Soapbox
It has been such a long time since I posted that it's taken me a few minutes to get it all back. The holidays are so hard for me. Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of my husband's death. I just want it to all go away: Christmas, THE anniversary, New Year's; with Thanksgiving, his birthday and our wedding anniversary before that. From late August through New Year's I feel as if I am under siege from the memories. Add to that the economic decline, the state of my job, the country's erratic weather patterns lately and the wackos out there gunning down their families and it's a wonder I've made it through so far. I did have a few meltdowns, one on Christmas morning and another the day after. Luckily I had good friends nearby who helped me through the crisis. I think I just needed a good cry to get me past part of it.
So this all brings me to the word I have chosen for 2009 to inspire me: CHOICE. Every day I have so many choices to make. Some days it is very clear what the outcome will be. Other days it is exceedingly difficult. Do I spend hours working on my blog, networking and learning new things to add to the blog or do I practice guitar and work on my songs? It's a very hard choice for me to make and when I first started blogging the choice was clear and the guitar took a back seat. After about two weeks of blogging however I began to feel slighted in the music department. I missed my songs, my calluses were getting soft and my blogging fervor was declining.
So here I am back again for a new post but I feel ambivalent about the whole thing. It takes so much time to blog. Time that is taken away from other more pro active activities like making art, making music, seeing friends, cooking and organizing my studio and apartment. I could go on and on but you get the picture. I really don't know how I will sort this all out. My boyfriend Tom says do one thing this day and the next thing another day and in theory this does work, except that I tend to get caught up in new things in a big way and everything else falls to the side.
It all comes down to making better choices, using my time more wisely, letting go of the things that really don't matter in my life. It's an ongoing process that I'm sure will evolve as I do. I would like to credit Christine Kane's blog for the insight about choosing one word to guide us through the New Year instead of making New Year's resolutions (that usually don't work). I discovered Christine's blog through Lisa Call's blog and I got that through Paula's self taught artist blog! See how much time it takes. Unfortunately I don't know how to link those sites in this post but hope to learn that soon. More time!
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6 comments:
Heh Liz,
Here's my single word for the new year and a famous quote that goes with it....
Attitude
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.
It will make or break a company … a church … a home.
The remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past … we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude …
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you …
We are in charge of our Attitude.”
Love you, Liz!
I like choice, it kind of fits my goals for the year, I am re-reading "flow" and trying to make more art time this year, here's hoping!!!
I like the word FOCUS as my word for the year. Turning and looking back is wasted energy unless it is positive, so I want to look forward into the road that will lead me to my Destiny and Pave my Soul with Goodness and everything will fall into place.
i like the word "flush", i,m spending the whole day flushing out my hot tub,adding new fresh aqua, crystal clear refreshment to an overused bath where i sitz{whoops}. i,m going later to the health food store to p/u an organic cleanser, cause if that hot tub filter looked like that after two months.........i,m flush with blessings-my kids,shannon, work that somehow keeps coming in. and most of all i flush all the stuff that gets in the way, i,ve only got a few minutes to live, or fifty years, i don,t know which, so i,m not gonna get stuck on some trivial nano nonsense point that some other person, or entity, is happy to put on me. when i get the feeling that i'm overburdened and my flusher is not working, i jump in my rented phsycological helicopter and fly up to three miles,and gaze down, all of a sudden everything that wieghed so heavily on me a moment ago washes away......try the up look, it will always get you better.
I like the word NOW
if we stay in the now we dont have time to get upset about the past. if we stay in the now we can't worry about the future. its impossible to be perfect, but we can always jump back on board when we notice ourselves getting bogged down by mind murk. i have to jump often....but at least i keep jumping :)
iz..thank u so much for your thoughts. It is so important for us to talk to each other about this stuff. I too, still get stage fright, find myself taking a swig of whiskey to get rid of the devil voice. I know that is not the way, but sometimes, Jack he does come to the rescue. But their is something bigger we must call upon, whether it be God, or Buddha, or a Saint, or the truly higher version of ourselves. Maybe we should give them a name, we can shout at the top of our lungs or quietly under our breath, asking for their presence tonight. Hmm, maybe thats where the whole idea of Saints came from? Well I think you should just do it Liz, and I would love to be there when you do! If you want support, a friendly face in the audience, then I will come. Seriously, maybe you should go to an open mic with me one day. If you want help building confidence with your voice or guitar, I am a voice teacher on the side, and I struggle with my guitar playing as well, so we can commiserate. Something I keep trying to tell myself is, that when you play music, its for the inside of you and the outside of you, for the world. Maybe the stage fright is more about us and if we just tap into giving again, giving these songs away, for people to connect with, feel, heal, or just deal...hahah If we can think about others maybe this fear would disappear. Stay in touch. B
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