Down with censorship!

So here's what I did.  I took a step back from writing.  From this blog.  And I let myself be where I needed to be.  I'm better now.  Happier.  I find myself censoring myself on here, editing and questioning.  I needed to go back to the spiral-bound pages where I can just let myself ramble and rant, and interrupt myself, and not worry about cohesiveness or coherence.  I even want to go back and edit myself here.  Because when I say, "I'm better now.  Happier."... well, that sounds a bit cliche, a bit "Girl, Interrupted."  But I sort of like it.  So maybe I'll just expand on it.  I am happier than when I wrote that last post.  I am "better" because I am more at ease with where I'm at in my life.  I'm less lonely.  Though still lonely at times. 

I had a busy weekend, a full social calendar.  I just watched the season premiere of "Mad Men," and for once I am watching it as the episodes air, and not just on Netflix. 

I still find myself stopping, deleting, editing.  It's hard to transition from paper to electronic.  Because, you know, someone could read this.  I'm putting it out there.  It's not like a journal that I can hide in my room somewhere.  Although... people have read my journals before.  And I'd rather people I don't know read them than people I do know.  So maybe this is better?  I am just going to ramble and let it be what is is, or whatever it'll be.

I find that I go back and re-read these posts and notice how they jump around, how they don't always flow... and I wanted, oh how I wanted to be the kind of prolific writer who could just make things flow in a stream-of-consciousness way, and oh, maybe they will, for some people, and oh, see, I'm doing it again.

I don't want to consider my audience.  I just want to get it out.  The internet told me that Andy Warhol said: “Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”

Smart, yeah?  I like it and I wanna stop censoring.  It's hard, but really, is making art easy?  Actually, it's funny how easy it can seem once you just start letting it flow.  (But that easy feeling comes so rarely for me... though I believe there's a way for it to happen more often, and I'm working on that way right now, as we speak, as I write, so to speak.)

Cat stretch yawn.  Good night.

 

 

Sink

It's been really hard to write lately.  I had to take a deep breath just to get my hands on the keyboard.  I guess that I was hoping my little weekend getaway would have helped rejuvenate me, cheer me up.  And, well, it didn't.  It's been really hard to focus on the beautiful things. 

I watched a Ted talk a couple of days ago where this guy videotaped a second of each day of his life.  He would just videotape a little moment of each day, something he wanted to remember.  The snippets of hospital visits weren't necessarily beautiful or happy moments, but he made a point to include some of those moments too.  The sad things.  And it's important to remember those moments, painful though they may be.  So even though usually I like to be an optimist, and generally have a positive outlook, I've realized that I can stop avoiding this blog and stop avoiding recording moments simply because they aren't beautiful.  Sometimes I need to live through the sadness.  To just let it be what it is.  To sink into it, even.

And it's damn hard.  Because I want to cry.  A lot.  At a lot of inopportune times as well.  So I breathe in.  I try to let it pass.  But I need to allow some time for tears.  I need to move through this. 

It's been more than a month since the break up.  And just tonight, I saw a picture of the two of us and had to consciously hold back the tears.  Maybe I should just let them flow.  I know maybe it's silly, but the apartment walls are thin and I don't want my neighbors to think I'm a basket case.

I worry too much about what other people think about me.  Even though they probably don't even think that much about me at all.  And if they do?  Why do I care?  I found myself up late last night (couldn't sleep til four a.m.) and one of the many thoughts rushing through my head was that I worry about people thinking I'm unintelligent.  For so long, I prided myself on my smarts.  A++ honor student.  It was something so easy to define myself as.  And now, without the grades to back me up, I find myself keeping quiet if I'm not sure that what I have to say will sound intelligent.  But here's the thing... there are a lot of people who have judged me as unintelligent in the past.  People who've gotten to know me and then actually told me that I surprised them with my intelligence.  And I care... I still care about coming off as book smart.  It was such a huge piece of my identity for so long that it's hard to think people might think the exact opposite of that.  I feel like I am rambling but this is the kind of thing that I think about that makes it hard to sleep.  And typing it I do feel... like, ugh, seriously?!?  Maybe if I write enough sentences about it, it'll go away.  I think it'll take pages and pages.  It's ingrained. 

Back to this sadness.  Much of it is rooted in loneliness.  It's ironic that at this time when what I probably need is human connection, I find myself having such a hard time reaching out.  And it makes me sad that certain people who I thought would be there for me aren't reaching out to me.  And then I withdraw even further... probably making them think that I want to be alone... if they even think anything about me at all...

