Write it

It appears that I have gotten my writing mojo back at least a little. I woke up at 5 am today and just had the urge to write. To let it flow. To let it soar on the page.

Then I started thinking about life (which can be bad but this was good), and that there's just so many things I want to do in my fifties. I want to learn to play bass (already tried guitar which I couldn't do). I want to finish my screenplay and write and publish a third book. I want to see my work on a stage in a real theater as a play. I want to act.

Truth is, I want to do it all. I'm always craving something different. Something exciting. Something new. Yet, this life I've created is one I am very content with. 

Does that make sense? My husband and I are lucky. We occasionally bicker and annoy one another, but we love each other as friends and life partners. We both love music. Yes, true, he may not blast it in the car like I do (it kinda drives him crazy how loud I can handle my music while driving) but we're simpatico with the tunes. 

My shih tzu Frodo passed, and the grief still hits me hard, but I try and appreciate my remaining years with his brother Chewbacca.  My space I live in is wonderful. We may downsize in a few years but I love our house and my goal is to make a podcast studio that looks like a real studio and not just podcast in my room of rock tees and rockabilly dresses (most don't fit) that I use a screen to cover. 

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm so very grateful. And I'm working on being even more grateful on a day to day level, saying it aloud rather than always complaining.  

You see, for all of my positivity, often I can get stuck ranting about stuff that irks me. My perfectionist streak can result in me holding others to an impossible level. And what's funny about that is that I'm kind of a mess at times. My podcast area was a disaster until recently and just yesterday, I wore my shirt inside out to court all day. So really, I shouldn't be judging anyone.

So I am just here to remember via this writing exercise to smell the tulips (my favorite flower), to find my miracles and blessings in the ordinary rote routine of life, and to write it all down. Just write it.

Monday mooring

Lately I've been thinking that I have to get back on track. I need to focus but I can't. I feel so unmoored. I think it's because I don't know where to go from here. I have so many ideas, but no real direction.

Where do I go with this? I'm a writer. I know this. Yet, I'm lost. How do you write when you don't know where you are in life? And you have a full-time job. 

Plus, I had a really busy couple of years and so maybe I'm just burnt out, and flipping tired. In a few months, I turn fifty-two and I feel it. The years are starting to weigh on me. They say you can tell the age of a tree by counting its rings, but with me, you can tell how old I am by all of my stomach issues.

Maybe it's all of the coffee. I had it under control and now I am on a binge. I am an obsessive person and coffee is my latest thing. Too much coffee. Way too much.

This blog has no focus either but maybe that's the point. Sometimes we are meant to be unmoored. And floating. Until we find the shore.

Watching clouds

Watching the space

Between curtains

In the guest room

Where I'm laying 

Not sleeping 

One eye squinting

Watching clouds

Stand still

In bright sky

Puffy pillows 

White patches 

A ceiling painting 

Looks fake 

But this feeling 

That everything ends

Seems real-true 

I don't know 

Been here before 

You see these clouds 

They won't move

My speck of sky

It's too static 

And I'm just stuck 

Watching the clouds 

The Sage

Last night, I had a horrible dream. In it, a king cobra chased me around my house. I woke up terrified. This morning, I cleansed the bedroom. I lit sage and put the smoke in every corner whispering a prayer to bring light to the room. 

After reading up on the imagery of dreams, I realized that a snake is the symbol of change. Cobras can symbolize many things, both positive and negative. Clearly, my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Maybe I'm torn, between two worlds, the literary and the logical, between writing and the pragmatic life, and it's hard to change. It is easier to remain static.

But what if my purpose is passing me by? What if I miss my moment? If I had mere moments left, or days or a year, what would I want? I know this all seems a bit dramatic, all from a dream you might say with a head shake, but I believe in signs. 

There are times when I was writing my longer memoir when I wanted to give up. Then something would happen to remind me what I was working for. I would hear my father's voice in my head, urging me on. "You can do it Jenny..."

