Hello? Anyone out there? I know it’s been a while since we’ve talked. I’ll totally understand if what I have to say floats out there like a balloon freed from the wrist of a toddler. It floats freely, lazily, disappearing eventually. None notice and none remember.
I’m okay with that.
After all, since my very long digital silence, I’ve come to one conclusion: I must write for me and only for me. Anything else is pandering to a crowd that likely doesn’t exist.
I’m okay with that.
So, I posted yesterday’s post and a bunch of peeps contacted me today wondering if and why I had a broken heart.
Just to clarify…no…I am not currently experiencing Broken Heart Syndrome.
Yes, I have experienced it many times in the course of my life, with 2009 being a record-breaking year in the relationship department since being single. Contrary to popular belief, a broken heart doesn’t get easier to deal with as one gets older. I think it gets worse. I don’t know why this is.
As for last night’s post, I just wrote and what came out is what came out. Were there any events that triggered that post? That’s a great question!
In all honesty, I’d have to say yes there were incidents that led up to me writing a post on the broken hearted, but it wasn’t my broken heart that started me down that path.
Nor was it the sense of any dying dream that I was coming to grips with having to give up.
In reality, I was just tired.
I was bone weary tired to be exact. It’s been a long, grueling, exhilarating six weeks. The adventure of doing new things, the excitement of opportunity, the hope of what can be possible is both energizing and exhausting. The most difficult element is that when the demanding pace slows, and the seeds that were planted lay momentarily dormant before bursting into full bloom, there is a season of waiting. This waiting can be somewhat anticlimactic.
I know this because I’ve been there in that place of let down after a great experience.
I am not there now. I don’t feel any let down or disappointment or anything other than a sense that something really exciting is just around the corner. Even if the most exciting thing that is around the corner is Spring Break, I still am feeling nowhere near sad, lovelorn or despairing because things somewhere in my life are less than I desire.
The reality is that some things in my life are less than I desire (except where the scale is concerned and then…well…let’s not go there in this post), but I’m not broken up over them. Well, at least, not today. The reality is also that some things in my life are better than I ever could have imagined at this point. It’s also true that there are many, many things in my life that are still unwritten, untold, unimagined. These are the things yet to be which are not now. It’s life. It’s my life. It’s everyone’s life to some degree, I think. The good, the bad, the becoming, the yet to be. The happy, the sad, the exciting, the disappointing…the ever so daily.
Life is just moving along and I like it…at least most of it, most of the time.
No broken heart here, though I’ve had my share of experiences with the Broken Heart Syndrome. No thwarted dreams, though I have a few of those too. The reason I wrote what I wrote yesterday is simply because I sat down to write last night and that post is what came out.
I liked it.
I posted it.
That’s all.
Sometimes life is funny and when you least expect it, it happens. Whatever “it” is.
I was gifted with my first blog award by my friend Amber over at Making The Moments Count. To be honest, she completely blew me away with this! She awarded me with The Sunshine Award. She mentions in her post that I pose questions that make her think. I’m pleased that what I write resonates at some level with someone. On a more personal and direct level, thank-you, Amber for letting me know in such an affirming and public way that my Random Musings means something to you. Your appreciation means more to me than the award itself. Thank you!
I’ve long desired to be recognized as a blogger, but I’ve also been realistic in my thinking. I don’t have the time available to me each day to really do the kind of consistent search engine optimized writing every day that I need to be doing in order to really be an award winning blogger. This post is likely a good example of what I’m talking about as I’m writing it at nearly 11 in the evening after a full day at work with kids and then a full evening at home with my own children. I won’t edit effectively, I know. I get that I can’t devote all my time to blogging and it shows. I’m also not so certain I am the next J.K. Rowling or John Grisham of the blogging world. So be it. I have to write to please me instead of for other reasons at this time of my life. I’d given up whatever fleeting hope I had of being recognized in the blogosphere. And then…Amber.
