Transitions and Transformations

Weather: Summer’s come early! We’re bouncing around in the 70s and 80s. Drought conditions are not fun, though.

So I’ve fallen off posting here, but there have been numerous things going on that have made me set aside writing for a bit.

My age and health issues have caught up with me in the most ignominious fashion. Being a “woman of a certain age” means there are bodily and emotional changes that are happening right now, arriving with all the subtlety of a train wreck and the chaos of a zombie apocalypse. It ain’t pretty on any level.

Physically, I’m dealing with all sorts of random body aches, pains and system errors (thanks, hormones.) Emotionally, my anxiety has been showing up like random bear attacks out of the blue. Needless to say, my recent foray to the doctor resulted in new meds for my blood pressure and a second attempt at anxiety medication (it’s working this time! Whew!). After several months of feeling like crap and running the gauntlet with emotional and mental issues, I’m finally back on steady ground. It’s a weird relief not feeling like the earth is about to upend on you daily.

I’m pulling away from a lot of social media immersion, and doing more study and research. I hadn’t realized how much I’d fallen off reading until I did a small assessment of my “to be read” list of books and found the number was…disheartening. So I’m spending more time with my nose in a book rather than staring at a screen. FOMO is fading as the days go by.

Part of what fueled that shift was hearing a news report recently on aging, and it turns out that screen time, the rapid digestion of information and the resultant stress can actually cause your hippocampus (which handles learning and memory) to shrink. Reading and doing focused work, creative or otherwise, actually maintains it through building new neural pathways. The hippocampus is literally a “use it or lose it” structure in your brain, and there is some evidence that this shrinkage can lead to a higher chance of developing dementia. Needless to say, I fear that type of deterioration in my elder years, so I’m heading back to doing more things that keep my brain healthy rather than passively entertaining it. (I will err on the side of caution when it comes to these things.)

Another thing that has changed is that I’m utilizing patience much more these days. There is little that is “hair on fire” necessary or immediate happening right now. (Part of my annoyance with social media is the aspect that EVERYTHING is an immediate concern and OMG NEEDS TO BE DEALT WITH RIGHT NOW!) The doom scrolling stops here, as far as I’m concerned.

My rediscovery of my witchy roots is taking a front seat these days. I’m growing herbs, with the intent of using them for healing teas and in magical endeavors. I’m doing some deep research into ancestral practices and spending more time out doors, getting in touch with nature and the elements again. It’s balm to my soul to be honest. Music has also been helping. It’s amazing the meditative and healing energy you can get from the right piece of music. You never know what will speak to you.

Transitions and transformations happen in a escalating way, usually building exponentially as you start putting more effort into them. Our minimization process in the house has led to us shedding several large chunks of our wardrobe and scaling back on things that have been gathering dust for years. I’m finding that my emotional attachment to things is much easier to dissolve than I thought, especially where worn out clothing is concerned. I’ve parted with t-shirts I’ve carried around for years, that were no better than rags, but I liked the image on the front, or it reminded me of some place or event that I had attended. If I hadn’t worn it in years, why did I still have it? Out it went. Books too. I’ve parted with books and movies and music….and haven’t batted an eye. I don’t need to keep it to remind me I enjoyed it. Especially if I haven’t cracked it out for a look in the past 6 years.

Trust me, I don’t fault anyone else who thinks I’m nuts or couldn’t do the same themselves. You have to be ready to do this sort of deep purge. And I am ready. If you’re not, there’s no criticism from me.

My entire intent with everything above is to get me pared back to who I am now, and to create space to explore that. The husbeast and I are not ones for living in the past or lugging our entire history around with us. We’re renovating the house to reflect who we are now. We’re ridding ourselves of outdated or unused things because other might find use in them. I don’t have enough hours in the day to read all the new books I have or watch all the unwatched films and shows that are waiting for me. When would I have time to re-read or re-watch 30+ years of books and films? Plus, I need to find time to create and market and new art and jewelry as well! Time is like a pie and the more pieces you carve it into, the less time you have to spend on each.

Travel is also in the near future for the husbeast and I. We haven’t taken a proper vacation for just the two of us in well over 10 years. It’s time. The pandemic is pretty much going away slowly, and with both of us fully vaccinated, it’s time to hit the road. We have a long list of places to go visit, some here in Michigan, others all across the country. We’re probably gonna dust off our passports soon as well, and go visit Canada and the mother countries (England, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland).

I’m feeling hopeful and excited about things again. I’m going to do what I can to use my skills to help others, and get out and be in the world again. I feel like I’ve been living in a cave with a computer for too long. Time to see the actual world without a screen in the way.

Embracing The Real You

Weather: well it’s still a rollercoaster. Warm, then cold. Rain, then snow. Then warm again. April woke up and chose chaos.

I suppose the title is a gimme. We all seem to be pursuing that elusive sense of authenticity. We are raised within the confines of our parents and society’s expectations and limitations. Not all of that is necessarily bad, but a little of us gets squelched in the process.

