MIA for a Week, Here's Why...

Clearly if you all are keeping up on my weekly posts than you have realized that I missed a week this week. If you were sitting at home, curled up in a ball under your desk, coffee table, bed or kitchen nook with fear than I can help you out and set you at ease fellow word travelers. There were a few reasons why I missed this past Tuesday, here they are (in no particular order) and I shall address each separately for your amusement and edification.

1. My Back went out...AGAIN
2. My Aunt Died
3. I had a lovely summer cold

(again, these are in no particular order)

Ok...it's a slightly heavy list so I shall take some time with each of them and I hope you do not get overwhelmed. I know I was quite overwhelmed with all of this.

1. My back keeps throwing itself out of wack (well really, it's my hips being cranky but tomato/ tomatoe). Each time it happens I am full of frustration, annoyance and pain, so very much pain. Often there is no rhyme or reason except that killer of dreams, that murderer of fun, that villan of vice...STRESS (dum dum dum!). Am I stressed out? Why of course I am! I am mostly unemployed which means I have a very small but sort of steady source of income and am cobbling together bits of jobs to try and make my life have meaning. So far...OK. But if I dont relax and get my big ole butt to yoga, well my hips go creaky and my back goes wonky and Juice gets super duper sad and cranky and has the best pity party ever for herself!

2. My Aunt Linda passed away last Tuesday. She and I had a very complicated relationship. We hadn't spoken for years because after trying to see eye to eye on many things (my life choices and my other family being the BIG TWO) I realized that she would continue to hurt me along with not fully understanding me and I would continue to cause her pain unintentionally. She was a kind, caring and creative woman who I loved dearly. It broke my heart to cut off contact with her and even though she was sick for many months I could never bring myself to open that door again. I knew what would happen and I could not do that to myself or to her in her sickened condition. I have to hope that wherever she is now she knows that I did love her and her loss is something that will make the world a little less brighter than it was.

3. I had a summer cold. Not much more to say about that other than I was dizzy, stuffed up, exhausted and miserable for five days. So needless to say, I did not feel like posting on ye ole blog last week.

So those are my reasons, I apologize for my absence and hope you can forgive me dear reader.

I hope to be back next week with exciting news!

Peace, Sunshine and Cackers (as my 4 year old roomie Jackalope would say),

Failure AND Imagination: A Dynamic Duo

Greetings & Salutations Dear Reader(s)!

It's a hot, sweaty and exciting week here in RI for your fearless writer. It is the week that the final installment of the Harry Potter movies comes out! Yep, your writer is a HP Geek (thanks to the gentle but erstwhile urgings of my fabulous Ceeeeeeeee who got me reading the books) and she's proud of it!

But really that's not what this weeks blog is about. It's about a speech I read by J.K. Rowling who gave the commencement address for Harvard University in 2008. I have read the speech dozens of times over the years and each time it touches me. She speaks of failure and imagination and how both are inevitable in life and how both teach us in very different ways. Failure is inevitable and painful but it makes us stronger, faster and better. Failure can often defeat us for a time but in my experience it ineveitably spurs us on to do better the next time. Failure also makes us kinder, more humble people (usually anyway). Appreciative of what we have in our lives and what we need to make our lives more fulfilling.

And Imagination? Well I think you can guess why imagination is important. But to the slower kids in the back row of the special bus let me say this. Without imagination we wouldn't be able to laugh or empathize with people or enjoy books or movies. When you cannot imagine, you cannot believe the story that is made up in front of you. When you cannot imagine I think you often live in a world that is boxed in and colorless, a world where you fear the reality of life rather than seeing what the potential of life could be. I personally shudder to think about what life would be like without the vast and potent imagination I (and all my friends) have. We wouldn't come up with funny band names like "Crotch Fire" or the funny hats my friend Sarah makes or the crazy stories Amy makes up on a regular basis. My life would be sorely lacking without these fun romps through my and my friends imaginations.

I think about this a lot actually but every once in awhile I am so dang grateful for what I have that I don't mind the failures, I don't mind the utter terror life often brings us (being unemployed being my current fear) and I don't mind the pain that comes with the failures because when I look back and see, really see what has happened and what I have learned, I feel grateful for the lesson (most of the time anyway) and even more grateful I can put it all behind me and move on.

And I am ridiculously grateful for the imagination I have. Life would be so much less magical without it and as JK says, "We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better."