I’m so honored that I was noticed and recognized by another bloggy friend in spite of the fact that I can only visit and comment sporadically on her posts (or anyone else’s for that matter these days). I am especially amazed that I received it given that I don’t write daily and blogging is such an “if you write it they will come” sort of endeavor.
Amber has given me the gift of a positive recognition for something I do that she appreciates. When she gave out the award, she didn’t just say I was great or that she loved my stuff. She specifically named what I did that meant something to her.
Think kids or dogs are the only ones who appreciate some positive recognition and attention? No way! I’ve basked privately in this one for the last week (or has it been longer?) since she awarded it. It means something to me. It means something to me to know that something I thought and took the effort to put in print resonated with someone else. It especially means something to me that it resonated with Amber, because when I read her blog, I read myself, 19 years ago or maybe 17, with two young girls and I feel all the same things all over again. Mostly the fatigue! I’m so grateful I could impact her life positively if only to question, to challenge, to stimulate thinking, because I sure can’t help with babysitting, though, if we lived closer together, I’d certainly be glad to help!
Amber received something from my writing and she paid it forward by letting me know. Now it is my turn to pay ten other bloggers the compliment. I will be paying it forward in the next few days (I am preparing for a big presentation at a state conference while also preparing for a professional development class for educators next week so, please, be patient).
Further, I’m going to encourage my readers to consider paying it forward positively as well. Have you had someone do something or say something that mattered to you in the last week or month. Has someone done something or demonstrated some quality or skill that you admire? Has someone made your life better, easier, more joyful in some way? I encourage you to take a moment and let them know. It could be that the positive response from you is just the thing they need to hear at just the right moment.
If it matters to you…if it resonated with you…if it made you think or impacted you …won’t you let the person know? I’m certain they’d appreciate knowing that their contribution to this thing we call life didn’t go unnoticed.
If you’re like me then you are a reader.
You’re a reader of articles, of stories, of books and blogs.
And…if you’re like me…you don’t just read those articles, stories, books and blogs and cast them aside. No “out of sight out of mind” for you.
If you’re like me you connect with those stories, articles and books, or, at least the ones you love, the ones that resonated with you, the ones that made you think, the ones you gave up moments of your life to pause and listen through the written word, to the voice of another. For a moment, if you’re like me, you enter the world by invitation of the author and you become one with that world.
If you’re like me you think about the characters. No, you do more than think about them. With the help of the author you create them, breathe life into them, worry about them when you’re not reading them and you wonder about them as if the story could continue beyond the printed words the author wrote as if in some Inkspell-ish sort of way…if you’re like me.
If you’re like me, you speculate about the people behind the pen. Those creators of characters, those wielder of words, those visionaries who craft fantasy the way carpenters craft homes and artists their sculptures with such precision and intricate care. You meditate after a fashion on these people who communicate so clearly and so deftly so invisibly. You think about them, about their lives, their loves, their sorrows, their existence, even if only for a fleeting moment and you wonder. What kind of person would it take to write something like that?
If you’re like me you become, in a word, or maybe after many words attached to the invisible artists who’ve helped you create worlds, travel distances and experience lives you might never have known. Or maybe, you do know the life of which they speak and you are all the more drawn to th
em because the existence they share is your existence as well. You know it. You feel it. You live it. And someone chose the words to express it that you yourself could not and you are grateful.
If you’re like me, then in a small way, you may even come to love those invisible craftsmen who work their art in black on white, creating entire galaxies where only blank, dead, white space existed before.
If you’re like me, you wonder what happens when suddenly nothing is heard from them again. The end of a series of books, the last of the articles, a blog abandoned. You wonder what happened in the life of that person that ended their existence in print so suddenly…if you’re like me.
