Keeping the Dream

And that’s what I feel like I’ve done with my music and writing. But how do you balance the needs of those around you with the needs of your personal drive…only I’m feeling more and more like I’m barely trudging along on foot!

You know, sometimes it’s so hard to see what’s going on with your own self. I’ve been told quite a few times by quite a few people that I have wonderful insight and give advice that they have found helpful.

But sometimes, helping others isn’t helping others as much as avoiding helping yourself to accept the challenges of your own life. Because when you’re so busy tending to another person’s life, you get to not tend to yours. And as much as some of us like to complain about that, that really is the payoff.

I wonder how much of that is involved here. I know, at the very least, it does carry some weight. So what am I going to do about it?…

A friend in the business and from my past just popped into my reality a couple days ago. He wanted a lyric to a song I wrote back in 1990 as he’s wants to produce the song for a young upcoming talent he’s discovered. And it’s funny, because I was just thinking about that song…

And I could feel music inside of me and a desire to write and record again, and I wondered how I wandered so far from what I love doing. I haven’t written a song since August, and that was the first song I had written in a year.

Should I sing again…and to whom? Tonight I sang to my granddaughter, two months old. She smiled at me…stopped her fussing and smiled. And it made my heart melt and filled me with a delicious warm feeling.

I love my creativity…I just wish I felt more secure about balancing it with the rest of my life. It’s almost an all or nothing prospect for me. When that creative passion flows, it leaves little room for anything else. I could go for days without eating or sleeping…okay, maybe not that long, at least, at this stage of my life, but it would be all consuming.

At least that’s my fear…at least that’s what I’ve been told. But I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Because some people are so threatened by something they don’t understand, that the very thing that attracted them to an artist will be the very thing they become insanely jealous of. Even a little bit of time is met with resentment.

One thing I know….I wouldn’t be writing this post if I wasn’t contemplating opening those doors again.

Today, a friend of mine has agreed to help me edit my book on covert aggression, “Where There’s Smoke”. I’m revising and extending the book. She said she would go over it, as I worked on it, look for typo’s, point out passages that might need clarification and otherwise critique it.

I am ecstatic.

I realized today that I do too much on my own. I’m fiercely independent, and for the most part I like it. But I’m also stretched too thin, and am starting to feel the pressures of being a single mom…homeschooling…supporting myself and my child…making time for people I love…juggling my creative projects. Social life? I have none.

Lucky for me, I don’t care much about that. Seeing my grandchild, having lunch with my son or an afternoon with my oldest daughter and spending the day with my youngest, discovering and learning new things is social life enough for me.

But my creative projects have suffered. Last August, when my youngest daughter went to the beach, I wrote and recorded a song. It was the first time last year, and I haven’t stepped foot in that studio since.

This is not how I want things to be, but I wouldn’t stop homeschooling my daughter for anything. It’s challenging enough as a single mom, but it’s also very rewarding, and given her learning style, I know I am doing the right thing by her.

Still, it - like so many other things - is something I am responsible for entirely on my own.

Something inside of me snapped today and I thought, “I would so love to have some support in one area of my life!”, and I sent off an email to someone and asked for help. So unlike me [smiling to myself now] but change is good.

And she said yes, and I like it. Oh, to be in a position to be encouraged, to have to answer to someone who cares enough for my creative progress! I am elated and inspired.

Everyone needs a little help. I know a lot of good people, and have the blessing of being able to call a few of them my friend. But I do notice that I usually find myself in a caretaker position. And while that feels natural to me, it’s also healthy to let someone else support you. Not necessarily carry you, but support you.

It’s a strange feeling. I never really felt that growing up.

I guess it’s not too late. At any rate, it will be wonderful to actually not wear all the hats this time. It’s more than a little help. It’s a blessing.

Last Thursday, my youngest daughter, Brhiannon, and I went to see The Spiderwick Chronicles. I wrote a review of it here, in my new blog, Inclusive Homeschool. Well it’s actually an old blog that I brought out of “retirement” and started anew.

I spend the vast majority of my time either homeschooling or researching and putting together material for homeschooling or driving my daughter to functions as part of her homeschooling (which is part of why I have little time to do anything else). So I decided I really do need to, at least, share some of my experiences and resources online, so others may benefit from my work as I have benefited from the work and sharing of others.

Anyway, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Brhiannon and I loved the books, hated the movie. Correction: I hated the movie, Brhiannon enjoyed the special effects, but disliked how they changed the story. I explain in detail in my review here.

Watching this total disregard for the storyline, neat CGI effects notwithstanding, lead me to think about storytellers and other artists and our throw-away society.

We have no regard for the keepers of the stories, no respect for the act of writing or the stories themselves. In our special effects world, where flash is more important than roots, we look at things for only their momentary value. Whether it’s the story, the treasures of its message, or the running streams and their life sustaining gifts, it’s all about “What can this resource do for us?”

And the storytellers, the music makers and the natural flow of nature itself, are exploited and silenced in one swift blow. I’m glad for Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi’s success. They deserve monetary success, absolutely. But I am sorry for the loss of the story and the effective muting of Holly’s voice on it’s way to the big screen.

Which makes the telling of your story all that much more important. Maybe it won’t find it’s way to IMAX, but that makes it…makes you all that much more important.

Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.

~ Howard Zinn

Gentle rain — gray skies
my thoughts are like the day
it is not so bad

sun setting
orange across the horizon
my eyes watching
lingering on distant light

missing you

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(wrote this for my sister)

The world needs dreamers, and the world needs doers, but most of all the world needs dreamers who do.

~Sarah Ban Breathnach

Until every heart is filled with peace
and every life touched with grace,
I hold a candle of remembrance
for you and for everyone involved in any way.

May God send compassion on us all.