Cupid and Psyche

I

Cupid and Psyche, Antonio Canova, 1796

As often happens when I have even a little time to myself, I am thinking about myths and legends. This morning it is the peculiar romance of Cupid (or Eros) and Psyche.  Stories where gods fall in love with mortals are of particular interest to me. 

I love this sculpture, pictured in part, above.  The hands of the figures are so tender, it is amazing to imagine that this was once a piece of featureless marble. The anatomy is soft and beautiful as they caress each other. They are captured in the lips parted moment before a passionate kiss. 

Psyche had the misfortune of being born so beautiful that she made Venus jealous. Making a goddess feel envy is often cause for terrible punishment in these tales. Yet Psyche prevails and even gets to drink ambrosia and become immortal herself. That Cupid falls in love with her because he scratches himself with his own arrow is unfortunate. That Psyche is merely beautiful and not also wise is also a drawback. But It is a mysterious and charming story, full of invisible forces and ardent lovers that insist on having the lights off.

Without love, the world grows old and loses its color. Cupid and Psyche had a child together, the Goddess Volupta, who personifies sensual love and is one of the Three Graces. The gods didn't have that before. It took the human touch to create it. 

What the hell is my point? I'm just rambling, mostly. But in part I harbor a secret wish that I could contain some spark of inner beauty that would cause the divine to look on me favorably and create something of worth in me. Something that is unique in the world and fills it with pleasure and joy.

Instead of God the Father, this is God the Lover, and it is an interesting concept. It would be nice to have an intimate and mutually loving relationship with a god, even a minor one. Most of the time I experience the divine as largely indifferent to the minutiae of my life experience. Wouldn't it be nice to have a kiss of greeting and have God ask, "Honey, how was your day?"

Living Passionately

Image by Paula Scarletta


When I am in good form, and working at the top of my game, I strive always to live passionately. Of course, lately, I have been stunned into silence and even illness by the drama and baggage and heavy feelings surrounding the return of Little A and the short stay of Baby B.

As I sit here drinking water and taking antibiotics and trying to recover from the total shock to my system, I am noticing how down  and low-vibrating this situation has made me feel. I have had zero energy for writing or for making other kinds of art. That spiraled down into a total creative void and finally physical wear and tear. It was like my body just totally went on strike to get me to notice that I had started to live my life in a way that was not going to be consistent with my happiness.

Of course I know that having kids will put a damper on your energy. Especially my kids, because they come from backgrounds that mean they have certain special needs in the parenting department. Well, A does. J has made such progress and I have bonded with him such that he seems easy and the relationship is pretty relaxed most of the time.

I am nowhere near my usual energy level at the moment, but it has forced me to use my time for contemplation. It is going to take me a little bit to rebuild my strength. While I do that I am going to try to remain focused on what really matters, and that is being true to who I really am. Too often I allow the people in the county building tell me how to parent. The fact is that I am a slightly peculiar person and my kids enjoy me more if I can go with it and just be myself.

I'm happier when I am entertaining friends, experiencing and making art, supporting the artists I know, dancing, being in nature, and helping other people. It raises my energy level to do those things. It brings me down to do paperwork, do things out of obligation rather than by choice, and spending time in places that are filled with negative energy and negative people.

I'm not really sure how long we are going to have Little A this time. Things seem pretty uncertain at the moment. But if I am going to enjoy her in her good moments, I need to have enough energy to be awake for it. Little by little, I need to raise the bar for myself and follow those passions where they lead.

Okay, Now What?

So I have passed the NCLEX exam and can check the whole "get a career" thing off my to-do list (again-I did this when I became a chef, too). It is a huge relief to have Nursing School behind me and a freshly minted RN license in my pocket. I'm in my new job and loving it even though I am "the new guy" and still grinding gears and finding my way around. My patients like me and the doctors are receptive to my input. I even heard an attending physician tell a resident that I know my stuff. (Oh my gosh that felt good!)

I'm also on the precipice of building my family in a more permanent way. Still holding my breath for the legal hurdles we face over Little J next month. We have reasons to be optimistic about that, although until he is finally adopted I will not be able to exhale. Too many weird things happen in the courts for me to be able to predict the outcome with anything like confidence.

After years of excruciating work and no small measure of heartbreak, all of the above came to fruition at the same time. We moved into our wonderful new house, I graduated, we got a kid the next day, and I passed the boards last week. Life has been pretty lively. I'm just now starting to enjoy the rewards of all this rapid-fire change.

As any good Warrior Goddess would, I thrive when I am conquering. Resting on my laurels has never been my thing. I like to look ahead and dream big and overcome the trials to get the prize. I'm trying to open my mind to what comes next. I am taking a year off of school so I can explore my new job and decide what path to take to advance in my career. At some point I will have to decide if Little J will remain an only child or if I dare tempt fate to ask for a daughter again. Big stuff.


