chronicled & illustrated

liquid
Originally uploaded by nuanc

Today I seem to be swimming freely in my life once again.

For a few weeks, I got stuck. I felt completely bogged down. Any kind of effort toward unsticking myself was a tiresome slog that left me only wanting to retreat back into my rutted state.

This wasn’t that noticeable to others because I still went about my daily life…I just wasn’t as productive. As I’ve written about before, I spent long hours mastering a certain computer game that shall remain unidentified lest someone else fall under it’s marblicious spell.

I continued doing what I could to get away from the rut that included only Me and The Game. Eventually, I began to tell people—my husband, my sons, my trusty girlfriends, and my mom—that I wasn’t really doing that well. I felt at the time that this ‘coming out’ was part of the process of recovery. That if I hadn’t been on the road to recovery, I wouldn’t have been able to admit it.

Today, I woke up feeling that my hated rut had been washed away by a good strong soaking. I can still sense the route that it wore through my brain, but it no longer has depth.

This has happened before of course. I think though that as I get older (pushin’ 60, girl) I have the mental calm, perspective and actual quiet in my life to be able to analyze what this feels like and what’s physically happening to me when I overtakes me. In earlier days, I was too busy with kids and had too many insecurities to look at it without fear clouding my view. Now I can imagine and actually feel (or feel that I’m feeling) a neurological rut—an overused, perhaps over-stimulated linkage of neurons; one that becomes prominent and doesn’t give up dominance easily.

It helps me understand—in an organic way—what people who have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder go through every day. And, it comes up very close to Depression—something I used to suffer from for months at a time. In Depression, certain thoughts or categories of thought (negativity! worthlessness! hopelessness!) become dominant. It’s changing those thought patterns that pull us up out of the mood (to be utterly overly-simplistic).

I don’t understand any of it well enough to predict its coming or its going, but I do have confidence these days that it won’t stick; that somehow I’ve accumulated enough coping strategies to be able to pull out of these neurological quagmires. But I have to be careful with that line of thinking. Maybe it’s never what I DO that pulls me out of it. Saying that implies that anyone can pull themselves out by sheer “coping strategies” and I don’t believe that. I know that if it were that simple, people wouldn’t suffer from it so painfully and so persistently. But on the other hand, that sense that I am doing things that help to get me over the distress is important to my feeling of control over my life. Always important.

This morning, I feel a fresh fluidity in my mind, I’m able to glide freely through the little pond that is my life, and for that I am supremely grateful.

The illustration was taken in Houston over the Christmas holidays at the home of The Newmans who graciously let us use their amazing house in exchange for looking after their greyhound. The koi pond was a practicing photographer’s dream.

window
Originally uploaded by nuanc

I love this little blog. I started it in full expectation of NOT posting often enough and then I did pretty well with it.

I am not a consistent person. Moodiness is so much a part of my genetic make-up that I am always astounded to learn that some people aren’t controlled by their mood-of-the-day. I’m drawn off task by not only moods, but also by the newest shiniest activity that catches my interest. And yet, I almost always return to what I love. And this blog, I love.

It feels like me, she said, shyly.

Fertile, then fallow, quiet without being private or secretive, heart-felt and earnest but with tongue-in-cheek.

Inconsistent. Also ambiguous. Moody.

January was a real up and (mostly) downer. I started an overly ambitious writing project that didn’t last more than two days. That led to a slump which caused me to seek solace in mind-numbing computer games, an obsession from which I haven’t fully recovered. There were other things. Emotional snowfalls began piling on, adding layer after layer of weight. Because it wasn’t a blizzard but a steadily growing accumulation of tiny things, I was unaware of what was happening.

I’m on the mend. Writing this is part of my recovery. I love this blog. I must do it more often and then I will remember other things that I love doing and I will rediscover the path to feeling that. Then, I’m sure, I will also get excited about the next new shiny thing that catches my interest. I can do both when I’m occupying the busy part of my life.

The illustration is of winter taken through the old stained glass panels in the stairwell of our house. Part of it I can see through and part I can’t and that is Like Life.

Hugs all ’round.

spires
Originally uploaded by nuanc

I’ve got nothin’. It’s been a long day. I’ve written, talked and altogether used up too many words. Instead of words, I offer this odd, rather mysterious photograph.