Some things we are interested in are deemed unworthy, or unacceptable. Our self-identification, beliefs and outward appearances are kept strictly in the lines of what they deemed acceptable or at least what was not going to embarrass them. Sometimes it was just cultural norms they were raised with and feel should be perpetuated, regardless of how outdated. Sometimes it’s religious beliefs, or just simply norms that they see other people in the community setting as “standard”.

True, there are things that are good things to maintain throughout time, things regulated by law and by just being a decent human.

Ultimately, at some point, once you have left the place where you were raised, whether for school, or just moving out into your own place, you need to reassess what it means to be you and not a projection of what they think you should be.

I’m a Cis-Het woman, so I never had to wrangle with that aspect of my identity. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t struggled with asserting certain parts of my personality or beliefs system in a way that would make me happy, but make others a little uncomfortable. The hardest thing I deal with on the daily, and is the source of my anxiety disorder, is the fear of disappointing others. It took a long time to realize that the only person I was actually disappointing was myself.

It took me until I was in my 40s to really get to the place where I was tired of trying to maintain 2 personas, one for myself and one for others. I started slowly getting more vocal in my stances on politics and religion. I started wearing the clothes I wanted to wear, coloring my hair, and pursuing things that made me happy, outlets for my creative brain that had been whirling, trapped in my head for so long.

Now I’m approaching my mid 50s and wear my blue streaked hair with pride. I can put “Witch” in my social media bios with no hesitance. I can stand strong in my allyship with the LGBTQIA+ community and spend my time working on making art and writing, knowing that I am starting to gain some income in those areas. I’m wrapping myself in the comfort of who I am and ignoring with a shrug and a knowing smile when people make snarky comments or disapprove with their looks. It’s not for them.

It’s my path. It’s my life. It impacts literally no one for me to be the person I always wanted to be and need to be. I encourage anyone who is starting this process to weigh out the pros and cons for them personally. I hope that everyone can ultimately shed that weight, the albatross of others’ expectations, that hangs around their necks. There is no condemnation for those who are not ready, or are not in a safe position to do so. Join us when you can. It’s a beautiful and peaceful place to be, when you are ready.

Savage Daughters

Weather: We’re slowly warming up to spring, though we had a touch of SNOW! SNOW, I SAY! to keep us on our toes.

I mentioned in my previous post that I would continue on my essays about housecleaning for Spring. Last post was about the physical. This will be more about the spiritual.

The title above is in reference to a song that I heard on TikTok and went in search of because it touched me so deeply. It’s a song written by Wyndreth Berginsdottir, who sings songs in the style of old Norse tunes.

The first verse is this:

I am my mother’s savage daughter
The one who runs barefoot
Cursing sharp stones

I am my mother’s savage daughter
I will not cut my hair
I will not lower my voice

My mother’s child is a savage
She looks for her omens in the colors of stones
In the faces of cats, in the falling of leaves
In the dancing of fire
In the curve of old bones

Wyndreth Berginsdottir

It’s a much longer piece and the rest of the lyrics are rife with references to heathen songs, and witchcraft and old things reawakening inside of us. It hit a nerve for me. My husband was the first to hear it and made sure he sent it to me, knowing that it would strike a chord.

You see, I come from a long line of strong women, Nordic on 3 sides (Swedish, Danish and Finnish). There’s an innate attitude of DIY and perseverance that borders on self-destructive stubbornness in all of us, and I am not immune from the effects or repercussions. I’ve inherited blue/green eyes from my great grandmother, and bad knees and arthritis from this same family line. I research our lineages on all sides, and have tracked (with my late father’s research) the Swedish and Finnish lines back to the 1500s. I’m not an obsessive about the bloodlines, but I do find the patterns of behavior and recurrent facts fascinating.

But the relevant point is that I also inherited a deep respect for nature, a love of the stars and a deep affinity for the water, whether lakes, rivers or oceans. All of those things have managed to spread out tendrils into every aspect of my spirituality, and inform my creative pursuits.

My belief system has morphed and changed over the years. I was raised Methodist, got confirmed and everything. But my parents were very much of the mind that as I was growing up, I should learn about their beliefs, and then I could make an informed opinion about how I believed. Pretty damn progressive, truth be told. During the process of my confirmation, we attended (as a class) services at different denominations to show us some similarities amongst the religions. Even with all this, after confirmation, I started researching Egyptian gods, and deep diving into other mythologies, not sure what pantheons would find me, or what my burgeoning belief system was comprised of at the time. Christianity didn’t really work for me. I had a lot of respect for the tenets but didn’t see a lot of it being practiced. I dipped my toes in paganism, deep diving into the books of Raymond Buckland, Margot Adler, Scott Cunningham and several other authors of basic witchcraft and nature based religions. (This was back in the early 80s).

