The S Word

I pride myself on being a relatively intelligent person, but know I can be a stubborn one as well. For some some time now I've been thinking it might be best to go on a s-s- *cough* schedule. *shudders* (OK one of my friends has been strongly hinting it might be a help and I've finally decided to listen).

I don't know why the idea of a schedule (ugh!) makes me cringe so. It may be a tiny bit of defiance left over from my teen years where I insisted I was clever enough to get everything I needed to get done in time (usually at the last minute) and still get A's. My youthful arrogance got a hard smack of reality once I hit college. Oh I still did well, as long as I kept some sort of system to organize things.

So fast forward to today. I have so many things I want to learn and do in this lifetime and it has become sadly apparent I can't do them all. I need to prioritize (*pouts*) and organize (*cries*). I love writing, but I need to keep "office hours" that stay more or less steady and mesh with my other responsibilities (work, being a mom, being a wife). Organization sounds overly confining and limiting, especially when talking about artistic endeavors, but it also is a pretty good way to make sure I have time to enjoy doing what it is I like doing. 

I started feeling better about this whole organizing business when I put down my writing hours for both prose and poetry (as one of the newest Toads in the Imaginary Garden, I'm stoked to regularly participate there and over in Dash of Sunny as well). I scheduled in some review time for my other interests (shimmy drills, Japanese tea ceremony postures, and doodling all get their quick bursts of review time as a reward for other hard work). While a lot of my daily spiritual practices are reflexive at this point, I set aside some time for some extra development of knowledge bases I was interested in exploring. I even managed to formalize the way I do chores a bit better.

Yay, doodle time! 

So yes, I'm still a little leery about the whole schedule thing, but I've promised myself that I can be flexible and adjust things as time goes on. I also plan on giving myself goof off days once a month just to know there'll be one day I can bum around and do nothing if I want to. I'm cautiously optimistic this will all work out and that far from being rained upon, the passions in my life will march on in an orderly parade, rather than bang into each other like angry moshers. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Don't Rain On My Parade

Words By the Ocean

Promises were made by the ocean,

where sweet and salt met

and flowed into each other.

Promises began earlier,

marked during the passage of the sun

and affirmed in the fullness of the moon.

I unbound my hair then,

allowing my curls to express themselves.

I whispered a promise to the stars,

unaware they could and would

answer back.

Smooth stones paid witness,

to the power of the elements

to change things,

and to my words.

Perhaps today I would

be able to hear them ask,

“Do you know what it is you promise?”

But of course today I would answer,

“I do.” 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: River of Dreams by Billy Joel

This poem was inspired by the prompt given over at A Dash of Sunny, Take Me to the Ocean

Roaring Like the Twenties

Baby vamp you’re the bee’s knees.

It may be the rum running the show,

but you’re the most scintillating thing

in this juice joint.

You can’t spell scintillate

without sin.

Sin ‘til eight?

Let’s sin past 1, 2 or 3.

Say, let’s sin like it’s goin' out of style.

The real sin would be letting you go,

before the sun’s had a chance,

to see your smile.

Song Choice: Let's Misbehave

This post was inspired Imaginary Garden With Real Toad's Weekend Mini-prompt: Fashion Me Your Words, Pierrot Grenade, a group I have happily become an official part of. Hop on over for some more witty word play from my fellow Toads. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks