May already?
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Daily Eruptions

I can't believe it's nearly May and that my last post was in February!

So much has happened since February...how can that be?

Maybe I haven't been writing here because I have actually been honest to goodness writing with a pen and paper every day for the past month or so.  (I know, that doesn't account for the end of February or all of March!)

I am slammed busy with things at work--we're finally launching the new children's website this week, we're opening a new show on Friday, and I'm preparing to go to the SurTex convention in New York in May while Sudie is preparing for an artists' trip to Paris.  Too much to do, but at least some of it is interesting.

I am also counting down the days in April.  My fifteen-month goals end this week, and while I blew my teaching goals out of the water, most of the others just hung out on my wall and mocked me.  I'm trying to figure out why this particular system didn't serve me better--it combines several techniques from Barbara Sher's Refuse to Choose book but it didn't really motivate me the way I hoped it would.  I'm trying to figure out if the timeline was too long, the goals were too big, or if the act of making goals for things that should be fun somehow made them scary and I failed to get anywhere near them--for example, I did not write a single poem in fifteen months!  I started two or three, but didn't finish any of them.

I also have a new program that I'm beginning May 1st to help me commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the GTE Big Ride Across America to Benefit the American Lung Association and to help me clear out my life to make room for new things.  It's kind of an at-home, "real life" detox, meditation retreat.  It's going to include an electronic diet--no t.v. six days a week, Internet only for work--but it will have a blogging component that I will launch from here on May 1, so please come back.

As with all things in my life, I took what started out as a simple idea and made it complex very quickly.  I'm not sure I'm going to implement every aspect of the meditation retreat program that has occurred to me, but I'm sure I won't be able to keep myself from implementing some.  More soon! 

Happy spring, all!  North Carolina is in full bloom now and the onslaught of green is truly overwhelming.  Luckily, the allergy symptoms seem to have peaked last week, so things are good.  I hope you can say the same.

Kristine

Happy Birthday to Me
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Daily Eruptions

I keep forgetting it is my birthday.  I have lots to wrap up at work so I can get outta' town, and it's hard to keep the whole "it's my birthday! aura" about me.  My six year old nephew called me this morning, taking me totally by surprise, and sang to me.  Lovely, lovely boy!  If I could clone him, maybe I'd have a son of my own....  I'm excited to be spending a week with him and his 4-year-old sisters at The Happiest Place on Earth.  Given various other circumstances of late, I also feel blessed that I'll be sharing the trip with Hans, my sister and her husband, and especially my parents.  Lots to be thankful for!

I have known since I was a little girl that I shared my birthday with Susan B. Anthony, but I learned today that I also share it with Jane Seymour (my favorite! My niece is named after her character in Somewhere in Time.), Chris Farley, Matt Groening, and Galileo Galilei.  Interesting company!

One last note: in a previous post this week, I said I got married at 29.  Technically, I got married two days before I turned 29.  So 29 with the Big Ride followed by the Big Depression was a mixed bag.  I'm thinking 39 might follow suit, but I'm hoping for more positive transformation and a little less pain and suffering!

Big, Big, Love! (to steal from my imaginary friend Mary in California)

K 

Snow!
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Lonely is the Night by Billy Squier
Topic: Daily Eruptions

We had the most beautiful, and surprising!, snowfall last night! 

Sometime after 8:00 the rain stopped and when I looked out the kitchen window around 11:00, I was amazed to see the trees outlined in white.  It was a wet, heavy snow that completely covered the grass, piled up several inches thick on the asphalt and concrete, buried my car, and made every living thing glow!  Snow happens only once or twice a year here, and this event was unexpected and magical.  I slept more peacefully than I have in weeks and woke up with a smile on my face.

Kaija, on the other hand, was not thrilled.  I tried putting her boots on her, but she hates them, so she had to go out barefooted.  It's kind of sad, and a little funny, to watch a dog try to walk without putting her feet on the ground!  When she comes back in, we play the towel game whenever she goes out in the rain or snow, though, and this cheers her up.  I try to dry off her head and feet (the rest of her body stays dry thanks to her fleece, 4-legged coat) with a towel while she tries to take the towel away from me, get it to her bed in front of the fireplace, and break its neck.  She will be happy this afternoon to find that the sun has nearly melted all the white stuff and the rain is long gone.  We're heading to Florida on Saturday--where she was born but hasn't visited since she left at twelve weeks old on a plane with Hans for Seattle--so the shift to 70 degree days is going to confuse her even more.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!  I hope your heart is filled with love and your spirit filled with peace.

 K

Getting Older
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Daily Eruptions

This week I will turn 39.

I dont feel 39!  I usually feel about 17, alternating with brief periods of 25, but definitely not 39. 

When I turned 29, I spent the whole year telling people--including myself--that I was 30, practicing for the coming year which felt absolutely monumental.  So when I actually did turn 30, it was no big deal.  I was rehearsed and relaxed and slid right into my third decade with relative ease.  Of course, I did the cross-country bike trip when I was 29 and got married when I was 29, so, at least some days, life felt exciting and fruitful (although to be honest I slipped into a pretty severe depression when the Big Ride ended).