Here's some possible school options:

1. Bridge to my BSN degree: This will most certainly happen, I just need to work out how soon to tackle that odious set of prerequisites. I need to take Statistics and some Chemistry. Ugh. 
2. Become a Nurse Practitioner? Maybe. If I really like clinical practice and find floor nursing limiting, this would be a good option.
3. Masters/PhD in Medical Anthropology: I LOVE this idea, but sadly UNR's Anthropology program is one I have ruled out as an option for a number of reasons. If I go with this option, we would have to move out of state. Not that I can't handle an adventure, it is just a really big move/investment. Tony would need to agree, and I just don't think he is ready for me to be heavy into school again like that. Nursing School was tough enough on our relationship.

Here's some possible family options:

1. Adopt privately: Avoid the rigors of Washoe County altogether and find an agency I can stand to work with. Adopt a domestic infant or go abroad. Costly, but less uncertainty (only a little less) once a match is made.
2. Continue to foster: Could we get lucky again or will we get our hearts broken? Big, huge gamble. Very low legal costs once an adoption can happen. Big time commitment. 
3. Keep J as an only child: I dunno. I don't feel like the family is quite "done". Most parents can relate to that. You know when you are done adding members to the family, and I'm not there yet.
4. Get another dog: We got Ember at a time when I was dying for a baby and it just wasn't happening. It helped me by giving me something small and helpless to nurture. Still, having only one dog now is less chaotic.

Misc. Goals:

1. I need to do things to enhance my health and physical energy. In other words, get a grip on my stress-eating and get my butt off the sofa. Lots of options and classes, but have been waiting for my schedule to shake out.
2. I need to get back in the groove of making art. That is: writing and also trying out other forms I have always wanted to improve in. I can't decide if blogging counts.
3. Getting my spiritual house in order so that I can do ANY of the above with a little more hope and faith, rather than stressing out all the time.
4. Take a vacation to Europe. This is way overdue.

Be More Real

Image :  http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/120708/be-more-confident.gif

One of the things I am trying to do with my life, assuming my life is a canvas for art, is to be authentic. What that means from day to day varies, but it mostly has to do with ridding myself of the desire to compare myself with other people and just be myself.

I don't know if that sounds easy or not, but who I am is a constant work-in-progress. I set lofty goals for myself. I work hard. I am my own worst critic. In spite of that, I need to be more real.

When I get into trouble is when I try to be what my perception of a societal role should be. When I try to be what I think a "good wife" or "good mother" or even "good artist", I fall into a trap of trying to be what is expected, rather than taking the time to think about what that means to me. Does it matter if I put honest effort into something that ultimately is not natural to who I am? Doing that just leads to feeling like a failure.

Example: When I was Little A's mom, I did a lot of things with her. I wanted to be a good mom, because I loved her and also because some measure of my self image was wrapped up in that. I kept beating myself up because some of the things about parenting I wasn't so jazzed about, and I felt like if I was a "good mom" I would naturally enjoy them more. For instance, I dreaded bath time. Not mine, hers. I felt like if I was a good mom I would enjoy bathing my child. I would laugh through getting splashed with soapy water, I would be good-natured about getting that slippery kiddo to wash her hair. Tony was way better at it. Frankly I didn't enjoy it.

I also, for some odd reason. didn't enjoy playing on the floor as much as Tony did. Little A always wanted me to play with toys with her on the floor, and I did it, but I also had to make dinner and do laundry, so those moments often felt conflicted for me.

What I did enjoy were the afternoon tea times we had together, when we would have snacks and listen to music (often Mozart), and we would do drawings and color together. We had lovely closeness in those moments. Is that somehow less valuable than playing with a commercially ubiquitous plastic doll with her? I don't think so.

But when we had to reunify Little A with her biological mother, the first thing I noticed was that she played with Little A on the floor a lot. And even though I had my shit together in a lot of ways, I felt some harsh self-judgment feelings. I was glad for Little A that she would get that play time like she wanted, but after she was gone, I missed those more contemplative moments making fridge art the most. I missed most what came most naturally to me.

Little kids and friends and artistic audiences can smell it when you are not giving full commitment to the moment. I got up and read some of my poetry at an open mic recently (my first attempt at such a thing). I was nervous and unable to fully commit and I think as a result I got a tepid response. I had also chosen to read some stuff that I thought would have a broader appeal and be less about my inner persona. In retrospect, I think that was a wrong choice, based on what I thought a "good poet" would read. I made my selections based on what I thought were good representations of my work, instead of pieces that revealed something visceral and real about myself. If (or when) I decide to do it again, I need to not be afraid to show what is real about me. I need to bleed a bit, be a bit more raw. It is scary to do, because what if is isn't accepted? What if it makes people laugh?

But for me to be able to be satisfied with it after the fact, I need to experience being real with other people watching, even if that means I am not understood by everyone. Playing it safe will do me no good. Doing what others expect or worse, what I think others expect, will only prove that I can be superficial and concerned with the opinions of others. I don't even think that kind of art would ultimately resonate with anyone. It might be pretty, but ultimately forgettable.

I don't want to be forgettable. I don't want to blend in. I don't want to be "whatever is in these quotation marks", but the real thing. Even though it takes more energy and involves more risks, I want to be, as much as possible, more real.

The Despair of the Creative Mind

I like to think of myself as a writer first above all other things. An artist soul with a decent day job, as it were. I have lots of writing projects percolating on the back burner. Even more are on the prep table and haven't made it to the stove yet. I am currently waiting for my head to clear a little bit so I can select which to give my attention to. It has been a rough couple of months for being creative.

