Listening to the radio today I heard about this 100 day challenge ...do something mindfully and purposefully...for 100 days. And reflect on how it changes you. Considering my post yesterday about wanting to 'sit and write something soul dimensional'...and how I also signed myself up to do a 2014 km in 2014 and how I...well, I seem to have a lot of things I want to accomplish. But I am either lacking enough determination and focus or I don't have enough drive...or horrors...I don't think my goals and dreams are important enough to give them my time and energy.
I seem to have no problems with registering my children up for activities when they express their interest and desire to try something and usually I end up being their coach. I have signed Alex up for soccer and was the coach (I dragged my oldest son into that with me), we have assorted dance classes going right now...tap and jazz, ballet and mini comp team for Alex as well as kinderdance for Kath. (I have no coaching involvement with this, I know nothing about dance!) Hippotherapy for Kath--an hour drive there, a half hour session, an hour drive home that I gladly make for her benefit. I have co-coached Odyssey of the Mind for the past two years. I was a Daisy leader. I am signing myself up to be a 4H leader with a friend. This year I was asked to be: the advisor for the high school Key Club (didn't even know what Key Club did!); to co-advise A World of Difference (an anti-bullying group that includes training and presenting in various classes); to be an advisor for a new group called Unified Sports that is about having students with disabilities play on a high school team with 'regular' eduction students.
And this week I saw a post from a friend on Facebook who said that her mom used to tell her something along the lines of, "It's okay to say 'yes' until you realize that being a creative person takes time and energy and if you give it all away, you can't expect to still be able to create."
Wham...I, of course, have heard this before...about spreading oneself too thin, about being something to everyone but nothing to yourself, about needing to put the oxygen mask over your own face first (I even wrote a blog about that myself), but somehow it never quite hit me this way before.
So Alex has decided that for her 100 days she is going to make sure she exercises and writes every single day. Kath has decided she wants to play outside, read and exercise and well, she wants to roate through all of her things. Roger even mentioned that maybe he will throw one thing away every day (hey, it's a start! :D). I thought..."Oh, I want to write. Oh, I want to walk my 6000-10,000 steps a day. Oh, I want to read."
But most importantly...for the next 100 days I want to make sure that I start to do the things that are for me. I do think they will also benefit others, but I have to first do them for me. For at least this 100 days.
Are you in?
Monday, January 20, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Sit and Write Soul Dimensional Stuff, dammit....
I have been trying to find a way to juggle writing my novel and well...life. And not doing so well with it. Mostly because sitting down to write seems to be a luxury...something that I should only be able to do after I have finished all of my other chores. Since I never finish or get caught up I never seem to have time to sit and write. See? Even that phrase "sit and write" sounds like a 'rest' -- something that many people only get to do after all chores are done.
And chores are never done. I am never caught up with my school work. I am never caught up on house work. I am never caught up on my piles of organization. Heck, I can't even catch up on putting my laundry away. And I keep getting volunteered for new committees, or I raise my own hand before I even know what that traitorous hand is doing...and I am getting crankier and crankier.
Because writing is the part of me that makes sense.
Pretty much the only part. And without it, I shimmer and shake and have trouble making sense of what keeps flying past my side-view mirror.
Writing is the only place where I feel okay with the struggles, where wrestling with the words helps me understand what my feelings are behind the letters themselves. The letters on paper are soul-dimensional.
I have thrown this one story idea around for years...the idea of a young female protagonist character who has a disability in this world but in a parallel world, where classic lit characters live (I have been working on this much longer than Percy Jackson and 'Once Upon a Time'), her struggles are seen as her strengths. I want Kath, my stroke survivor extraordinaire, to find strong characters in literature who she can look up to. I want Alex, her amazing old-soul big sister, to see her strengths reflected in her daily actions and find connections in a world beyond the playground of kids who don't value the same core vitalities she does. I have this story that is has been rattling in my head...but again it has to wait until I have Time. (Except in November when I participate in National Novel Writing Month...when I write and write and write and allow myself that time to fall behind in everything else and I say things aloud like, "Sorry, I have to write....")
