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Back from the Break- More Thoughts Today

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I was visiting my family last weekend and stopped at the Farmers Market in West Bend, a town in Wisconsin not far from where I grew up. It’s changed a lot since my youth. It’s good to see. First of all, there’s a farmers market. Secondly, there were people there who didn’t look like me, not a lot, but some. That was good to see. Our small towns are so much more when they aren’t those white bread places, soft and squishy without much to them.

I stopped at a little gift shop in hopes of finding a new journal for myself. It’s been a while since I’ve written my blog or my daily journal for myself. A nice journal that welcomes me helps. I found one with flowers and a bicycle on the cover, nice shades of blue and green. I haven’t been writing every day, but I am starting to open it and free write again.

It always amazes me what thoughts start to percolate when I write. This morning I was out at Indian Lake with my dog, Buddy. I was sitting with my journal while he explored the field and did a little wading in the water. I found myself thinking about where we’re at today. Here we are in this time of pandemic, drought, racial/social/economic unrest, huge wildfires, and all the rest. I can’t help but wonder if we are coming to the time of the seventh fire. Are we coming to the end of this chapter of life or is this simply just another round of challenges the same as faced by generations before us that only seem larger than life because we’re the generation facing them?

What power do we have, if any, to determine our direction? I have to believe that there is some power, that we can make choices that will mold the society for the time to come. I was thinking today too of the world I grew up in and the stories that I was told. I grew up in a home where the bible was much more than a table decoration. I remember sitting in bible studies that my mom hosted in our living room. I recall when Sr. Patricia used to bring communion to our house when Mom was too sick to go to church. I’ll admit much of my beliefs have evolved and I haven’t attended mass for years, but I still like that Jesus guy that we talked about back then.

No, I’m not going to encourage anyone to follow Jesus. Follow whoever you want or just go your own way. What I’m wondering about, what my writing and thinking is drawing out of me as I think about this time of so many challenges that we’ve been going through is the disparity between that man of love and caring and who the stories said gave all of himself that we might live and the followers who’ve chosen themselves over all the gifts he shared and have refused to care enough to do such simple small things like masks and vaccination or a list of other little things of showing care and love for their fellow beings. I simply don’t understand. It seems to me like what I once knew as sin and now might just call sadness.

Trying To Be a Writer

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I think I’m a writer. I really do. That’s why I joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Well, I obviously write a blog too that’s really not for kids. But, I think I’m a children’s book writer or that at least I could be.

It’s so challenging to figure out how to be a writer of children’s literature. I have this vague understanding that I need to set some goals for myself, but no grounding from which to base those goals. In most of my work I’ve been able to find a clear goal. The group I’ve worked for has wanted to stop strip-mining, cut the use of pesticides, or teach people to organize in their own communities. In this situation I find myself looking at it and saying, “Okay, I know I want to write children’s literature, but what is that? Who’s my audience? What would success be?” It seems so broad and I’m not sure where I land in the giant world that includes everyone from Dr. Seuss to J.K. Rowling.

Yes, I do recognize that it’s a bit much to consider my own work to even be in the same universe as either of them as I’ve never published a book. I must admit that I do find something wishful to dream about in the story of Rowling once struggling to make ends meet and then publishing Harry Potter to become a billionaire.

There must be somewhere to start here, just a few words each day or even each week, an exercise of the mind. It will appear and grow I am sure. For now it remains on paper, but keep your eyes open. Maybe it will show up in cyberspace sometime soon.

We’ll See What Happens With the Book

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Okay, I promised myself that I’d get back to writing my blog more consistently again so here I am hoping to return to a consistent pattern of writing. It’s good to be writing and to be thinking about writing, thinking about how it happens that the words wind up on the page and the story is told. My blog is mostly a space to let my brain spill out and simply see what happens to pour out onto the page, but it is also a tool to help me dig a bit deeper for other writing projects.

One of my goals for the this year is to draft a children’s book. I’d love to say “write a children’s book” but that seems to me to suggest that I’ll have sold the idea to a publisher in the next eight months as well and that seems a bit more audacious than I feel is warranted. I do have a couple of ideas in the starting phases. Two first drafts have gone to my writing group and come back with lots of comments, none of which was “this is brilliant!” So, it seems second drafts are the next step.

Still, poking at the corners of my mind are Uncle Walter, Tory McKannikan, and Jackie Soup. They’ve not appeared in the stories that I’ve written so far, but it seems that they warrant a series of their own, a set of adventures. Uncle Walter is loosely based, I think, on two old friends of mine. He’s a mischievous, but wise fun loving fellow. Tory McKannikan was my alter-ego when I was a little girl. She was a super hero who could do all the things I couldn’t. She was always saving the world. Jackie Soup was her best friend and husband. Yes, I married (or at least my alter-ego did) when I was probably about five years old. Jackie was a giant. He was also kindness personified.

