The Path Forward
Mood:  flirty
Now Playing: My Life Would Suck Without You by Kelly Clarkson

I'm taking a break from packing to ice my ankle - I slipped in Great Dane drool today at work, twisted the ankle I severely sprained a couple years ago while running on pine needles, bruised both knees, and cut up one elbow - and update this blog.

My friend Mary was upset with my last post.  She said I was being too hard on myself, expecting myself to already be that which I aspire to be.  I see her point, but what I didn't say in the last post was that recognizing that I was being hypocritical - asking the country to be innovative and make the hard choices and achieve real, lasting change when I was "unwilling" to do the same - was a suddenly freeing experience!  As soon as I recognized all the things I wasn't doing, I recognized all the opportunities I was ignoring in my own life. I have plans, albeit small plans, for how to move various things in my life forward, and I recognize that my life doesn't have to be all or nothing.  I can be a writer while I'm still working; I can participate in environmental education without having to fly off to Alaska for five months to be a full-time environmental educator.  Yes, I want to be a full-time writer and educator, and, yes, I would love a big outdoor adventure right about now, but I can take baby steps toward these goals while still being a financially responsible adult.  That's what writing my first book-length poetry manuscript taught me: that a big project can be accomplished by spending an hour or two a day involved in moving the project forward.  Then one day you look around and realize that you've written enough pages and that the pages all somehow hang together thematically, and they can even be arranged into a book that actually has an arc!  

I don't have time to go into the details of my plans now, but I can say that I will have a book published within the next few weeks, that I take my first environmental education class next week (I get to learn to identify frogs by their calls!!  How fun!), that I have offered myself as a teacher for a summer nature and art class for kids, and I am moving tomorrow into a house near my family where I hope to be living for the next several years.  We've also changed up the dynamic at work, involving a new person in the mix, so things could get interesting really quickly there, too.  A few weeks ago I wanted a "path" with guaranteed results laid out in front of me to get me from where I am to the "exact" place where I want to be.  Instead, I just started asking what if questions and following small ideas to see where they might lead, and, while there are no guarantees, they might lead to an entirely new way of living, a way of living that is completely of my own design - exactly what I want for myself.

So, I am off to spend another hour packing and then to bed.  And, if I can sleep, I will be having sweet dreams!

Love to all.

K