I post a lot of facebook. Mostly because I get to write in 15 minute spurts...and post and share and people respond and it's very exciting for a wanna-be writer. I have also had people complain (to me and god only knows what they say behind my face) that I 'certainly do post a lot," "I know your whole life" (haha, you think? Think again!) And I have allowed them to make me feel bad about my writing, about sharing, about me.
Right now I am not grading papers and doing school work. I am writing this. For every time I 'sit' and write...I have to move something major over. Time grading. Time playing with my kids. Time talking to my husband. Time reading, time spent with friends...okay...so maybe it kind of sounds silly but when one is already over-extended and weary, taking time from any activity feels stressful...and selfish.
Earbuds in, sitting at the kitchen table while hubby and one child watch football (ad plays on the ipad) and the other girl sits at the table with me doing her homework. That is happening right now. And I have guilt because I am not talking. Guilt because I will still need to do all that paperwork in those school bags. Guilt because education is a swirl of inequity these days and I feel I have to stand up for my students...yet here I am writing for me. For me.
Then as I write, I think about the few things that happened this week.
One, I got a piece of mail from the massage school I applied to a year and a half ago, and it reminded me of how close I was to leaving this teaching path not too long ago and how I would now be almost done with my massage degree, had I followed that path. Seeing that paper made me unsure of my choice. I questioned, "Had I made a difference in teaching this year and a half? Had I made anyone's life better for being their teacher?"
(I sure as hell had not written my book.)
Second, I had feedback ---from more than a couple of friends on Facebook (whew!)--- about how my writing helped them. How much they looked forward to reading my posts. How *they* didn't feel so alone and adrift after reading me.
Not my fiction novel. Not the story that haunts my dreams, but the writing I actually wade into every day in my 15 minute spurts. The writing where I share reflections of the girls and life and maybe even education.
(But I'm still not any closer to completing my book.)
Third, I read a post from the writer Anne Lamott that really moved me. She wrote about being 'in the process' of shifts in her life and she also talked about how when she started to write about what was going on in her life she "realized with the Sitch (an issue that she is struggling with) that many, many women have it, and I am now in healing process with it. I've begun a journal. So it's no longer in some darker corner of the cave: it's been brought forth, into some light, where the movement of grace can have a Go at it. And--I don't know if you can believe this--but I have hope now, WOW, and even a sort of excitement. I will share more as I can. But in the meantime, we can still stick together, right, even without all the details? Are you in?"
And she made me realize that just as these friends on Facebook shared with me that my writing has helped them, it has of course, helped me. I wrote one day about a financial problem and almost deleted the post, I was pretty embarrassed at our financial struggle. Then suddenly others were sharing and 'liking' and discussing how hard life was sometimes, how money struggles made things harder than possible sometimes, but those of us who have dealt with health issues, put the money topic in another folder of our lives.
It was all liberating and embracing. And suddenly not as embarrassing.
And maybe that is a really good reason to 'sit and write.' To take those issues 'out of the dark corner of a cave and bring them into light and allow the movement of Grace and Hope have a Go at it.'
Finally, I also was told a dear family member is undergoing testing for what could be a very major health issue. In that blink of a moment my make-believe list of 'what should be done first before writing' seemed awful silly and shallow.
So. What if I've been so focused on trying to 'sit and write' the fiction story and maybe I need to just write and stop trying to figure it all out?
Maybe it will just work itself out...if I just sit and write. If I just sit and write that soul dimensional stuff, dammit.
And chores are never done. I am never caught up with my school work. I am never caught up on house work. I am never caught up on my piles of organization. Heck, I can't even catch up on putting my laundry away. And I keep getting volunteered for new committees, or I raise my own hand before I even know what that traitorous hand is doing...and I am getting crankier and crankier.
Because writing is the part of me that makes sense.
Pretty much the only part. And without it, I shimmer and shake and have trouble making sense of what keeps flying past my side-view mirror.
