Yesterday afternoon was spent in a sort of bliss. We all have different kinds of blisses (just like we all have different kinds of Good Book Standards) and here's mine: reading Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth in the hammock with Marnie (you can say hello Marnie on the "Meet the Rabbits" page). Then I took a walk with my sisters. Then I planted flowers and veggies until the sun went down.
Yes, life is good. Particularly when there's a good wind that likes to push the clouds just so, and there's the right amount of sunlight and shade. Audra Foveo once said: “if you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom.” Has your soul ever been in bloom? Have you ever been in a point in your life when you feel alive and joyful right to the "very edges of your soul?"
It's always an important moment in life, when you feel so hard that you're feeling to the edge of your soul. That's the edge of your personal canyon, and it isn't visited by anyone very often.
When I went to a summer camp (not an accidentally-inhaling-slugs-during-a-mud-fight camp, or even a making-arts-and-crafts-in-a-log-cabin camp, nay, it was a music and drama camp because what else), there were two things that two different women told me that stick with me to this day:
When you can't give 100% you have to give 250%
Honor is bound where honor is due.
Both of them apply to this writing journey. One of my biggest, ugliest obstacles that I face as a writer is a lack of focus. My mind floats around. I zone out. The screen does a magical hypnosis trick on my eyes and I lose my chi. That's when I really have to reel it in and dig my heels in, otherwise another day of writing goes wasted, bites the dust, etc.
For the second, I was in the play The Music Man. There was a group of us who were given the task of learning "Rock Island" (that song where business men are singing accelerando, then affrettando, animato, deciso, risoluto--if you don't mind my using those good ol' Italian terms--all the while beating out time like a train).
I remember sitting on our practice benches in a gymnasium, trying my best to be what I considered to be a fairly convincing business man: I crossed my arms and checked my invisible watch and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. But our camp counselor (we'll call her CC) was asking us for more.
And I remember wanting to make myself noticed. I wasn't a popular camper (which bothered me then but does no longer thank goodness), but I knew that I could act, even if I couldn't make my hair look shiny and perfect in 98 degree weather like the popular campers. So I took that as my cue: I decided to throw away fear, just for a moment. I shouted out my lines with spit and twain. I glared at my invisible watch, tapping it and demanding it to tell the time I wanted to see. I wiped my nose with my entire arm. I thought the way Business Man Number 8 would think. And CC noticed.
Gasp
She pointed it out to the group (praising my nose-wiping and all) and repeated her belief that although everyone was cast in this song because they were all talented, "honor is bound where honor is due," and, for that moment, honor was due to me.
Was it a good feeling? I think I floated a few inches off the sidewalk on my way back to the dorms that night.
My point of these this post is to remind you that satisfaction only comes to make kip and stay when you actually stop thinking about yourself, when you try so hard you don't even care that your back hurts or your frustrated, distracted or keep zoning out. You have to be content with where you are, and do great things where you are. Bloom where you're planted, you know.
And do it with spiritoso, by all means.
Write on!
"We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." -Colossians 1:9-14
I just wanted to comment and thank you for keeping this blog going. I just read this post and It had what I needed to hear at this time. It's a major booster. Keep up the great work, and know that your writing will be blessed because of the effort you continue to put into it. :)