But every once in a while I read a book that makes me want to abandon all of it. I love to read, and I have a voracious appetite for books. Not all books are well written, perhaps especially the best-sellers. Right now I am reading "Bad Monkeys" by Matt Ruff, and I am in despair.

I wish I could have written this book. It is clever, witty, and has gripped my imagination. It is a thriller in the sense that it lacks thriller cliches. I can't wait to see what happens next, but every sentence I read keeps telling me that this is something that I couldn't have written. I am not that clever, perhaps. Or my writing has a different rhythm. Something about it is both delightful and degradingly other.

I was in Barnes & Noble yesterday, Borders Books the day before, and Zephyr used books the day before that. NOTHING caught my eye, and I didn't buy anything. I was contemplating how difficult the wold of publishing is to break into these days, and yet some writers make it even though merit isn't always the reason. This isn't sour grapes, as there are many writers I admire greatly. But I think you'll agree that the bookstores give up a lot of real estate to the common denominator, mass-market pleasing sort of stuff that is destined for the bargain book rack as much as for the faced-out, top of the escalator position.

Sure, I write for the sake of it. I write for catharsis. I write for the joy of creating something I shyly call art. But even Shakespeare needed to get paid sometime. I don't relish being ink-stained for life so that I can die with boxes of unpublished quasi-genius.

I have my moments when I am writing something really good and true where I am gripped with a fever. Words flow. It is the most awesome feeling in the world, as riveting as sex but more civilized for polite company.

It is time for me to do some more writing, but this book is so good it makes me falter. My confidence is rattled by it. Of course, it has been edited and polished. I can't even get to the point where I could get edited or agent glanced. Ugh, that sucks. And thinking about that will not help me write anything.

I want to pick Matt Ruff's brain for process methods. I want him to notice me and encourage me. I also want to hurt him. I want to blink back tears as I strangle him for throwing me into a state where I have to look too closely at my own mediocrity. The battlefields of the world are littered with the unburied bones of half-decent swordsmen.

I gotta get burning again. Gentle warm fire will not uncover anything in me. I need to be incendiary. The energy I am wasting in the echo chamber will get me absolutely nowhere. Fuck.

I'm coming out of the fog into my own personal dystopia. I'm almost ready. Things are percolating. But damn, I am creaky. It could even be argued that the energy I put into blogging takes away from the whole, but we will just have to wait and see.

Perhaps one day some other writer will feel that way about me. When someone breaks into my reverie to tell me that my book is so good that they must murder me to make themselves feel better, I will know I have finally done something worth talking about.

Bartering vs. Buying

Maybe it is the recession that is getting on my nerves, but I am starting to look around for things that I can get rid of, sell, or trade to get the things I really need. I don't actually really need much, but things still feel unbalanced. I seem to have too much of things I don't need, and someone else might be able to use.

Of course, most NORMAL people tell me to just have a garage sale and get a little bit of cash for my randomness. I don't really know if I have enough "big" items to attract the folks that love to comb over that stuff. My other issue is that watching other people paw over my things gives me an unaccountable case of the creeps. I am leery of strangers to the point of near xenophobia, which is funny because I am generally very outgoing. But having that many strangers near my house and trying to decide if my silly heirlooms are worth 50 cents causes me to want to flee screaming. I wish I was overstating that.

Mostly I want some new, unique, and artistic objects d'art or services that really connect me better to my friends. I don't want to deal with too many strangers. I want to do things for and give things to people I can get more of that intangible stuff from. I'm looking for a little spiritual currency. I am trying to explain it and feel I am doing a pretty poor job at it.

For example, say I have a single antique vase that came from my family but that isn't my favorite and I would be willing to part with it. It isn't worth enough to sell to an antique dealer, and in any case they are not the sorts of folks I relish dealing with, especially after my experience having that old mixed box of silver and silver plate appraised. But if a friend thought they might like to have it, because it would look cute on their windowbox or something, I would gladly give it. And maybe that friend would buy me a latte, or paint my toenails for me, or give me a cute drawing I could frame and put on the wall.

Or maybe I could make something small like my lavender and lemon tea cake for a friend who likes sweets in exchange for some venison that their hunting father filled their freezer with.

Or I could write a little poem or story for someone, and they might want to do something for me from the art that they practice.

Or I could work someone's trade show booth and score a new shirt or shiny object for my effort.

Little things that friends do for each other is what I am after, I guess. But I get so isolated by my crazy schedule that I lose out on a lot of that, and seem to offer less of it because I am so focused on trying to keep my family in home cooked meals. Maybe if someone made me a casserole I could feed my family with, I could help paint a set, write a play, milk a goat, make some cheese, organize some books, or whatever thing would teach me something new and get me out of my own head, where I just tend to chase myself in circles.

Sure, I could work harder and pay people to do those things for me. But that is impersonal. Sometimes that is alright, but right now I would rather do small things and trade small gifts and get some new experiences and objects connected to memories and people that I care about.

LOL. Maybe I can find someone who needs more of my quirky stuff and energy who can teach me to manage what little money I have. I have a bunch of financial books, but they just make me depressed.

