Weekend Update

It's been over a week since I checked in... and, as usual, I've been busy.

I spent the holiday sifting out a bunch of activities, but, lo and behold, I've managed to add a bunch of other activities in just as swiftly. I've set up and opened an art gallery show, developed two college courses--one in-class, one online--and I've started on a new theatrical journey with my two little ones. 

Believe it or not (for those of you who've been checking in some lately), my brave little son sang well enough that he's been cast as OLIVER TWIST. Yup, he was floored, amazed, and a bit overwhelmed at first--as was I--but we're settling into this new evening pattern of rehearsals and singing and practicing lines. Kind of cool, actually. Nope, it's flat out AWESOME! This is the beginning of a long-running involvement in theatre for him, I think. Even better, my daughter has found her place in the company, and I have a part, too, so we all get to attend rehearsals together. 

I'm also about to attack the project of costuming the show--hurray! Costuming is my favorite kind of sewing, and the added bonus of outfitting Dickens' characters doesn't hurt, either. It'll take some time and prep, but it's going to be truly fun as I work through it.

Plus, I'm gearing up to work again on my spirit book, and I'm in the cogitation stage for a whole series of novels set here in Bainbridge. The research I do for this other book will be helpful in creating the atmosphere of the series, and I hope to eventually do a great deal to add to the tourism possible in this particular area. 

I'll let you know how it all goes. I know it sounds ambitious, but I can't help that. My life is too short not to get stuff done.

Anything ambitious on your plate lately?

Choose Your Headline

Bitter mother takes 

anger out on children

or 

Woman fosters

confidence in all around her

Employee makes all meetings 

utterly excruciating

or 

Manager builds rapport and 

encourages the world to grow

Man afraid of failing 

fails to try at anything

or

Man tries and fails

and tries again

Look at the world 

and see only the hate

and hate the world for it

or 

See the pain in us

but see the hope, the charity

see the world for what it can be

What would your headline be

If you could choose?

So choose. 

Don't doubt for a second that

It's your choice.

It is.

New Travels

Remember when you first ventured to a new place? You were half excited, half nervous. Would the place be as exciting as you'd hoped? Would you find fun stuff to see or do? Or would it be boring? Would it smell like urine there--or mold--and would the hotel have cold running water or hot running roaches?

You were probably filled with anticipation, expectation, trepidation, and even abject fear.

Okay, so I can't speak for you... but I've felt all of that. And I feel the same thing when I'm trying something new. Say I decide to join a choir, or learn to knit, or take a class on photography. I could totally suck at it. It happens to all of us (or most of us, for those of you in denial). And the more new things we try, the more likely it will happen.

But it's important to travel into that new territory anyway.

Let me use the travel metaphor again to illustrate why. Say that you go on a cruise to Cozumel. And it was fun. And Cozumel was fun. So the next time you think about going on a cruise, you go back to Cozumel. You know you liked it, and you are afraid the other ports of call won't be as good, so you just keep going back in the same direction. Over and over.

But after a while Cozumel gets old. And in the end you realize that you've missed out on a ton of other places--and that's just in the Caribbean. No telling how many other fantastic places you've missed. Even if you cruise other places, but never travel any other way, you will miss out. Can you truly see Europe if you don't go inland? Nope. You miss too much. Can you see it in a week? Nope. What about Asia? What about Africa? How will you know what places truly resonate with you if you don't try them out?

There's the two kiddos...
bet you didn't know my daughter had purple hair, did you?
(graphic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

I write this, not because I've ventured into new territory lately--and not because I've been on a cruise lately, either--but because my kids have done something truly new. Last night they both auditioned for our community theatre's production of Oliver! I auditioned, too, but I'm a bit more experienced with it than they are. I could tell they were nervous. And even a little scared. My son  couldn't sit back in his seat, even after he had sung his little piece.

But they both did it. They both stepped up on that stage--by themselves, mind you, not holding my hand or anything--and sang a song. And they both got back up there and learned a little dance routine so that the choreographer could see whether they could dance at all.

Will they get a part? No idea. I'm not sure whether that really matters (at least not to me). I'm bursting at the seams with pride that they tried out, that they had the guts to step up there and do something new and radical. I hope this is just one of many new things they try this year. Whether they get parts or not, they have added a notch to their confidence, have realized that they wouldn't die from fear, and have proven themselves a bit more independent than they were last year.