Writing is the only place where I feel okay with the struggles, where wrestling with the words helps me understand what my feelings are behind the letters themselves. The letters on paper are soul-dimensional.
I have thrown this one story idea around for years...the idea of a young female protagonist character who has a disability in this world but in a parallel world, where classic lit characters live (I have been working on this much longer than Percy Jackson and 'Once Upon a Time'), her struggles are seen as her strengths. I want Kath, my stroke survivor extraordinaire, to find strong characters in literature who she can look up to. I want Alex, her amazing old-soul big sister, to see her strengths reflected in her daily actions and find connections in a world beyond the playground of kids who don't value the same core vitalities she does. I have this story that is has been rattling in my head...but again it has to wait until I have Time. (Except in November when I participate in National Novel Writing Month...when I write and write and write and allow myself that time to fall behind in everything else and I say things aloud like, "Sorry, I have to write....")
I post a lot of facebook. Mostly because I get to write in 15 minute spurts...and post and share and people respond and it's very exciting for a wanna-be writer. I have also had people complain (to me and god only knows what they say behind my face) that I 'certainly do post a lot," "I know your whole life" (haha, you think? Think again!) And I have allowed them to make me feel bad about my writing, about sharing, about me.
Right now I am not grading papers and doing school work. I am writing this. For every time I 'sit' and write...I have to move something major over. Time grading. Time playing with my kids. Time talking to my husband. Time reading, time spent with friends...okay...so maybe it kind of sounds silly but when one is already over-extended and weary, taking time from any activity feels stressful...and selfish.
Earbuds in, sitting at the kitchen table while hubby and one child watch football (ad plays on the ipad) and the other girl sits at the table with me doing her homework. That is happening right now. And I have guilt because I am not talking. Guilt because I will still need to do all that paperwork in those school bags. Guilt because education is a swirl of inequity these days and I feel I have to stand up for my students...yet here I am writing for me. For me.
Then as I write, I think about the few things that happened this week.
One, I got a piece of mail from the massage school I applied to a year and a half ago, and it reminded me of how close I was to leaving this teaching path not too long ago and how I would now be almost done with my massage degree, had I followed that path. Seeing that paper made me unsure of my choice. I questioned, "Had I made a difference in teaching this year and a half? Had I made anyone's life better for being their teacher?"
(I sure as hell had not written my book.)
Second, I had feedback ---from more than a couple of friends on Facebook (whew!)--- about how my writing helped them. How much they looked forward to reading my posts. How *they* didn't feel so alone and adrift after reading me.
Not my fiction novel. Not the story that haunts my dreams, but the writing I actually wade into every day in my 15 minute spurts. The writing where I share reflections of the girls and life and maybe even education.
(But I'm still not any closer to completing my book.)
Third, I read a post from the writer Anne Lamott that really moved me. She wrote about being 'in the process' of shifts in her life and she also talked about how when she started to write about what was going on in her life she "realized with the Sitch (an issue that she is struggling with) that many, many women have it, and I am now in healing process with it. I've begun a journal. So it's no longer in some darker corner of the cave: it's been brought forth, into some light, where the movement of grace can have a Go at it. And--I don't know if you can believe this--but I have hope now, WOW, and even a sort of excitement. I will share more as I can. But in the meantime, we can still stick together, right, even without all the details? Are you in?"
And she made me realize that just as these friends on Facebook shared with me that my writing has helped them, it has of course, helped me. I wrote one day about a financial problem and almost deleted the post, I was pretty embarrassed at our financial struggle. Then suddenly others were sharing and 'liking' and discussing how hard life was sometimes, how money struggles made things harder than possible sometimes, but those of us who have dealt with health issues, put the money topic in another folder of our lives.
It was all liberating and embracing. And suddenly not as embarrassing.
And maybe that is a really good reason to 'sit and write.' To take those issues 'out of the dark corner of a cave and bring them into light and allow the movement of Grace and Hope have a Go at it.'