So, I will start with this: I have a collage I made when I was a working Chef. It is in a poster frame and currently hangs over my desk. It has funny little things clipped out of magazines, pictures and quotes and a cute photo of Julia Child. It might look good in someone's kitchen. I love it, but I would like to make a new one and need the space. Want it? I'll give it to you. If you live in Reno or the Bay Area, I will bring it to you. And if you want to trade me something for it now, great. Otherwise, surprise me with something small and personal later.

Public Service Announcement

I am turning 40 in a few weeks. New decade deserves new manifesto, I figure.

So here it is:

1. I am not interested in doing things in a conventional way.
2. I intend to live my life as a tableau for making art. Even if it is a little abstract.
3. What is important to me is making art and helping motivate others to make art. Especially if making that art will heal them in some way.
4. I don't expect the choices I make to be popular with everyone. I don't want to hurt people, but I am finished with making myself smaller for other people's comfort.
5. As always, my friends and family matter to me, and finding deeper and more fulfilling ways to spend time with each of them will be a priority.
6. Finding new ways to combine left/right brain activities for myself and others will be my hallmark.
7. Expect to hear me roar and howl. I'll still be the nice girl you know, but I have no time for allowing my fears to drive. I intend to be behind the wheel.
8. I am not interested in being told what is impossible. I am manifesting, and am prepared to be amazed at how things come to me.
9. That cosmic egg thing is working out for me. I am becoming.
10. I am emerging. So be it. Amen, hallelujah.

New Short Story: This Counterfeit Life

I was supposed to be catching up on studying this weekend, but I got wrapped in the arms of that fickle bitch known as my muse and wrote a short story instead. I would have tried to put it off until my schoolwork was done, but you know that never works.

It is a strange little tale (do I write any other kind?) about Sebastian and Ophelia. They have been separated for a long time and have some issues to work out. Add in a mysterious elderly Frenchman and mix well with odd results.

If you would like to give it a read, drop me a line. I won't be posting it here because I may choose to shop this one around.

How's that whole "being healthy" thing working out?

Um, yeah. I have been sick with a nasty cold and sore throat/cough/laryngitis for a goddamn week. I feel really worn out and can't seem to regulate my temperature properly. Unfortunately, there isn't much time for resting, although a bit more than there was while I was working full time.

Since most of my time is spent studying, you would think that was restful, but it is hard to focus your noggin while on cold medicine. *grumble*

On the upside, I have still managed a lower-than-last-week level of exercise. I figure the fresh air does me some good, so I took a 2-mile walk yesterday while the prep for the balloon races was going on. I wished I had my camera with me, because as I was walking, hot air balloons were landing all over my neighborhood. They were right over my head a few times. There were probably about 30 of them within a few blocks of my house. It was pretty cool, and I just had to smile. I wanted to jump in one and see where it took me.

I'm going to try to make it to the gym tomorrow. But first I need to do a little shopping. My pants are falling off because I have lost weight and need the next size down, and I need a new bra that won't be *look at my tits!* obvious under my white scrub top when I do my clinical rotations. I need a slightly smaller bra, too. (Don't cry yet, my breasts are still epic huge, my band size has gone down, though.)

I was sorta stuck on the whole weight loss thing for a while, but then I made a bet with a friend to lose 25 pounds by the time I graduate in 2010. I actually need to lose a lot more than that, but 25 pounds seems maybe doable. I lost 2 pounds this week, so that is a good start. Fancy that, the old "eat healthy food and work out more" plan seems to actually work.

As for my mental health, I am trying hard to remain positive, and so far I am doing okay. They are doing experiments on us up at school. We hook up to a monitor that measures our heart rhythms for "coherence" and we get a score based on our ability to enter into a consciously controlled state of calm. It is like meditating, science-style. Despite the fact that I am a known and notorious spaz, I got a respectably high score. The idea is that if we tap into coherence often enough, we can do it at will and for longer periods, even while, say, taking an exam. The goal is to have fewer students burn out of the program. It is a trip. I felt pretty calm and centered for a while afterward. I wanted to hug people, even though I spent much of the day solo. It should be interesting to see how this fits into my plans to get through the next two years with as much stress is on my plate.

Art-wise, I have been writing some sorta personal poetry these days. Not surprising considering my introspective mood lately. I do have the submission guidelines for a pretty major web zine sitting on my desk. I can submit up to three poems for consideration. I don't know which ones to choose. I suppose I will pick three that suit me at the moment and send them off and see what happens. It would be pretty cool to get a national byline for poetry like that, but I am in no way counting any chickens there. I would like to publish a few poems in the next 12 months. It would be a good way to keep artistically active. That and it seems like a masturbatory exercise to either only post them on my blog or just scribble them in my notebook and do nothing with them.

I have written hundreds (maybe over a thousand?) poems in my life so far. I even threw a stack from high school away at one point. Or maybe I burned them with that one diary and a bunch of correspondence from my days as a semi-professional crazy person. It seems to me that if I am going to produce that stuff anyway, I should probably do something with it. There is also a possible chapbook idea circling my noggin. Again, I would need to cut the wheat from the chaff to do that, and I just don't have time or enough objectivity to do that now. Might be a good project for next summer between terms.