Still nothing really resonated. Bits and pieces latched on, and by the time I was in my late 20s, I’d kind of formed a bit of a pastiche that didn’t really seem to fit with any particular flavor of paganism. Wicca didn’t work for me, because the rules were just as rigid as Christianity (not the same type of rules, mind you, but the same rigid calendar of rituals and rules of behavior). I was reluctant to use the word “witch”, because there were multiple subdivisions there as well. So I kind of lumbered on, in my vague cloak of beliefs, a combination of philosophies that were pinched liberally from a lot of religions, without taking the applied practices. (Appropriation is not in my nature anyway. I don’t believe in half-assing things, especially where dipping your toes into someone else’s pool is concerned. There are a lot of negative repercussions there, and I’m not just talking about judgmental feedback on social media. Universal energies do not like to be disrespected, and you won’t like the consequences.) I picked up tarot, learned to create detailed astrology charts, and garnered an impressive number of tools & herbs. I’ve had many people cross my path, who tried to use their practice as ways to garner power or attention or just as a form of manipulation. Those people I studiously sidestepped and kept on my own path. I’m a deep studier and like to make sure I thoroughly understand something before I claim it as part of my practice.

So here I am, in my mid 50s and after a lot of deep conversations with people, and much reading and practice, I’ve come around to calling myself a witch. I fall into the category of Hedge Witch, or Forest Witch, with some shamanistic views, but I’m not really comfortable wearing any of those labels whole-cloth. I am very in touch with the natural energies that run through this world, and I respect the source of those energies, though I don’t try to personify those sources. Is that a vague enough sum up for you?

Now, after that lengthy trip down memory lane, let’s get back to the idea of spiritual housecleaning. I’ve become comfortable with who I am and what I believe and how I practice it. There has been an awakening of sorts the past few years, as though I finally got the right pins in the right slots to make everything click. It required a lot of scraping off other people’s opinions, judgements and condescension to get here. I still attend Mass with my husband for some holidays, more out of habit than practice. But one ritual, if framed in way that works for you, is not that unlike any other. The housecleaning that I talk about is needing to flex those muscles again, and get in touch with the energies that I felt and know deep inside. It’s about clearing out the dreck of self-destructive behavior and listening to the world as it hums alongside us. It’s clearing out the cynicism, and the anger. Reducing the negativity so I can hear the flow. It’s a tricky thing: hearing that, sensing it. You need to have peace of mind and stillness of thought. I do hear the voices of my ancestors in the waves of the water, and the healing nature of the women of my line in the thrumming of the earth and the connection to the life it feeds.

I don’t need anyone else to believe the way I do. I also don’t need their permission, or acceptance, or even their prayers to be in touch with what I consider a higher power. I also don’t need to proselytize my beliefs or condemn their beliefs. It’s a delicate balance, that could make things so much more easy if we could all stay in our lane. Harm none- it’s at the foundation of every belief system. Not everyone realizes it, or practices it, which is a shame.

I know that we all have a connection to each other, and to the earth and its life. That is where my spirituality lives. Moving forward, I am practicing my faith, for want of another term, as unapologetically as I can.

(art credit unknown. Search in process for credit)

Vaccines and Other Small Victories

Weather: So lovely and warm the past few days. Rainy as well, but we need it. (Midwestern thing. We say this every time it rains.)

Got my first dose of the Covid vaccine this past Tuesday: Moderna, even though I would have been fine with any of them. Haven’t suffered any side effects other than a bit of a sore arm and some fatigue. Worth it.

Please get vaccinated so we can finally get out of this quarantine hellscape. I know it’s going to still be some time until we are able to get back to less fraught interactions, but it’s a big step in the right direction. I’m still bitter over where we could have been at this point, but that’s a different post. And requires a lot of salty language I just don’t have time for right now.

I consider the vaccine one of my few small victories of late, mostly because it symbolizes a movement forward. Stagnancy has been a big problem for me and a lot of other people in my circle. Not because the will isn’t there, but for one reason or another (mostly Covid), the resources haven’t been there, or the players had scheduling or travel issues. Creativity has kind of gone in one of two directions: either exploding or flat out dying on the vine.

Trying to get a book written when you’re in a constant state of anxiety is a non-starter for me. Add in a foggy brain when trying to concoct mosaic designs or jewelry… you see where I’m going with this. I picked up crocheting to add to my stitch skills (along with cross-stitch needlework) but that’s become more therapeutic hobby than anything else.

So, small victory number two this week was finally getting my craft room/office organized. It still needs work, but I’ve conquered the nesting that was starting to happen. I can see the top of my crafting table and my filing cabinet. My desk is still in progress. It’s amazing how much easier it is to think and plan when you aren’t surrounded by clutter.

I’m starting to reach the headspace where I want less things around me and more space to create. I’m finding that value is coming in amount of time and what things mean to me. It took a long time to realize that I was holding onto things that were only valuable to me as something I could show to someone else. Like “look! I have this [book, item, picture etc].” to which they’d respond “that’s so cool!” and I could ride that validation for months. But most of my friends and family have seen the stuff and a lot of it is sitting collecting dust, not getting any use, or giving me any kind of satisfaction. In fact, I’ve started resenting its presence as a dust collector. Maturity? Anxiety? Boredom? Who knows. All I know is it’s not doing me any good just sitting on a shelf or stuck in a closet. So off to donation it goes, so someone else can give it some attention or love.

