Life is like an onion:

you peel it off one layer at a time and sometimes you weep.

Carl Sandberg

I just found two more blogs that inspired me to sit here and type even though I can’t see straight. Too tired to be here making any sense of anything – let alone writing, I’ll link you to them soon enough but getting my cursor where it belongs, hitting the right keys and copying URL’s is over the top right now. Let’s just revel in the fact that I am discipling myself to write something today. Any points for that?

Fourteen hour days take their toll on the 20 / 30 somethings – let alone someone almost twice their age. My normal pattern is to start with a photo then move on to the writing. The camera I’ve been borrowing is far far away – taking in images I only hope to view someday with my own eyes parked behind the lens. There are lots of choices in my iPhoto library so in the meanwhile I will use something already captured and make it work. Today, or rather tonight – this one works.

It took some real ahh haa moments thinking about the centering issues I was having, to discover what was really going on in my head. First, having to go back to Billy’s Doctor’s office…but this time it was her turn. Last time, we never even made it back to the “re-visit” that was scheduled for three days later – because by then he was in hospice. To physically step back into that space for the first time was hard even though I wasn’t consciously thinking about it at the time. The second whack upside the head was going back to the funeral home to help her choose the headstone. Tomorrow morning I’ll head out to another necessary evil. There is a Memorial Service being put on by hospice for everyone that lost loved ones in June, July and August. Layer by layer, by layer…peeling it back…

I heard a piece on NPR this week that took my breath away. Please do me the favor and take a minute to listen to Ashley Grashaw’s essay about the California wildfires and the very personal way they affected her family. Even though I was in tears because it all seems too recent and too painful to have to do some of the things she talks about, I was strangely relieved that “dismantling” quirky little things left behind by someone’s life is not to be rushed, very hard emotional work and should come with whatever time frame is appropriate for everyone involved.

So about those onions…eating onions for every meal, every day is not what I want to do, but they are really good, served up many ways. There are times that I just need to peel it all back layer by layer, bit by bit and get at what it is that is making my eyes water. But long ago, working for a chef in a restaurant kitchen, I learned some tricks of the trade to keep my eyes from overflowing. I’ll do the same with all of this. I’ll savor the taste…layer by layer.

 

psycho writer

I can barely contain myself.  It is like I just found someone in the universe that I really relate to.  And it was a chance meeting…

As a fledgling blogger, I am learning what this process is supposed to look like – and one of the components I’ve seen mentioned in numerous articles I’ve read say I should be reading other blogs to see what’s out there.  Good research…any amateur writer knows that.  

So I try to find other bloggers talking about things that sound like my life. I’m not looking in the political arenas, or the techie closets – mine is just the mundane with a psycho twist.  Hard to find that category in the WordPress index of themes, but today was different.  In their business section (who knew?) I notice a blurb that catches my eye and changes my day and maybe my life!  Words from a nationally exhibited working artist– trying to wrap her head around getting her life in order.  What a relief!  It’s not just me.  I’m not the only one struggling with which comes first the chicken or the egg – do I write first, or clean first?  Am I not productive artistically because I’m not organized or am I not organized because I’m not writing?

Now, I know most of you reading this today (or should I say posted today – read on a Thursday as I get the feeling that my readership is sneaking peaks at their workplace and really can’t afford to until they are well into their work week and sufficiently caught up…) have better things to do than to be inspired, entertained or motivated by blogs.  It is my personal goal each week to keep you sufficiently engaged to keep coming back for more of my own musings..let alone expose you to the big dogs in blogworld so don’t feel pressured to click on the link to read some really good writing…

I’m not the kind of disciplined writer that has a set pattern to my day – a this-is-when-I-work-so-do-not-dare-interrupt-me.  Nor does my inspiration come to me like that.  Much too random.  Much too chaotic. Take today for instance – “to do” lists aren’t really part of how my brain functions. It’s more of a kaleidoscope of things moving around in my brain like a pseudo LSD trip you’d see on a bad music video from the 60’s…forms emerge, retreat, morph into other things.  That is a typical day for me.

I am understandably fragile and moody and easily given over to whim. When that flow starts out my fingers – the rest of the day can settle into whatever.  It’ll all be good from the moment my curser moves to the “publish” button and it’s public. But if that inspiration isn’t quite ripe yet, then it’s a arduous process.  Like the urges we feel when we need to go to that one room of the house…but things weren’t really in “place”…you get my drift.

Worse yet, when I finally find that inspiration waiting quietly like a dust bunny in the corner – and something happens…a phone call, a knock at the door, a “can you tell me where…?”, or “what were you thinking about for lunch?” (the answer is always, “I wasn’t”) – and poof…the magic moment is gone and I’m deflated and feel like I have to start all over again.  Little noises, subtle squeaks in the floor, the cat meowing – anything can derail my train of thought.  So today I’ve decided – since my workspace is too public, too accessible – I will only write in the dead of night.  It is the only Do Not Disturb time when I’m not in peril. 

Actually I’m trying to figure out if I’m more frustrated by having started this process after 25 years “off” and not having the perfect writing environment or was I better off never having started back and having all the pressure mounting inside my head unexpressed.  See why I’m certifiably psycho?

I think it’s better having started writing…I think I am making progress.  I did take 500 lbs. of old magazines from a pile on my dining room floor and into the drop box at the hospital for re-purposing.  That felt good. And shredded bunches of junk mail just in time for the recycle pick-up tomorrow. Baby steps, right?  Baby steps. And today I have to wash my hair.  I may be on a roll here.

Just in time for me to pack up and go back to do the same thing at Billy’s. But what writer would be put off by being back in the space with such potential great ideas for future blogs?  It’d be like a sculpture artist passing on a trip to see Michelangelo’s David.