Now I have to consider what new things I will try this year. Where will I venture? How will I keep myself from staying within my travel comfort zone?

Come to think of it, what new travels are you planning?

Cruising

You remember when you could just drive around and enjoy the scenery?

That's how I feel right now--now that I have my syllabi done and all my classes prepped for the semester. I'm looking forward to all of it, too. It's going to be fun, even (except the grading).

I probably shouldn't feel this happy and upbeat. After all, I still have other tasks to do today, like taking down ten boxes worth of holiday decorations, and auditions for Oliver! are looming (why, oh why, do auditions always make me so nervous!)...

But I'm happy.

Who said happiness had anything to do with logic? I believe I'll spend the rest of the day NOT overthinking this... just going with the flow.

I will, however, be thinking about what snippet of a song I want to sing for auditions this evening. My son will be singing "Silent Night" (anything else made him too nervous), and my daughter will be singing, "Castle on a Cloud." I can't say I'm leaning in any direction, and it helps to know that the main female lead in Oliver! has a range too low for me. I just want to be part of the action.

Here's hoping your day is as full of singing as mine will be...

Kinds of Writing

I keep saying I'm not writing... but I'm continuously working on my craft.

It's just not in the way one traditionally deems to be writing. I'm not, for instance, outlining a new novel. I'm not sketching out characters before I go back through a draft, not revising a current WIP so that I can fix verbs, add detail, or tighten the language.

But I'm still working on writing. Here's what I've been doing:

1. Putting together my syllabi for two classes, both of which begin next week. Why is that writing? Because I'm getting other stuff out of the way so that I can make time to write. And that's something lots of writers have to do. Very few of us (i.e., NONE) have the luxury of doing nothing else in the world except write.

2. Reading. Yup, that's definitely preparation. I've been abandoning books a lot lately, too--more than ever before. If I hate something in chapter three, then I drop it. What's the cliche? Beating a dead horse, or something? But I've managed to mix the terrible books in with really good ones, and all of them add to my understanding of what literature should and should not be.

3. Thinking. My books have been drifting through my conscious and subconscious minds. They've popped up in dreams, unbidden, and crept into my early morning thoughts. And that's a good sign. It means I'm truly gearing up to write.

4. Painting/Drawing. Nothing helps my imagination more than drawing out characters (in full costume, for I love costumes, even if I rarely describe what characters are wearing) or painting out scenes. In most of my novels, the setting is crucial to what happens.

5. Researching. I'm actually going on a cruise in February with the hubby, and we planned out where we were going AND what excursions we were taking based on the needs of my Mermaid novel. Really. Isn't it sweet that the hubby's willing to go along with that? I did have to choose a historical tour over a ride on a pirate ship, though, and that stunk, mainly because I could have used both. But books in the library and internet searches are also leading towards answers and plot twists and details I would not have otherwise.

I hope to get to the tactile act of writing very soon. But in the meantime, I can't say I'm not writing. I'm moving in the write direction, even if I can't yet return to my manuscript.

All in good time. When I'm ready, I'll know it. What a beautiful day that will be, too.

Year, Day, Moment

No resolutions
This year

This year
Is too long to face
Today

Today is all I know
I can count on
This very hour

This hour
I'll do all I can to be
This minute

This swiftly moving minute
Is all I hold, just a point in time
The briefest moment
In my trembling hands.

The Top Ten Travesties of 2012

I suppose I should be more positive about the year, given that my personal life has been going very well. But just because my life is in some kind of order doesn't mean that the world is. A LOT of stuff is going wrong, and not just in the U.S. (though my list will emphasize U.S. stuff, since that's where I live, at least at this point).

Here's my list, from pretty bad to truly awful:

10.  The loss of the Georgia Archives. Every state is having to make up for lost federal money, just as they have for several years now, but this is a really terrible loss. Sure, the state will still be sending stuff to the archives, but there will no longer be anybody to sort through it, file it away, or retrieve it when it's needed. Our history will sift into the great black hole, never to be retrieved until we somehow get more funding for it. And we won't. Some day my kids will want to know something, and they won't find out about it. I'd make this higher on the list, but other states have had to do worse. Washington State has closed a bunch of mental health facilities, and those patients have nowhere to go. Will they end up on the street? Many of them probably will, and I can think of no way to stop it from happening.