Rant alert.  Vague rant alert.  It really really sucks when you do things for people that require a lot of thought, time, and/or money and they don't give you gratitude.  And it sucks even harder when not only do they not seem thankful, but they don't do the same for you when you are in their shoes.  I could pile on more here, but it's making me upset enough just vaguely ranting.  Done. 

So I guess I'm putting my "something beautiful" project on hold.  Can't say that I'm surprised at my lack of commitment to the idea.  But let's put a positive spin on this and call it embracing change instead. 

So I suppose what I'm doing now is moving through sadness.  It's been a while since I've been this far deep in the belly of uncomfortableness. I'm trying to let the sadness settle into my bones a bit instead of just running from it or burying it.  And it aches.  I've faith that I won't fall too far even though I am letting the heaviness in.  I don't know what this space will become as I explore this unfamiliar (yet distantly, scarily familiar) place.  And maybe I will get so scared of the sadness that I will run run run.  I feel like this post is disjointed, jumpy.  I don't know what direction to take.  So, that's where I am now.  Not really sure if I feel any better after writing this.  It's only confirming my state of wtfness at the moment.  End scene.

Home

I've been without my laptop for a few days... was on vacation from the 31st until.... well, yesterday, technically.  I flew in and went to work for a half day, then went to Zumba, then just watched television, sleepy, until I fell asleep on the couch.

Now I am getting sleepy on the couch again.  But I remembered that I'd started this blog, and that I'd had to neglect it whilst on vacation, so I should probably pop in. 

I had to catch up on my little calendar list of daily things of beauty too.  The biggest thing that struck me upon arriving home in Denver was this.... I saw the mountains outside the airplane window, and I thought: "Home."

Immediately my mind started dissecting this thought.  My first thought was just that one word, home, but the next was a thoughts were a jumble of questioning that very idea.  How I don't always really feel at home here.  How I don't always even feel at home in Minnesota now.  How home can be such an abstract concept even though it seems like the way we learn it in school is so concrete.  Home back then would have been a drawing of a house with a brick chimney emitting little curlicues of smoke. 

Then I took a moment and thought - stop it, brain.  Just accept your initial thought without getting all deep or trying to question everything.  Sometimes it's nice to just think that those beautiful mountains mean home.  

A New Path

So remember when I posted the picture of the calendar I got with a line for each day?  Even though I haven't been posting an entry each day on here, I do write a word each day on the calendar. 

So here's what it says:
1: blog
2: upper body workout
3: helping + being appreciated
4: knowing
5: massage
6: life of pi
7: humor
8: falling askleep early
9: waking up early
10: modern family
11: live local music
12: autocat feeder
13: returns/new stuff
14: what it is
15: emotion
16: Anna Karenina/moon
17: Burgers
18: sharing
19: walking
20: slam poetry
21: David Sedaris
22: cleaning!
23: singin
24: comp books
25: guitar
26: blood orange mimosa (free)
27: cooking
28: Zumba
29: a new path

I'm transcribing my punctuation as well.  Noting how the only things I capitalized are the proper names Anna Karenina and David Sedaris... and Burgers.  I must have been really excited about the Burgers.  Oh, and I capitalized Zumba too... yeah, I got pretty excited about Zumba yesterday.  Smiling during a workout?  Yeah, that's what I was doing.  The instructor was really fun and easy to follow (although there were still some moves I didn't quite get yet) and I love getting such a good cardio workout without having to go for a run. 

Cleaning was the only thing this month that got an exclamation point.  I think I am finally starting to appreciate the high that some people seem to get from being neat freaks.  It's a little scary.  I've had more spurts of cleaning in the past month than I have for quite a while.  Maybe I'm growing up, or maybe I'm heading towards OCD.  Who knows?  Either way, my sink is sparkling clean! (meant to be said with a touch of smiling insanity)

There are two days left in the month.  What words shall they bring?

I just remembered that Burgers was actually a reference to the show "Bob's Burgers." I was racking my brain to remember the last burger I ate and the only one I could remember any time recently was a veggie burger.

Today's entry says: a new path.  Someone said today that it seemed I was on a new path.  She clapped her hands, all excited for me.  I do feel as though I am gaining focus toward a specific path and it's a good feeling.  I still have a lot of doubt and questions but I am on my way toward getting some answers. 

The First Pages

Tonight I'm inspired to write by what might seem an unlikely source... television.

Okay, or Hulu, really.  I just finished watching the pilot episode of "The Carrie Diaries" - the prequel to "Sex and the City."

