Jamie Ridler leads us through The Next Chapter of The Joy Diet by Martha Beck.
Since I procrastinated all day--and I have good reason--I finally figured out where Outlook 2007 was hiding my email--which led me to play with Outlook all day--which led me to actually having all my emails sorted and filed and in their proper files--and I was AGHAST at the emails that had gotten--sorted via gmail and thereby becoming totally lost to me.... The way gmail links threads often causes me to miss emails....but I had a field day today with Outlook--which does so many more things than just email. R has been telling me I need to set up a calendar to remember things, like certain dates...so...I did! :-) And because I did, I stopped and read the updates on the TNC blog first rather than just writing willy-nilly and leaving it at that.
So, the first post I saw was Jamie asking about last week's desire...now, do keep in mind, in order to keep my own perspective clear here, I haven't read anything about anyone else's week yet...
I am choosing to respond to Jamie's questions first.
here's what she had to say:
""" I noticed that many of you knew your desire but didn't name it in your posts and I wondered why. Did it feel tender? Private? Scary to share? What would it be like to proclaim your desire, to say out loud, "I want...."? What's going on in there? I'd love to hear."""
I had to go back and re-read what I had written. We had been at R's that day, preparing to load a truck and drive to WV that night. I didn't really put much thought into anything, other than wanting to make sure that I participated in the group...
I did not name my desire...but so much of my blog has been about my desires...perhaps I was thinking that I had spent all too much time spelling out my desires this past year...if not longer...
My desires?
Right now, finding a new house. Major number one on the agenda there. It's not the 'house' that I am so concerned with or for. I am more concerned with Home, finding and creating and maintaining Our Home.
Even without another house, we are in the process of doing that. R and I have become addicted to sleeping in one another's arms. I have only had this experience with one other person in my life. According to R, he's never had it. For us, it's a blessing. Just to be able to sleep in one another's arms. Nothing more than that. We fall asleep snuggling; we wake up still snuggling. No one retreats to the other side of the bed. No one pushes the other person away. No one has trouble sleeping because of the other person in the bed.
Next on the list is writing that 50000 word novel, that horrid rough draft of crap, come November and NaNoWriMo. My character is the same as she has always been, although a bit older now, since when I started she and I were both teen-agers. I threw out all the old drafts and outlines and started a new one (outline). She and I are ready to go.
This is only the first step.
I want to set up my own online store. For my knitting, my dolls, my whatever I have in mind. I want to paint more, draw more, get better, get better again....
I want to knit socks, knit dolls, knit sweaters, knit hats, knit hand warmers and wrist warmers...all objects currently requested by well-meaning family members. Even the fuzzy willie warmers. I'll leave the description alone...but still...amazing what you can get a man to wear under his kilt if it garners him a laugh or two...more-so if he gets compliments for it...
I am expanding my counseling business. There are a number of directions I am touching there. These I am not discussing until they are more fully-formed and being put into practice, especially since I may or may not do everything I am looking at incorporating at the moment.
I bought my pressure cooker last night, so I am that much closer to canning and preserving foods that we grow ourselves. I have the man to build the greenhouse now--it's only a matter of time. I still have the thing I inherited (? if that is the right word?) from T's family to use while canning....some sort of strainer/presser/ squisher thingy (aren't I ever so precise at this hour?)
When I utter the words self-sufficient, it means a great deal more than just being able to take care of myself and my kids. I want to be as off the grid as possible. R won't let me go as far as I want, but he is the key to my balance, so I don't knock it too much. He gives me a great deal of rein to go pretty far as it is, without hurting myself or my kids...it is a very good thing....
Now, we have pumpkins growing in the front yard, as well as watermelons, if the weather hasn't killed them off. The pumpkins keep flowering. No, we didn't plant them on purpose (just the pumpkins). It's parrot food gone to seed there. What Cricket doesn't eat, I toss out in the front yard. I like to watch the birds. I like to watch the neighbor's dog who likes us better chase the squirrels. Here's my start on herbs and flowers and veg...among other things...
Here's to paying someone to do all the heavy lifting when we move...which is my other big desire.
I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be well-known. I don't want to be Britney...or Madonna...or anyone else at all. I want to be me. I want my writing and my art work and whatever else I do to be known. But me, I would like to remain behind the scenes as much as possible. I will not be the one out on book tours. I will not be interviewed. I will not pimp my ride (sorry, had to say it...) I am infamous enough in my own way as it is.
I have other desires that have to do with my children, the ones who are here and the ones that will be coming in the future. Sometimes I don't like to tempt fate by saying some things out loud.
Twins.
The return of the Lost One (not what you think--has nothing to do w this year).
Another girl.
I still have designs on my animal rescue sanctuary. With R in the picture, I have had to adjust a few views, but, oddly enough, we have found that we can do what I have always planned to do, within the same area we are currently in right now, and he will still be close to work, and live in the country, all at the same time. I love N. County some days. Ever since I saw N County, it has been my favorite area in St Louis.
Do you need more? Or is this enough?
Moving on now, to creativity.
I shall confess...since we did the trip last to WV last week-end, I didn't read the chapter til we got back...til...like...last night and this morning....and yet...even so... I still tried to keep an open mind and to allow my creativity to roll...
Reading through the chapter made me think, yet again, here she is taking me through the steps I have been taking myself through for how long now...