Small victories are sometimes better than the big ones in that they don’t come with as much work or sacrifice, yet give you a moment of satisfaction that you aren’t just standing still or spinning your wheels. We like to praise people to great levels when they accomplish something big, like ran a marathon or completed a college degree and yes, both those things are admirable and worth the compliments. But sometimes, when you’ve spent a week on the couch, depressed, or overwhelmed, and the dust and clutter is starting to seem insurmountable, sometimes just getting the coffee table cleared off and the dishes into the dishwasher can seem like crossing the finish line.

On the creative front, I’ve printed out several of my recent manuscripts in progress and I’m attempting to mark them up with a pen, rather than trying to squelch my easy distractions online. If I can get through a few pages each day, it feels like progress. If I can get some new scenes committed to paper and then transcribed into Scrivener, it seems like I might actually get the ball rolling again. I’m starting to get some design ideas for mosaics again. And I’ve moved my jewelry fixings into the craft room from the basement. It feels like with spring finally rearing its weary head, my malaise is evaporating. It feels a little like hope and possibility.

And sometimes…sometimes, that is all the taste of victory I need to get myself back into the battle. Bigger victories will come, but for now, I’ll keep grabbing a toehold where I can and leveraging myself upward.

Missed Opportunities

Weather: We’re finally MELTING! Temps above freezing and no snow in the forecast for a while. Whee! Spring is on the near horizon!

The impetus for writing this blog is bittersweet. I’ve been doing some genealogy work, picking up where my dad left off. He had filing cabinets full of hard copy, handwritten correspondence and tons of badly Xeroxed documentation– just folder after folder of family info for relatives so distantly related I’m going blind just trying to follow the threads. Thank the benevolent deities my dad had impeccable handwriting, thanks to all his years training in drafting.

I’ve been slowly uploading his info into Ancestry, trying to get a digital record of all his work, before the paper starts disintegrating. I wish he were here to consult with on some members of the family (Dad passed in 2006), since there are a lot with similar names and multiple marriages, resulting in a lot of children. Ook. Very convoluted. Plus add in several countries worth of documentation: Denmark, Sweden, Finland, England etc. I don’t speak the Scandinavian languages and my mum, who is Danish, is helpful, but also not available 24/7 to translate. (Time to get my language skills shored up!) So, it’s been getting to be more of an effort the further back I go. Dad had records back to at least the 1500s on several lines of the family. Fascinating, and frustrating, by turns.

Anyway, I had just brought home some more documentation from my mom’s house to start compiling and filling in the blanks on some relatives, when I came across a folder for my dad’s father, known as Grandpa Ted. He passed in 1978, so I was only 11 years old at the time. My grandmother had passed when I was six, so I really never got a chance to discuss family stuff with them or have the kind of talks about their past that you could have when you were in your twenties and knew the kind of follow-up questions that could garner all the interesting facts.

So finding this folder was a gold mine of info. My Grandpa had worked most of his life as an engineer, but had found a second sort of career in retirement as a weaver. He made tapestries in wool thread, that he dyed himself, on a loom that he built himself. With little training, he produced several wall hanging rugs, often depicting the mission churches that populated the countryside in New Mexico, where he and my grandmother moved when he retired. He also did a few pieces for local businesses. I have several of his rugs hanging in my house right now. They’re beautiful and intricate and the work is so detailed it sometimes blows my mind.

We grew up surrounded by these rugs. My mom still has several hanging in her house as well. But I never really gave much beyond their surface beauty a thought.

In this folder, in the dusty box I retrieved from my mom’s house, there were articles about his work, interviews with him, at length, talking about how he got into weaving, how he created the threads and the loom. I could hear him talking in a long forgotten memory of the sound of his voice. I got, as expected, teary eyed.

You see, I keep finding these little bit of info about my family that I didn’t know growing up. Information that would have been a comfort and a support of my creative impulses, that always had made me feel weird and outside the norm with my peers and what was expected of me. I just found out recently that my grandmother’s father (My great grandfather) was a mason. My dad was always a fantastic graphic designer, although he made his career in business instead. My mom is an artist in her own right, although she will wave off any compliments on her work.

I think the reason I titled this piece “Missed Opportunities” is because I sometimes feel a deep seated anger at the course that my life has taken, and how all these people have left my life before I was ever able to ask them about things that could have helped me figure out that being an artist wasn’t weird, or a fool’s pursuit, or was perfectly understandable considering the sheer amount of DNA in my system that came from creative people. I look now back at my family tree and it is literally rife with musicians, writers, artists of so many different disciplines, yet I grew up believing that creativity was fine as a hobby, but not a serious pursuit. Missed opportunities, that still ended up appearing, repeatedly, as I keep coming back to art and creative outlets, because that is the only pursuit that brings me joy and peace of mind. So many resources that I can only access second hand now. I miss them all, and I can only hope that even if my path has been divergent and obstacle strewn over the years, I am doing their memories proud.