9.  The slow shift in education towards non-learning. I have a teaching degree and nearly 20 years of teaching experience, and I am utterly appalled by the way students are taught today. Instead of active learning involving visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning, kids are taught to sit still for eight hours a day, pumping out boring, out-moded ideas onto even more boring worksheets, just so that they have the "skills" to pass a test. What happened to actual learning? What happened to the study of a subject in an illuminating, active way, one that would pull students in with interest and involve them in the investigative process? Why are kids constantly told to "shut up" and "do their work"? Are we just training them to work obediently and silently in future office cubicles? Really?

8.  Les Miserables. Poorly orchestrated and badly directed, the film was trying too hard to be "new" and "edgy" and muffed up the beauty of the play--and the original novel--almost beyond recognition. Sure, other movies weren't great this year, but the hubby and I have been waiting for this film since we were dating, when we sat on the front row of the stage musical and saw it for the first time. Only the film of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was worse, but since it came out more than a decade ago, I can't make it an item on this list.

7.  Lance Armstrong. I'm sure he's feeling more pain than anybody right now, but the whole thing was wrong. It's the worst of these kinds of stories, taking what should have been a heroic rise from cancer and turning it into one of the biggest cheats in sports history. Yet he was just like so many other athletes, in the end. It's just that his fall was the farthest.

6.  The new NFL football pants. Sure, lots of sports enthusiasts would point to Lance Armstrong's decided fall from grace as a bigger story, but those horrifyingly see-thru white pants the teams were told to wear this year make the sport unwatchable. Literally. The hubby thought women might actually make up more of the audience if they could see more of men's unmentionables, but I, for one, did not enjoy the sight of a 400-lb. offensive lineman's derriere, especially when framed with the standard white jock strap. Gross! Even more than my own bleeding eyes, I was offended that these guys had to wear the pants in the first place. I'd show a picture, but it would make your eyes bleed, too.

5.  The fiscal cliff. Really? We pay you guys all sorts of money--hell, y'all earn more during your terms than most people in this country earn in a decade, and some in their lifetimes--and you can't get this kind of thing done? You know what happens in a private business if one doesn't get one's job done? One is FIRED. Why you have years of protection that the rest of us don't have with our own jobs is the travesty. Stop whining, stop in-fighting, and get your job done. Now.

4.  Shootings. I thought no shooting could be more senseless than the one in Arizona, which killed a little girl--until 20 little children were blown away, along with 6 school teachers and administrators. The news is still busy trying to figure out why, but there is no answer. There will never be a reason. That day will never be anything but senseless. The psycho who gunned down four firefighters, murdering two of them as they fought a blaze he set himself, proves even more the senselessness of man's inhumanity to man. We create so much pain for each other, for no reason, over and over.

3. The NRA's "answer" to the incident in Newtown. More guns? Really? Take a look at what Fareed Zakaria said about this answer, and about the prevalence of gun violence in our country. Go ahead, read it. It'll tell you all you need to know. The NRA's answer just makes gun violence MORE likely, and the thought of that makes me tremble. My kids go back to school in just a few days...

2.  The cheats who created fake websites and "charities" for us to give money to--both for the hurricane and Newtown and so many other events--who had no intention of doing anything but taking the money and run. I'm sure Dante has a level in hell for you. That anyone would see in the tragedy of others a way to make a bunch of money is heinous in itself. To actually take steps to steal a murdered child's name and create a website, or advertise a bogus charity and pocket the money shows an insensitivity to life and humanity that I simply cannot grasp.

1.  Our consistent inhumanity towards each other. I say this is the worst mostly because it is the basis for all of the other problems (except, perhaps the football pants). Whenever we place anything above people--money, guns, laziness, fear, prejudice, hate, ourselves, fame, etc.--we do evil. We are so quick to blame God for all of this, yet we need to accept the blame. This evil is only tempered by the generosity of so many other people to give to those in need, to help others, to speak the unpopular ideas, to teach us new ways to think, believe, feel, and see. This inhumanity is our worst problem, yet the very problem shows how we can choose differently, if we will only work towards love, mercy, and reconciliation.

So that's it. Far more serious than I intended, except for the football pants, but this year has been a troubling one. Any items you'd put on the list?