Wow, there’s a realization I hadn’t expected. I had a dream last night. I’ve had a lot of dreams lately. It seems to be a healing process brought on by some herbal medicine I was prescribed some months ago. In last night’s dream I found myself stuck on a tall, tall pillar of sand in the middle of a huge pit that was at least a mile deep. I called out for help. The man who came and lifted me off the pillar of sand, cradling me to his shoulder as I cried asked me where I’d been and why I hadn’t called to him in so long. It was strange. I was both adult sized and yet I was tiny. He was small and yet he was a giant tall enough to see over the mile deep pit. I think my childhood imaginary love may have found me in my dream. He still loved me and cared for me, helped me, and made sure I was safe. Dreams are amazing things. I can only hope that my Tory McKannikan is finding her way out to take on new adventures and soar to new heights. We’ll see what happens with the book

Starting the New Year

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For the last few years I’ve posted my New Year’s resolutions here. This year I am a bit late, but that’s okay. 2021 seems to be getting a slow start separating itself from 2020, I can do the same. We humans have a strange time to start a new year these days anyway. It’s not the solstice or the equinox. It’s not the beginning of a new season. It’s just a day it seems to me. Anyway, moving into the goals for the upcoming. First, we start with my resolutions from last year.

  1. Getting my seizures to stop
  2. Getting to my goal weight
  3. Reading at least 12 books
  4. Cutting my screen time

Well, I got my VNS and my seizures have been been roughly cut in half and those I have seem to be less intense. So, I’d say I did pretty good with that one. On getting to my goal weight, honestly, I haven’t really worked on it. I feel pretty good about not gaining any weight and actually losing a couple of pounds during COVID. I think it’s a goal that I can let go of. I think I’m on book 15 or 16 now. A few of those were ones I read before, but they were good enough to read again. So, success on that goal. I can’t say the number of hours by which I’ve cut my screen time, but I feel certain that I have cut it. I took Facebook off my phone. I go out hiking and to dog parks more often. I’ve made a regular practice of daily guitar and piano practice, time for household tasks, and reading time all of which take me away from the screen. I’m guessing that I’m probably dropping 1-3 hours a day. I’d say I did pretty well in 2020 toward reaching my goals.

I think 2021 will be for continuing some these goals and adding in a few new ones.

  1. Becoming seizure free
  2. Reading at least 12 books
  3. Continuing to keep my screen time in check
  4. Writing a children’s book
  5. Finding my Ikigai (Japanese concept meaning reason for being)
  6. Getting back to being intentional about exercise 3-5 times a week

This should keep me going and keep me flowing. Wishing you all well in this year to come. Take good care.

Dreams

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This morning my thoughts are of dreams. I’ve always been a dreamer. I believe our sleeping lives tell us a great deal about our waking time sometimes it’s just difficult to figure out what it all means and what to do with it. As we settle into this time of isolation and slowing of our society, I wonder how our dreams will be? I wonder if the spirits might be heard more clearly as we allow our brains to quiet from the daily noise? I wonder if we’ll understand and listen?

I don’t always remember my dreams, but there are few from these past two weeks that are still floating in my head. In the first I was pregnant. My belly was large and round. I felt its warmth and cradled my about to be born child with love. I woke as the child was being born. The child was a new world. It was a beautiful moment for a forty-eight year old post-menopausal woman who’s never had a biological child. It feels like some directions to me, that I am to give birth to something. I don’t know what but I trust in the beauty and the good.

The second dream made me thankful for being able to awaken. I was in an old house, but it was new to me. I was there with an old friend. We were just moving in. I’d laid on a bed when I felt a weight down on me and couldn’t move. I could hear that Queen song, Under Pressure playing and forcing me down into the mattress. Then I awoke and for just a moment I was stuck there unable to move until I realized again where I was. It wasn’t quite a nightmare. I was able to wake up before it became one. I was somewhere between the old and the new and stuck there.

How are we all now in this place between the old and the new? Are we ready to give birth to a new beginning? What is it that we seek of ourselves and what is it that we seek in the world when this time of isolation is done? How are we preparing?

Dreams well my friends. Our dreams hold a lot of questions and a lot of answers.

How Does This Change Us?

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Okay, I took a break again and now it’s time to start writing. I don’t know what to say and can only hope that I find words that can provide help to someone somewhere. This COVID-19 thing is a strange beast. To me in some ways it only feels like a continuance and growth of my past few years here in Morris. While I have found some friends who have made all the difference, I haven’t found my home here. My main community has remained in different places separate from me. So, this is largely just a chance to learn about myself, to figure out some different ways to work, and to work on my own inner challenges in hopes of coming out a stronger and healthier person for whatever my next adventure may be.

The thing that keeps coming to my mind is something that my old friend Walt used to speak about when he was out talking with groups. Walt was a leader in the environmental and social justice movements in the Midwest and beyond. He used to tell people that we didn’t need to worry about saving the earth. The earth she will be okay. The earth she will heal herself. It is us that will die when we can’t breathe the air. It is us who will die when can’t drink the water anymore. It is us who will die when there are no trees, when there is no food to eat. It is us who will die.

Walt told the stories and gave the warnings. This COVID-19 thing seems to be giving the warnings too, giving them loudly and forcefully. I wonder how this changes who we each are individually and collectively? I’ve heard some tales that the shutdowns have already had positive impacts on the environment. I see stories each day of people slowing down and taking the time to take a walk and wave to people they pass, feeling the crushing weight of stress lighten as they stop running from meeting to meeting and task to task.

When this is over will we go back to who we were? Can we go back to who we were? Will we be someone new? Who do we want that someone to be?