Hello (Again) World!

Blog, my friend! It's so good to see you again!

Euka the Wonderful

What? Hey--wait. Why so mad? I quit you? I just abandoned you?
No! No, no, no--it wasn't like that. You don't understand. Let me explain. See, life got very, very lifey. When I say very, I mean very. Since the last time I posted here, I've been through a lot.

I started and ended an LLC art business.

We adopted another love-bug of a giant, sweet rescue dog named Euka (who brought the words, "Green chicken!" into our daily vernacular.)

Lots of things changed with my job, in that I work at a different location in a different part of town and I'm now managing a different grant with a brand new staff.

Old car, new car. Same thing.

I was in a wreck that totaled my car. (You remember, the car that I bought a few years ago and loved enough to blog about it? Yes, that car. R.I.P. Mazie Bear.)

I lost my mom. 

Then, there's the biggest change of all:
I spawned a human.

Meet Landon, the coolest one-year-old on the planet. Cutest, sweetest, smartest, and happiest, too.  Trust me.

Small, smart, and handsome indeed.

Becoming a mom is the single most difficult and wonderful thing I have ever done. It's hard. Extremely. But it's so, so worth it. Landon is my very favorite of all the possible favorites, along with his dad, of course. 

There are probably a million other things that have gotten between this blog and me over the last few years, and they got between myself a lot of other things that I love as well. I went through the longest period of writer's block of my life. I stopped doing so many of the creative and artistic things I love because I spent so much of my energy just trying to navigate my way from dawn to dusk without ending the day less than I started.

The only way out of a hole is to climb, so here I am, scrambling my way back up the cliff and reclaiming my creativity. This weekend I attended a writer's retreat with my "long-distance" writing group from Nashville, Pretty in Ink.

I had no idea how much I needed a weekend away to shock my system out of its rut. The scenery was breathtaking, and being around those fierce, talented women inspired me to follow through with the three goals for the weekend:

1. Make progress on my pesky ten-year-old novel that I've restarted yet again. This time, I think I've really gotten to the root of where I was derailed, and I did make progress.

2. Write a blog post. I think it's safe to say that I accomplished this goal, even though I waited until I was back home to get it posted.

3. Submit a short story for publication. This was the big one. I don't know what my problem is with submitting my work. I can get amazing feedback, edit myself into a coma, finally get my stories polished to a shine, and then...nothing. I just kind of leave them sitting there on my computer in their folder, napping and twiddling their little thumbs. This weekend, I yanked one out and submitted it to two contests.

So, blog, my friend--I did not abandon you. I just wandered from the trail. I worked my way back, though, and maybe I'm a little worse for the wear, but here I am all the same. I don't know if I can commit to a regular posting schedule like I had before, but I can work on getting myself back into the groove with some kind of regularity. I have a lot of cool things simmering--some cool art commissions, and a very cool collaboration with Ellen Morris Prewitt that is as unique as it is fun.  I'm spending a lot of time trucking away on my part of that project, but I don't want to spoil it until it's time to unveil the results.

Life might have gotten a whole lot more complicated for me over the last few years, but what I've learned through all the hills and valleys, squinting through the fog, is that it creativity is what connects me to the life I'm living. It is through the arts that I experience the world, and how I participate in it. Otherwise, I'm just free-spinning through life, and I can't think of a more wasted opportunity than that.

Here's to the road ahead, and may every bump and curve become inspiration.

The Problem with Back Problems

Before I messed up my back, I took it for granted. There were so many little things I did everyday without thinking, and now I think about them VERY HARD before, during, and after. Here are a few:

1. Dropping my car keys in a busy parking lot. I can't bend over to get them. Well, I could, but there is a distinct possibility of becoming a knurled-up back-hating speed bump in the process (and I probably still wouldn't be able to reach my keys).

2. Petting the animals. No matter how much they beg for attention when I come in the door, I must harden my heart and avert my eyes. Cats are short.

