Man oh man it was difficult to get through this weekend’s posting schedule. Posting every day is no easy task. If I can get through this month of Nablopomo, which is short speak for National Blog Posting Month, then posting 5 days a week which is my ultimate goal and one of the reasons NaBloPoMo is such a good idea for me to do, will be no big deal. It is just getting into the groove of it that is difficult. Writing in and of itself has rarely been difficult for me, and for that I am very, very thankful. But writing on a schedule has been less than easy at times these past 22 years when I have been raising my daughter. When she needs something I really try to drop everything and be there for her. But just as with writing every day, the task has been met with various levels of success through the years.
“Various levels of success,” I like that phrase. Life is always complex and at times goals compete amongst themselves. Who am I kidding? Goals always compete amongst themselves. Five years ago I was in the middle of a year where I was trying to mother turbulent teen without a map, coming to grips with a marriage that could very well have failed, as well as coming to terms with my own childhood traumas and medical abuse and the depression that has traveled with me throughout my life since those experiences while also helping start a house across the country in Washington, D.C. for women peace activists who wanted to have a place to live and from which to jointly plan and execute congressional visits, actions, and demonstrations, and then having to decide to move across the country away from my husband and daughter to take care of my 92 year old mother in her home for the last few months of her life.
Today I woke up at an ungodly hour and went to the gym to work out with a trainer so that I can regain my health and vigor to the greatest extent possible. I had to be back at my house by 7:15 a.m. so my daughter could take my car to the university. Her car just isn’t safe to drive any longer and isn’t worth the repair cost. But because I was at the gym so early, when I walked to my car after the workout, there were only sprinkles of raindrops coming from the overcast sky. I had missed the deluge that was supposed to be coming early this morning. Tucson’s winter rains are starting early this year. I noted the layers upon layers of gray cloud cover obscuring a view of all but the foothills of the various mountain ranges that surround the Tucson Basin. The sun was just a glowing yellow spot just over the Rincons to the east. Then when I looked west there was a magnificent half arc of a rainbow reaching down to the ground in front of the Tucson Mountains. It pierced a beautiful puffy white cloud half way down its arc, then reappeared and expanded into brilliant, distinct streams of color. I had to smile.
This blog entry wrote itself on the 5 minutes drive home. I bemoaned not having a camera with me, and my phone with its camera was in the trunk even but smiles broke the hold of my inner grump because the week was starting out well after a weekend when the words just didn’t want to come until very late in the day, when I struggled to find them so that I could succeed in my NaBloPoMo goal. I would have a post about how wonderful it is when rainbows greet you in the morning as well as the post I had all ready planned to write for the day done before noon, and I would probably have time to work on my book this morning too. I like success, even little bits of it, as it, along with rainbows and the glow of oxygen in my brain after a work out, help me frame everything in a more positive light.
