have to express gratitude for Metis, and the Floop, yet again.
* Vacation next week, even if it isn’t Cape Cod.
* Oooh the tomato planty-thing finally sprouted! So exciting!
* Doing some cleaning in the other room let me re-discover some fun clothing and costumes.
* Having my boss trust me enough to self-direct my work. There’s a lot to be said for that.
* Buttmonster butt. Pat pat pat.
Sending out tons of packages of peace and relief to all the chickeneers.
So much hard this week. I haven’t posted here for a long time. But part of the hard this week is that I feel so ALONE. So I’m posting here into the friendly Fluent Self ether.
Hard:
– My friend that I had much of fun with decided he wanted to be more than friends two weeks ago. I did not. As a result, I have lost my friend. I miss him.
– My friend-who-used-to-be-my-gentleman-friend has been so lovely and supportive over the end of above friendship, but that has made me cry all over again with the realisation that we can never be together, but I love him heaps, and when he meets someone new I will lose him.
– This is all tied in with Oh God I Am A Spinster And Will Be Alone For The Rest Of My Life And When I Die My Cats Will Eat Me. Despite the fact that I don’t have any cats.
– Work. Has been so incredibly hard. My new job, that I thought was A Way Forward into an exciting new thing, has proved a dead end. First The Crazy Colleague pushed me out of our Department of Two entirely unfairly and into Friendly-but-Dull department, and then this week, the secondment that I hoped would provide the Interesting Work and Use of My Skills and Development of New Skills – was hijacked by the horrible former manager of Department of Two, who wasn’t supposed to be involved in the project but has now taken over entirely. I wouldn’t mind SO much if the project was going to turn out awesome as a result of the hijack. But it is heading down the path of Horrifyingly Sh*te.
– I wish I was still working for myself but don’t have the energy or chutzpah right now to relaunch into solopreneurism, and my friends who are solopreneurs say work is hard to come by because our beloved industry is dying. Sort of dying and being reborn at the same time, but in any case it is apparently difficult to make money right now.
– So tired. Need more sleep.
– My football team just lost.
– A bit of plastic pinged off my extendable rangehood the other night and now it is being held up by rubber bands and I think I will have to spend $500 to get a new rangehood.
– I didn’t want to get about of bed this morning and I’m afraid I’m heading into Giant Depressive Episode territory and it is so frightening that right now I can’t remember any of my usual Preventative Measures.
– I am ashamed of writing this because I feel like a drama queen and there are many people who are worse off than me and Why Are You Crying You Have Enough To Eat And A Roof Over Your Head And A Comfortable Bed. So much guilt.
The Good.
Right now I am thankful for:
– My dog, who is very comforting.
– The yellow tulips, which are lasting an astoundingly long time, and are very yellow and crownly and happy.
There was a chicken at the bottom of a glass of red wine (and some cheese.)
The Hard:
The other things you find at the bottom of a glass (or two) of red wine. Like wondering why he wants to be with her instead of you. Even though it was 2 years ago. Or 1.25 depending on the exchange rate you are using.
Eye problems. This is not a metaphor. Blurriness everywhere after so many trips to the eye doctor. But should be resolved tomorrow. (I waited so long to post this that it IS tomorrow and I can see!!!)
Somehow stumbled upon a wedding on Martha Stewart and the people had met online but the people that I’ve met online aren’t people I want to have a Martha Stewart wedding with and got bummed out.
The Good:
I think my neighbor has a date tonight. He is singing along to a Kelly Clarkson song and I kind of want to go hug him and wish him luck.
New clients, yay!
My new eye doctor.
Clear vision.
A rainy day to read and cook and hang out with the cat.
Bah! I don’t even remember this week. So much running around. Let’s see what I do remember–
Hard:
– So much running around! ALL the time! Running to class, running back home to administer kitty-elixir, running back to class, running to meetings, running and not getting anything done.
– Not getting things done! Until this weekend – and still being swamped and having back-log and whatnot.
– Related to the above: feeling like there’s not enough time. Mostly because I spent it all running. But I can’t seem to tell whether there actually isn’t enough time and I need to cut back on my commitments, or whether there is enough time and I just need to find where it is. I don’t know what I’d cut back on if I had to drop things though…
– The day of letting-myself-be-stuck. Which is something that I needed to let happen, but still sucked (because So! Much! Work!).
– Not enough working out.
– Choosing not to reach for support with The Project. So much stuff here.
– Needing to do more cardio but really really not wanting to.
Good:
– The realization that I was the one doing the running, which is to say, no one was making me do the running. The running was not required. So starting Monday I’ll pack myself lunch and dinner, and stay at school for as long as I need to.
– Full-moon hike! And new friends! And lovely old friends. And a bonfire, and smores!!
– The first little bits of The Project went really well, and I realized that I am not an incompetent fool, and that I really do have the skills to do all the awesome things that I need to do. I just need the systems and the commitment. And I need to remember courage.
– PB&Js!
– Transitioned to free-weights for my last work-out session and holy cow! Seeing results already.
– Loving my body and its capacity to heal and grow.
– Extra cash! And more this weekend. And general money-happiness.
– CLARITY! Finally being able to admit something that I’ve been planning for ages, but not wanting to commit to. (Commitment seems to be a theme this week.)
– Getting enough sleep (maybe that’s where all my time went).
Wishing everyone well for next week <3
Just a quick chicken, especially since it isn’t Friday.
The hard:
Silent retreat.
The good:
Camping trip!
Cheers, Chickeneers!
The Hard
– back-to-back weekends of travel
– the busyness that comes from back-to-back weekends of travel
– the breakout from hell
The Good
– Weddings! Beautiful weddings!
– deciding to do X next summer (which is huge and life-changing)
– clarity