Reflection: Still Here

Signing a lease one more time. Moving into a second year in an under-200 square foot studio that has been better to me than its larger predecessor. My favorite apartment/unit ever, if you go back a bit, was an attic. But this little room with the corridor and the separate bathroom: It's of a scale that's easy to decorate. And putting it online motivates me to do just that. My problem has never been finding the wherewithall to function; it's finding the motivation. It's hard for me to do things because they feel comfortable or because they create aesthetic pleasure. It doesn't click; it doesn't connect. The question has already been: But who will see it? Who will it please? I can't live life as a tree in a forest. If no one hears, I don't make a sound. If no one watches, nothing is tidy. There's this great need to be observed by loved ones. And the great motivator has always been: for you. Living my life online makes me live it brighter and more according to custom.

So, understanding that, maybe it wouldn't come as such a surprise to persons from long ago co-op days that one of the niche topic areas I have moved into, on Squidoo and elsewhere, is designing small spaces. This is the recent Squidoo page that has gone the highest: Shabby Chic Studio Apartment

Memory: After All These Years

Something I will never forget: the sight of Brazil nuts -- those really huge ones -- working their way slowly down into the fingers of a food handler's glove.

It was a dozen years ago. We were on our way to a potluck hosted by one of the members of our poetry group. He was scooping edibles out of the bins at Ray's Ranch Market. I called his attention to the fact that, well, most things made it into baggies, but he was scooping the Brazil nuts into something else... like maybe a glove out of the box on the counter.

He realized, hey, I was right. "Well, we can't let this go to waste," he said. "That wouldn't be environmental of us." He got a twisty label and wrote the bin number on it. He used the twisty to seal the wrist of the glove up neatly.

Something else I will never forget: the look on the face of one of the poetry group ladies when he sat the Brazil nut glove down on the coffee table amidst the other hoers d'ouvres.

I repeated the story the other day. "That was in my manic days," he said. "I don't do things like that any more."

"Mellowed?" I asked.

"Medication," he said.

Ah! I remember how he arrived in the woods for a camping trip, coincidentally, on the first day of hunting season. He briefly had the idea of playing his guitar real loud and scaring the bears away. "Would I give my life for a bear?" he'd asked.

I repeated that story. The bears deserved it, he said, but he didn't have the guts.

He has talked about visiting a couple times over the years. And finally did. He was here for a week recently. We went out to the beach at Discovery Park. He climbed over a little log fence so he could see better over the cliff. I called his attention to what the sign said about staying this side of the fence. "I didn't see it," he said, "Well, don't tell Seattle parks."

Oh , there's a few things maybe to not tell Seattle. He likes to press flowers see...

It ain't a bad thing, though, is it? Still crazy after all these years

photo credit

In Between: Tunes our Minds Play

I never know what song I will hear in Walgreen's -- or what my ears will tell me I heard. I have located the song now on Youtube, and the refrain is "Burnin' for you". Ah, but what I heard (over and over and over) there in Walgreen's was "I'm done running, I'm 32."

Reflection: The Writing Life

I am making (kind of) a living writing these days, but it's not quite the type of writing I might have imagined once upon a time. For those of us who do write for wages, that is often the case. I have a friend who makes his living -- really -- writing articles about women's clothing.

In these parts, though (in my studio apartment studio, I mean) the theme is, "You look in an associate's, but you'd look better in a doctorate. Oh, too large? We have that in a bachelor's and a master's as well. "

It may not be my adolescent image of the writing life, but I like writing articles about nursing. I believe in the cause, and there's endless information. (To think, less than a year ago, I didn't know the difference between an ADN, a BSN, and a DNP. Now I can distinguish the AACN, the AANP, ANA... And, ah, I have a talent for locating white papers and project proposals and endless lists.)

But it's nice to do those other types of writing, too, the ones from the days of once upon a time -- and the ones I picked up along the way. I am slowly pulling them back in.

Reflection: Supine

That's quite an old picture, but it relates to the (soapbox) topic of the day.

I am lucky to be (for the moment at least!) earning most of my income at home writing. It's not just for mental reasons that it's easier. Some days I do several hours of work laying down. It's very common for me to research laying on my side and then compose paragraphs in my mind while lying very still on my back. After a while, I will sit up in and type quite a bit in a short time. If it appears that I spend half an hour immobile and then half an hour writing furiously... well, often I have been working the whole time, and far more efficiently than if I forced myself to sit up at the computer.

I imagine there are people here and there who have been diagnosed with chronic fatigue, or migraines perhaps, who have low muscle tone in their necks. For me, it's not bad enough to be a migraine -- the discomfort just toes the line between tiredness and headache -- but when I was a child, I called it a headache... and I was ignored. I remember that when I started morning kindergarten, I complained of daily headaches. It was because my teacher got after me when I rested my head on the desk, and my neck simply did not want to hold head up for three hours at a stretch.

I still feel better physically when I don't have to go too many hour at a stretch with my head unsupported. I even suspect the neck issue plays some role in the body ache issues I get sometimes -- like maybe it adds a bit of physical stress and brings my endurance down. I've always (when I've had the option) done a fair amount of my mental work lying down... especially the composition stage of writing. I have a great verbal memory, so I can do that! Yet to display so much of what looks like immobility... I imagine that has contributed at times to people seeing me as less mentally capable than I am.

Reflection: Always a Rose

A bit more audio today! I like the surprising little twist at the end of this poem -- "Always a Rose" quite a round-about little expression of love. I had recorded it on Audioboo, and when I visited it today, I saw it was wearing a little 'tweet badge', tweeted, it appears, by the Audioboo company.

I'm still doing a weekly poetry read for a friend's BlogTalkRadio, but I've been doing it live, so it's extra discipline to record... but I'm getting into the rhythm of writing 50 paid articles, and still doing the other projects. I've done a lot of recording very recently.