Women's Legacy Project

Our Lives Change The World

transition

My Writing Life Resumes

Blogging & Writing

I am edging back into the writing life, and I am raring to go.
These last few months have presented wonderful opportunities to me. I believe I have made the best use possible of these gifts.  I found a job when looked for one.  I was able to work and tend to sad family obligations as well.  Flexibility is a treasure that few people on this Earth enjoy.  We are more and more and more fully-scheduled and consumed by just making ends meet.
Last summer I thought I was just inquiring about a position to have a bit more ease in budgeting after a celebratory month-long trip across country with my husband.  A month of travel  depleted our coffers so that there was less wiggle room in budgets and covering unexpected expenses.  I interviewed for a position just before the trip and soon after I returned, I was offered a six month position in a digitization project at a local university library.  The offer was made even though I shared that I would probably have to take time off without much notice as a brother of mine I hadjust visited during part of the month travels was in hospice.
The wages were not high, but the work was easy and allowed me to spend the days listening to audio books as I compared print and digital copies of dissertations and theses. The other workers on the project were good company and smart women.  In this case, the pink collar ghetto was not so bad other than pay and benefits.  Yes, just those basic reasons for working.
An unexpected benefit of taking this job was being able to listen to audio versions of many of the books I had not been able to find time to actually read in the last few years.

Schedule and Discipline

Other reasons I decided to work full-time, for someone other than myself, included some disorganization and uncertainty that had started to erode at my productivity and focus.direction-255294_1280 (1)
It might seem backwards, but being unable to have the time to do everything I personally wanted to do allowed me to know what I most valued, what I most missed doing.
Sometimes taking a step back from a situation creates an opening that can be filled by inspiration and uncluttered thought.  I am a big fan of allowing cream to rise.
I knew that establishing a firm schedule for a few months would help me keep a schedule after the job ended.

Focus

As a person with depression I benefitted from the focus work created.  As a writer I draw ideas, words, everything I do or create, from inside myself and the parts of life that are closest to me.  A summer visit back to my hometown made it quite apparent that my brother was dying.  I lived 2000 miles away.  I began to write about him.  The sadness and memories of our how our dysfunctional family shaped our lives can consume me if I let it.

Acceptance

I am pleased that I could write cathartically and meaningfully about him.  I cherish the gift of being able to write well.  But there is a part of me that wants to allow deceased loved ones to transition in peace.  I know the transition occurs in my mind. I do not want to encourage the spirit of my loved one to hang around because I cannot let go.  I do not know if this is real.  But I feel it.  I had a tremendously hard time letting go of a dear high school friend who died shortly after her 21st birthday.  It took years to be able to release her from being in constantly in my thoughts and dreams.

Trusting Myself

In the last few years I have learned to trust my instincts, so I limited myself during this stressful time shortly after the funeral and for several weeks into the new year.  I did not force myself to do more than I could easily do.  Easy is not something I do well.  But I allowed myself to only do one job, to watch TV, play games on my laptop, and not try to do anything but go to work and do basic household tasks.  I have heard that some people actually live their entire lives this way.

Results

What came out of this self-enforced respite is a new direction and a surety of purpose that took me by surprise.  I will write about what I discovered and am launching.  All I can say today is that I am launching a new site and cannot wait until I can share more information about this logical next step in my writing and business life.
 

From Ashes I Rise

Uncategorized

I started writing this post a few days ago on Ash Wednesday. We are now into the season of Lent. I don't know exactly what that means for Catholics. I'm not Catholic. I'm not exactly a NONE either. What's a NONE? It is a term derived from when a person checks “None of the Above” when asked to check a box on a form to denote your religion. I just discovered the term on Ash Wednesday when I zipped off to check out the blog of a solo RVer. I want to be her when I grow up, except I want the RV to be a solar powered electric powered RV.