Despite the fact that I can be an extreme perfectionist, I gave up long ago trying to be 'perfect'. Now, I take this weird perverse joy in screwing things up. There is so much freedom to be had when you know you are going to screw something up no matter what you do--then you can just screw it up and be done with it--because after you do it the wrong way, the way you should have done it, the right way, or the more right way, or maybe the less wrong way, is clearer to you...it also gives me a great deal to go on to help other people when they go through things..since I know all too well the path not to take, I can give them my perspective and see if it benefits them at all...if not, my travails may at least entertain them.
I love the exercise about your enemy...this exercise is/was my entire relationship w T. If it weren't for him, for me watching him and hating the way he did things, the way he acted, the fact that his words and actions don't match, the fact that he is one of the most non-communicative people I know even though it can be hard to get him to shut up (I have never seen another man so gossipy, like an old hen. And not to stereotype, but still, I apologize now--but even gay men aren't this gossipy--none I have ever known--and I have always been a HUGE fag hag....) I still watch what he does and if it bothers me I make myself do the direct opposite. Because of him, you cannot shut me up most times--but I am really speaking when I talk. I totally over-share now. I don't gild the lilly. I used to be a lot more tame, which people who have know me for years are gonna gawk at--because I have always had a mouth--but when it comes to me, to my personal life, I have not always spoken up. Even when I shut down on R, I always come back and explain things. It might take me a bit, but I do. I face every fear. I follow every word with a corresponding action. If not for T's complete .... inanity...the facade with which he surrounds himself...I would still be stuck in some battered depressive state, a little hole in the ground, mourning the loss of an ex-husband that everyone from the get go, when we were only dating, everyone, including complete strangers, told me was far too beneath me to bother wasting my time on....that says alot, huh? Now--hear that angle--how I was always warned against that one...and hold it up to the light of my current relationship, where everyone, including total strangers, have always thought we were a couple--even when we were both married to other people, and we make--have always made-- a darn good couple at that! I think I am on the right track this time. No--I am sure I am on the right track this time. If it weren't for those tragic mistakes in the past, I would never have allowed what is going on w R to happen...not like this....I would probably have allowed my predatory nature to take over...but I wouldn't have allowed the emotional content to overwhelm us...I actually still have to be careful...because I still to this day have the tendency to bait the man, to see if he is genuine, to see if he means what he says, to see if he really is who and what he says...heck, just to see if he'll stick around when I am at my coldest and meanest. It's not always a good thing to date your best friend, when you have all sorts of information to use against them....I have a cold streak that doesn't stop and I don't always realize how mean i am being til after I do something or say something. This man is what he says he is and does what he says he will do. And he is absolutely not going anywhere. The benefit of dating your best friend is that he knows all your foibles and idiosyncrasies --an puts up with them all anyway.
Again, I didn't have any issues in the 'my creative life' box--I had more issues with the 'my dichotomous life' box. I have never believed I couldn't be or do more than one thing at a time, even if they were direct opposites. I can play the male and the female role at the same time...I can play the dominant and the submissive at the same time...I can play the warrior and the slave at the same time...I can play the mother and the child at the same time...no one ever told me not to do two different things at once...no one ever told me not to. They said things like it can't be done. They told me I couldn't do things, because I wasn't good enough, talented enough, creative enough, blah blah blah...but never was I lead to believe that it could never be done by anyone...which to me meant it could be done and should at least be tried to see if I am one that can do it...
If I want to be a hard-core drag-queen ballerina in the middle of transgender surgeries who dances on Broadway--or Skid Row for that matter-- I darn well can and will be. The only reason I wouldn't be is because I don't really want to be that person.
It started all too long ago when I took a look at the Virgin/Whore complex--and decided the Whore was so much better to portray...and then I knew in order to be 'accepted' I would also have to play the Virgin....everything else falls into place after that....
I do not follow the guidelines that society places upon people. I am that one step outside the box, looking in, pretending to walk along, but completely out of step with everyone else. I am teaching my children that as well. Don't think about the box; don't think think outside the box...BE outside the box, live outside the box. Understand what goes on in the box, because this is still a society and you must be accepted on some levels in order to achieve what you want to achieve in life...but don't let that be a trap that swallows you whole. Had it been me in the Garden, I probably would have beaten the serpent to the punch and taken the apple anyway. I might not have shared it quite so quickly though, because if I am going to get into trouble, let it be me and no one else. Unless they are really sure that's what they want to be doing....they make their own choice, without me pressuring them, and it's not my fault, even though I handed them the apple....
Above all else, I am really loving menu item number four.
Talk about opening up some interesting ideas...it may not be up to me to put all of these ideas into action, but I can sure hit the man with a great many more thoughts and concerns and queries...that makes a lot of things much more fun...if nothing else.
It's good to be happy--it's good to be fun--it sure does open a lot more doors than just creativity....
and now...I shall promise to be more diligent during the coming week of 'risk'....I am looking forward to risk...I keep wanting to take a few risks these days and I need a little help convincing R that these are good risks and if we take them our success is assured....
I know it is...but I am the emotional one...and my emotion must comply with is logic...so I will find the logic necessary to break into those compartments in his brain and show him the light of a different kind of day...no matter what it takes....
Have a great night from here on out...more to come...quite soon.....