Ten years later, I'm a little amazed that I've been married ten years, my life is definitely more financially stable, and my adventures come in much smaller doses.  But I do feel more confident, more skilled, and, yes, a little wiser.  It is all beginning to gel.

And, by all accounts, the year I turn 40 is going to be the best year of my life.  This should be exciting news, but it's also a little daunting.  It seems to imply that I have to be ready for something amazing, that I have to be mature and open and somehow stable enough to roll with whatever the something is without turning my life upside down the way I would have ten years ago.  Or maybe not.  Maybe I need to be able and willing to turn my life upside down after spending ten years learning how to be a responsible adult with a mortgage and car loans and student loans and a retirement account.  I really don't know.

I do know the grey hair I see in the mirror is a daily reminder that I am not 17 nor 25.

I do know my body is changing in ways that are sometimes frustrating and sometimes scary, forcing me to face the fact that I am racing toward a reproductive deadline at which point my body will make a decision for me, regardless of whether I have reached a decision or not.

I know I have goals and plans and am working each day to be better.

I know 39 will come whether I am ready or not.  As will 40 and all the years beyond.

And, I can continue to take comfort in the fact that no matter how old I get, most of my friends are still older!

So happy birthday to me: May I become more me each day and open ever wider to the possibilities still before me.

I wish the same for you!

She Lives! And mostly Happily!
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Mindfulness

Wow!  I've been gone a looong time and my traffic stats show it!  One sweet person still checked on me yesterday, though, so there may still be hope for me and this space.

It's not that I stopped thinking about blogging, it's just that my energy couldn't support it.

I ran myself into the ground in the last four to seven months of 2007 and I could hardly think a coherent thought, let alone write one.

So, let's see, since my last post in October:

I finished teaching the afterschool creativity classes I began in September and barely survived one of them.  Mary saved me on so many levels, and now I'm taking a break from teaching.  I have to recooperate from the stress and maybe learn a little more about dealing with groups of 3rd - 5th grade boys!

I took a watercolor journaling workshop with Juanita Wrenn in January and I mostly learned exactly how much I have to learn!  I have cultivated the ability to suspend judgment and allow myself to play as the result of teaching the creativity classes so it was fun, and I have experimented in small ways on my own since.  I have several instruction books and I'm going to work through them in some kind of orderly way, allowing myself to play on my own whenever the mood strikes, but it's going to be a slow process.  I have heard so much recently about writers who may be known for their words but who also paint.  It makes sense that studying painting would make you a better writer, but I'm not sure that studying writing is going to make me a better painter!

I also jumped--finally!--into the study and practice of energy healing.  I have been interested in this, and collecting books and information, for more than ten years, but I kept postponing actually learning it.  It seemed complex--which it kind of is--and difficult--which I'm beginning to think maybe it isn't--and time-consuming.  But, it is time I learned and I'm LOVING IT!  I won't go into details now, but it is transforming my life.  I'm getting lighter, I'm back in my body, and I'm seeing small progress that keeps me encouraged.

This, 2008, is my year of weeding out.  I'm getting rid of things that no longer serve me--like all the excess weight I've been carrying around (Mom and I joined the Biggest Loser Million Pound Match-Up Challenge and have lost a combined 11 pounds in our first four weeks), clutter, and certain ideas that I've outgrown.  I'm creating space in my life for new, amazing things to move in and grow.  And, I'm working on getting daily habits in place that will enable me to create and grow and explore and still maintain a sustainable burn.  That's where diet, exercise, adequate sleep, daily creative work, meditation and energy healing come in. 

I'm building toward something, but I'm not certain exactly what that something is yet.  For now, I'm happily working on laying a healthy foundation so that when it arrives, I can grab it with both arms and run! It's going to be a GREAT year!

Peace!

More Drama
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Daily Eruptions

Tad, in his infinite sweetness, typed me out two long passages from Proust and sent them to me by email this week.  They both discussed art, one in which a writer risks his life to get to a museum to see a painting by Vermeer, and one in which a writer is so overcome by the beauty of life that he has no ability to write about it.

I am not in a particularly verbal state this week, feeling overwhelmed and fairly exhausted and a little swirly (which I think is akin to the Phoebe/Lisa Kudrow state of "floopy"), so I responded by sending him a little photo of a sunset I took with my cell phone last Thursday at the park after a short, teasing rain that filled the sky with clouds.

 

 

 

It's Raining!!
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Daily Eruptions

 

It's finally RAINING!  Real rain, not just a teasing drizzle, but big, fat, drenching drops that run off roof tops and soak the clay and accumulate in dehydrated streams and lakes and reservoirs.  It has been months since we've seen real rain and there is so much celebration going on.  The governor yesterday asked all North Carolinians to cut their water consumption in half.  This rain will not solve our severe drought, but it will help our trees and flowers.