3. Stairs. The world is FULL of stairs.

4. Driving. It seems simple enough. I always think so when I get into the car. Then I remember that car seats are not comfortable, and that changing lanes and reversing require turning around in the seat. My back doesn't like turning. It doesn't like it at ALL. I have to three-point turn things I should be able to do with a Mack truck in one go because I can't see behind me well enough without being able to turn all the way around.

5. Walking. Ouch. Just...ouch. Sciatica=I would gnaw off my own appendages if I was able to bend over far enough to do it.

6. Sitting. I like sitting. I can do that. I get all uncomfortable and squirmy after a while, but generally, sitting is about as good as it gets. Until I stand up after doing it too much. Then I have the kind of binge-regret usually saved for a tub of Ben & Jerry's. Sitting is a sometimes food.

7. Showering. The parts of me that I can't reach need to be clean too, and if I manage to slip in the tub, there I will stay until the shower spray water torture drives me mad and I go frolicking in the pain-free fields of my mind for all eternity.

8. Sleeping. On my back=pain. On my side=pain. On my other side=pain. On my stomach=pain. I'm out of sides, and I can't sleep standing up...I don't think.

9. Casual motion of any kind. Carrying anything, picking up anything, putting down anything, reaching for anything: all scary. I don't make a move without being acutely aware of the fact it will probably hurt. Even if it doesn't, I wince anyway. In this case, preparation always beats surprise.

10. Writing blog posts. Okay, this one has absolutely nothing to do with my back and everything to do with my calendar and my brain. I am wrangling those two ingredients currently so I can get back into the groove of things with my writing. Short of the water torture mentioned above, it is one of the only activities in which I can frolic in pain-free fields and live to tell about it.

When Darkness Falls

My job takes me to some dark places. I see and hear things that stick with me long after the close of the day. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are tender moments that humble me straight down to my marrow, and hard decisions that chew my mind to bits but which always soften my heart. I'm grateful for the unique opportunities I have to meet people where they are and receive their impact on my life as I do my best to enrich the lives of those around me.

Sometimes I get reminders that what I do is not safe. As comfortable as I am, as easygoing as my personality is wont to be, I work on the front lines of an impoverished city with damaged, vulnerable, and severely ill people who inhabit dark places where it isn't safe for anyone. Not for them. Not for me, even if we are both armed to the teeth with the best intentions.

There are many kinds of fear, and most of them are messages trying to tell us something about ourselves and our relationship with the world around us. There is fear of the unknown vs. fear of the known, fear of failure vs. fear of success, fear for safety vs. fear of being too darn fearful. It doesn't matter what flavor it is, what matters is that we all have it, and it can serve a purpose (as long as you're not afraid to look it in the eye). 

My work is not safe, and I am not safe in doing it. I am okay with that. I am grateful for days that remind me of this and give me the opportunity to decide anew that I am okay with that, and that I am honored for the opportunity. No matter what comes in each of my days, no matter what goals I cross off my bucket list, no matter what kind of fear I may walk through, my deepest hope is that I will be able to keep marching through the darkness, keep staring down the fear, and stand up straight and strong when I'm called to.

When darkness comes calling, I hope I will always answer:

Let there be light.

Life Marches On and So Do I

After a really fun couple of weeks with a seriously aching back (read: not fun at all), I am on the mend. Kinda.

Even though I'm on desk duty at work, my doctor advised me that I could stave off a relapse by lying on my back with my legs propped up on a chair. Let's just say that I've ended up a few times lately with this as my view:

This end up.

At one point, my boss plopped down in the floor beside me, held up a stack of reports over both our faces, and we managed to have a meeting down there. Don't knock it. I'll bet her back felt better, too.

I have been going to physical therapy for a week now, and it has been an interesting experience. By interesting, I mean painful, mostly, but also rewarding.

One day while I was working on my "sit-stands" (which is exactly what you think it is, 10 reps, 2 sets, and yes, you can do it wrong--trust me), I scanned the room desperately, starving for anything to look at that would tear my mind away from the images of dull steak knives sawing me in half with every sit and every stand. I finally lit on one of the stretching tables where a therapist was working diligently with a determined-looking older man and his new artificial leg.