If you feel the need, in your bones, to make things, to create– DO IT. Start as a hobby. Try it on. If you’re meant to do it, you’ll keep at it. It’s taken me until I was in my 40s to find my niche, but I have it now. And I won’t let anymore time pass as I keep working. Will I be good at all of it? Probably not. But my grandfather was an engineer for most of his life, and ended up a weaver in his later years. Maybe I’ll follow in his footsteps, and be a late bloomer. Thank the gods for my dad’s diligent recordkeeping. It’s just given me a huge boost to pursue what I love. And for that, I will always love him.

Miss you, Dad. Miss you, Grandpa. Hope my work does you proud.

Me With One of My Grandpa’s Rugs

The full rug. We called it the Lollipop Tree

Winter Musings

Weather: Oh dear god, SNOW SNOW AND MORE SNOW!!! AND COLD! (Typical Michigan Winter in other words!)

So I’ve fallen off the blogging bandwagon for a bit, mostly due to health and brain foo. Plus there’s been a metric ton of snow that has needed to be shoveled. So far, we have accumulated approximately 18 inches in general, with drifting as deep as two feet in spots. Doesn’t seem like a lot until you have to shovel it in single digit temps. But being a Midwesterner, you just layer up and get out and do it, knowing there are warm beverages and food waiting for you when it’s done. So much soup and tea and casseroles, I tell you!

Currently, the state of Texas is suffering from a rare snow storm — thanks Polar Vortex!– and a lot of people are in the dark and freezing due to some stupid bad planning on the part of their state government when it comes to their energy infrastructure. Help is being sent (Thanks, POTUS!) , but I feel terrible for the people who are not used to this cold and are not equipped for it. I have family and friends who are going on their third day of no power in 20º temps. Makes me angry when suffering is preventable and the powers that be take no accountability. But that’s a rant for another time. Keeping all the citizens in my thoughts. The officials are getting a different type of energy sent their way. Don’t piss of witches, is all I’m saying. 🧙🏻‍♀️🤨

It’s been a relatively normal winter here, but after 4 years of being spoiled., it feels worse for some reason. Probably a side effect of getting older. Feeling the cold in my joints more. Sigh.

On the project/ work front, I’m getting back to writing (I have so many damn books pending!) and working on crocheting/stitch craft in my spare time. I’m still trying to get my mosaic/jewelry work sorted. Time has gotten away from me, lost in some sort of navel gazing, self-pitying. stress induced haze. I started falling down the rabbit hole that is TikTok, mostly because the app doesn’t stress me out the way social media does. I’m finding that now that his orangeness is out of the WH, I’m finding the news to be a bit, refreshingly, boring. Not that there aren’t things that are still worrisome, or noteworthy, but I’m finding that knowing that there is someone at the top actually getting things back on track, I’m kinda less worried at an existential level. I’m also finding that I’m struggling with the self-flagellation that occurs when you exit the stress bubble and realize that not only did you lose an entire year to obsessing over every single news item, but you lost every inch of ground you had gained, health and wellness-wise, from the gym and therapy and overall living in the actual world. Of course we’re still dealing with Covid, so until both the husbeast and I are vaccinated, that is going to curtail a lot of activities I’d like to be doing. Soon, I hope. Both our parents are vaccinated so there’s a little relief there. My mum is 90% done with her cancer treatment. Things are starting to look up. Finances are still a bit sketchy, but we’re making do.

Bri and I have decided to start renovating the house. Mostly because we’re just fecking bored with the current design and colors, and a lot of our furniture is approaching the 20+ year wear and tear level. But there is another bludgeoning reality that we are probably going to be here for longer than we initially thought, so we are motivated to do some structural and cosmetic work here for us and, of course, for the future sale of the place. So I imagine there will be periodic house reno posts with photos in the upcoming year!

I’m also starting to pare down some skills I want to scrape the rust off, including some coding skills, research and professional skills that I haven’t used in a few years. Not sure what I want to start doing as a job (we need more income to finance our house reno addiction), but I’ll be blunt, I really am trying my damndest to get away from customer service. (Not easy and beggar’s can’t be choosers, yadda yadda yadda). We’ll see what happens.

Hope everyone is staying warm and safe in the current weird weather shenanigans! I promise to be a little more consistent with the posting here.

Spawning Day Musings & New Paths

Weather: Normal winter stuffs- Cold temps, wet conditions…a little too much gray for me, though.

So I celebrated my 54th trip around the sun this week, which was both harrowing and underwhelming at the same time. Next year will be a telling year, because the middle of the decade always turns out to be a significant year for me. This time? Well, I was dealing with some brand new health shenanigans (Oh hello, Menopause! Nice of you to show up ALL AT ONCE!) plus associated sleep issues and anxiety. FUN! 👍

I did the usual things I do on my birthday: Take an annual selfie which shows the accumulation of silver hairs and facial lines, check my “If you were born on this day” horoscope, and check my social media to respond to any well wishes that might have come in. The festive tinsel was minimal and surprisingly few lines considering the previous year, but the wear and tear shows elsewhere. The eyes are weary, the shoulders a little slumped, the smile a little brittle. It leaks out after a while.