If you’re like me, in those respects, and you’ve been reading along here at The Wild Mind maybe you’ve noticed that where there used to be an almost daily account of distraction, there has been a strange and unusual (at least it has to be for The Wild Mind because look how long her posts usually are!) silence of late. If you’re like me, you would wonder what happen![UnicornRetreat_2201[1] (2)](https://thewildmind.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/unicornretreat_220112.jpg "UnicornRetreat_2201[1] (2)")
ed in the real world to shut down the digital world of the person you’d grown somewhat attached to and were reading every so often.
You would appreciate an explanation…if you are like me. And you would hope that that explanation did not contain news of abandonment, because if you are like me abandonment in all its many forms never goes over well. If you’re like me you even hate it when your favorite TV series gets cancelled. You hated it when you finally finished the Harry Potter Series and you hated it when the Lord of the Rings movies were done. You knew it was the end of the story but somehow you wondered, was it also the end of the author?
You might wonder these things…if you’re like me.
Okay, so I’m kind of going through a list making phase as prompts for my creative thinking ventures. The list of the day for me is…
Have You Ever Noticed….
…how if a guy is really into something say football or biking or quads or Nascar and a girl is really into that guy she’ll try to get into whatever he’s into but it doesn’t usually work the other way around?
…how it used to be looked down on to be a stay-at-home mom and now if a woman makes that choice it is more accepted?
…how when you’re in a funk you have to spend some time dealing with it and many times after the funk is over you regret the time you wasted?
…how life can turn on a dime? Things are rolling right along quite nicely, then the smallest thing happens and it feels like you’ve been thrown into a brick wall at a 100 miles an hour with no protective gear.
…how socks go into the laundry with a perfect match but come out as a single. Moral of this story? Lovers should never do laundry together.
…how you can show a kid how to do something a million times and they never get it right…till they move out on their own and get their own place, then suddenly they understand how to do it perfectly.
…how the garbage man has a great job? He gets to drive around in the big cushy truck all day, never touching the garbage, he gets paid good money and he doesn’t have to take work home with him.
…how most single working moms wish they had a wife who would cook dinner for them and help with the bedtime and bath routine and taxi jobs at the end of the day?
…how when you go to a new medical care provider filling out the form once is not enough, they then have to get a copy of the form, and then you have to go to the inner office where they punch all the same stuff into the computer again. And forget about if you are referred to another provider!
…how kids think they can convince you they aren’t lying by vehemently defending their untruth even though you saw with your own eyes otherwise. “I didn’t hit her!” “Uh, excuse me? I just saw your fist windup and let ‘er fly and land right in her arm!”
…how you never really crave a particular food (like bread or pasta) till you decide to cut back on it, then you can’t get enough of it and this is before you’ve even actually started cutting back?!
…how lists like this can be really fun or really tedious or both. Guess that must mean it is time to end this one…unless, of course…you have something to add?
Alright, I’m in, I suppose. I can’t believe I’m doing this! We’ll see how it goes.
I stumbled across this Blog 365 Challenge at http://blog365.ning.com/. The challenge is to blog every day for a year. Okay, I guess. Like a sucker I decided to go for it. Probably not a smart thing to do considering I’m feeling pretty stale in my writing these days and pretty discouraged about it all. I mean, there are some really cool blogs out there and, well, mine’s not one of them…yet. It could be like blog vitamins, this one a day thing or it could spell the death knell for my blog.
But then I tell myself, “Self, you didn’t start this blog thing to take the world by storm, you started this for you so you could practice and get more confident about writing.”
“Yeah, yeah. I suppose,” I reply back impatiently, thinking all the while that I’m not sure I’m any more confident and I’m only a little better…sigh.
What I know is this, to write the good stuff, the stuff that’s thoughtful, intelligent and actually meaningful which might hopefully spark some discussion takes time and that time, at least for me, doesn’t occur in large enough quantities on a daily basis. Therefore, writing every day is almost becoming a death knell since the only thing I can do is something random and unplanned, like this. My time doesn’t exactly free up when I go back to school in the fall either. Oh, what have I done??????
But this Blog 365 was something different and if I don’t make it, who cares? Right?
