Surfacing

I've never taken this kind of a break from blogland before and I do hope to catch up with all of you soon.

I've been writing and submitting and re-editing and editing again and then feeling like a schlump some days for even thinking I can do it and then other days feeling on top of it all. Sharing with other writers, I understand that this is entirely normal. We waiver madly between thinking what a wonderful piece and in the next hour thinking this is absolutely appalling dreck. 

Needless to mention I have missed you all, I've been blogging and reading fellow bloggers for yonks now and it was hard to pull away but knowing myself, I can't go down the deep dark worm-holes of the web if I am committed to other projects. I am a screen sucker. There, I've admitted it again.

I've also been piecing together an anthology volume two for my writers' group. We sold out two editions of the last one and are hoping for similar success this time. I have a bunch of enthusiastic and committed writers and they inspire me in so many ways. We are a very tight group now and that is lovely.

My family has been planning a major event for me for my upcoming significant birthday but more on that later.

Organ Recital

My health continues to improve and my gratitude knows no bounds. I honestly was at death's door only a year ago. And to come to this re-installation of my life Version 4 or 5 (I've lost track) overwhelms me. I'm on a new kidney drug and it's doing wonders. I'm actually building up stamina in my walking. This from a person who couldn't even cross her own living room without needing massive gulps of air and a lie-down this time last year.

We've had a lot, a whole lot of snow. This is a photo I took just down the road from my home with the frozen lake.

One of the best books I've read this year (there have been a few)

And one of my favourite films (and again, there have been many more) for  the multiple layers of story telling in it and the brilliant acting.

And yes, I saw most of the Oscar nominated films but did not, by a long shot, agree with the best film award.

And I was positively thrilled to go to a real live theatre for the first time in three whole years. Though I am still cautious and play it safe (masking, sanitizer) as Covid is not leaving us anytime soon and our cases out here on The Edge are dismaying and the deaths so far this year from it are appalling.

I try not to think of the state of our sad and sorry planet that seems to shed a little more hope off herself every single day. Climate change alone not to mention the wars and the starvation of countless millions. It's all kind of hopeless isn't it?

I guess we should all be more like the late unlamented Barbara Bush who tossed all concern about her son's unwarranted and brutal invasion of Iraq out of the window with:

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

And no, Barbara you did not have a beautiful mind. Your cesspool of a mind begat another cesspool with no conscience or ethics or morals.

And the truths are now pouring out about that twenty years ago invasion now. And it's all pretty appalling and sickening.

Twenty Years Later.

Energy

I shepherd my energy carefully these days as I feel I'm falling behind. So the blog gets shoved aside for another day.

Tourism is a huge benefit to my life. Both the engagement with my PGs (guests) which feeds my intellect and the financial benefit which I rather desperately need.

Many ask me how I keep going with my health challenges and the demands of still having to make a living in my seventies.

My answer is: carefully (see first sentence). It would be fairly catastrophic if my health worsened now, as inevitably it will. I need to keep chugging until September when my load will lighten considerably, fingers crossed.

Therefore I prioritize. We just finished the Living with Chronic Disease series of workshops yesterday and I can't praise it enough. I've been asked to be a facilitator in the future but I've shelved that for now. I'm becoming more skilled at the art of saying NO.

I learned so much about accepting where I am and dealing a fresh deck of cards which encompasses my heath challenges, not focussing on what I used to do, but focussing on the now and making Action Plans for each day that are manageable and achievable. I had been thinking in the light of what I used to be able to accomplish but recognise now that I was doing far too much as a result and burdening myself with unrealistic expectations of what my day should be packed with and beating myself up for failure to do so.

The art of pulling back and the power of both Now and No are my new best buddies.

One of the incredible results of the workshop was our youngest participant (in his mid thirties) shared yesterday that his last hope was committing to the workshops for all 6 weeks. If nothing changed for him, he had planned suicide. We were all crying after he spoke. He has many challenges including his young spouse in a wheelchair (boy, perspective!) and he had absolutely no hope. Now he's attempting to live within his limitations and try one new thing every week and list his achievable goals.

I feel I've turned some kind of corner too, not clear on what it is yet. But more will be revealed, I'm sure.

I just know I feel so much more alive now.

And ready.

Update

Strong coffee, a good book, fresh design on the needles....what more, seriously?