Having grown up in Michigan, I have always appreciated a good dramatic storm (provided I didn't have to drive in it!), but I have never wanted rain as much as I have this summer.

Transformation Update
Mood:  d'oh
Now Playing: Ludwig Van Beethoven: Sonaten Opp. 27/1-27/2, 28--Maurizio Pollini
Topic: Daily Eruptions

I always imagine that there is one little tweak that will get me where I need to be, something like letting go of the rope I'm clinging to with both hands or simply changing one thought pattern.  I have, as Tad will attest, thought for years that it was "discipline" and the perfect schedule that was going to get me there.  I'm starting to let go of that idea, because even though discipline and the perfect schedule worked to help me 4.0 my last two years at Michigan, I've never been able to sustain that level of focused craziness in my life since.

The Big Ride suggested to me that it was simply the act of meditation that would get me there.  Letting go of ego and social comparisons and shoulds and coulds and just engaging in the moment.  This was AMAZING, but I cannot say I was productive by any means, and I could not find a way to bring the Big Ride home.

Which seems to be my real problem.  My last two years of college and the Big Ride were environments in which I was completely focused on one task--finishing a degree or finishing an 80-mile day.  My "real life" is not so narrowly focused, nor am I willing to make it so.  If memory serves, Diane Wakoski in the poem "Rings of Saturn" talks about the things she's had to give up to make a creative life as a poet, and the jealousy she feels that not all successful artists have had to do the same.  If I were to be a successful writer, I would probably have to give up quite a bit, too, and so far I have been unwilling.  I keep thinking I can arrange my life so that writing can be my ONE path, the one door I walk through to see the whole world, but I never seem to be able to arrange my life to make that happen.   I keep putting more into my life without letting anything go and the one thing that doesn't get put in is the writing.

In terms of the things I'm currently trying to change, I am slowly organizing my physical space (again), I'm working out more (walking, running, weights, yoga, pilates), and I'm eating food that I prepare myself (yes, Taco Bell may see a major dip in its fourth quarter earnings as a result).  The problem is, all of these things take more time out of my day as well as more energy.  If I stick with it long enough to see a truly organized house and office, to lose enough weight that I see a spike in my energy level, and to make meal preparation a no-brainer, maybe my time and energy will benefit.  But for now, I'm exhausted and my energy is unfocused and I can't squeeze another thing in.  In fact, I'm going to have to start giving up another 60 to 90 minutes of my daily life so that I can get enough sleep.  I've been trying to operate on six hours a day and it's not working.  So things have to start going out of the schedule now and that's frustrating.

So I can't tell if I am transforming and just feeling the effects of "it's going to get worse before it gets better" or if I'm not really transforming, just shuffling pieces slightly differently than before and still banging my head against the same walls.  All I do know is that I draw the death card in my daily tarot readings at least twice a week these days....

 

Note to Self about Happiness
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Books

I had a long chat with Tad last night during which he reminded me that I need to read Anna Karenina (and then told me how it ends!  I promised him I would forget by today, but, unfortunately, I still remember...) and Proust.  As always, our conversation was mostly about happiness and best selves and true selves and mindfulness and right work.  Tad said that Proust believed in segmentation of the self, that the person who found happiness was not the same person who had sought that particular happiness and so couldn't truly enjoy it (I think...any misrepresentations of Proust--or of Tad--are completely my own). 

My current feeling is that I'm about an inch away from getting all the things I've outlined for myself as my true objectives, but in order for me to move that one inch, I am going to have to completely transform myself.  If I can't, then I will remain here, an inch away from my true work, spinning in circles and throwing energy out into the universe in every direction but not moving.  And when I say completely transform, I really mean completely transform.  Basically, I need to gain organization of my physical space, figure out how to motivate myself to do the daily work that moves big projects--aside from creating a crisis situation that I have to manage, and live in cooperation with my body rather than neglecting or punishing it.  It's only three things.  Shouldn't be that hard, right? ;)

Assaulting the Trees?
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: "Animals" by Nickelback
Topic: Daily Eruptions
When I came to work this morning, I left my window open as I drove up the long drive after I entered the code at the gate.  I was listening to Linkin Park's "Bleed It Out"  loud on the radio.  The lyrics are weird and dark, but the energy of the music and the reference to "make it a dirt dance floor again" makes me think it's okay that I get amped listening to it.  I knew no one was at the house except the dogs, so I thought a little volume wouldn't hurt.  As I sat and listened to the end of the song, though, I noticed the trees through the open window and wondered what their response was.  I don't know how old the trees here are, fifty, seventy, eighty?  I am fairly certain they are not old growth trees that survived human expansion without cutting.  Still, I don't think they've heard loud music often, certainly not the likes of Linkin Park.  If the trees' energy responded to the music, was it a negative response or a positive one?  I'm guessing negative because the chorus is all screaming.  Unlike my aging self, trees probably don't understand the joyful aspects of screaming.