Suddenly, my sit-stands were a little less tedious. A bit. My PT, way too sweet for all my grumpy growliness, ushered me through my own paces and stretched me out like a stubborn piece of stale taffy. Eventually, she tucked me into a room with a heating pad, strung me up to an electrical thingy (yes, that's a technical term...or a brand name...or it should be) that basically electrocutes you a tiny, tingly bit, and then flipped off the lights so I could relax.

But I didn't. Not really. I thought about the man with the missing leg. I thought about him being my age, when he had two good legs. I wondered if he had appreciated them. I wondered if he wanted to go back in time to when he was four, when he scraped that knee and it bled real blood and pain. Would he tell himself to look close at that knee and that blood and cherish it because he might not always have the privilege? Would he go back to when he was a young man, in his twenties maybe, when he spent all his time on those legs, walking, running, dancing, kicking off the covers in the middle of the night? Did he ever think that there would come a time when he couldn't? Maybe he had played football, a kicker with a golden toe. Maybe he didn't and wished he did, cursing his own leg, which might have had a birthmark just like his father's, and never knowing that he would regret it with all his heart while he lay on a table to stretch a brand new leg that couldn't even bleed.

We were the last ones to leave in the evening, my husband, the nice PT, and me. I was stiff and sore when I hauled up off the table and waddled my way to the door. Just when I felt a self-pitying grumble well up in me, I glanced back to the table where the man had been. He was gone, finished for the day, probably eating his dinner and living his life, laughing to his loved ones about the ignorant people he caught pitying him, he who had two perfectly good legs as far as he and anyone who counted was concerned.

So I didn't pity him. Instead I respected him.

It's a funny thing about respect. It earns you so much more than pity. I did feel sorry for the man who didn't have what I have, what I got for free and didn't earn or especially deserve, but if I stopped there on that thought, it would have been pity. So I didn't.

I thought about what he did in the short time I watched him that I could do, too. He worked hard. He took advantage of opportunity. He went about the business of living his different-shaped life, and he made it look easy.

I could do those things, even with a messed up back. Maybe even better because of it. Anything, even pain, can be a gift if you sit still and get over yourself long enough to unwrap it.

Dreaming Underwater

Creativity is the fuel for the rest of my personality. It is the part that powers me, that allows my arms and legs and brain to keep moving through the rest of my life. If I don't get in my time to consume and create art, then I run out of gas, plain and simple. It is like sleeping without dreaming--it leaves little point to waking.

I need time to soak in my thoughts, to hold my breath and explore the landscape on the bottom of my brain. Real Life floods in and crushes the air out of me, forcing me to the surface where the world stands waiting with their hooks and nets.

In short, I'm drowning in life.

They totally look like Fruity Pebbles.
They probably don't stay crunchy in milk, though.

What is the trick to dreaming underwater and not drowning in the process? Is there a way to crest the surface and suck in a lungful of reality without losing the mental, emotional, and spiritual nutrients that I absorb while I'm soaking in my own mind?

These fish have the right idea. I imagine that if I was one of them, I might start out a skinny, laggy, milky white blank-slate fish. I would swim around and around, learning from the other creatively colored fish, taking in everything about my surroundings and having increasingly complex thoughts until my very body began to change with the weight of them. I'd swell up and my fins would grow strong and fast so that I could see more, do more. My thoughts would grow ripe and throb for expression until my tiny sides would glow and change colors. I would be like the others, but also different. You would know me by my colors and the way I swam, and those things would be directly informed by the unique way I saw my world. I would be my own art, creator and created. It would make me a part of their aqueous society, not set apart from it.

Why can't people be more like my imaginary fish? Probably because we have bills to pay and jobs to do and people to please. I'm all about doing these things, but sometimes I just wonder if I can find myself a little reverse SCUBA suit so that I can suck in a few lungfuls of creative energy while I'm walking around like a fish on dry land.

Here's to the struggle, fellow creatives. You know we're all in this together.