That is what is up with me. How are you?

Reality: Overrated?

I like fiction more than real life most of the time.

I like getting so into fiction that I can just live there. I like reading it, and I love writing it. Now, that isn't to say that I like LYING, because I think that there are some incredibly true things in fiction. Things are condensed to their essence and, to a degree, simpler.

Maybe fiction is the wrong word. Imagination may be a better expression of the concept I am kicking around, here. I have been thinking about my erstwhile romances and other relationships of old lately with fresh perspective. Some of the people I dismissed out of hand seem more interesting now, whereas people I was over the moon for leave me scratching my head. Why did I cry so hard when that guy cut me loose? Why didn't I take that one seriously or realize that they actually really liked me? It is odd. Makes me feel a little lame.

Of course, I married Tony, who I both did and didn't take seriously in turns over the years. I suppose that makes sense. I always wanted to take him seriously but for some reason I resisted doing so for a long time. In retrospect that was probably a good thing because it forced us to develop a strong friendship that was based on actually liking each other's company.

Although I suppose I earned my "Fickle Fairy" nickname. I was a bit flighty, and ran from committment much of the time. Incidentally, the guy that nicknamed me that broke up with me before I even realized we were dating. I was like "Wait? What do you mean it is over? We were dating? I thought we were just hanging out."

Clearly, my perception of what is going on around me is skewed. I already know that I just don't seem to react to the world in the same way that others do. I have to chalk that up to my imagination running away with me, rather than a lack of observation skills. I fill in the blanks with whatever embroidered bit of poetry suits me. Thus my relationships with people take on a mythic quality, based on who they are as people and the ideals and qualities I attach to them, usually to their benefit.

I wonder if that is hard for people to live up to. If I make an epic hero out of you in my mind, how easy is it to let me down? If I paint you a villain, how do I ever forgive your actual transgressions?

In literature that seems to work out okay, but in real life it is a bit messier. Maybe it is good for the egos of my friends that I hold them in such high esteem. I seem to forget that they are people, though. They are larger than life to me. I love them, though, whether that is based in reality or not. The love is real.

In my mind, most people are like characters. If a person is of particular significance to me, they inhabit an almost physical space inside me. I lovingly flesh them out in my imagination. If it is someone new, I am insatiably curious about them, adding each new thing I learn about them to my mental picture.

I try to be accurate, but I have been known to either soft-focus people or be utterly wrong about them. I have to say it is pretty jarring to have the real person turn out crueler, or weaker, or less brave than I expect they will be. I want to think the best of people, and hope they see the good in the way I see them.

The opposite is also true. The villains of my life are equally built up, resting on the foundations of what are basically just flawed or twisted people. But I guess it is easier to see them as their acts of wrongdoing than to have empathy for what made them the way they are. I can slay a dragon, but real, nuanced people are another matter. I might have to forgive them to a degree, and sometimes I am reluctant to do that.

So, if you are in my life and I apparently like you, then you shine radiantly to me. You have a halo-like glow that sets you above mere mortals. You matter more. You get to reside in my artisic and imaginative heart. I hope you like it there. I try to make it just a little better than the real world.

In Praise of Muses

My muse is a fickle bastard, but I love him with surprising depth. He isn't always sure that he loves me or wants to stick around, but I have never let that get in the way of having a fine romance. :) I am just glad that I am in a period of creative productivity. It improves my whole outlook on life, and makes me generally more genial to be around. Being seized with the compelling urge to write at the same time as having the time and materials to do it is heady stuff indeed. I have been writing more poetry, and other projects as well as blogging.

I had a nice run of a writing jag yesterday. The whole story for the collaborative project I am doing with Kathleen, "Twinkle", got written start to finish in a few hours. It is sweet and kinda funny and gentle. I can't even begin to describe how delicious that felt.To put icing on that already scrumptious cake, she liked it and it will need very little revision.

Some interesting things are happening to me lately. I have tapped into this unexpected wellspring of tenderness and sweetness in myself. Not in just a sappy sentimental way, although there are some aspects of that. I just have more energy for my friendships and this overflowing LOVE feeling.

I had really come to believe that all of the innocence of my youth was gone, and with it all the hope of any kind of bliss. So many disappointments and hardships have drifted under my bridge that I have been quite cynical for a long time. I am both surprised and confused to be wrong. It is like feeling good is a foreign sensation.

But it feels good to feel good. It is a revelation. The muse is awake and on the job. I feel like I am being given amazing gifts every day, almost as intimate as kisses. I have an increased awareness of the beauty around me. It isn't bliss so much as a hint of a promise of bliss.

Even if my muse leaves me, I have to be grateful for the breath of life he has bestowed upon me. It is like I have been sleepwalking and am finally aroused from slumber. I can only hope it lasts and that I maintain his good graces. A girl could get used to this kind of thing.

What I want for when I grow up

It has been pointed out to me in recent weeks that I am an artist. Like, really an artist. Not just a dabbler with a day job. I think I really have been longing to hear that my whole life, and I am deeply grateful to the people who have taken the time to tell me. It is more rewarding and wonderful than being thought to be beautiful, or even smart, although it may encompass both of those things at times.