Finally, I also was told a dear family member is undergoing testing for what could be a very major health issue. In that blink of a moment my make-believe list of 'what should be done first before writing' seemed awful silly and shallow.
So. What if I've been so focused on trying to 'sit and write' the fiction story and maybe I need to just write and stop trying to figure it all out?
Maybe it will just work itself out...if I just sit and write. If I just sit and write that soul dimensional stuff, dammit.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
And the lessons keep coming.
Lessons sometimes come when I am not really ready...like when I am driving. Lessons I teach and am taught.
1) Tonight Kath told me that she doesn't get the ball during scooter ball as much as everyone else. She said her scooter was too slow. Then she said her pants were too long. For a second I seriously considered letting her think those were the reasons. Then I thought about how today my students and I talked about student athletes who are admitted into colleges when they can't even read above a 4th grade reading level, how we really aren't doing them any favors, but setting them up for failures. So I had to say, "Kath, it's not that your scooter is slow or your pants are too long. Your body works so hard to just do what it does do that riding a scooter on top of all that is that much harder. You may never be fast at riding a scooter but you are good at other things." She answered, "Like what?" I asked her what she thought she was good at. She hardly paused before she started to list, "Hopscotch, skipping, dancing...and on and on." I told her she was also one of the best huggers I knew (she made sure she hugged my writing group to near asphyxiation tonight after that) and that she is always concerned about her friends. And then it was ok. Even though I had that sour taste in my stomach that comes when I have to make something understandable to her that I think is so unfair.
2) She talked about how she read in a book that the stars are always out, out in space, they don't go to sleep when the sun is up and that some people don't know that.
3) After my writing group meeting I asked her if she had a good time joining me and she said, "Yes, but I didn't get to do my writing." (we spent the whole meeting talking)
4) On our way home Kath pointed to the stars and told me that stars are really angels of the people in heaven looking down on us, watching over us...she saw it in a movie (It's A Wonderful Life.) She knows my mom is in heaven and our sitter's mom died last week, so this is something she is trying make sense of.
So I made her face the deal about 'slow' scooters, but she seems to know and believe in space and angels...and that seems okay. As long as she knows science is real I have no problem with angels and the comfort they bring. I believe in them too. I seem surrounded some days by them esp when I am struggling to get through a day of making sense where none can be found. Strokes suck, but their survivors are pretty awesome.
1) Tonight Kath told me that she doesn't get the ball during scooter ball as much as everyone else. She said her scooter was too slow. Then she said her pants were too long. For a second I seriously considered letting her think those were the reasons. Then I thought about how today my students and I talked about student athletes who are admitted into colleges when they can't even read above a 4th grade reading level, how we really aren't doing them any favors, but setting them up for failures. So I had to say, "Kath, it's not that your scooter is slow or your pants are too long. Your body works so hard to just do what it does do that riding a scooter on top of all that is that much harder. You may never be fast at riding a scooter but you are good at other things." She answered, "Like what?" I asked her what she thought she was good at. She hardly paused before she started to list, "Hopscotch, skipping, dancing...and on and on." I told her she was also one of the best huggers I knew (she made sure she hugged my writing group to near asphyxiation tonight after that) and that she is always concerned about her friends. And then it was ok. Even though I had that sour taste in my stomach that comes when I have to make something understandable to her that I think is so unfair.
2) She talked about how she read in a book that the stars are always out, out in space, they don't go to sleep when the sun is up and that some people don't know that.
3) After my writing group meeting I asked her if she had a good time joining me and she said, "Yes, but I didn't get to do my writing." (we spent the whole meeting talking)
4) On our way home Kath pointed to the stars and told me that stars are really angels of the people in heaven looking down on us, watching over us...she saw it in a movie (It's A Wonderful Life.) She knows my mom is in heaven and our sitter's mom died last week, so this is something she is trying make sense of.