I've written previously in other places, if you follow my writing, about being unwittingly indoctrinated as a child into a sort of secular Anabaptist mindset. I've also mentioned that I have Amish mitochondrial DNA. Because of these givens in my life I never had much of an acquaintance with Lent. The notion seemed sort of contrarian to me. It is Spring where I live, even where Spring will not sproing for several weeks, the midpoint of Winter's transition into Spring has passed. Agrarian practices that shaped our still observed calendar require the preparation of the farmstead and homestead for birthing and planting. Now is a traditional time for strategizing about how to sustain life by carefully planned growth. Perhaps that is what Lent is all about way down deep. I don't know. What I do know is that I have thought a great deal about consciously structuring my life, Catholicism, the farse that is quickly becoming the way of at least one half of the political machine in Washington, D.C., and how women can be the savior of all of the world that is touched by any one of these topics.

The problem I am facing is that I pay attention… to too many things, and allow far too many of these things to which I pay attention to touch my psyche. I suspect that many women do this, and some men too. The fact is, in my humble opinion, some of the human population has to be wired to anticipate, integrate, and yes, sometimes even worry. We wouldn't have made it this far unless some of us obcess about what might be.

Because I have experienced episodes of depression throughout my lifetime, my analytic nature can mistake the valid anticipation I experience when paying attention to and assessing patterns and trends in society. I can ramp up to the over-thinking called worry and on rare occasions progress to despair totally apart from anything related to a imbalance I have which my physician and I successfully treat with an SSRI medication.

Being aware of how fucked up the world is can lead to a depressed state. This rational reaction to distinct trajectories of cultural processes in the world is probably distinct from the ongoing depression I have experienced since I was a preteen.

The last couple weeks have found me poundering whether the funk I've been in is depression or disillusionment. After very serious reflection, I have determined that I am disillusioned.

Government is totally disfunctional: obstruction, vengeance, and greedy corruption when we need to be addressing downright un-American ever-widening hierarchical class structure. Democracy is in danger if we don't outmaneuver the evil, mega-rich, corporatist ass-hats who are attempting to overthrow our Representative Democracy, which, though flawed, is the best form of mega-government around because it allows us to evolve.

And I've also been assessing what has happened since I first marched with CODEPINK Women for Peace in late Winter of 2003 as the Bush administration's relentless, irrational drumbeat toward war with Iraq got closer and closer to their goal. I'm going to do a Linky Tool's Blog Hop for March 8th, 2013, International Women's Day and the anniversary of the day when CODEPINK first marched. I marched with them that day.

The changes these Koch-Adelson-Murdoch loving greedy bastards have supported are Un-American and I will do everything in my power to avoid supporting them. I tend to support the viewpoint that says that energy used to work against something actually supports that something because energy is energy period. The only time I have deviated from this is when I participated in protests as a CODEPINK member and that was because information was being suppressed and taking it to the street was necessary to get the information out about the lies told to get us into the Iraq War. Information is neither pro or con, it just is. I'm very glad Hubris was aired last evening. It is very important we do not forget what happened in this fabricated and unfinanced war. The Bush Tax cuts also deserve this type of review. Deregulation,the war and the tax cuts created the financial mess we are in now, and that the same party that promoted all these debacles now wants the poor, working poor and the middle class to pay for their follies. I am viscerably disturbed by this.

One other thing that makes me physically queasy is that people are all abuzz about the abdication of the head an archaic 4th Century construction that solidified political and military control by incorporating religious control into oppressive rule and building empire. The man abdicating his supreme rule was a member of Hitler youth and as a Cardinal he was the ultimate authority over pedaphile priests who were enabled to rape children time and again by church orchestrated moves from place to place. With the war on women raging, and the crimes perpetrated by the Church in covering up child rape by priests, I wonder how any woman can call herself Catholic.

So forgive my lack of cheery or technical posts in the past few days. I've been thinking about stuff, more stuff, and even more stuff. It makes me sad… which is very distinct from depression.