At the end of the episode, Carrie sits down at her desk in front of her bedroom window, though instead of the ubiquitous laptop, she's got an empty notebook in front of her.  She ends the episode by saying (in voice-over, of course), "The city was no longer a fantasy, it was real. And I knew now I wasn’t searching for someone or somebody here. I was searching for me. Who I was. Who I wanted to be. Finding my voice wasn’t going to be easy. But for the first time, in a long time, I thought it might be fun."

In another scene, Carrie is walking outside her school carrying a black and white marble composition book.  I only ever bought a few of those, thinking them more romantic than practical.  Beautiful, but it was harder to hide what you were writing (spiral bound allows you to flip the page over so only the page you are currently writing on is visible) and just not as comfortable for me to write in.  But it was my first black and white comp book in which I scribbled what I consider my first real stories.  And even though they sometimes didn't make sense (my brothers gave me crap about describing a piece of milk hanging from a string), that's part of the romantic, imaginative beauty of them.

Thinking back to those first attempts at storytelling helps me to remember that telling stories is what I do.  It's sort of what we all do, in our own ways.  Be it a piece of music, or a nailpolish-splattered handbag, or an impromptu hula-hoop session... all these creations we put out into the world say something about who we are and what we live for and who we love and who we want to become.

Brighten Up

Tonight I am feeling re-inspired to write.  I went to a David Sedaris reading - he's testing out material to be published in his next book.  And MY guffaws could inspire him! 

Writing's been difficult recently.  Well... not writing, but just getting to the writing.  I hadn't wanted to do anything the past few days that might cause me to focus on the break-up.  Yes, there was a break-up.  It was my decision, but it is still painful.  I always come back to thinking that I've made the right decision, but there are so many things that still suck about it.  And these pages are supposed to be the keeper of beautiful things - and when I am feeling mopey and lonely beauty is less apparent.  I'm just not in the mood for it sometimes. Who doesn't want a good wallowing now and then?

But tonight, my spirits have brightened.  I got to meet a writer!  A real, published writer who makes a darn good living.  And it made me feel like maybe I would try to write some publishable stuff again.  Someone in the audience asked David if he had a novel in him.  He said he has a ten-page attention span.  And that, yes, he'd written three novels.  They were 17 pages each.  Ah!  Lovely.

I think I may have to try my hand again at the personal essay. 

Notes from the Underground

Cheshire smile moon glimpsed upon exiting the theater.  Anna Karenina.  Dance scene. 

Just notes for now.  That's all.

My View on the Drive Into Work

The vivid brightness of the white snow on the Rocky Mountains today made them look light-emitting rather than just light-reflecting.

What It Is

"What is the difference between imagination and memory? Which is stronger?" - Lynda Barry

This is a quote from the book "What It Is" which my mom bought for me when she had a discount at Barnes and Noble. Such a thoughtful and unexpected gift. She gave it to me when I came home for Thanksgiving but I am just now starting to read it. Explore it, really... it's got pictures!

I have been having a difficult time focusing on positive things the past few days.  I'm not sure how much to share. No one reads this but maybe someday people will.  Would that even matter?

Anyway, I was trying to think of what beautiful thing I discovered today, and everything seemed sort of lackluster, and I wanted to just do a cop-out and say, "My cat is beautiful." Then my eyes fell upon this book, and I opened it and was immediately excited again.  Awakened.  

Whenever I am feeling run down, I should always try to remember what comforts and awakens me. Reading. Writing. Music. Nurturing my creative soul. These things won't let me down. I'm longing for a canvas and some paints.

I'm still not feeling particularly chipper, but at least now I know what it is I am going to do. Off to bed with a book in hand. 

Modern Family Love

I haven't been home too much this week.  Tuesday I worked late then headed to my boyfriend's house for pizza and a movie.  Woke up at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, got into work early and didn't get home until after ten.  Worked, then did my workout, then went to choir practice, then did some grocery shopping.  Tonight I went to a church event after work and got home a bit after eight. 

Just watched last night's episode of "Modern Family" on Hulu.  That show makes me smile.  Firstly, it is hilarious.  Secondly, they always end it in some heartfelt, family-oriented way.  (Not family-orientated, mind you.  Grammar pet peeve!)  I am such a sucker for that shit!  Bring on Danny Tanner having a little talk with Stephanie at the end of the episode!