I’ll care, I know I will. I’m just like that.
My last little benign (or so I thought) post elicited some pointed discussion from a long time reader, Kip. I encourage you to scroll back read the post and his comments and my initial response. His follow up comment, I will deal with here. He’s been enough of a burr under my saddle ( I do mean that affectionately) to earn his own post in response to his last comment.
First his entire comment:
Yes, well, there’s no mystery about the hose attraction, is there? When in doubt, introduce prurience and the mob will take it from there (present company included).
And drama, well, of course. That’s why we read novels and go to plays and watch the tube and if we can’t find it there we create our own.
I expect you’ll keep doing with this blog what you’ve been doing all along. Doing your brain dumps, sifting and sorting the experience of your life, putting it out there for better or worse. Which is fine. But what do you really really want to achieve by doing this in a blog? What role to you want your audience to play, if any? If you want them to acknowledge their presence by talking back, you’re darn well gonna have to provoke them. Get out the big guns. Start spilling out the things we all think about but never say. The things we all want but never acquire. The things we’ve all suffered in silence. Sex, love, death, money. All the biggies. You go girl, I’ll be watching.
I expect you’ll keep doing with this blog what you’ve been doing all along. Doing your brain dumps, sifting and sorting the experience of your life, putting it out there for better or worse. Which is fine. But what do you really really want to achieve by doing this in a blog?
I originally began this blog to play with writing. My goals for writing were to improve my writing and to play with a variety of topics and approaches. This I stated up front. Another goal, though unstated, was to improve my confidence in my own writing. I have achieved both these goals to some degree though they are goals that are by nature never completely achievable. While it might not show it here, my writing in other venues has improved tremendously to the point that I am routinely called on to write and edit materials others create before they go to print. My confidence in my ability to write has improved as well. Writing for an audience and getting audience feedback albeit sporadically through this blog was a bonus.
I admit, I do not write to intentionally arouse debate or discussion. I have reasons for this. Reasons I am scrutinizing myself right now. It is true that comments are the life of a blog.
Another added benefit of writing on this blog was the sifting sorting process I undertook which Kip refers to in his comment. Unplanned but valuable to me personally. I don’t apologize for that, because in the end I don’t write to please others here, I write for my own purposes. I have achieved those purposes with this blog so far. If it seems less than interesting or meaningful to others based on the presence or absence of comments or interesting content then so be it. This is my personal journey and it has been valuable to me to sort through the crap I’ve encountered along the way in this format. Whether I continue in this vein is something I’m weighing. If I do, I will have achieved my own humble purposes in doing so, audience participation or not. I am decisively undecided about the direction I want to go with this.
Kip brings up a good point. What the hell is my purpose here? Writers generally always write for a purpose. What is mine? It is a fair question and one I must address.
Next….
What role to you want your audience to play, if any? If you want them to acknowledge their presence by talking back, you’re darn well gonna have to provoke them.
I haven’t decided about this either. Provoking kind of puts me on the line and I’m not sure I want to take the heat…I’m also not sure I don’t want to either. It is an investment in time and energy which quite frankly I’m not entirely certain I have loads of either to invest in order to present a quality forum. Certainly not on a daily schedule for sure. Again, I’m pondering this direction too.
It seems the real question here is not can I or do I want to take the heat, it is, am I up for the mental challenge? Face it. It just requires some clarity of thought and some conviction. While I at times have both of these in spades, I’m not sure I want to put it out there just yet. On the other hand, maybe it is time I quit lurking in the sidelines and really begin to bring it.
Sigh. This is almost as painful as deciding what to do for a graduate research project.
Start spilling out the things we all think about but never say. The things we all want but never acquire. The things we’ve all suffered in silence. Sex, love, death, money. All the biggies.
Now this is the most interesting thing you’ve said yet. By that I mean, this is the the statment that has me staring blankly at the screen pondering…pondering…pondering.
