Random Thoughts on a Wednesday afternoon . . .

While running/skipping on the treadmill, there are days I am not feeling the energy, but if I keep going, soon I’ll hit my stride and next thing I know it’s near time to hop off the treadmill--done. If I’d have stopped when the going was hard, or when I wasn’t feeling into it, I’d not have completed my workout. Sometimes we have to push through things. If after the pushing through we’re still having problems, then we should respect that. I try to be honest with myself: am I physically/mentally unable today, or am I feeling lazy/uninspired?

In my yoga, there is a balance pose that I’ve been doing for quite some time. I stand on one leg while the other leg is bent and that foot is pressed into the standing leg on the upper thigh. I then raise up my arms to the sky. This morning, before I raised up my arms, I took a little time to adjust my body and found that it settled into place, my spine and body aligned--it felt right. When I raised my arms, my balance was sure and easy. I thought of the times I rushed through the pose and even though I could often keep my balance, I was a bit unstable and stiff. That moment of knowing I had my body right where it should be gave me an “aha!” moment—that all along I’d been doing it half-ass. Full-ass feels much better. I think I'll try to do more things full-ass instead of half-ass.

In edits, I read through my manuscript over and over and over and over and over, and I find the little darlings are easier to kill. I ‘see’ the parts that aren’t working as well, or are boring/draggy to me, or just don’t need to be there. What happens is, I read the words so often, the parts that do not need to be there beg to be deleted. But, the parts that work, the parts that make the novel fun or a joy or interesting or page turning, etc., they never lose their ability to move me or make me laugh or to keep reading. Reading the manuscript over and over takes the shine off the darlings so I can delete them, and the parts that continue to shine no matter how many times I read I know I can leave there. I am learning to trust this process now that I see how it works for me.

I’ve learned to have more humility. Even when I thought I had humility, I see times when I did not. Things I was so adamant about I’ve had to look at in a different way, because there is nothing like having the shoe on another foot, walking a mile in someone’s shoes, putting your footprints in another’s prints—and all those other foot/feet/shoe/boot/flip flop clichés. It’s easy to point a finger or criticize or feel above something when you are on your high horse, but dang if the fall doesn’t bruise (or worse) when that horse can’t quite make a hurdle, or stumbles, or decided to stop suddenly, or rears up, or turns around and bites you on the ass, or the horse is just exhausted and needs a break, or it's not your horse at all but someone else's, or you need to go help someone else because they've fallen or maybe they need a lift up, or a ride.

Here’s the thing: we all just do the best we can do and we do the right thing when we know better. And if someone out there isn’t doing the right thing, or doing better when they know better, well, their cover will eventually be blown and next you know they are standing in front of a microphone whining about how “sorry sorry oh I’m so so--o-o-o-o-rrrry” they are—by the way, if you have to carefully read from a speech how sorry you are, then I don’t exactly think it’s coming from your heart, but that’s just me. If you have to be caught at it and told it is wrong when you know all along it is wrong and you are pretending it is not because you haven't been caught, then the apology is a little empty, as is the cries of "Let me fix this so I can have my life/job/everything I want because it should be mine back."  But those are thoughts for another day :-D

Now, I’m going to gallop away, and not on my high horse, but instead on VK’s Fionadala.

I'm really down to some wires, so I'm offline more than on. Last minute PETEY stuff, Rose & Thorn Journal summer issue out soon. Trying to complete edits for VK III. Lawd!

 Soon I should have a cover image of Firefly Dance anthology (where my PETEY novella is to be published) - but I will leave this image of the anthology that just came out - such a beautiful cover. Information on this anthology "Women's SpacesWomen's Places" is here; Celia Miles. I receive no compensation for the anthology sales, so don't want you to think I"m "advertising it" - but I am honored to be included in it (a creative non fiction essay I wrote about my kayaking experience) and hope it does well for the editors, etc, and recognition to the other writers/poets. If you like a variety of poetry, essays/creative non fiction/short stories, then here you go! Support these writers/poets/editors and get your copy!

What are your random thoughts? Have a great weekend!

(all photos taken by Kat Magendie, except the one of where I'm hiding my face and the book cover--two of them taken from the window of an airplane)