Now that I am really close to unbuckling myself from the daily grind that is my day job in favor of going to school for nursing for the next 2 years, I am starting to feel the surge of momentum that is bringing me closer to my goals, and that is a real rush.

Not that being a RN is my big goal. Far from it. The RN thing is merely a better, higher paying, and more flexible and portable "day job". What I really want to do is explore my horizons as an artist and how that relates to my interest in helping others make art.

I am not sure what shape that is going to take, or even if what I want to do will work in Reno. It all started with my "Writers' Dungeon" idea that I didn't have the time to really get off the ground. But I want to create a "creating studio" space for writers and artists from other media to work in a supportive and focused environment. Not a "support group" per se, because talking about making art is not the same as actually making art. I would want to have as part of that regular "salons" where the art can be shared with the collective and/or the public.

I got the idea in part from the San Francisco "Red Room" concept, (http://www.red-room.com/) but want to expand it to include the visual arts and music.

Like I said, I don't know if Reno is really the place for this. It would thrive more in a more cosmopolitan city like Seattle or San Francisco or some locales on the East Coast I can think of. I might even be able to launch a kind of virtual equivalent to start with, but I like the idea of being at the forefront of community building as much as I like creating my own art.

Writing is a largely solitary exercise, but promoting it from that place is really hard, and getting over creative blocks is hard without friends/peers to support you.

I have to spend a lot of time doing science for the next 2 years. But you need to know that this is where my heart is. Sometimes I feel like I am going to need to live forever to accomplish all that I want to do with my life.

I am open to suggestions, but mostly I just wanted to thank the people who believe in me. It matters to me, and I am grateful, and I love you.

Heavy Blogging Could Lead To Dancing

I have to wonder what got into me this month. I have never blogged so many posts in one month before! Sorry if you had trouble keeping up with all the posts and my mercurial mood swings. Here's the wrap-up and what's new:

From the looks of things, August is going to be equally hectic and filled with adventures. Just how I like it. :) I'm plotting a couple of trips out of town, since I generally am pretty valley-bound during the winter months. I'm going to get to the Bay Area to see my mom and hopefully to catch John P. for dinner and social lubricant in S.F. Once school starts I am going to be prettly buckled in, but if I make some good memories this summer, then I can remember them when I am shoveling snow in my driveway.

My life is never boring. It is a never-ending roller coaster. Sometimes that is fun and sometimes it makes me wanna puke, but I like it overall. I'm a little too intense for some people. I only get really irritated when I try to compare my life to others or behave too conventionally. I am happiest when things are in motion and opportunities for art-making are abundant.

Things are unfolding and changing and in flux a lot right now. Probably because I am excited about school starting, but I am almost optimistic about things. It will be a big load off to stop going to the office for a while and just focus on my education. School will doubtless contain its own set of stressors, but I generally excel in academic settings.

Things with Little A are pretty good, despite the ongoing legal issues. She is thriving and growing like crazy. I am really proud of the progress she is making, especially with her speech. I can actually have real little conversations with her now. Of course, she shines with beauty to me. I love her so much. It blows my mind how something (and by this I mean parenting in general) can be so frustrating and tiring and yet this little person is such a joy much of the time. In between the laundry and the power struggles over eating vegetables, there are little moments of such exquisite tenderness that I treasure above everything.

Tony and I were talking last night about how our long, fruitless struggle with infertility brought us to a place where we were able to be there for a child we otherwise would never have had. While we still both bear deep emotional scars from that experience, Little A is so precious and really needs us. I really admire him as a father. He is so playful and patient and affectionate with her. It is achingly sweet to witness. I always knew he would be an amazing dad, because children just gravitate toward him.

That's all the news that is fit to print. The unfit to print news will take a couple of cocktails to pry out of me. Please feel willing to try. :)

The End of an Era

I use spiral bound notebooks for writing poetry. Not a very noble medium for what I ultimately hope will be art, but I find that the smaller format blank books are too narrow for my usual stanza width. I need room to scrawl. So I buy cheap notebooks and decorate them with collages. The one I have been using for the last few years has a collection of Impressionist art.

This notebook's first poem was written on 10-1-01 and the last one is 7-18-08. I need a new one ASAP, but I am not sure how I will decorate it, or if I will try to find something sturdier and a little more stately looking. I doubt it will matter, because nothing will rehabilitate my messy handwriting.

Quote- Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck, (1892-1973), recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938, said the following about Highly Sensitive People:

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.

To him... a touch is a blow,

a sound is a noise,

a misfortune is a tragedy,

a joy is an ecstasy,

a friend is a lover,

a lover is a god,

and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - - - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating." -Pearl S. Buck

The only thing that helps

I like this quote, and I like (good) champagne, even if it does cause me to do crazy things and gives me a wicked hangover. At least that is my excuse du jour for why I do crazy things. Champagne just makes me wanna get naked.

But that isn't the point of this post. What I do when I drink too much champagne and get naked is for a select few to comprehend.

