Letting Go
Today, I sent one of my essays out to seek its fortune. The Howard County Tragedy, without its postscript, has been 'given' to Belmont, the house about which it was written.
I feel excited; I feel satisfied that it has gone where it needs to 'live', even if only in the digital and/or paper files of the current administrators of the estate. Hopefully it will be shared, and others will be reminded of people who have lived and died, and momentous events which have taken place, in the space they now occupy. Maybe they will experience the awareness of layers of time and events which can inhabit a geographic space.
On the other hand, I am experiencing that annoying feeling that it could have been more effectively written, that it should have had a better ending that brought it full-circle, that the reader will have questions which I didn't fully answer. I will work on these things. How do you know when a piece is finished? How do you, or should you even, resist the urge to tweak and refine a piece of writing every single time you read it over? I've printed out a copy of the submitted essay, and I'm going to start listing and tweaking and refining anew. That way, on the off-chance that someone requests its use somewhere in the future, I may have the opportunity to add improvements.
Fare well, little essay.
10/14/15
I feel excited; I feel satisfied that it has gone where it needs to 'live', even if only in the digital and/or paper files of the current administrators of the estate. Hopefully it will be shared, and others will be reminded of people who have lived and died, and momentous events which have taken place, in the space they now occupy. Maybe they will experience the awareness of layers of time and events which can inhabit a geographic space.
On the other hand, I am experiencing that annoying feeling that it could have been more effectively written, that it should have had a better ending that brought it full-circle, that the reader will have questions which I didn't fully answer. I will work on these things. How do you know when a piece is finished? How do you, or should you even, resist the urge to tweak and refine a piece of writing every single time you read it over? I've printed out a copy of the submitted essay, and I'm going to start listing and tweaking and refining anew. That way, on the off-chance that someone requests its use somewhere in the future, I may have the opportunity to add improvements.
Fare well, little essay.
10/14/15
Discipline
It continues to be a challenge to schedule time for writing, and to stick to that schedule. I know that if I had the self-discipline to honor the commitments I make to myself, so many things in my life, not just writing, would go much more smoothly.
Growing up, I always had morning and evening routines. These were fostered and encouraged in my house because, well, it's good parenting! As soon as I had children of my own, my natural tendency to follow certain routines started to disintegrate as I became almost completely focused on taking care of small children, and establishing routines around their needs. My own needs, for food, rest, and things like showers came last. When the kids were older, and I returned to work, it became even more complicated, since they now had school needs and obligations to contend with, and I had to be somewhere else for a huge chunk of each day, performing a whole new set of duties in a timely and efficient way. You would think that now, when both daughters are in their twenties and haven't even been fully resident at home since 2008, I would have been able to reestablish efficient routines for myself, but that has not been the case.
Somewhere along the line, in those days of raising small children, I necessarily had to take a new attitude about obligations and expectations in general. I was diagnosed with clinical depression, which forced me to focus not only on my children's needs, but on my own physical and psychological self-care. Obligations to others and activities outside the home took their places at the end of the line, to be met or participated in when I was feeling 'up to it.' It has turned out that the tendency toward depression is chronic, and will require treatment and consideration, most likely, for the rest of my life. I tend to want to avoid social situations, but on another level I also crave social connection and company. The tug and tension between these two feelings is something that is always present.
As a result of all of the above, I have become used to thinking of everything as being flexible and malleable, subject to the needs, whims and feelings of the moment. (to be continued)
Growing up, I always had morning and evening routines. These were fostered and encouraged in my house because, well, it's good parenting! As soon as I had children of my own, my natural tendency to follow certain routines started to disintegrate as I became almost completely focused on taking care of small children, and establishing routines around their needs. My own needs, for food, rest, and things like showers came last. When the kids were older, and I returned to work, it became even more complicated, since they now had school needs and obligations to contend with, and I had to be somewhere else for a huge chunk of each day, performing a whole new set of duties in a timely and efficient way. You would think that now, when both daughters are in their twenties and haven't even been fully resident at home since 2008, I would have been able to reestablish efficient routines for myself, but that has not been the case.
Somewhere along the line, in those days of raising small children, I necessarily had to take a new attitude about obligations and expectations in general. I was diagnosed with clinical depression, which forced me to focus not only on my children's needs, but on my own physical and psychological self-care. Obligations to others and activities outside the home took their places at the end of the line, to be met or participated in when I was feeling 'up to it.' It has turned out that the tendency toward depression is chronic, and will require treatment and consideration, most likely, for the rest of my life. I tend to want to avoid social situations, but on another level I also crave social connection and company. The tug and tension between these two feelings is something that is always present.
As a result of all of the above, I have become used to thinking of everything as being flexible and malleable, subject to the needs, whims and feelings of the moment. (to be continued)
Dreams of My Grandparents
Bottles, seashells, artifacts on the beach. Dark and dusty interiors. Jumbled and neglected kitchen. Desks and attic spaces full of old papers and household items. A cold feeling in the back of my skull, and the shade of my grandfather or grandmother somewhere nearby.
3/14/16
3/14/16
Saga
We barely know it, but every day each one of us is fully engaged in steering the course of the universe. Or swept up in the tide of the universe. Or both.
4/26/16
4/26/16
Dreams
2/19/00
I woke up in the middle of the night and it was light out. The sun was in the west. It was very warm and flowers in the garden were sprouting and growing.
Went to the beach (ocean beach, not ours) to look for shells and rocks and stuff. Instead found books scattered about. Old books, sandy and some damp, all over the beach. Browsed through like at a library. Picked up Ernest Hemingway small green old with gold seashells on the front.
Dreamed that in the woods behind my parents' house there was a steep hill. When you climbed to the top you were on Kent Street in Chestertown (the street with the pink & purple house.) Oh, good, now we can walk to the library!
Pulling beech trees out of the ground.
1/14/98
Parked in old historic town - to tour some houses. History of slavery and cruelty.
Back formal garden. White flowers. Torture re-enactment - large swinging crane-like structure. I am afraid I'm going to get hit by it - "Only a fool would be here."
Back to the house. Remember descending into lower floor of a side wing of the house, a pale blue room. Haunted. The Blue Boy room. Very strong presence - I am afraid. There's a door in this room and once you exit you cannot return. I do not exit. He is alive - "And who is this?" Leo. Angelo.
Angelo is the father. Leo is the son - who always gets called by his father's name.
I woke up in the middle of the night and it was light out. The sun was in the west. It was very warm and flowers in the garden were sprouting and growing.
Went to the beach (ocean beach, not ours) to look for shells and rocks and stuff. Instead found books scattered about. Old books, sandy and some damp, all over the beach. Browsed through like at a library. Picked up Ernest Hemingway small green old with gold seashells on the front.
Dreamed that in the woods behind my parents' house there was a steep hill. When you climbed to the top you were on Kent Street in Chestertown (the street with the pink & purple house.) Oh, good, now we can walk to the library!
Pulling beech trees out of the ground.
1/14/98
Parked in old historic town - to tour some houses. History of slavery and cruelty.
Back formal garden. White flowers. Torture re-enactment - large swinging crane-like structure. I am afraid I'm going to get hit by it - "Only a fool would be here."
Back to the house. Remember descending into lower floor of a side wing of the house, a pale blue room. Haunted. The Blue Boy room. Very strong presence - I am afraid. There's a door in this room and once you exit you cannot return. I do not exit. He is alive - "And who is this?" Leo. Angelo.
Angelo is the father. Leo is the son - who always gets called by his father's name.
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