Wednesday

The morning brings my hummingbird, singing, resting on a bare branch, rain dripping down.  A new batch of flowers have opened up since the hard freeze.  I think this bird has taken ownership of this camellia bush.  It spies on me sometimes, hovering in front of my window, which in a bird, is endearing.

Later, sat and read these Joseph Campbell short stories I found at the library.  They were published as a collection in 2012, only one had ever been published during his lifetime.  He wrote them in the 1940's, prior to writing The Hero Has a Thousand Faces.  They had a mythological viewpoint, not in sync with either the "gritty realism" of Steinbeck or Hemingway, nor were they Sci-fi like Asimov.  There was no audience for them at the time, and then he devoted the remainder of his life to writing non-fiction.  I've read two so far.  I think there are six.

Getting ready to exit the bus, looking back to see how many people were still on it, I locked eyes with a woman a few seats back, one thin black line down her cheek, she held my gaze defiantly, neither of us speaking, until I broke it to walk out the door, into the cold, and quickly clearing night.

I've started to get up early and write again before work, still need to do physical centering, and to encourage my inner five-year old, but it's a start.  Two-and-a-half weeks.

I'm fighting off a cold again.  Sorting out the logistics of Christmas with my family, always complicated, and the project at work, which now has the slightest glimmer of hope that it might be completed before I go on vacation...things are slowly starting to turn.  I think I need to watch Christmas cartoons now, I'm feeling stress.

Good-night.

Monday and raining: Hello Autumn

No birds singing outside my window this morning, though I had a couple yesterday, still not the robin: new birds. Instead I wake up to the steady sound of tires on wet pavement and the dripping of water from the eaves after a night of rain.

Thoughts about singing. I'm singing louder now, but not sure how to get the volume out. Wondering what exactly is my authentic voice...not sure if it's what I've been singing with. Who am I, as opposed to who I would like to be, who society tells me I should be, who would be cool to be, who do I not want to be? In all of that, where am I? What am I? What do I sound like? It was an odd thing to think about after all this time. It's interesting. Since this summer, I don't care as much what I sound like, I just want to sing.

And I hear the voices that say, "Art is frivolous." But I don't agree with that. I think it's important. I think it's a safe way to take off the everyday masks that we wear and to let ourselves feel and experience authentically. I think it's a safe place to work through the "ugly" or "scary" (sometimes love and forgiveness and letting go are scary) parts of ourselves, get it out on the stage, the paper, the rehearsal space, the canvas, etc., so we don't play out the drama continually in our "regular" lives and hurt ourselves and each other. And I think it provides release for both the artist and the audience, and maybe it provides a chink in the armor, and opening for new thoughts, new way of seeing the world, or looking at a problem or a place where we've been stuck.

And as far as this thorn in my side, sometimes a splinter, sometimes a dagger, I've been trying to find ways to get it out, but I've decided it can stay. It's drawing up and out a lot of "poison" I thought I had purged in the past, but apparently not. Things I want to actually deal with once and for all, and so I'm grateful that it's there, and I'm grateful for the person who put it there. If there are such a thing as soulmates, mine always seem to be those who sting and make me deal with crap...other people get lovers, I get people who put daggers in my side, just saying.

This (song) isn't in reference to anyone, thoughts of thorns reminded me of both the story of the lion with a thorn in it's paw and this song by the Eurythmics. Man, it's really coming down out there now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AmkmqYEarw