One More!

After a dry spell, three in a row.  Here's my latest over at the Register, Today, Tithe Your Time.   I hope you like it and share it, and I'll get back to writing more...

Priorities....

No one is so efficient as the person who would get work done if only.  Today, I sit thinking how clean the house would be if even one of my three vacuum cleaners were working, but there's a broom and it sits in the closet next to the dust pan saying, "Hello?"  Have I fished them out and begun sweeping? What are you crazy?

Yesterday I lamented about not being able to write as I don't have a laptop.  My notepad and pencil whispered, "Ahem."  Did I begin scribbling away, crafting today's piece for your amusement?  Hey kids, let's watch Penguins!   I watched Penguins.   My kids and I even critiqued it, they noted the plot holes, and how much better it could have been.  "They needed better writers Mom."  The notepad is trying to leap off the desk at me.

However, I've discovered, even with the tools, I don't get going.  I have a paper shredder I've never assembled, and a cooler full of old bills and the like that need to be eliminated.   I have a new swifter mop I've not taken out of the box and a photo shadow box with 20 slots in it, that need pictures.  The stacks of not done feel monumental.  I have books that need reading and reviewing, editing and actual writing, paper work that needs filing, dishes that need to be unloaded, a sink that needs cleaning, clothes folding, a child to be played with today in the morning and what am I doing? 

Blogging.  

 

Why?  I'd love to say the fault is in my stars, but it's in the stars in my eyes, always taking on more, never finishing what I start without the need for if not cheerleaders, coaches to push me past my comfort zone.  

While discussing the stalled project of Penelope, I recognized I don't even put the treadmill past 3.5 because then I'm not comfortable.  Working out, like writing, like trying to live out a good Lent, involves going where we're not comfortable, going to the dusty untidy corners and pushing ourselves through that resistance.   What I've discovered is, in projects and my fitness and faith, I'm soft in the middle but full of strong promise.

So I'm signing off to go take care of 1) paper work, 2) dropping of the vacuum cleaners and 3) go work out.  I'll put the treadmill to at least 3.6.   God willing, and me willing with God, all that needs to be done today, will be.   

Marathon Lessons

Back in 8th grade, I wanted a letter to prove I'd made an "A" team more than anything. So desperate was I to achieve this, I even tried out for the one sport my common sense had always told me...you can't do. That's right, Track. But I'm not fast. I'm not tall. I don't jump. So what could a b-team bench warmer do on a track team?

Cross Country.

Now I did make the team and run a 1320 (3/4 of a mile), and I even got a ribbon. I was fifth. The fact that there were five people running doesn't really matter. Before the race, there were more but several quit. On the third lap in, everyone else that had not dropped out had finished. That track felt lonely and quiet and tedious.

I was hot.
I was unhappy.
I lay down.
Deliberately.
I thought about just staying there. (At 13, melodrama is a way of life).

Then, I got up and started moving again and the why fell way as I just kept going.
It wasn't that I signed up that got me a letter from the "A" team. It was that I didn't let myself quit.

So I apologize to all of you that read my "Full Plate" essay. Every word of it was true. (I felt overwhelmed and exhausted and frustrated and all those self absorbed things one feels at 43 that supposedly aren't melodrama because they aren't adolescent). What I needed, was to stop and reassert priorities. But when you feel all those things, it's hard to think, let alone assess.

Three weeks of observing the world dripping with stories that I wasn't writing drove me crazy. Some of those mental photos and turns of phrase would be lost forever. I don't know if such things are agony for anyone else but they haunt me.

So I promise not to flounce.
I promise not to lie down on the track anymore.
I'll finish the race even if I'm stuck running around this track after everyone else has lapped me twice.

What does that mean?

It means I'll be pouring out words for as long as I have access to a computer, but only after I've read to my kids, made sure they've done their homework, bathed, and I've given a bit of time to my husband, the needs of the house and my extended family and friends. I promise to be present in words and deeds.

I'll get fifth for finishing last, and I'll be just as proud of that ribbon as I am of the yellow one that hangs in my office from 1980.

Thanks for coming back.