My friend T had his surgery on Thursday, a quadruple bypass, and is astonishing everyone with his speedy recovery, even his surgeon. He's sitting around for a few hours, all the tubes are out and he wants to go home. So next Wednesday is his release into the real world.

The Living with Chronic Disease series of workshops is marvellous. I was resistant to getting a handicap sticker for my car (only really, really challenged people get those!)and was encouraged to bite the bullet. Often I have to park a distance away from my destination and my legs seize after a few minutes walking and the pain, m'dears. So yeah, I agreed to taking my walking pole when out walking, requesting the handicap registration from my doctor (done and mailed) and checking out a folding walking stick from a local shop which another participant recommends. You just never know, she says, when you might need it.

One of the important things I noted in this workshop is that participants with hobbies are the happiest. Those with no passion or have retirement thrust upon them with nothing to fill the time apart from chores and TV are the most anxious. Gardeners, knitters, fishers, quilters, wood-workers are the most fulfilled.


We commit to certain things each week (this week mine is 1,000 steps a day and finishing a shawl and continue to toss excess from my house)plus some exercises we are all attempting, even finger exercises which can be painful. My knitting keeps my hands fairly flexible but my legs and back seem to be worsening so I am attempting more.

New York and Quebec tourists are arriving tomorrow, both holiday rooms in my house are booked which is good news.

Label

Labelling, self-labelling I mean, can be extraordinarily useful. I was struggling with the Black Dog - and thank you so much to all those who commented in support. It is remarkable how the ether world and caring others in the real world can offer so much comfort and understanding.

A man I worked with said to me he was going to this six part workshop on chronic conditions.

chron·ic

/ˈkränik/

adjective
adjective: chronic
(of an illness) persisting for a long time or constantly recurring.
"chronic bronchitis"
synonyms: persistent, long-standing, long-term; More
incurable;
immedicable
"a chronic illness"
antonyms: acute
•(of a person) having an illness persisting for a long time or constantly recurring.
"a chronic asthmatic"
•(of a problem) long-lasting and difficult to eradicate.
"the school suffers from chronic overcrowding"

synonyms: constant, continuing, ceaseless, unabating, unending, persistent, long-lasting;

I asked him what his condition was if he felt comfortable telling me and he said "Anxiety" - he's had this basically non-stop since brutal orphanage days (Five years old at incarceration - Sweet Jaysus).

I thought for a minute and said: I have a chronic condition too.

And then: I think I'll go too.

So there. Just affixing the label to myself I felt a load lift off me. And the workshop? I can't say enough about it. 2-3 hours each. All of us (Including the two facilitators) have chronic conditions. All of us suffer periodic depression. All of us had difficulty labelling ourselves.

There is such solace in just saying it out loud to a bunch who totally understand. And boy, are there degrees of "chronic".

I got off lightly.

More on this in the next few weeks as I learn more.

30 Days - Day 24

So yeah. 'Twas a day alright.

Editing. All 4 levels of editing. Other people's words chewing around in my brain. Only once four times did I bang my head off the keyboard.

Here are the different types of editing:

(1)Developmental, structural or substantive editing i.e the whole picture.

(2)Paragraph-Level Edit
Also called stylistic or line editing

(3)Sentence-Level Edit
Also called copyediting

(4)Word-Level Edit
Also called proofreading.

Nearly the whole day spent on two short stories. Editors earn their keep. Truly. I can't believe the amount of work. I think I edit others' work much better than I do my own. Too close to it. Lesson learned.

I am NOT an editor, but then again I was NOT a director nor a playwright nor a......

We never know until we try, do we?

My People



Morning view from the deck of my cabin - click to embiggen and gasp.

Albert Einstein once said, “I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”

 

I would add and being with other writers. Let's face it. Only writers understand other writers. At the very least other writers don't glaze over as we expound on plot and character and the placement of a comma. Truly.

 

I had a week of this. Of workshops. Of best-selling authors reading my work. Of salons (oh, the salons!). Of wonderful food and formulating words. Words on the hoof after a long woodland walk with "my team". Words in the long night in front of the fire unkinking and rekinking chapters and paragraphs and sentences. Words spoken from the podium where our characters came alive. One of our leading Canadian poets showing his stand-up comic side before launching into his paeans to rocks and birds and all matter in between. One of our quieter writers astonishing us with her wit as we fall into helpless laughter.

