It is another day. I choose to practice. I am not yet awake. My body feels worn out this week. Tired. Can’t get enough sleep. In the evenings, I get home from work, meetings, whatever I have going on, and plop down on the couch. The sun gleefully beams in the windows. It’s my first spring living in this house. I like it.
Finches, cardinals, robins, nuthatches, and downy woodpeckers flit back and forth from the 3 feeders to the ash and juniper in front of the deck. The sun is strong through the fogged picture window. I sometimes have to lower the blinds so I can see my laptop screen. My back is sore. I must have slept on it wrong.
I am in transition. The same as the seasons. The winter was fruitful. There is a noticeable gap in the weeks I used to go to Taos. Last year was full of writing trips to Taos. This year, I make plans to go South to work on my book. And don’t really even understand exactly what that means.
I’m reminded of one writer friend who is flying across the Midwest in her Subaru wagon, mile after mile after mile, gathering details for a story she is writing. Did you know Subaru is the Japanese word for the Pleiades? Information is falling into her lap at breakneck speed: interviews, relatives, old landmark buildings, prisons, diners, prosecutors, and gallows. She leaves me messages daily, connection, and tells me she has no idea where all this is leading.
I feel the same way. Yet her last words to me in her voicemail this morning from somewhere in Missouri were, “I love being a writer.” I wonder if that’s something writers will always experience. Not knowing where we are going. Yet loving that we are writers. I don’t know.
All I know is that my back is sore, I’m exhausted, and I’m also the happiest I’ve ever been. Happiness, that elusive feeling that soars along brain lines with serotonin and epinephrin and pheromones. When I’m down, how much is hormonal? And how much is me?
When I’m happy, how much is hormonal, how much circumstantial? And how much is me? I am glad to be alive. And there are some who do not get to make that choice. I grieve as we all grieve. Wave after wave sweeps the nation. But I choose to focus on hope. For all the single-minded villains out there, there are a million other humans moving the mountain of grief toward healing.
Easy for me to say. I’m never going to know what it was like in Blacksburg. I listened to NPR this morning to an incredibly brave and composed woman walking the interviewer through what started as any normal morning. Then, there she was under fire in the center of her German class. Everyone around her was shot – but her. How do you make sense out of that? I don’t know if I have that kind of bravery in me. She is brave to want her voice to be heard. She is alive.
It is good to be alive on a Midwestern spring morning. I appreciate my life, my friends, the writers that keep me going, my family who never gives up on me. If nothing else, gratitude for what I have will keep me going. I have to focus on the glass half full. It’s an old cliche. But it’s my way of grieving.
What makes me happy? Living each day as fully as I can. The simplicity of playing with 3 cats on the Queen-size bed in the morning while my partner dresses and laughs in the corner, sipping her morning French Roast.
Writing makes me happy. It also brings a lot of hard truths. On this spring filled Thursday, when the word of the day in the dictionary I just pulled up online is debauchery, connecting makes me happy. I’ve been craving the safety of home; I have also been needing connection. And love. As corny as it sounds, yes, love.
Thursday, April 19th, 2007
redravine.wordpress.com 
“This year, I make plans to go South to work on my book. And don’t really even understand exactly what that means.”
I love these two sentences together. So truthful.
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Your words lifted me tonight.
As I listen to Alison Krauss’ new CD “A Hundred Miles or More” I read your words pondering what has happened to my sense of calm. It is there at times but all to often these last few weeks I find I have to search to hard for it.
As the song changes I am starting to realize the cycle of discovery is calling out to me again. I need to heed that call. The cycles of the life we have shared in our past conversations is beginning to force me to slow down, reconnect and get back on the path that leads to the calm waters of my soul.
I welcome this transition back to the familiar restful sense of balance. Once again I find your words to be the catalyst I needed to take that first step. If the world could have a soul mate like you then there would be more peace.
Thank you for writing what I needed at the right time. That is what the impact of being a writer can be to the reader. You place your soul on display to the world. Not knowing the impact it will have on the reader or even if anyone will read it but hoping that somehow you work can spark something in them breathing life into your words and touching their soul.
I now find myself missing you but finding calmness in the love we share. I love you sister. Thank you for once again being there to help be get back on track and for sharing your partners loving laugh.
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Just some thoughts:
I saw two deer in my back yard last evening and it made me so happy. I knew they were around but I had never seen them and last week I asked to see them and it happened!! I can’t describe why I felt so elated, but they were beautiful.
I try to figure out why now and I wonder if they were my MOther and Father(who have been in the here after for many years) letting me know they are watching over me and hear my prayers. Anyway that’s what I chose to believe.
other thoughts:
Life goes up
Life goes down
Can I control it,yes
Do I control it ,not always
But life goes on
Why? (don’t I control my life)
Let’s look at why
Insecurity?
unsure if I’m right
unsure if I want to
unsure if I will get hurt
unsure if I will hurt someone
maybe all of the above
We don’t alway’s make the right decisions but we can right some of our wrong ones
But do we?
It’s hard to admit we were wrong
It’s hard to admit we made a mistake
Sometimes it’s too late to right the wtong
How?
How can we get the strength to do what we know we should
How can we tell someone how we feel
that we are sorry
that we love them
that we feel they are wrong
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Yea!! I just heard the mouse trap snap. That means I just caught a very elusive mouse that invaded my kitchen. For two days it has eaten the peanut butter and cheese without making the trap snap. I was deternined to get that little rascal though.
I do feel a little bad for it though. It was only trying to get in out of the cold. Which is still another tale, it’s the middle of April and we just had snow !! Even the months don’t know what to do. And the flowers and trees try to bud and then are stopped in their tracks. Mother nature is still the boss, just when we think we know what to expect , she shows us!!
I couldn’t sleep ,but now I’m happy again so I think I’ll go lay down and try again. Goodnight……….
P.S. Thanks for letting me in your blog even though I’m not a writer.
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It is so very satisfying to catch a mouse, isn’t it? You see the tiny mouse poop, know it’s in the house, and yet, like you say, it eludes capture. I wish I could have a cat instead to keep the mouse population down, but we’re allergic.
We love having you in the blog.
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Debauchery is such a great word. Glad you are happy. Your blog makes me happy.
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R3,
Your comment really touched me. Thank you so much for your honesty and kind words.
What you say about writing really strikes me. We were having a conversation between the 3 of us on red Ravine yesterday about how writing reveals our secrets, whether we want it to or not. Like you say, writers put their words out there, never knowing if anyone will ever even read them.
And then when and if they do read the words, what do they think? The immediacy of blogging give us a chance of finding out.
We write because we can’t not write. It’s a part of us. It’s so good to hear that writing can make a difference. And connect us across all the miles.
Much love to you.
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Amelia,
So great to see you back. I love your late night thoughts and your poetry.
The 2 deer – that is touching. And I believe you are right. I often hear, see, taste, smell, others in the here after. Many times, it seems, blowing across the wind.
I had not heard the phrase “in the here after” for quite a while. I love that. Old language and phrasing. It’s a great phrase to describe the other side: the here (the present) – after (gone forward into the unknown at the same time they are present.) They are still present with us but have moved on. Insightful.
We had a mouse in the heater vents last Fall. The 3 cats, Kiev, Chaco, and Mr. Stripeypants, but especially, Kiev, who is a great huntress, scared it away.
I love having you on the blog. I think you are a good writer.
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jeanne,
I like seeing you pop up in the Comments. It brings me joy to know our blog makes you happy, too! What more could we ask for? I hope you’ll keep coming back. Thanks for writing.
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