What I set out to discuss today is self-soothing behaviors. One of the problems with being the adult child of an alcoholic is the constant need to try and "keep it together". We don't give ourselves an ounce of slack, like ever. And given that the addictive tendencies tend to run in families, I don't exactly feel safe cutting loose and getting all drunk to relieve stress. It is too scary. Look what happened to Ryan. He chose that and he's dead now.

Even though I am quite convinced that smoking an occasional bowl would enhance my personality in positive ways, I don't go in for doing drugs at all. Not even because I am a foster parent and the legal risks are too high. I just don't need to take a drug that will make me want to eat brownies. I like brownies too much as it is. Sheesh.

So, as Adam Ant would say "Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do?"

I have a lot of hobbies that don't get enough attention. Trying to find a balance with the whole parenting thing is my life's challenge right now. Trying to find time for the stuff that helps make life worth something and to break up the tedium of my domestic concerns is tough. Here's a list of the things that help:

1. Writing: The sound of a nice messy pencil scratching on paper or clicking keys is one of the few ways I can effectively get the circling sharks out of my head. It feels like I am actually physically removing something from myself. Part of the point of writing my first novel was just to get some of my stuff out of my head and put it on paper where I can print it out and burn it as many times as I like. Making time to write is a priority for me right now, and I am having mixed results. Not all of it is publish-worthy, but if I can get a good streak going, it feels pretty good.
2. Dancing: Minya just needs to start that Wednesday Belly Dance class and I am so freaking there. My hiatus from hip drops must end. It must be something about the drums. I just need to find the joy in my limbs again. I need to be embraced by a bunch of women wearing dowries' worth of shiny objects. Something. I just need an excuse to unpack that box of Kuchi jewelery and buy some damn Melodia pants to show my commitment.
3. Singing: I need to hit up Jill Snyder for some lessons, or see if she knows someone who will work out my occasionally rocking mezzo-soprano. Singing forces you to breathe. Breathing is good.
4. Theatre: Oh man. I so don't have time for it, but I like it. I went to an acting improv workshop with Michael Lewis from Empire Improv- http://empireimprov.com/ over the weekend and felt spent but good afterwards. I actually felt some of my old power coursing through me. I don't know how well I did, but it was cathartic how that blew the sticky substance that is the mundane off of me. My neurotransmitters were on tap for that. My brain was shouting "Yes! Awesome!". That should tell me something and I had better find a way to listen.
5. Friends: Ok, that still involves the occasional cocktail and often travel to the far flung cities my pals have scattered to. I hate crowds of strangers, but my friends can press as close as they want. Preferably on the dance floor more than one at a time. Whooo!

So, how am I gonna do all that and still hang out with my family? Puzzle, puzzle. Oh yeah, and going to school etc. No wonder I have insomnia. I want it all and can't have it, at least not right now.

And how am I going to fit in the new things I want to try? Fencing, race car driving school, and whatever else catches my fancy? Dangit.

How am I doing?

Most of my friends and some of my family know I have a blog. Some of them read it. All of them tell me how I should keep in touch more often. Even the ones who read it regularly never comment on the blog, or they mention it in passing when they finally pin me down on the phone.

Mostly people call me and say: "I never hear from you, but I hear from your mom (or your other friend or your husband) that you have a lot going on. How ARE you?"

Maybe people just don't find my writing very entertaining, or what I share here seems withholding in some way. It is true that the minutiae of my life is not chronicled here. But how I am doing overall seems pretty well covered if you are paying attention.

I'm contemplating my life and my art and my identity and my worth. That's how I am. I'm thinking about how the world in my head sometimes gets mangled when I try to lay my hands on it and bring it to fruition. I'm wondering if I get points for good intention when I try to be of comfort to others and end up being inadequate. I'm wondering how I can be getting a bunch of things I have worked hard for and still find ways to feel like I am not enough for the world.

I'm thinking about the nature of motherhood and wife-dom and womanhood and lover-ness and artistry. I am pressuring myself to fit all of that into the crucible that is my limited 24-hour day.

Is the real question "Are you cracking under the pressure?" because a lot of people tell me that they could never juggle the number of plates I have spinning on a daily basis. I have been known to hold down multiple jobs and freelance writing gigs and still feed my family and write notes for whatever creative writing projects in the margins. I have had two pieces of paper on my desk: one with a diagram of the nucleotide bases in a genome that codes for a specific amino acid or some such and another with a heartrending and almost too personal to share bit of poetry about how much I still long for my dead grandmother's hands on my fevered brow. Ambidextrous me, I drink coffee lefty so I can write righty. Little A imitates me by putting her play cell phone to one ear, while juggling a book, a teddy bear and a sippy cup. She mutters, "Yeah, me too." into the phone.

So, am I cracking? You mean more than usual? Aren't we all?

Let's Play

It is time to hurt the ones I love.

I will admit without a tincture of shame that I am in love with the boy I have created in my "Daniel" series. I have, with loving attention to detail, expressed my affection for him in deep and nuanced ways. I have raised an icon in him that I am in the throes of a passionate, if too rarely consummated affair with. That he is a figment of my imagination, and a literary creation does not change the fact that I have strong feelings for him.

But I need to make him hurt.