Tomorrow I am going to... (drumroll please)... make soup!  Yes, I am going to make something from scratch - a rare occurrence.  I'm thinking of how to explain the reasons why I don't cook very often.  Is it because I live alone?  Is it because I'm such a perfectionist that the execution takes too long?  Is it because I don't have the ingredients at my house?  I thought briefly about all of these things and then I realized that I can explain all I want, but the crux of it is that I am lazy.  Cooking involves a lot of time and effort.  I prefer to spend my time and effort on other endeavors, such as Googling obscure references made on "Modern Family."

And that brings us to.... (should we put a drumroll here too?)... the beautiful thing for today.

It's just gotta be "Modern Family."  It's got humor, it's got heart, it's got non-traditional family structures that show how love is love is love.  And it's got special guest star Billy Dee Williams.  Lando loves Colt 45!

A Rare and Powerful Thing

So many beautiful things I could focus on... I'd rather just do a list right now, feeling like being succinct.

• "Just Kids" by Patti Smith

• The imaginative visuals of "Life of Pi"

• Peaches and raspberries instead of chocolate

• And last but certainly not least, Jimmy Kimmel's "Goodbye to Midnight" special (Oprah's Book Club Fight Club, I'm Fucking Ben Affleck, The Handsome Men's Club).  

Comedic beauty, one of the rarest and most powerful forms of beauty. 

Total Body Rubdown

Today I woke up, showered, and went to a free yoga class.  I struggled a bit through it, my hands slipping on the mat, my back aching during some of the poses.  But I made it through, then got a cappuccino and tofu green chile breakfast burrito.  Struggling through yoga class was the last straw though... I caved and called to book myself a same-day massage appointment.  My back has been hurting for nearly two months, due to my never-ending cough. 

The beautiful moment for today is the moment when, maybe twenty or even thirty minutes into my massage, I felt myself completely relax.  My breathing was even and my mind was slipping off into that pre-dreamland state.  I think it would take at least three more massages before I could completely rid myself of the tension in my back, neck and shoulders, but this is a start. 

Knowing Me, Knowing You, Ah-Haaaaaa

Today I came home from work, chatted with Rachel for nearly an hour, lifted weights (just for about fifteen minutes, but I DID IT!), watched an engrossing episode of Dateline NBC, chatted with my mom for more than an hour, and spent a couple hours surfing the internet.

And it was awesome!

I found some information on the internet that was really helpful.  Ah, the mighty oracle, offering such pertinent insights.

I found a couple of programs at colleges that allow me to take prerequisites for the master's program I've been looking into.  Yep, lookin' at schools!  I'm getting excited about it but there are still a few steps I need to take before applying.  I have done the online research but it's time to get personal, baby.  So, basically, job shadowing and informational interviews, I guess.  Seeing what it's like post-degree to make sure it's a career I could see myself being happy in.  So, until I get to that point... we'll just keep it nice and quiet.

There is beauty in answers.  Beauty in knowing what I want.  Today I realized that it's impossible for me to know what I want about everything all the time.  But I can know some things.  And it's empowering to say aloud that I know what I want.  Such as: I want my career to be something that aligns with my personal values.  So perhaps I don't yet know what that career is.  But I at least know one possible path, and I know what I need to to to figure out if it's what I should go for, and I know what I need to do to apply to programs if I decide it's the right thing for me.

There is beauty in questions as well.  But lately I've felt an abundance of questions.  It feels like there will always be an abundance of questions, so some certainty is welcome.  This day, a sigh of relief instead of exasperation. 

A Love Letter

I've been thinking about you lately.  I'll be surfing the internet and then find a mention of something that reminds me of you, and then I'm hit with a pang of wistful wanderlust.  There's something so exciting about you, something so familiar too, despite that we've only spent a few weeks together.  I want to jump on a plane to get to you, but there's usually something stopping me... not just the expense, but this nagging feeling that you are just too cool for me, that I don't have enough drive or Type-A behaviors to make it work between us.  But something about you brings out that drive, that creativity, that urge to just live and create and thrive.  I worry that this feeling would fade, but there's another part of me that says, hey kid, as long as we're together, I can't help but become more of the me I am meant to be. 

A couple of weeks ago, on my way to work, a song by Alicia Keys came on the radio and the next thing I knew, I was trying to hold back tears, trying to calm the lump in my throat. 

Even writing this, I'm doing the same thing.  The tears catch in my throat at the end of every few lines I write.  Swallow.  Breathe.

New York, New York.... this is for you. 

(Straying from the formula I've been sticking to so far.  Hey, it lasted three days, that's pretty good for me!  But these things happen when I've been hearing the city call.  Miss you, NYC.)

