Please Show Me a Sign

This time of year is supposed to be filled with a spirit of peace towards fellow man (or woman, child or animal) and the spirit of giving. There are so many commercials during this time, asking for help regarding humane society issues, funds for the protection and preservation of exotic animals, and aid to children in the third world. 

I know that I feel paralyzed because I feel as though there are so many things in this world that need to be fixed and there aren't enough resources or time to get all things fixed the way they should be. I ask the Lord in a reverent tone as to what I should do. "Oh Lord, I don't know what to do; I want to be efficient and I want to help make things better. I want to end suffering and help animals live in ways that cause nothing but healthy survival." 

And then I grow angry at God. Mentally shaking my fist at the sky, begging why God has made this life and this world so difficult to help and to live in. With so many things in need how is it possible to make a difference? And I know that some people will say that it only matters that I can help in my own small way, that it matters if I can ease the life of one animal or one person. But in some ways, it's not enough. It's not enough for me to help just one animal when polar bears as a species are dying because they can't keep swimming from melting ice patch to melting ice patch. It's not enough to save one polar bear, when we face the possibility of the extinction of a magnificent creature. It's not enough to save one tiger that was hunted by poachers, because we need more than one, or two or even three to breed healthier generations.

I know that a journey starts with one step and that things only get done one step at a time. But these problems are so large in scale and are so overwhelming, and God made many people with the flaw of looking at the end result instead of the process that so many of us feel defeated before we even start. 

I ask that God show me a sign. I need to believe that it is possible to make lasting differences, to inspire and to succeed in ways that are mutually inclusive. I need to know that it is possible to seek wealth and still seek the betterment of other things without those two goals negating each other. 

I've said for years that people need a sign. I know that some people say signs abound all the time, but this isn't so. Those of us who have major potential and passion to change things are skeptics and we need more than a crying Madonna statue or a Jesus face in two day donut, or a sick child who can heal others. We need to walk among and meet this Jesus, in any form that the divine shows itself. I need to meet this person and speak with he or she and know for real, that evil exists but good always wins. 

The Eighth Day of the Blizzard

I sit here, almost four pm PST. It is now the eighth day of the blizzard and it looks like there is at least one more day to go before the weather even starts to break. 

While I went foraging for life-saving provisions of medicine and Christmas cards and a Starbucks elixir, I was met by dozens of fat, fluffed, puffed up robins. They were diving in and out of the 1/2 inch thick bushes and perched atop the small trees that were bending under the weight of the ice that had formed on each branch and branchlett. 

The birds were a good sign to me. At this point, seeing anything that wasn't a shade of brown, white or grey was positive, and against the too-bright and endless sea of white/grey, the robins' breast of rust stood out. I saw that the sun was trying to make a break for it across the sky, feebly attempting to thaw the foot of snow and ice that had gathered. And this bolstered my spirits slightly.

To a certain extent, I've been surprised by my ability to stay sane after a week of bad weather. This last weekend really tested my strength as the first storm finally melted away for a day or two of adequate driving conditions. However, this changed as a second snow storm blew in this weekend and covered everything in even more snow. 

The only thing I can think is that this is another example of testing my will and my ability to do all that is in my power while remaining patient; something I don't do well. I joke that I was born impatient, but that isn't so far from the truth. After all, I was almost born in less than two hours, and in the effort of bursting into this world, I got caught in my own cord, which paradoxically prolonged my poor mother's suffering and slowed my own birthing. Still, four hours all in all is pretty damn fast. 

My unending optimism and my burgeoning patience leads me to have enough strength to realize that some time soon, the weather HAS to change. I just hope it does before I go home for Christmas. 

 

Bummer.....snow

I sit here getting all the Christmas snow I ever wanted

Only to realize that snow 

and being snowed in 

isn't so fun after all

Especially not for this restless cagey girl

Wish List

It hasn't been easy to list twenty things that I want on my Christmas list. My dad asked for twenty things so he can choose and pick from among them; this way the gifts I do get will hopefully be surprises. 

There was once a time when I would have had no problem with listing a plethora of things, but now I realize that the things I want in life are not really things my parents can give me. 

This is not to say that when spring and summer role around, I won't want the new fashion or a pretty shiny patent leather, luxury name purse, just to prove that I've made it. But for the most part, I'm in this phase of my life where I don't want much that's material. The daily pleasures I pursue are drink and good food. This can get spendy, albeit, wanting good food is not an item you can really ask for. 

I've just realized that the major things I want in life are big purchases and large goals: like having enough of a down payment to pay for almost a quarter to a half of a new car. Having a down payment for a house. Having enough money to have some pets, take guitar and tennis lessons, make a real living on writing, be in a relationship. My parents can't necessarily get me these things and for some of these items, my parents can't do anything to help get me there. 

No matter how much I truly crave, as number one on my list, wanting to have the love I dream of, no one can do that for me. I just have to wait for it to come and that's the hardest thing. 