So on this special week, whether you read Harry Potter or not, take a moment and count your blessings, count your ducks that are neatly in a row and count your fingers, your toes and the hairs on your head and be grateful. Then take that moment of gratitude, let it spin out of you like a spell from a wand and bless those you love (maybe even a few peeps you don't like, cuz lets face it, everyone could do with some gratitude in their lives, friend or foe).

Wands OUT!

Wimp vs. Warrior: Battle Royale

So I'm a day later than normal for posting. I am sure my reader will be very sad ;) but the 4th of July proved to be a drunken feast so I was tired and hungover yesterday, not feeling my most conversational. Besides, I had to assist Tcup with a very important top secret super special mission.

Onward and Upward they say...

Im sitting here trying to figure out what I want to write about. I talk about being unemployed, I talk about this, I talk about hobbits, I talk about that. Does anyone care? I have no idea really. I can only assume people are looking at my blog but maybe a few comments might boost my ego, make me feel like this was worth my time.

Aw screw it. This is totally worth my time and I enjoy doing it. I like my own voice, I like hearing my own voice. I like writing in my own voice so hopefully someone, somewhere is also enjoying it but is also choosing to remain silent. Cool beans.

So I want to talk about duality and the two sides (or more) of ourselves. I know of at least two aspects to me that are most pronounced. The Wimp and The Warrior.

Truth be told, I'm starting to freak out. I don't have that much money saved and I am at a loss as to where to apply for jobs and what jobs I should apply for because I want to be truthful here, I don't want just any old job right now. I want the "perfect" part time job that will pay me a shit load of money and give me time to write and write and write because what do I want to do when I grow up? I want to be a writer. I love sitting at my computer composing. I love dipping into secret worlds that only I know the truth of and letting it all spill out on "paper" and I want to share that with the world and I want the world to love me.

But here's the hard part - letting people read my words.

That terrifies me, to my very bones I fear letting someone read what I have to offer and having them go "Yeah. It's uh...good." and saying NOTHING else but that because, dear reader, that would be tantamount to a SUCKER PUNCH IN THE GONADS UTERUS (I don't have gonads so I had fix that a bit, you get the gist).

I know what I write isn't perfect, not even close, but I love it. I love every word, syllable and every character. So my fear is that someone else will hate them or just think them...OK. These words I write are not just words, words have power and these words are MINE, they are my soul, my heart, my very life's blood. It's where I can say exactly what I want to say, exactly how I want to say it. It's where I find my true voice.

So you can see how to share this voice would fill me with fear and dread. And this my friends, is THE WIMP!

Uh Oh...here comes that other side of the Juice...the side I really like cuz she kind of kicks some serious ass...here she comes, cover your ears and gird your loins! It's THE WARRIOR!

GET. OVER. IT. - yep, that's what she says. Get over it you damn fool. You will never ever make it work if you continue to hide and cower in fear. Move past the fear, do not let it conquer you and get your words out there.

And I listen to her cuz 9 times out of 10 she's right. She told me to quit my job and even though I sit here in fear and panic not sure what is going to happen I know she was right and that she will make sure that I'm taken care of and that I will not be homeless. She's the girl I need on my side when I meet a dude I like and am afraid of letting him know. She's the girl I need on my side at job interviews and she's the girl I need at my back when I submit my writing. The Warrior is in all of us, I have seen her rear her fancy head in all of my friends at one point or another and she is awesome. She can cause some trouble too and sometimes she is just an asshole but in the end, she gets shit done!

But The Wimp has her place as well. She keeps me from doing really stupid things (I can think of a few I won't summarize here cuz well, they're not my finest moments) and she keeps my head on straight but The Wimp gets annoying and The Wimp pisses me off but that's why we have these multiple aspects to our being, it's why we aren't black and white (no matter what Michael Jackson says). And in all truthiness, it's what makes us all so dang interesting because at any given moment, you never know what you are going to get (or who).

So here is my promise to you dear dear reader, I will submit a short story to some places today and I will send the first 30-40 pages of my book to my "readers" (a select few who's opinion's I love and trust) and I will not fear their commentary. I will not fear their ridicule, their praise or their dislike. I will stand tall and I will know that my words are my voice and my voice is clear and my voice is powerful. (Yee Haw!)

And as I bid you adieu I ask you this, do you have that other side of you? That warrior side that keeps you safe and helps you fight your battles?

In case you were wondering, this is what I imagine my Warrior looks like (on good days)...