Because…
Because if they are the things we all think about but never say there is a reason we never say them! Maybe they shouldn’t be said? Maybe they can’t be articulated adequately. Or maybe it would be very healthy to say them.
And, yes, there is a bit of the chickensh*t in me that says I really don’t want to face the heat!
I get that there’s a challenge that’s been laid down. Picture me quizzically analyzing said challenge, weighing the costs in terms of time to research, write and respond and then where to focus in light of the many other things I’m also considering. Plus, there is the knowledge that even after a great deal of time and energy expended my efforts will be lame and weak at best.
You see, in the end, it isn’t an issue of the quality of writing here, it is a reflection of the quality of my thinking and it is this component I am evaluating and dealing with right now. I simply cannot write anything of quality if I’m not thinking those really wild thoughts and these days, thinking is tough when just as I’m beginning to formulate a thesis statement I’m beset with sibling rivalries, dirty laundry, leaves in the pool and the eternally nagging question of what to fix for dinner. I hate it, but it is my reality for now. While I’m fighting it ever so valiantly, sometimes it all just gets me stuck.
Then again, maybe I am just the little podunk cowgirl who really doesn’t have the mental abilities to tango with the big boys.
Okay, now them’s fightin’ words!
And now, after reading this post, you must have no doubt that the moniker, “The Wild Mind”, refers not to the bizarre quality and content of the thoughts occurring within said Mind, but instead to the undisciplined and untamed nature of that Mind.
There are two times when I find it most difficult to really write. The first is when I look at the blank white space on the computer screen and my normally overactive mind and imagination go abnormally awol on me. I hate that. White space on the computer screen. Dead space in my head. Inactive fingers on the keyboard. It sucks. Those times make me feel stupid and unimaginative.
The other time is when I have so much I am thinking of that I can’t sort any of it out in any coherent form that a reader could identify with, let alone read and understand.
Tonight, I am dealing with the “too many ideas” scenario instead of the “nothing at all” scenario. This week was full of amazingly humorous and poignant events all of which merit some serious fabrication in the retelling…just to make a point. Yet here I sit, stymied by the plethora of possibilities! It also sucks.
So, tonight, I share in bullet points, as a way of sorting for myself but also as a way of communicating what a really rich “life filled” week I experienced. My intent is that this post will serve more as a jumping off point for me for future posts than as a real valid post tonight. (Whatever a “real valid post” is.)
This week…things to remember and ponder include…
And that is where I am tonight. I hope to write it all, because that is what I am about…but I must also balance the writing with the living…and right now…there is so much to live!
Seriously, I don’t know how good (read paid and making it financially or aka J.K. Rowling and other) writers do it.
Okay, here’s the deal for me tonight.
I have a million things spinning around in my head. Several great topics started. One…or two…almost finished. Nothing ready to post. This is not like me. I usually post without thinking and that is painfully evident to us all…please do not comment on that reality.
But in the last 48 hours I have had…
….the I.J. break up with me (okay, really, really that’s good, because remember the post about that dating problem awhile back that got so much interaction?….Well….hahaha!) Really, you so need to see the email, but…I haven’t had the freaking time. He decided to break up with me (in a sense) and I decided to really do nothing about it…hmmmm…maybe I should have done something different? But we’ll all never know because this week I have no time to sit down and write anything more thoughtful and creative than “I have no time”. That sucks! How do good writers get around that?
…the news delivered to me that my most recent X (God forbid there will be more than I already have) is going to be married soon. That’s always great fun…and in my case…I’m not really joking…it is fun! I have just one more excuse to quit here and do something else…maybe in another country or…at least at a university…whatever…I’m leaving this place and not feeling a bit bad about it…I don’t care how long it takes. I’m not going to live in this valley and run into two brainless (okay that was mean) women who push their boobs out and look at me like, “Hey, we got what you weren’t capable of keeping.” Yeah, have that ladies, if that’s what makes you happy.