 

Transition Happens

Creekside Commentary, Late Boomer

Though I do not ride horses, I’m back in the saddle again. Sayings such as this just seem to be appropriate for Tucson dwellers. This time of year re-emphasizes my sense of place on the globe. I’m quite conscious of living in the South Western United States. As I raked the decadently well-watered grassy patch in our backyard yesterday, I wore shorts and a sleeveless top. Sunny and mild late fall here in Southern Arizona is strikingly different from the cold, snowy lead up to Christmas that was usual in my childhood in Northern Indiana.
My fall fog has lifted and though I’ve received disappointing news about the Holidays, my outlook is better than it has been in quite a few weeks. My s-daughter and son-in-law and their twin girls will not be coming to Arizona for Christmas. Living 2500 miles from grandchildren is difficult. My b-daughter cannot come from just this side of the great white north for Christmas because she is the most recent hire where she works and cannot take additional time off at Christmas. I’m hoping to see her in January for her birthday, but this is not a sure thing by any means.
As a Later Born Baby Boomer who is done nesting this year has been an extended rite of passage for me. It has been wonderful and horrible all at the same time. Moving my daughter to her first home across the country with her significant other after her college graduation was a fun adventure. And I reconnected with old friends that I decided to look up as I was passing through Chicago. That was wonderful. A quick trip through Northern Indiana, where I grew up, to visit family was not so fun. The declining health of my two remaining siblings, who are 9 and 18 years older than me was apparent. A 40 year old nephew of mine passed away. Our dogs who were like family were swarmed by Africanized bees. One survived.
Hubby and I began the next, not at all well planned, phase of our lives that included a road trip to his old family farm in Tennessee. That stop was followed by a horrible experience with old friends and a previous spouse’s current spouse who threatened me with violence and later became violent with Hubby while we were visiting Hubby’s old home town (not in TN.) That experience limited out ability to visit our grandchildren which was heart-breaking, and for me that sad shock it was also coupled with my finding out, when attempting to track down my brother who is closest in age to me, that he had been in a VA hospital for the last 6 months. A visit with my eldest brother who recognized me but was not really able to carry on a conversation capped off my understanding the family of my birth no longer existed.
Thank heavens our visit with our daughter in Minnesota was wonderful as was the trip to and from NY that I took by myself to attend a blogging conference when Hubby and I parted vacation ways in MN. He continued the last leg of road trip solo and I traveled by train to a blogging conference on the East Coast with a quick trip back through Indiana to follow up with my brother in the V.A. hospital.
A new puppy and a trip to “Mexican Riviera” filled the fall with activity that kept me from falling too far into the depression that decided to visit me this auturm after several years without it showing up rounded out a year filled with travel and learning. This has not been the year I had planned it to be. My book isn’t finished and my sites are not where I had planned for them to be.
There is a lesson to be learned in all of this. I just haven’t distilled it all down into a single bit of truth I can carry forward with me as yet unless it is: Transition happens.
 
 
 
 
 

Jobs, Drudgery or Dance?