So I made her face the deal about 'slow' scooters, but she seems to know and believe in space and angels...and that seems okay. As long as she knows science is real I have no problem with angels and the comfort they bring. I believe in them too. I seem surrounded some days by them esp when I am struggling to get through a day of making sense where none can be found. Strokes suck, but their survivors are pretty awesome.
And the lessons keep coming.
Lessons sometimes come when I am not really ready...like when I am driving. Lessons I teach and am taught.
1) Tonight Kath told me that she doesn't get the ball during scooter ball as much as everyone else. She said her scooter was too slow. Then she said her pants were too long. For a second I seriously considered letting her think those were the reasons. Then I thought about how today my students and I talked about student athletes who are admitted into colleges when they can't even read above a 4th grade reading level, how we really aren't doing them any favors, but setting them up for failures. So I had to say, "Kath, it's not that your scooter is slow or your pants are too long. Your body works so hard to just do what it does do that riding a scooter on top of all that is that much harder. You may never be fast at riding a scooter but you are good at other things." She answered, "Like what?" I asked her what she thought she was good at. She hardly paused before she started to list, "Hopscotch, skipping, dancing...and on and on." I told her she was also one of the best huggers I knew (she made sure she hugged my writing group to near asphyxiation tonight after that) and that she is always concerned about her friends. And then it was ok. Even though I had that sour taste in my stomach that comes when I have to make something understandable to her that I think is so unfair.
2) She talked about how she read in a book that the stars are always out, out in space, they don't go to sleep when the sun is up and that some people don't know that.
3) After my writing group meeting I asked her if she had a good time joining me and she said, "Yes, but I didn't get to do my writing." (we spent the whole meeting talking)
4) On our way home Kath pointed to the stars and told me that stars are really angels of the people in heaven looking down on us, watching over us...she saw it in a movie (It's A Wonderful Life.) She knows my mom is in heaven and our sitter's mom died last week, so this is something she is trying make sense of.
So I made her face the deal about 'slow' scooters, but she seems to know and believe in space and angels...and that seems okay. As long as she knows science is real I have no problem with angels and the comfort they bring. I believe in them too. I seem surrounded some days by them esp when I am struggling to get through a day of making sense where none can be found. Strokes suck, but their survivors are pretty awesome.
1) Tonight Kath told me that she doesn't get the ball during scooter ball as much as everyone else. She said her scooter was too slow. Then she said her pants were too long. For a second I seriously considered letting her think those were the reasons. Then I thought about how today my students and I talked about student athletes who are admitted into colleges when they can't even read above a 4th grade reading level, how we really aren't doing them any favors, but setting them up for failures. So I had to say, "Kath, it's not that your scooter is slow or your pants are too long. Your body works so hard to just do what it does do that riding a scooter on top of all that is that much harder. You may never be fast at riding a scooter but you are good at other things." She answered, "Like what?" I asked her what she thought she was good at. She hardly paused before she started to list, "Hopscotch, skipping, dancing...and on and on." I told her she was also one of the best huggers I knew (she made sure she hugged my writing group to near asphyxiation tonight after that) and that she is always concerned about her friends. And then it was ok. Even though I had that sour taste in my stomach that comes when I have to make something understandable to her that I think is so unfair.
2) She talked about how she read in a book that the stars are always out, out in space, they don't go to sleep when the sun is up and that some people don't know that.
3) After my writing group meeting I asked her if she had a good time joining me and she said, "Yes, but I didn't get to do my writing." (we spent the whole meeting talking)
4) On our way home Kath pointed to the stars and told me that stars are really angels of the people in heaven looking down on us, watching over us...she saw it in a movie (It's A Wonderful Life.) She knows my mom is in heaven and our sitter's mom died last week, so this is something she is trying make sense of.
So I made her face the deal about 'slow' scooters, but she seems to know and believe in space and angels...and that seems okay. As long as she knows science is real I have no problem with angels and the comfort they bring. I believe in them too. I seem surrounded some days by them esp when I am struggling to get through a day of making sense where none can be found. Strokes suck, but their survivors are pretty awesome.
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