He's spoiled. He's had it too easy. He's cocky and simply must start to suffer or risk lacking in character. It will give me no pleasure. It will hurt me more than it hurts him. Or maybe I'm afraid that it will give me a sadistic thrill to twist him and make him cry uncle. Maybe I am blocked with writing this not because I am too busy or too tired, but because I don't want to look at how cruel I am willing to be.

I've been putting it off, lingering over better days when it was new and flushed with innocent and compelling curiosity. Flushed with new love, I shaped him with my hands and breathed life into his limbs. I became his goddess, the focus of his rapt and fevered attention. Now I need to pull him up by the root and cast him into the world to fend for himself. I need to tear his heart out and feed it to raptors. I need to crush him, hurt him, bloody him a little.

He's a nice boy, but he needs to become a man. Everything costs something. I can't cling to him and protect him anymore. He'll thank me for it later, I can only hope.

David Bowie and The Bolivian Nose Candy

As I sit contemplatively chewing on a chocolate-covered espresso bean, I'm thinking about drugs and how creative people use them. David Bowie and many MANY others were pretty well known for snorting mountains of cocaine and still churning out some of the most amazing art. I was reading a book review of Angela Bowie's book where she complains end on end about his dysfunction as a person, a husband and father. But the reviewer basically said, and I agree, that if high Bowie gives us "Hunky Dory" and sober Bowie gives us "Tin Machine", who are we to judge? How can I really condemn him for his greatness while altered? I don't have to live with him, of course.

Twisted Fangirl love for the Thin White Duke aside, what does it say about me as an artist? I never did go in for that experimental drug phase that some of my friends, and countless Rock Gods, have indulged in. Going on a drug binge would be unseemly at my age, and I can only imagine how gross I would feel. Add the fact that Little A deserves sane and sober parenting and you can readily see that even getting drunk is pretty much out of the question. Am I missing out on some vital, visceral thing as a writer because I am prioitizing my family? Do you HAVE to be crazy to be creative? Its it mandatory? Or does it just make it easier to focus on one thing if you can take drugs to blot out that you aren't meeting all of your responsibilities?

I won't even go into all the artists who have gotten sober and their creative mojo dried up as they dried out. I'm talking to you Aerosmith/Van Halen/Duran Duran. Just as many musicians tank out or die trying to stay high all the time. Talking to you Curt Cobain, Keith Moon, Elvis, John Bonham and Jim Morrison.

But look at the writers who have shaken history with their words, and are just as famous for spiralling (sometimes literally) into the gutter. Jeeebus. Edgar Allen Poe, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Kafka, Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker and the list goes on and on.

But drinking and drugging to that level makes you into a horrible person to be around. And I am trying to picture any one of those people doing a "corporate" reading at your local Barnes & Noble. The horrors! Who will think of the children? But my god, what is the alternative? Wholesome "Christian Rock"? *shudders* I'd rather explain the dangers of heroin to my kids than try and tackle that shit.

Now that Bowie is older and still makes art, he is seen as one of the survivors, a venerated elder statesman of decadant disco-style excess. The cocaine use seems almost quaint compared to the shit people are taking nowadays. Don't even get me started on the "sell your soul to the Devil" thing that is Meth. I'm seeing what that does to families up close, and it isn't pretty. The state doesn't even know what to do with it all.

But one gets the impression that Bowie was destined to be great as much as he was destined to get high and cheat on his wife with anything that moved, name his kid "Zowie", and ultimately end up becoming an arbiter of taste (albeit tongue firmly in cheek) in "Zoolander" and "Extras".

I'll always sort of love him, albeit from afar. VERY afar apparently if I want my vision of his genius to remain spotless like that suit in the "Modern Love" video.

So, how is that poetry project going?

40 poems in 40 days is a LOT, first of all. I am already four days behind.

I have written some pretty schlocky stuff in the last few weeks. However, I have also written a few that I can be proud of as-is or with a little editing. I may polish up a couple of the poems from this series and submit them to literary zines.

In addition, it has started stimulating me to do other kinds of writing. This is either due to the fact that I am in effect creating a daily writing practice again, or I am just so damn sick of writing poetry that I want to write ANYTHING else.

I can even see an arc starting to form in the 40 days, now that I am a bit beyond the halfway mark. I can see how I got over the navel-gazing and actually burned out on writing about my feelings and started fiddling with more concrete images and events that don't have as much to do with my love life, past and present.

In short, I am kind of keeping up, and with a few more multiple-poem days I will even complete the project on time. It feels good to have a deadline, even if it is an artificial or self imposed one.

This is all a part of my self directed re-boot of my writing. I felt a real need after the writers' conference to go back to the basics: plot, character development and pacing. I need to start over and pretend I know nothing to keep me from getting lazy. I tend to suffer from self delusion in thinking I am being avant garde by bending rules about writing that I have no business fiddling with. That just results in the kind of crazy-person rambling that bogs down my stories and loses the reader. I need to be clean. Probably not Hemingway levels of word parsimony, but I need to at least show a little substance with my style.

At the very least, I will have some poetry to shop around or perform at open mics.

What is next? I'm thinking some short stories. I need to set myself a similar deadline, or it will never get done.

Image:
http://www1.aucegypt.edu/academic/writers/