I’m looking so forward to Wednesday this week, Inauguration Day. It seems like a lot of us have been holding our breath after last week’s asshole/sedition coup attempt. So many people look at the incident and seem shocked that it happened. I’m trying to figure out what they didn’t see the last few decades that a lot of us observed warily, that if you feed people resentment and lies and point fingers at the “others” who have caused all their problems. Accountability, responsibility and empathy have all been decimated, crushed under the wheels of self-righteous narcissistic butt-hurt, fueled by people with agendas that had little to do with helping anyone but themselves. Were there legitimate grievances? Of course. But the solutions provided were band-aids and didn’t require anyone to actually put some personal skin in the game. It’s time for some serious self- analysis. We are all a bit complicit in this. I know I haven’t done as much as I could to contribute to fixing some things. Not everything is out of our control, and the things that are, we can still help ease some of the problems a bit. Community is important and I think we’ve all kinda lost sight of that a bit.

The political issues aside, January so far has been actually not bad for me and the fam. We have managed to find ways to save money, and have a had a few small windfalls here and there that have taken a bit of the financial worries off our shoulders. The general overall sense has been one of wary optimism. I’ll take the small victories when they come.

Birthdays have a way of focusing on fresh starts, and coming to terms with the advance of time. I don’t fret getting older, but I do fret about losing time to get some things accomplished. And I worry that I’m not doing enough to get my health sorted. This year is no different, although I have already started working on a new path of sorts. The often described definition of Insanity is continuing to try the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Time to get off the hamster wheel and try things a new way. I’ve already changed up my daily routine and I’m slotting time for my project work in a way that is more structured than before.

Minimalism is playing a big part in my changes as well. Less about just getting rid of stuff, I’m throwing some Marie Kondo at it and deciding whether it serves a purpose before dispensing with it. Nostalgia is not a reason to keep things, nor is “it might be useful later”. I’ve been a notorious pack rat and collector for years. I literally just dumped 7 binders of collected fandom articles and photos that I’d carted around for decades. Felt a huge weight lift as I carted it all off to recycling. I still have the memories and a lot of it is available digitally. No loss there.

I’m also trying to change how much of a hermit I’ve become. It’s amazing how just stepping outside for a few moments, or taking a walk, clears my head and removes a lot of the cobwebs. If I find I’ve been sitting staring at my laptop or phone for too long, I ask myself, How is this helping you? What exactly is this time serving? And then I go do something else. It’s amazing how much better I feel afterwards.

All in all , I’m not weighing this new year down with lofty expectations. I’m more or less trying to change tactics and plans, and see if it actually helps me progress. If I’m doing better next week, than I am this week, I’ll consider that progress and probably a good positive change. More sleep, better food choices, more movement, more hydration, and stress reduction seems to be the best route for better health this year. So would that be my resolution list for now? Maybe. But I find as I get older, a positive mindset and not stressing over every little thing has a bigger impact on my productivity and my health than anything else. The only goals I need to meet is being alive and reasonably content. That seems like an easy enough bar to surmount.

Take a breath and treat yourself with some gentle respect. You’ll get a lot farther and you’ll be a lot happier.

New Year Musings 2021

Weather: ❄❄Murky, overcast and cold. Smells like snow soon. ❄❄

Usually at this time of year, I’m concocting clever threads to weave what looks like a coherent structure for the next year, something to build a sturdy foundation under. This year hasn’t really been given to any sort of constructive thinking, unfortunately.

Most of my thought processes have been at the “Survive, and hope for the least amount of pain” level. Hard to have a forward looking ideas or any sort of structure to your planning when you’re just trying to get through. But the past week, my brain decided to do me a solid and slip back into positive mode and supplying me with enough serotonin to actually see a way forward that didn’t end in a fiery train crash.

Although 2020 has been a wicked bad year on all counts, there have been good things here and there. I have no doubts that 2021 will limp into the house tomorrow and be in a healing mode for the full year. I fully expect things to slowly calm down and certain people grudgingly start getting back to normal day to day things, now that political crap is finally done. (And it is done. Don’t let the melodramatic flailing by certain parties convince you otherwise.) The economy will recover, but it will be slow, and much slower that most people would wish it. My hope is that the powers that be will be open to changing the structure of things to make them more resilient, but I have my doubts. ::slaps inner critic:: KNOCK IT OFF! We’re being HOPEFUL DAMMIT!

For myself, I am doing a whole perspective shift for 2021. I’m gonna be turning 54 in January, and approaching mid-decade is always a big shift for me. This year I’m going to pare my goals back to things that will move me in a new direction. I’ve been spinning my wheels for too long, trying to keep re-igniting the fire under old projects and it’s time to take a different approach. We’ve really let things slide on the studio front, partly due to various health interventions (Had my thumb joint reconstructed back in September and it’s finally just now getting back to being usable. ) Plus some family things have intervened. But the motivation and ideas are finally coming back so I’m jumping on that horse and riding it until I can’t anymore. Also taking a better view towards my health, both mental and physical.