But just before I quit using words for the day, I’d like to make a toast:

Here’s to the inexpressible. The tangle of feelings that has no neat label. The overwhelming moment that leaves us not only wordless but breathless as well. The times words will not do. Here’s to tears, screams, moans, dancing, making love, wrestling, climbing trees, falling down, skipping, running for the joy of it. To laughter. To music. To drumming. To throwing paint and pounding clay. To all the non-verbal languages giving voice to that which we would otherwise be unable to express.

G’night sweet bodies out there.

fathers go to war
Originally uploaded by nuanc

My dad died on November 20th. I think. But I’m not certain of it. It is one of those dates that really seems as if it SHOULD stick— forever and without a doubt—in my mind, especially for someone like me who is basically good with dates and details. However, it doesn’t. I know what this is about. I have a mental block. I don’t want to remember it. If I remember the date, I have to also remember the details of that week and other things that my mind will immediately associate with this part of November such as when John Kennedy was shot and sometimes even US Thanksgiving which wasn’t always the best holiday for me.

Both John Kennedy and Corey Shepard—these good, interesting and smart men—have been gone a very long time. I was pregnant with my second son when my dad died and he is now 27 years old. But it will always make me sad that they died young and unfinished.

We are smartest when we appreciate life even through all the hardships and challenges and sad days that are rougher than others.

Yesterday I got a rejection letter. It was a wonderfully personal and NICE rejection letter. But it still hurt. I’ve always said that they’re like getting kicked in the shin. It’s a sudden unexpected sharp pain that doesn’t last long, then it’s sore for a little while and then you move on and don’t think about it much. Today, it’s still a little tender.

Small wounds and large, we sometimes just have an achy day to get through.

This has to be a quick post. I’ve got a publishing meeting to go to and by the time I get back, this post might not be dated the 19th but the 20th. So, here’s the preliminary post which I hope to pay more attention to later. Why do I care? It’s the magic of signing up and saying: I’m going to post every day. It works to motivate—even when that motivation leads you to do something kind of silly. Like posting quickly when you don’t have time to think about what you want to write. Maybe it’s all just run-off from NaNoWriMo. Write, write, write; don’t think!

It’s been a good few nano-days. My writing’s on a roll and that is a very good feeling. It’s also something I want to remember for next time. It takes not only time but effort to get a novel to a point that it’s clipping along at a steady pace. In order to get anything big, unwieldy and complicated rolling, it takes up-front preparation. That’s what those painful days in and around the end of the first week and beginning of the second (okay, all of the second!) are all about. You just have to keep at it, get through those times and do not EVER let it stop you!

winds of change
Originally uploaded by nuanc

I got to a stopping point in my writing today slightly before I got to the word count I wanted.
I could have pushed it, but I felt it needed to rest. The story is at a crucial juncture and, to tell you the truth, I am not quite sure what’s going to happen. If I had continued today, my fear is that I would have gone off on a tangent.

Sometimes in NaNoWriMo we have to just keep writing even though we know we don’t know where we’re going. I do it if I’m falling too far behind in the word count or if I am uninspired. But sometimes it’s okay to wait. I’m close to being on track with the word count and I am feeling inspired. With both of those things working for me, I’d rather let a little time pass and give it some unfocused, C-mindful simmering before I write what comes next.

That C-mind stuff is what happens in the shower or while chopping vegetables or taking a walk or even cleaning the house (not that any of us are getting that done this month, right?). It’s what happens when we’re into our novels enough that the characters and the situation are with us even when we aren’t directing our minds toward them. When we’re engaged in an activity that doesn’t require our full attention, our minds will sometimes drift across the landscape of story we’re working on and come up with the best ideas! It’s one of the most fun things about writing.

That’s what I’m hoping for tonight.

In the meantime, I took some photos. My camera has literally been on the shelf since I got back from Houston just before Halloween. This evening I heard the wind coming up and I looked outside. It was just before dusk and the cornstalks in the garden were doing fantastic things in the gusting wind. I got a new flash when I was in Houston and it is supposed to not only help me with the low light but also capturing motion. One of my frustrations is that I haven’t had time to learn to use it!

Happily, I took the time to get the camera and go outside. I got the shot above as well as some other blurry ones that I love. I still don’t know what I’m doing with the flash but that’s one of the great things about digital: you can see the mistakes you’ve made immediately. Instantaneous feedback! It felt good to shoot some photos, so much so that I’m vowing to take a few everyday through the rest of the month. It’s not as if it takes that much time and it feels great to *focus* on something other than writing.

Sorry.

I also uploaded an excerpt to my nano profile page.