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. 

Song Choice: Don't Rain On My Parade

Update From the Real World

I think this might be my first blog post about real world happenings in a while. I've been really focused on living up to the promise I made to myself to get enough short stories written to have a real *gulp* book ready for publication. I have two stories that need a second run through, a Yuuki story that is ready for another pair of eyes besides mine, a Rina story started and notes/ outlines on a couple more stories, including a Cordelia one. I originally thought I'd have seven in this collection, but that might be too little. I'll have to see what all of them look like once they've been edited at least once before I decide.

In between writing, I've been working on tea and belly dance. I find I can write a bit better if I keep active in between writing sessions. I think I'm finally getting this new tea form, which means they'll be throwing another one at me soon. Also I had the chance to play with my veil fans again on Monday night lesson. I forgot how much I loved working with those props. It makes me want to dust off the routine I choreographed for them awhile back.

I'll be back with a new poem for the blog soon. In the meantime, let me know if you'd like to see more real world updates from me from time to time.

Tea sweets from a recent lesson. The classmate who made them is quite talented!

Song Choice: Here I Am by Sertab (this is the song I choreographed the veil fan routine to)

Shimmy Drill

A bit of soreness in my thighs,

that’s what I get for being a paperweight as a child -

hips that aren’t quite as fluid as I’d like,

feet that turn out,

and a bit of a slouch.

Muscles groan.

Bones ask me,

"Do you really want to do this?"

Then the music starts.

I whirl,

brought to life by the rhythm.

I scoff at the soreness.
There will be stretches.
And perhaps Epsom salts later.

But, yes,
I want this.

Image used with kind permission of the artist, Meredith Dillman. 

This and other art by her is available at her etsy store The Art of Meredith Dillman.

Song choice: Chicky by Oojami 
This poem was created from a prompt offered by Magaly Guerrero for NaPoWriMo (Day 8: It Hurts But Does Not Harm)

The Second Before The Big Finish

I've been taking bellydance classes with the same teacher for years now. In addition to having a terrific dance style and an enviable level of poise, she happens to be an all around cool person (and a fellow geek girl to boot!). When the chance came to take some extra sessions to go deeper with my dance skills and really dig down into what some of my biggest stumbling blocks as a dancer are, I jumped at the chance.

She asked us to do some mental work about what we thought was holding each one of us back. I suppose I could have answered "knees that have been getting more prone to going stiffer with age", or "a wildly variable schedule that makes me have to work to carve out time for extra drills". But the most honest answer, which I did give her, was that when I start to get a little good at something I also start to get exceedingly self-conscious. I start to realize "hey, I'm actually doing it" and then pull back in, afraid of going for it full throttle.

This isn't a problem I have just in dance. It's pretty much spread over everything I do. Dance, singing, writing...oh yeah, writing. In the millisecond it takes before I hit the perfect note, execute a powerful pose, I stop ever so short of the mark I wanted. 

It's fear really. I start to doubt that I can really pull it off, whatever it is I'm trying, so I stop. It doesn't matter if I've done something well plenty of times in practice, before I'm even aware I've begun to doubt, I pull back.

With writing, there is more of a thought process involved. With every new word I add to a story, especially if it is one I intend to launch for the whole world to see, I start to doubt that I can ever pull off something satisfying. I freeze. Instead I go and find spreadsheets to manage, windows to wash, sock drawers to organize - there's no shortage of things to be done around the house. My hubby, gods love him, isn't the tidiest person in the world, and the kids are only beginning to why keeping things in order is a good idea.

As far as dance goes, my teacher had me drill relaxing everything but the muscles actually in motion. It's actually helped a fair bit. I can regularly get some really nice shimmies and hold them for a decent amount of time now. Perhaps trying to keep my mind focused on relaxing while being in motion crowds out the part of my brain that would normally scream at me to hold back. I need to figure out what the trick for writing is though. It probably has something to do with going back to the time when I only told myself stories in my head, without even ever thinking about sharing it. I was just playing with ideas in my head, letting the ones that most amused me back in for further shaping as the mood hit (that often occurred in very dull classes).

When I figure it out, I'll let you all know.