I tend to navel gaze way too much. Having a background in the medical field (that didn’t result in a professional position) can be a spanner in the works sometimes. I have a bad tendency to fall down the rabbithole of self-diagnosis, although I stop short of being a hypochondriac. I don’t buy into symptoms that aren’t there and won’t cling to the worse case scenario. I also will listen to my doctor’s because they are awesome and have not steered me wrong once. But too much information can be just as burdensome as ignoring a problem. Mental health can take a hit from that as well, because the worries can settle in, but so can the exhaustion of dealing with daily illness. Positive mindset is not a cure for what ails you, but it can eliminate some of the dead end paths that an overactive mind can go down.

Physical improvement takes focus, so mental acrobatics need to be minimized. Spiritual health needs tending as well. The three are integrated and dependent so it’s important you keep them in their lanes and on track. Anxiety does not play well with that idea, so it’s important to keep my brain occupied with tasks and projects that I enjoy, so it doesn’t decide to find something to occupy itself. The quarantine hasn’t been good for keeping busy, especially when a lot of what I need to keep busy requires leaving the house. Also, worry is like kerosene on the anxiety fire, and there’s been a bit much on that front. (Granted some of it has been things out of my control, and some of it shouldn’t have occupied as much of my headspace as it did.)

If the brain is gonna keep percolating along on creative endeavors, I’ll need to get the bod to a healthier place as well. An active brain in a sluggish, unhealthy body is not a great combo to get you to the finish line. I’ve already made some changes to my eating habits (more home cooking, less ordering in; smaller portions, meal tracking, more water, less soda). Now I need to get this creaky form moving. How am I going to out run the zombies in the impending apocalypse in this shape? Food for thought indeed!

Anyway I look at it, it’s time for some profound necessary changes, and not the kind that I can faff around talking about anymore. Noble intentions are not very useful without any action being taken.

2021 has the potential to go whatever way we decide to put our efforts in. I’m choosing to just start moving forward, taking whatever obstacle that come, blowing them up with C4, and continuing moving. Done trying to tiptoe around things to keep everyone comfortable. I’m going to get my life back on track, and I hope that by paring back the things that are weighing me down will make the trip a little less exhausting.

Here’s to the new year! Point your sails into the wind and just keep sailing, brace for storms, and hope for sunny days with gentle winds. You’ll get to your destination if you just keep focused.

Stepping away from the Cult of Busy

Weather: Gloomy. Rainy. Gray. In other words- Midwestern Fall shifting into Winter. 🍁🍂❄🌨☃

Another perception shift came this week from reading my newest book acquisition: “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy” by Jenny Odell.

It’s a fantastic book about stepping away from the commercialization of Social Media and getting out of the Cult of Busy. She has a section that defines the difference between usefulness and worthiness that really struck me hard. Things we deem useful have potential to bring us rewards as defined by society: profit or fame or both. Things are therefore worthy if they are useful under those standards. But they’re not the same thing. Something can have worth without being useful in the societal definition.

Having been a writer and artist for a few decades now, I’ve come face to face with this discernment. When I tell people that I’m a full time artist, they look at me with a combination of curiosity and pity, usually followed by the inevitable question, “Yes, but what’s your REAL job?” Because it’s unfathomable that I might dedicate all my time, experience and resources to something that is not defined as “Useful” (i.e. a steady paycheck or a job with a perceived impressive title attached) or “worthy” (i.e. something that can’t in their eyes result in my being successful by their standards– either rich or famous).

The American drive for perceived success and its affiliated determined worth has denigrated a lot of fields and has also made it difficult for people to support working artists and writers in their pursuits. I know that growing up, I wanted to be a writer from a young age, but there was always the “pat on the head” and “That’s nice, but have a job to back it up”. I couldn’t pursue writing as a college degree, because “what kind of job will you be able to get with that?” was the constant refrain. I don’t begrudge the argument, because yes, you need to put food on the table as you crank out the wordcount. But if you curtail any routes to finesse your craft because the possible outcome is not a 5-6 figure paycheck right out the gate, you’re hamstringing the effort all together.

I’m a bad example, because I have a deep dive attitude towards any topic I find remotely interesting. Because I found lab work intriguing, and I was good at the math and science, I ended up deep into a pre-med program in college before realizing that I really didn’t have the commitment to be in the medical field. The science intrigued me, but I was in research mode, not practical mode. I could go that deep on music, movies, religion, etc. Didn’t mean I wanted to have a career in any of those fields. But embedded in my head was the caution not to pursue the one field I wanted to commit to- writing. Art came later, and I’ve pretty much kicked the “not useful” and “unworthy” labels to the curb, because I’ve managed to get fairly good at my art and make it profitable.

By society’s narrow standard, I can be considered productive, albeit I’m far from what people would define as successful. Still, I know how it feels to me to take something that is merely a mental construct that popped in my head one day and turn it into a concrete item in the world that I can sell or gift or show to others. That is a form of magic, when you think of it.