Creekside Commentary, Done Nesting

I got a call from Zilla this a.m. She got the job! I don’t write as much about being a Mommy Blogger as I could have if I would have had I been a blogger rather than a writer for print publications when my lil’ darlin’ was small back in the Dark Ages. But I am still a Mommy Blogger and will always be one, because I am a mother and a writer.
There is nothing more beautiful in the world than the bright,happy morning voice of my daughter. She is usually a bit grumpy in the mornings, but when she wakes up happy the whole world wakes up happy.
I woke up this morning to the bright clear voice of my Zilla. From the first resounding phoneme, I knew that she had been hired for the job she’s been hoping and interviewing for over the last few weeks. This is a big deal… for oh so many reasons.
My girl always did have her own timetable for everything. She decided to graduate from High School a year early. She made this decision a few weeks before the end of her Junior year. She received her diploma from University in December, and she then moved to Minnesota, in January, to be with her beloved, Tree Boy. She had been applying to graduate programs in Speech Pathology while moving in spite of being more attuned to and tending to ace her audiology courses. Dame Fortuna intervened this time and said quite clearly to her, “Slow your jets, Hot Rod.” By the time she was receiving ding letters from the graduate schools, she had realized on her own that her real passion is audiology.
She’d just turned 22 in January. I realized that she was oh so young and making oh so big career and life path changes. I was actually relieved that she would have more time to decide what her career path should be as she and Tree Boy plan their lives together. He will go to grad school in a Natural Resources program.
She did land a job in a bank within a couple weeks of moving to Minnesota. That was good, very good, in this economy with so many people, both under-employed and unemployed, competing for every job. But, boy-oh-boy, was this not their ideal life. Squeaking by and needing to request our help when ends just didn’t meet was not what we wanted for her. We were willing to help her because she wanted to go into the relationship with Tree Boy on a 50/50 basis financially. I understood that desire and supported her in this belief as much as possible. I had stayed in relationships in the past because I felt I had no options and no financial, social, or familial support system.
The strain this was putting on Hubby’s and my budget and relationship was significant. But you do what you have to do and hope and plan for better times, right? Zilla kept applying for better jobs all the while working at the bank. She was part time at the bank and somehow, miraculously, would usually get almost 40 hours. The new American work week became really clear for during with her acquaintance with the 38 hour work week that means an employee has no guaranteed schedule, a pay scale that is based on temp and part time labor, no benefits, with the only certainty being that all the frogs in the pond fighting for not enough flies to feed them all. A second job was always appealing but how do you schedule two jobs without guaranteed schedules.
I remember when vacation and perks determined what job a person decided to take. The corporatocracy has eroded the American Dream. A nation of part-time job insecurities and stress on the average American that eats away at energy and the ability to live a good life beyond the walls of a shop or office.
But for me there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Zilla landed a position that has just been created. At least she was smart enough to study a subject for which there will be a growing base of jobs for the foreseeable future. She will be working as an Audiological Assistant. Eventually this will help her get into a grad school of her choosing, but in the mean while, she will get to work with the nuts and bolts of hearing amplification and clarification equipment and talk to the people who depend on it.
I’m so proud of my little ‘Zilla. She starts the 24th. She never lets anything get in the way of moving forward toward her goals. This is all any parent can ask of children. Positive movement. No drudgery here. Let’s dance!
 

Not Quite Success, But NOT Failure

Blogging & Writing

Trying. I’ve been trying… It has been trying. And I am tired, but happy.
Lots and lots of life events in the last few months  Important visit from the East Coast family branch was of major importance. My daughter graduated from college and I helped her move across country. I also visited family and the area in which I grew up for the first time since my mother’s death. Now my hubby and I are negotiating the new rules for the empty nest. So in keeping with my usual modus operandi of trying to do too many things at a time, I decided to participate in the February Nablopomo challenge on BlogHer. I wrote some good pieces but didn’t make the whole month challenge. My hosting company troubles ate up my “buffer” posts I’d stored up. Then taxes and converting our personal finance tracking software to a different platform did in the blog challenge. But our taxes are filed, and that is a good thing.
I write a lot, but I write in so many different places, I don’t think I can showcase my writing to its best advantage because it is so dispersed.
I tried having all my blogs be scraped and posted to my business site, but with Google penalizing multiply posted content, I don’t think that is such a good idea. This added to the dormant state of some of my blogs that makes me question whether it is worth my time to post new posts when I have new ideas to those that do not have an active, current readership. Plus the posting of personal blog posts on my business site just did not seem like a good idea, and I ended up censoring content I really wanted to share.
So I’m back in the search for how to blog my multiple passions, showcase all my writing, and still maintain some professional polish for my business.
I’ll keep you posted on what I figure out. How do you balance and present your different voices.