Tupac Had It Right

Sometimes it's hard to focus on the beautiful.  There were a lot of good things about today, but I'm still a little down. 

I had a client today who I just couldn't seem to please.  I fidgeted with my bracelet for a moment while she was talking to me and she thought I was looking at my watch.  "Sorry, I'll hurry," she interjected as she noticed me looking at my wrist. (I don't even wear a watch.  I'll covertly check the time on the computer screen while I'm getting impatient with you, thankyouverymuch.) 

Later in the meeting, I smiled (as I often do - it's just a natural reaction when I'm being friendly with people and trying to put them at ease), and she reacted by saying, "I'm serious," almost as if just because I had a smile on my face I wasn't taking her seriously.  I'm taking you seriously, lady, just trying to lighten the mood and get a positive energy flow in here, jeez.

Thinking about this right now is driving me crazy, so I am going to just stop and take a breath and say.... not all clients are going to be easy to deal with so I need to just not let it get to me so much.  SIGH.

Moving on to good things now, must move on... I ate a delicious piece of chocolate mousse pie this evening.  The first few bites I was in heaven and thought, oh lawdjesus, I could eat two whole pieces of this!  But by the time I got 3/4 done I was already getting full and sleepy.  So satisfying. 

Ah, here is another beautiful thing.  And I think I am going to go with this one as the big thing o' beauty for the day, particularly because it has to do with work... just to show that it's not all bad. I've been helping out an overwhelmed coworker with a few tasks this week.  Just little things, like dealing with a client she was dreading and doing some simple administrative tasks for her so she could have less time taken away from getting through the other things on her overloaded work plate.  She lets me know how appreciative she is of this, and it feels good to have someone else let you know that (sing it in Tupac's voice, y'all) you are appreciaaaaaaated.

Helping someone out and knowing that they are grateful for your help is such a beautiful human transaction. 

Wednesday Workout Beauty

I do a group training session with a personal trainer every Wednesday.  It's something that my employer provides for any employees who'd like to partake, and because I love freebies and I love having someone else tell me exactly how to work out (and giving me crap if I don't do it), I definitely partake. 

Today wasn't my absolute best day, but I was particularly proud of my beautiful upper body free weight sets today.  We did eight reps each of upright rows, flies, and bent-over rows. Then we did that again... and again.  I was just starting to fatigue on those last few reps, which is how I knew I did the right weight and the right amount of reps to get some good muscle work done.  To some, maybe a beautiful few sets of weight training exercises wouldn't be the most exciting part of their day.  But for me, well....

I have a confession to make. 

I have a secret desire to be a female body builder.

Okay, let me revise this slightly, if only because I don't think I could really, truly commit to eating all that protein and slathering tanning oil all over my body.  Let's say a fitness model.

Super cut arms, a hint of a six-pack.... I know a lot of people are turned off by this but I think there would be something so satisfying in being so physically fit and strong.  My favorite workout is lifting weights.  I cringe at cardio.  Give me a pair of dumbells over a treadmill any day.  As to why I don't have the body of a fitness model already?  I will definitely take a good book or a slice of cheesecake over the dumbbells.  It's my favorite workout, but it's still working out.

So those perfectly (or, at least, correctly) executed reps, done while my trainer cheered me on and complimented my work, done in order to help me be strong and healthy - those are my beautiful things for this day.

The First Thing

I just got home from the Lumineers New Years Eve show at the Ogden Theater.  I pulled up Facebook on my computer to make some kind of "Happy New Year, here's what awesome thing I just did, and here's my resolution" post.  I wrote something about ringing in the new year with beautiful live music.  And then I started thinking about how to explain my resolution.

I'd started thinking about my resolution when I got a calendar from Target that had one line for every day.  I thought I could write one thing for every day.  But what would that one thing be?  A new word I'd learned, a new thing I'd done, one descriptive word for my day, a five word sentence telling something good that happened?  At dinner earlier this evening I'd blurted out that my resolution was to do one awesome thing every day.  And that was sort of it.... but not quite right still.

Then I went back to the sentence I'd just written about beautiful music.  And that's when I thought - something beautiful every day.  Every single day, whether it is something I make, or see, or hear, or be.  Something beautiful every single day.  Can this blog be the very first thing?  I just wanted a space for it to be, a space to hold myself accountable, a place to write more than one line if my heart so desired, or a place to post a picture if the something can be captured in a photograph.

So this is the first something beautiful, this blog, this space, which will hold a piece of each of these future beautiful somethings.  So here's to bringing more beauty into the world, and to observing and reflecting on the abundant beauty that already is.