But, of course, that all brings to mind the idea that a failed relationship is not all one person’s fault. So, I’ve denigrated the X’s plenty…it is only fair to ask…what part of the failures do I own? Would make for a decent post maybe?
…Wow! Tons of stuff on the professional front to tangle with. I’m waffling from feeling like I have my game on to “I got next” every other minute…it’s a real trip and I kinda like it…but that ‘s because I’m in a place in life where I can afford to play…take risks…and have fun…(read, I’m secure in my job and my abilities at least right now).
…the news delivered to me that my youngest has a freakin’ high I.Q,~ Oh, man, sucks to be my kid, sucks to have friends that are school psychs….and sucks to be the cute little blonde girl who is sooo underachieving and has a (mostly) brunette brainiac mom.
I could go on, but won’t.
The writer’s demise is this…there is so much to write about…and so little time…and where do we carve that time out…because good…scrap good…any writing takes time. Where does one find the time in the daily schedule of life?
I guess we just wait for the weekend…
I’m home alone. No kids. No dates. Would you think less of me if I told you that the no dates part was not my choice? It was my choice. I had invites. I turned them down. I wanted to be alone. I needed to be alone. Am I sick or what??? The world does not understand those of us who can tolerate solitude and silence indefinitely. However, I have to admit, while I am solo tonight, I am not silent.
Playing in the 5 CD changer in the living room is a random mixture of Colbie Callat, Jason Mraz, John Mayer, Nickel Creek and Cold Play.
I’ve just finished a dinner of gourmet salad and barbecue steak and excellent Southern Oregon Pinot Noir.
I am pretty much done with the “chores” of the day (like I did so much!) and am going to take the evening and do whatever I want to do…which is blog and read the blogs of my other bloggy friends.
No kids here tonight. Oh, yeah. I already said that. Must be the Pinot Noir taking over. This is the weekend for the youngest three to be at their respective dad’s places and Number 1 is out with friends. I won’t see her till after 1:00 tomorrow a.m. and I’m so not waiting up. She’s such an awesome kid. But anybody mess with her and I’ll load my Colt Police Positive so fast it’ll make your head spin.
I love writing. It is good therapy, and a great outlet for all the crap that spins incessantly through my mind in a given day. Once I write it…I feel I can finally dump it. Good therapy. Just understand that what you read here is the crap I dump and not necessarily the real me sans dumped crap. *tosses her long auburn lock, winks, smiles and giggles charmingly*
Tonight is the night I’ve been waiting for all winter long. Tonight we set our clocks ahead one hour for Daylight Savings Time. This so totally rocks. Heck (he he) no! I do not like invisibly losing an hour of my life but I sooooo love the later light in the evenings. It is summer now…no matter what. And I begin to live accordingly. However, since I’m a bit slow in getting after some of my New Year’s Resolutions, I’m glad that according to others it is not really summer. In any event, I informed Number 1 that she is now going to be walking home from work starting Monday. She wasn’t so into that. I was really into that. Means I just gained a regular workout time! Wahooo!!! And, she needs the exercise anyway, not because she’s fat…she’s anything but…but fitness and endurance have not been her priority. Now we start.
Life is looking up. Not perfect, but definitely up from where I’ve been. The district is not going to have to cut days out of the school year, I have several opportunities to earn extra income and not take a whole bunch extra time out of my life in the next two months and this is a good thing. I still have 3 personal days I can use to attach to a weekend so I can get some work done around here. Nice! Debt is going down faster with every passing month and income is stable. Cars are running and the house is not collapsing around me and I am incredibly grateful. I also have a student teacher starting in my class on Monday. Life so totally rocks! I can focus on my other “professional development activities” while she is teaching class. I’m rolling on the floor thinking how this is such a win-win for both of us.
I so think all of this deserves some solo hot tubbing in the nude! Oh, wait, I didn’t really say that did I? *blushes and smiles coyly* Naaa! I’d never go hot tubbing nude, would I??????
You tell me. Would I? Should I? Sam I am?
The Wild Mind 