And I know I can. I'm a girl who can move mountains with a pen, and a flick in the air of her hand, and the furrow on her brow as she wishes change into being.

Simplicity

It's Sunday. I have to take Chewbacca to the groomer. But first, expresso. I make it with a simple, small machine that I saw in our hotel in France years back. It takes expresso pods only. The thing is, the more complicated the machine, the more likely it is to break.

Life is like that too. Simplicity is best. Too much is too much. My life had been too much for too long. So much that I couldn't write. I felt depleted. Recently, I've pulled back and slowly, and surely, the urge and zest to write is returning. 

I'm trying not to say yes to everything like I would before, but it's hard. Saying yes resulted in so many great opportunities and experiences. Life changing and affirming events. But I started to realize that because I was saying "yes" to everything and everyone, I couldn't truly ever be present at the key events. I was too tired.

Now, I try and keep focused on what is really important to me. The podcast for example is important, but it needs to change and grow. I need time for that and for school. I want to finish this century so I'm taking two MFA classes next semester. I have one big event I'm planning in September at Beyond Baroque, and one small appearance this summer at a good friend's book party. 

That's it. With work, it's more than enough. My goal is to restart my writing at 5 am. That's my best time. One expresso and I go. Fingers to keys. No one to stop me but me. 

Life and love

Life is beautiful. Life is hard. Life is joyful. Life is sad. Today, at least for today, life is just life. 

I'm in Vegas. It's 1 am. And I'm not partying. I fell asleep after a huge Italian multi course meal. Anyone who has had dinner with me knows that I don't eat much at one sitting. But this night, I made an exception. I ate bread. I ate stuffed mushrooms. I ate pasta. I had stopped drinking and was only drinking water because I wanted to eat as much as possible. Then espresso. Hubby ordered cannoli which I resisted. (Drink the espresso, leave the cannoli). Then heartburn.

It was my bestie's birthday so I wanted to stay up and party. But I decided to take a catnap when we got back about 730 pm and poof, I fell asleep and woke up at midnight. Like Cinderella reversed. At least I still had both of my shoes. 

So laying here, with my headphones on listening to the Shins, damn the lead singer's voice is so sublime, I am thinking about life and what really matters. What really matters are moments. Memories. Good times. Best friends. Being present and real. Listening to someone. Connections. Sisters. Family, with dog included of course. Perhaps I am homesick and missing the moms and my dog Chewie although maybe not in that order. I miss my late Frodo's shih tzu black eyes. And I always miss my dad. I can still hear his voice in my mind. 

I can't really say if I know much, but I know this. You won't ever regret taking time to relax. To recharge. I'm always on task and my day job can be exhausting and my side writing gig can be all consuming, so rarely do I just relax and not multi-task. 

I suppose what I am trying to do now is to take some time to breathe. To listen to music in the sun. To decide where I want to go and do without expectations for myself. As you know, I am always striving, yet right now I just want to breathe without effort or anxiety. Keep breathing deep I tell myself. Over and over. Until I can hear my heartbeat. Until I can see what's next on the horizon. Not a mirage or a vision. It will just be a feeling. 

Maybe a feeling like love. 

Just create

I've been thinking a lot about art. About creation. What compels one to be a creative? What makes art? A story? A song? I would argue it's the intention to birth something true.

Recently, I read an oral history of one of my favorite albums, Dramarama's Cinéma Vérité.

In the article, the band discusses how they worked at a record store that the bassist Chris Carter owned, they all loved music, and so they wanted to make a record and did. Heavily influenced by both the Velvet Underground and Bowie, both of whom they covered on the album, the record to me is pretty much perfect. It made me think that not every artistic endeavor has to take more than a decade like my memoir did. Maybe some things just happen because you make them happen.

Perhaps all one needs is time and focus, which is usually the providence of youth. Once you have that full-time job, with its full-time demands, it's hard to have time. But after reading this article, I've decided to just do it. I will just write my third book, out of whole cloth and I'll put it together with staples and glue if I have to. Because the whole act of making something real and authentic is the point to it all. That's it. Just create.