Today I did my very best to clear my head of all the inner dialogue { aka the doubts } that have been running on a 30-second loop for the past weeks. To center and find that balance point within. Not all the way there, but certainly MUCH closer than I was just a few days ago when everything seemed so topsy-turvy and just beyond my grasp.
I wish I could say there was some sort of "miracle" solution that I could turn to every time the doldrums { that word always makes me think of The Phantom Tollbooth } start to overtake me, but the scissor to snap some of the weight and worry free is always a different form, a different source of inspiration and comfort.
This afternoon I put my iTunes library on shuffle, turned up the volume, and just soaked up some happiness in the form of some of my favorite artists, one of whom is elizabeth & the catapult The music is infectious, uplifting and just silly. { Also, if you at are all interested the entire album is only $5 in Amazon's mp3 download -- which is a steal and a half! }
If you can spare three minutes or so, click here to watch a live performance of a song that never fails to put a smile on my face.
1.15.2010
1.13.2010
nothing in my life is tangible (or so it feels)
It seems as if the more I do lately, the larger the steps I try to take, the less ground I gain. It is disheartening to such degree that I don't really have words to encapsulate it properly.
There is something odd about how a quick phone call, lasting less than two minutes, can upset weeks work of worth. Now granted, I had been foolish in counting chickens before they'd hatched -- but the project had been so perfect, the possible commission so plummy { which is important now that I am only getting paid that way and would really love an income } -- that I'd gotten caught up in looking forward to it actually being finalized and completed. Never really imagined that after all the conversations, meetings, agreements, and plans that it would be put to a cold hard stop.
And so now, I am back to the drawing board hoping that another project will surface on the horizon and that it will actually go through. Being self-employed is empowering, but in the infantile stages of your business growing, it is full of doubts and wonderings. Heaps of effort and exertion that leave you still standing in the same place where you started. Someone once told me, { I'm sure they meant to be helpful }, "If you're not moving forward, you're falling behind."
I'm hoping that statement is as untrue as any other old wives' tale. And hoping that tomorrow will contain another open window of possibility for me to pursue...
There is something odd about how a quick phone call, lasting less than two minutes, can upset weeks work of worth. Now granted, I had been foolish in counting chickens before they'd hatched -- but the project had been so perfect, the possible commission so plummy { which is important now that I am only getting paid that way and would really love an income } -- that I'd gotten caught up in looking forward to it actually being finalized and completed. Never really imagined that after all the conversations, meetings, agreements, and plans that it would be put to a cold hard stop.
And so now, I am back to the drawing board hoping that another project will surface on the horizon and that it will actually go through. Being self-employed is empowering, but in the infantile stages of your business growing, it is full of doubts and wonderings. Heaps of effort and exertion that leave you still standing in the same place where you started. Someone once told me, { I'm sure they meant to be helpful }, "If you're not moving forward, you're falling behind."
I'm hoping that statement is as untrue as any other old wives' tale. And hoping that tomorrow will contain another open window of possibility for me to pursue...
1.08.2010
a poem found...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
snowflakes dance
beneath the street lamp
with an electric midas touch
twirling like childhood's ballerinas
while the heavy sable sky
looks down reassuringly at
long bare limbs stretched for a
chilled embrace
still and silently waiting
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The last time I wrote a poem in earnest, I was in college. It was a creative writing course and for my final project, I did a reading of six pieces before the class. It seemed more vulnerable to me than parading about naked. Somewhere, buried in a box, is the packet I had to submit that carries the professor's red-penned scrawl - "If you do not do something with your writing, it will be criminal."
I have been a guilty fugitive, running from that statement for nearly a decade, until tonight when this poem came to me with a single glance out my window.
snowflakes dance
beneath the street lamp
with an electric midas touch
twirling like childhood's ballerinas
while the heavy sable sky
looks down reassuringly at
long bare limbs stretched for a
chilled embrace
still and silently waiting
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The last time I wrote a poem in earnest, I was in college. It was a creative writing course and for my final project, I did a reading of six pieces before the class. It seemed more vulnerable to me than parading about naked. Somewhere, buried in a box, is the packet I had to submit that carries the professor's red-penned scrawl - "If you do not do something with your writing, it will be criminal."
I have been a guilty fugitive, running from that statement for nearly a decade, until tonight when this poem came to me with a single glance out my window.
1.04.2010
snow, freshly fallen
I am reviving this blog. Err, well revamping might better suit what I've done. New start for a new year or something like that. It was bittersweet to look back over what I had posted in the past with a span of years between so that my eyes were fresh to what had seemed so pressing and important then. To be able to note all the changes that had come and to be able to close that chapter.
The old posts have been stored away. What is it that Nina Simone boasts so often -- it's a new day, it's a new dawn, it's a new life... for me, and I'm feelin' good.
So yes, a big blank canvas ready to be reshaped. I heard tell of it once, probably on PBS, of an artist who would paint pieces and then store them for years. Some were shared or viewed by other eyes, most weren't. And when time would come for a showing, he would go to the ones he had and if being displeased would whitewash the canvases and start fresh. Some he covered over portions, painting out segments to re-imagine them, others were taken to a total blank slate.
That imagery resounds with me, especially at New Year. Because it isn't like we are all offered new lives. No, we just have the one. Yet in this span of the year, we can look back and choose which portions we want to rework. Some are small -- habits, attitudes, behavior patterns. Others are massive life changes. Yet.. it's an alteration that is built upon what has been.
Like snow that lays round about, deep and crisp and even -- making everything fresh and new.
Over the next couple weeks I am going to be doing just that -- purging, cleaning, sprucing... all those delicious -ing- words that while labor-intensive at the forefront leave you feeling peaceful and open for what's to come.
Here's looking forward to 2010 with hope and expectation...
The old posts have been stored away. What is it that Nina Simone boasts so often -- it's a new day, it's a new dawn, it's a new life... for me, and I'm feelin' good.
So yes, a big blank canvas ready to be reshaped. I heard tell of it once, probably on PBS, of an artist who would paint pieces and then store them for years. Some were shared or viewed by other eyes, most weren't. And when time would come for a showing, he would go to the ones he had and if being displeased would whitewash the canvases and start fresh. Some he covered over portions, painting out segments to re-imagine them, others were taken to a total blank slate.
That imagery resounds with me, especially at New Year. Because it isn't like we are all offered new lives. No, we just have the one. Yet in this span of the year, we can look back and choose which portions we want to rework. Some are small -- habits, attitudes, behavior patterns. Others are massive life changes. Yet.. it's an alteration that is built upon what has been.
Like snow that lays round about, deep and crisp and even -- making everything fresh and new.
Over the next couple weeks I am going to be doing just that -- purging, cleaning, sprucing... all those delicious -ing- words that while labor-intensive at the forefront leave you feeling peaceful and open for what's to come.
Here's looking forward to 2010 with hope and expectation...
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