and so it begins again. the reunion and the moving onward. or backward, as sometimes the case may be.

i love this space -- even though it isn't much of anything. i think i've said before that i like it best because not many people come here. i think it's the equivalent of sitting in the corner at a party -- the ones who matter will drift toward you for the conversation that needs to be had.

or something like that.

the work has begun again in earnest. i'm finding my writing legs again -- sorting out the best times of day -- which is a bit of a challenge seeing as how myself and the children are sharing a computer. that's actually a good thing -- it means i piss about less when i do have computer time and can fiddle away in my notebooks in the other time...which is a lot of what i like best anyway. i've chosen to work on what began as my NaNoWriMo 2010 project -- it won out for a secondary character that i suddenly became fond of. then today, someone stepped out from the edge of a clearing that i hadn't intended to matter but suddenly does. very much.  i love when that happens.

i watched the third Narnia movie this weekend...and the Railway Children. there's nothing quite like beautiful old stories to make you want to get back to writing.

i've written a few poems as well.

it's good to be back and even better to realize how this is exactly what i want to be doing.

the bones of a poem rattle noisily -- like the efforts of a shaman summoning wisdom from beyond the veil.

i find myself  wanting to retreat further into the depths of my soul-cave...craving the solace of a flickering fire and the wind howling through cracks in the granite.

i'm too long on the Outside.

i'm too long threading a needle to mend a friendship in tatters....one that doesn't want mending after all.

but there are appointments to keep and words yet to weave.  the whisper of truth grows louder and i feel the shift of the earth beneath my feet as a different trail shimmers on the horizon.

the bones rattle louder and i keep walking.

forgotten

i set this place aside for a while.  perhaps not consciously at first, but then it went under a dust sheet and i quietly imagined it didn't exist.

which is how it's been for me and my words this last few months. something about this space was connected to my writing.....it felt like the place where it belonged. i'd like it to be somewhere quiet that i can come and let the thoughts drift out of my fingertips.

beautiful adie tells it well...this push-pull for those of us who can write....who are drawn to write...who, by whatever means, must write; and how it's not altogether voluntary and not always invited.  there are more people who don't understand this than those who do.

i sometimes get anxious about not writing. i berate myself for 'wasting' this ability -- for squandering what i've been given. i get caught up in the 'ought-to'.  i didn't always feel this way. there was a time when i wrote because i had a story to tell.

i think the worst thing i ever did was take a creative writing class. truly, it ruined me.

i've written a novel. it's written for the tween/YA market {i've a whole other post about these arbitrary categories and the bollocks that is traditional publishing}. it's well-written, follows all the rules, has a good story and some interesting characters. by all accounts, after a few trips around the appropriate circles, i imagine it would likely be published.

and yet there it sits. waiting. one rejection down and me not arsed to send it out again. {which has nothing at all to do with the rejection, that doesn't bother me at all}

what i really want to do is write stories without ever intending them to be formally published. i would like to reclaim the freedom of that. if i could, i'd step into my way-back machine and never take that first class. i would have found something else to do in the evenings while i was gestating Savannah. because i think that the stories of my heart aren't necessarily the kind that most editors would want to invest in. oddly, this pleases me.

i get tired of hearing myself bemoan this point though -- i've gone up and down and around the issue so many times i'm sick of myself. 

so i've decided just to get on with it.

some of it might turn up here. most of it probably won't.  either way, it's a step in the right direction.

thank you, adie -- and you, tibbie...for reminding me of the magic.

divinity in decluttering

there really is something of a reverent feel to space once it has been stripped of it's extraneous *stuff*. and as i carted bags to the car for donation and armloads to the curb for Goods Exchange Day, i felt a lightness descending. which is both literal and metaphorical.

lessons in non-attachment are hard ones for me - i am, by nature, rather nostalgic and having a mother who was occasionally ruthless in her disposal of my childhood treasures - i tend to hang onto stuff that is just that, 'stuff' - forgetting that the memories are in my heart and don't need the physical object to remain....

~*~

a memory....

I had a ride-on dog that I'd named Clive. He was a bloodhound, i think...and had lovely spongy droopy ears and I would trundle about the neighbourhood on him, scuffing my shoes and wearing holes in the legs of my trousers by getting them stuck in his wheels. (this was the 70's after all...I'm sure if I hadn't been wearing bell-bottoms it wouldn't have been an issue.). And as much-loved toys often do, he became really quite worn. I don't remember him as such, but this is what I've been told. His tail had fallen away...the sponge becoming disengaged from the spring inside and the tread on his wheels were worn making him rattle and bounce. So it was decided that he was too tired and he was place unceremoniously on the rubbish heap -- from which I repeatedly removed him. I vaguely recall plotting to run away and hide him. But, being the child I was, I gave him up...despite the grief being as real as if he'd been alive. Which, in most ways, he was to a small, imaginative girl who always wanted a dog of her own but wasn't allowed one.

I've never forgotten Clive -- and because of him, very little that has been donated or sent to the recyle/reuse pile belongs to my children -- and of the things that did, all were given freely and with their blessing. It's a small thing -- and it means we still probably have more *stuff* than we need -- but at least they know that their treasures matter.

~*~

a few years ago, the story of Clive came up at a family gathering. enough time has passed that we can joke about it and my mom even apologized for throwing him out and so all is forgiven. but it's interesting to me to see how our experiences frame the way we parent our own children and how, despite (for all intents and purposes) having a wonderful childhood, i want my own kids to have a much different one.

i think that's why the space left by the removing of the *stuff* today, contains a crisp, white energy and not one filled with the tears of loss. indeed, there is a touch of the divine in this.