Modern women, and indeed the very way Americans are programmed, is to think that if you are willing to work harder than anyone else, you can make your dreams happen. This is hard though when you realize that no matter how smart or capable you are, or how well you invest your money, or how frugal you are, or how charming, or how hard you work, these are no indicators of how or when you'll find that love. In this circumstance, working hard has nothing to do with finding a good relationship, or finding the one. And that's the hard thin; to be told since childhood to dream as big as you want to, and to work as hard as you can to fulfill that dream. Sometimes the things we dream of can't be reached by working hard. 

On a final note: sometimes it makes me sad that I've largely moved past the wanting stuff phase. Sometimes it's really nice to want something attainable and to have it given to you. But I've moved past that; I've moved to a place where I want to prepare for the rest of my life. And those major purchases and steps along the way---those things cannot be gotten from filling out a Christmas wish list to Santa.

Lanes

I like alleys, the way they curve beyond sight offering worlds of optimism and positivity in the unknown. I like the way that an alley is only something you can see when you are not in it, which is conversely what frustrates me. Like that fresh fall of snow that looks so pure and enticing because it's untouched; it's only as cool and deep before someone sets foot in it, and then the appeal of it goes away. The trick here is that the alley, like the snow, beckons to be walked in. At the very moment you enter, it's gone. The alley is only as appealing as when you are looking down the lane, when it is still in the distance. Anything you do to get nearer to it and it starts to shorten in distance, in actual existence, and conversely in options. 

Alleys and lanes and tucked away corners and creeks that stretch in rounding curves offer worlds of the unknown. That's what's so exciting. Around the bend, the unseen provides the chance for the best to happen. These unseen stretches, the ones that are just hinted at, are brimming with possibilities; you can't see what's there so there is a chance for something amazingly unexpected and special and rare to be hiding around the corner. And the fact that you don't know, means that the optimism and the positive possibilities are at their highest. It's the idea that the best in life is unknown and hiding beyond sight, so when you get there, the surprise bowls you over. 

For all of my words, nothing quite adequately describes how I feel about these profound spaces. It is as if every time I try to explain what I like about alleys and lanes, the farther away I get from placing my finger precisely on how to explain what I like about them. Perhaps that is why words, like the bend around the corner are so enticing; I am constantly feeling for the right way to communicate how I feel at any given moment in the best way possible. And I think that I will know a success when I am able to utilize the right words in precisely the right spots, in the right lengths and meter to communicate what I am feeling or thinking in as good a way as I think it or feel it. Until that day, I will be staring down the road, scattered gravel, muddy water, lane-growing foxgloves and poppies, dappled-sunlit tree in my view. And then my view disappears, rounding the corner, where a whole world waits out of eye-sight. 

I Won't Back Down

My hesitancy to move forward in my writing is frustrating me, perhaps because I have no one to blame but myself. 

Too critical of myself and my few ideas, I fear pitching stories. The ideas come so few and far between for me and I want to know that I can get a gig, any gig from a paper besides the publications I have good relationships with. I realize that though I am so thankful of the full time job I have now, I don't want to do it for the rest of my life. 

How screwed up is this--I spent hours researching and writing not one, but three pitches that went out for my day job. Pitches on their behalf. And yet with me, I can do little more but even put the motivation into perfecting any one of the half-dozen I've started. 

ENOUGH. It's time to move forward. Whether out of fear I dread doing so doesn't matter. It's time for me to stop relishing my tender heart so much and toughen up a bit. It's time for me to realize that I have to live harder than I have. It's time for me to keep my eye on the prize, because the prize has slipped from mine eyes' focus a bit. It's time for me to face rejection square in the eye, to stop criticizing myself and to just do it; to prove that no matter how many times someone says they don't want me, or want to see me for a subsequent date, or don't want me to pitch a story or write something as grand as I can dream it, I will keep moving forward. After all, I'm the horse that though bloodied in a fight with a rival, will return, running full tilt into certain pain. I am the thing that gets caught in the barbed wire and chooses to thrash around even though I know it will cut even deeper. 

So it's time for me to cut deep and to finally, through all the pain, get to where I most want to be. After all, I'm CEN and there's never been a time that I've backed down when someone's told me to. I'm the woman who would do something the long way just to spite her father when he would tell her what she should do. 

Damn it to hell--no one's ever going to tell me I can't do something or that I need to back down.  

In The Last Three Weeks I've....

Things I've put together and/ or done on my own in the last three weeks.....

1) Successfully moved all of my stuff, with the help of some friends into a new apartment.

2) Got said apartment on my own salary and my own credit history

3) Hung two pictures (measured distances, screwed in nails and used mutliple tools)

4) Put pieces of furniture together by myself

5) Successfully mixed Red Lion, which I have now dubbed a Blue Roan

6) Figured out how to add pictures to blogs and how to create pages in the back end of a website

7) And perhaps the greatest thing of all; I went home to Los Angeles for the first time in seven months and didn't want to leave. But I made the choice to keep leaping forward into a life I could call my own. And the view is great.

I walked to the river and realized that months ago I was on the opposite side. I can now say that I've successfully crossed to the other side where I've created a life, full of work, assets, friends and happiness. And I did this all by myself.