 

We came from all over, New York, the hinterlands of British Columbia, Northern Ontario, West Virginia, Ireland (me). Our ages ranged from early twenties to (I estimate) mid seventies. Many of us had lived in exotic places. Many of us had challenging day jobs - nuclear physicist, farmer, lawyer.

 

All of us were there for the love of writing, wanting to share, wanting to listen.

 

Wanting to celebrate the sheer bliss of it all.

 

Very Local Highlights

I always have a few days of uncertainty when I get back here to Newfoundland, straddling momentarily the metropolitan world I've left behind, with its dear friends, its culture, its diversity with the tiny outport world I also love.

And then little things start to take over. We've dug 4 beds in the meadow this year, one for turnips, one for (of course) potatoes, one for carrots, one for cabbages and another small one for golden onions.

I've been sizing up 2 gorgeous apple trees at $39.99 each. Apple trees need partners so I have to have 2. I haven't bought them yet. These are in blossom and about 5' high and the smell, my dear - I keep thinking after reading a post at Irene's yesterday, about the blossoms' scent wafting on to the sheets on the clothesline, much like the blooming hawthorn hedge around my grandmother's drying sheets pervaded hers.

And then a few authors in the village consulted me about this guy who wanted to conduct a writing workshop, a big city fellah, they tell me, and why should they give the business to him when I was right there and I could facilitate one and it would be far better, said they, as I'd already advised some of them privately on some of their writing and had shared and read mine with them. So what better person? Ahem, said I, of course, but I'd need payment and a space. Oh that's alright love, said Joe, who's the self-appointed leader, it's all arranged, a nice big payment for you and a lovely space out on the next bay for the taking and the rent's covered. When do you want to get started and do you want to do the announcement? And, he adds, I think there'll be more interested than we have space for so you may need to run a series.

OMG, thought I, OMG!!!!!! Is this the manifestation of a dream or what??? OMG!!!!

I didn't share these thoughts with Joe. I nodded seriously like the adult I sometimes pretend to be and said I valued their trust and confidence and I would not let them down.

I am beyond excited about this. Beyond. I start when I get back from Europe. 8 is the magic number in my experience. So I said 8
would be the maximum class size. And it would be held once a week over two hours for 8 weeks with 8 participants and lots of work. Everyone is enthused. I said maybe we could have a performance at the end of the 8 weeks. A stage show. Lovely background music played by the locals and some readings of the fine-tuned works. Massive enthusiasm by all.

I think we're on to something here. I can hardly wait to get back from Paris. I never thought I'd say that.

Can you believe it?

Blog Jam

"Spindrift" by friend Tom Sears.

I am startled sometimes by how full life is and how unexpected the surprises that come my way.
I was invited to a workshop on Thursday, held in a community hall about 150K from here, given by a very inspiring, and as it turns out, quite well known U.S. professor, author, lecturer John McKnight. He had much to say on community development and enrichment, enough to give me an article to write.
He was succint in his analysis of the difference between Canadians and Americans. He said he was astounded to see workshops advertised on the Chicago transit system on how to become "Americanized". He said could you imagine that here, in Canada? And we all laughed at the idea of how to become "Canadianized". Here, he said, you celebrate differences, which is what community is all about. And he then proceeded to share with us how we could improve on that. What made successful communities (less government, more associations) and how to make it all come about.
The event was catered by volunteers who provided a marvellous homemade lunch and endless coffee and tea. Through the windows we could see the crab catches being hauled in by the fishers, the many boats on the water, an iceberg floating on the horizon. On the wall was a huge banner outlining the twenty one reasons it was the best place in Canada in which to live (#7: most eligible bachelors per capita. Me: Where are they?!)
Yesterday I was invited to a BBQ, a last minute kind of thing, everybody was involved in the food preparation and the meal was wonderful. I was startled to ascertain that a most attractive couple who were there were refugees from Iraq, she's an engineer and he is now the local doctor in an outport. We talked of emigration and invasion of sovereign territory and the distinct line that bifurcates your life when you cut your ties with the past and forge a new life in a distant land.
They were an extraordinarily articulate and intelligent couple and meeting them took the devastation of Iraq to an up close and personal level.
Today I took the day off and attended a new farmer's market, a short classical concert, Musica Terraqua, at The Rooms and read (and finished) Jodi Picoult's "Change of Heart". A modern metaphorical messianic tale. I like Picoult's unusual novels. I recommend this one.
Tomorrow it's back to a slew of work that has arrived here and needs urgent attention, playtime officially over.