The Cult of Busy is a phrase that I’ve been kind of obsessed with lately. It is a term born out of the need to seem productive, so others will have a good opinion about your worth. If you’re not busy, you’re slacking or lazy, and therefore you are not of worth in this society. You don’t deserve praise or consideration, because something something bootstraps etc.

It’s such bullshit.

It’s why we’re spending countless hours at jobs we hate, trying to prove our worth for crumbs from our employer’s table, just so we can justify taking a day off once in a while. We don’t ask for more, lest we be deemed ungrateful, or worse, lazy. The fact that we’ve allowed others to dictate the narrative and make us dance to their little tune. When you take a moment to look at the upper ranks and how much they earn and, let’s be frank, how little they do to earn it, you will get resentful and angry. And it’s totally justified.

It’s not about rich versus poor, though economic inequality does figure in. (And no I’m not suggesting paying everyone EQUALLY, I’m suggesting paying everyone FAIRLY as in, commensurate with their EFFORT, not their job title.) This is more about having a class situation where the entire structure is predicated on one level dictating the definitions of worth, usefulness and what constitutes an acceptable level of comfort for others. The problem is, we’ve accepted their definitions and have let ourselves be limited by them. It’s quashed creativity and innovation, making people think that those lines of thought are not beneficial to the status quo and reinforcing it by putting their livelihoods on the hook to accept that belief.

I hope that in the very near future, and I see signs of it showing up in the younger generation, that this narrative will start crumbling and we can start forging a new one, based on allowing people to pursue their endeavors with wholehearted commitment and support. Hobbies fall away quickly, but they allow us to test what our real level of commitment is to a field of interest. Not every one of us is going to be a creative, but the ones who have the ability, commitment, and resources available to pursue them can have just as big an impact on our society going forward as those in business and economics. And those who choose to pursue hands on work, should be lauded as much as those who sit at a computer all day. Work is defined by the effort put in, not the false narrative of wealth or prestige of title.

So…guess I had a lot of thoughts about this, huh?

Hacking Anxiety

Weather: Windy, oh so WINDY! and rollercoaster temps. We hit the mid 60s today! 😳 But we’re back to normal temps soon. Winter will be here soon.

So I’ve been battling with a combo of anxiety, gastritis and peri-menopause symptoms lately. Not a great menu of things to be wading through at the same time.

I’ve been taking steps to combat all three, involving less online time, better eating choices and more sleep, the usual suspects to start with.

This morning , I found myself skimming through my Pinterest, which tends to be inoffensive since the algorithms keep it to suggestions of what I already like and look for, thus less anxiety inducing things. I came across a image that had a bit of advice on it, and one line stuck with me, “Your brain seeks safety, not happiness”. It has more to do with brain structure and chemistry than the usual mindfulness take. And it struck me how that plays into how my body physically responds to stress. I know it’s my brain reacting to my being overwhelmed as being a sign of danger, then the amygdala getting involved, followed by a dump of adrenaline and cortisol into my system which finally triggers the heart racing, blood pressure spikes and fight/flight response. Stupid brain. 🧠🤛 I mean, I understand that the brain is merely responding on a visceral level to the data it’s receiving, and it might only interpret it at a basic survival level.

Still. Stupid Brain. Grumble.

Ironically, as I was going through my email this afternoon, I saw a newsletter show up that had several articles linked inside that were dealing with topics I had just been discussing. One in particular I found helpful, since it was dealing with how to circumnavigate the chemistry in my brain that had been de-railing me:
15 Creative Ways to Stop Overthinking Things

It gave some very helpful tips on how to break out of the anxiety spiral I sometimes find myself stuck in. As a result, I’m also planning on adding more getting outside, even if it’s just to stand on my back deck and breath in the fresh air. I’ve found that just that minimal time helps knock some of the stress boulders off my shoulders.

I mean, the other night I was having a bit of an anxiety attack, dealing with the usual symptoms- mild nausea, elevated heartbeat, feelings of dread- and the Husbeast asked for some help getting the trash and recycling out. Instead of sitting and just giving into the spiral, I got up and helped carry things out to our bins, past our garage. The night was cool, but not cold. The stars were out. It was dark and quiet. And by the time I walked back in the house, I realized my shoulders were no longer tight and my chest had loosened up. It was kinda magical in a sense.

Not saying that the outdoors is a replacement for meds or therapy if you need it, but I’m saying that stepping out of the house for a brief moment seems to at least disrupt the cycle of anxiety for me. It can be something entirely else for you. The key thing is breaking the spiral. It reasserts reality for a moment. It can be the difference between drowning in the chemistry or getting a toehold on solid ground.

I was in therapy for a year, dealing with long term anxiety and medical PTSD (stemming from my aneurysm a few years ago). I learned excellent coping skills. But sometimes a new stressor comes through or comes in multiples and even the best coping skills collapse. So it’s always a good thing to have additional tools behind emergency glass you can break if your frontline fails. Try other things, like breathing, visualizing and taking a walk. Find what works for you. I’m going to be focusing on reducing the stressors I can and figuring out how to handle the ones I can’t.

Be safe and healthy, friends.