Sing a Song

Sing! Sing a Song! Sing out Loud! Sing out strong!
Sing, of good things, not bad! Sing of happy not sad!
 Sesame Street

In my world, most things are best said musically.

That is NOT to imply that I can play any instrument with skill, nor can I sing alone unless I am trying to be funny. But my brain thinks in music.

I grew up in a house permeated with all things music, my dad was a professional musician for a while, and his brass quintet would practice in our little living room. I have come to realize that in church and when singing along with the radio I sort of always sing the French horn part, even if the song doesn’t HAVE a French horn part. I know what it should sound like.

We all knew that my grandmother had played Rachmaninoff on the piano when she was 15. I know I was a disappointment to my grandfather in my horrible stage fright and lack of skill on the piano, although I found out much later that my grandmother also did not like to play in front of people.

So I guess my brain just processes life musically. I know this can be annoying for anyone talking to me, as almost ANY comment makes me think of a song lyric. It’s like I have a weird synapse that fires in conversation. But words trigger lyrics, which often trigger Random Outbursts of Song.

I reached an amazing milestone in my marriage when one of my kids said something about going up to their room or something and my spouse said “up up up up, to the Heavyside Layer”. I think even he was appalled that Cats popped into his head. My work in this arena is apparently done.

While my daughter was on treatment we made up Transfusin’s Hard to Do and the Low Low ANC Blues. We also sang her chemo to the tune of YMCA. I once made up a cheerful song called “God Really Hates Me”, which strangely did NOT catch on in my house. But generally, music can take care of ANYTHING.

So when I walked into school this morning and realized that the dress rehearsal for the choir tour was running long (I had been warned that it might run into my class time), I figured I’d sit and listen to the kids sing, instead of going to the office to copy papers and such. There are some songs in the repertoire that WE sang when I was in this choir years ago, so I figured it might be nice to listen. And I was tired and feeling kind of down (understatement!)…

Music helps me. Yesterday was an Evanescence on the treadmill playlist kind of day—ie a bad day. Last week I listened to a lot of Simon & Garfunkel and old recordings of Freedom Songs while I worked through a class unit on the Civil Rights Movement. Owl City makes me happy when the sun is shining. I listen to Eminem, or Satie, or Ladysmith Black Mambazo, or Mozart Horn Concertos, or Godspell, or the Indigo Girls, or the B-52s. Music connects to some deep part of me in a way I find difficult to explain. I think that’s why I like so many different kinds of music. It all speaks to me, to my heart.

I like choral music. There is a power in an awful lot of voices singing together. I do, however, have an incredibly low Velveeta Threshold. That is to say, there’s an awful lot of cheesy choir music out there. I’ve helped search for stuff for our school’s choir before, the extra cheese floating around is enough to clog an audience’s collective arteries.

There’s a fine line between profound and Velveeta. Native American singing “Colors of the Wind”? Profound. 16 year old on American Idol singing “Colors of the Wind”? Velveeta. Sometimes things just don’t work out of context. Some things REALLY don’t work out of context and sung by 100 teenagers.

I have learned, too, that not EVERYONE wants to share my cheese views. I have ruined at least one religious song for friends because it sounds like a show tune to me, and I can’t help but sing it like that, with dramatic gestures and all. It’s awful, I can’t help myself. ; )

Anyway, I was a little curious when the next student introduced the next song, a song from a cartoon movie. Uh-oh. Velveeta warning!

And then they started to sing. 100 teen voices…

Many nights we've prayed
With no proof anyone could hear
In our hearts a hopeful song
We barely understood(At this point, I could feel myself starting to crumble. Yeah, I have this t-shirt in an awful lot of colors).

Now we are not afraid
Although we know there's much to fear
We were moving mountains long
Before we knew we could.

There can be miracles, when you believe
(crumbling!!)
Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill
Who knows what miracles you can achieve
When you believe, somehow you will
You will when you believe

(desperate futile search for tissue in purse and pockets began).

In this time of fear
When prayers so often prove(s) in vain
Hope seems like the summer birds
Too swiftly flown away

(wondering if choir – 100 kids facing me and 3 other teachers– will notice if I wipe my nose on my sleeve. Also wonder if my mascara is anywhere near my eyeballs anymore.)

Yet now I'm standing here
My heart's so full I can't explain
Seeking faith and speaking words
I never thought I'd say

There can be miracles, when you believe
Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill
Who knows what miracles you can achieve
When you believe, somehow you will
You will when you believe

(just thinking of so many friends, and kids, and my own recent despair of things ever turning out well for anyone in my family).

They don't (always happen) when you ask
And it's easy to give in to your fears
But when you're blinded by your pain
Can't see your way straight throught the rain
(A small but )still resilient voice
Says (hope is very near)

There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail
It's hard to kill
Who knows what miracles,you can achieve
When you believe, somehow you will
You will when you believe

I actually had to leave the auditorium by the end of the song. Thank God 2nd period was nearly over!

My brain has kind of been hurting recently, and I have NOT been listening to random music except when running (Lent!), so this beautiful song, sung with such beauty and harmony, spoke to my soul in a way I have struggled to express recently.

I need to make sure my students know, when I see them tomorrow, that their audiences may hear this song in a way the kids don't quite understand. We all hope for miracles sometimes, right?

I have trouble believing. I’m not going to lie, I do find miracles slippery and elusive and hard to believe in, even as I try to keep hoping. I do believe we can always hope. And that is a song worth singing.

*************************************************

The original is the best version I could find ...

Need for Speed

This the text of what I said (um, read) at our Coffeehouse for a Cure to benefit the NF Endurance Team last night...sans weird ad libbing and the random "ding...dong" sound that came out of nowhere halfway through...



I am fast at a lot of things.
My students (and most of humanity) can attest to the fact that I talk really, really fast.

I can polish off a bag of Cadbury Mini-Eggs lightning fast.

Give me a word or situation and I will burst into an obscure show tune or commercial of the 80s or odd protest music from the 60s Super Fast!

I can spend $100 at Target alarmingly fast.

Make a mess in any part of my house? Fast.

Misplace my shoes? Crazy fast.

Lose my temper? Yeah, too fast.

I type uber-fast, and read crazy fast, and get through Costco on a milk/cheese/eggs
run scary fast.

So there’s a lot of things I do insanely fast. I like fast. Fast is how I roll.

But ironically, in light of what our Coffeehouse is about, there’s one thing I am embarrassingly slow at.

Running.

I am a pathetically slow runner.

Global warming happens faster than I complete a 5k. People on jazzy scooters pass me when I run. I go out for a mile jog and I have to make sure nobody sends out a search party for me when night falls and I have not returned.
I am really, really slow.

And honestly, I kind of hate running. I hate the way I look in running clothes –to quote a friend, “spandex is a privilege, not a right”, I hate the funky smell that follows any kind of running, I hate the feeling of having run 87 miles and then seeing a measly ½ mile marker. I am fluent in Whinese when it comes to running. I am REALLY fast at making up annoying little songs about running…running running is annoying/running is the thing I loathe…moving quickly getting stinky wearing stupid spandex clothes!

See?

So why the heck do I keep running? I mean, there are a lot of things in life I’ve made peace with stinking at. I simply don’t DO those things anymore, and the world is a better place. I will never be a great Ukrainian Dancer…or Scottish Dancer…or Hebrew Dancer…or Irish step Dancer—and that is truly ok. I will never be a champion in any sport that involves being outside in the cold (I like having feeling in my extremities, once I lose that things literally go downhill). I get full fast (add that to the fast list) so I will never be a competitive eater. One hotdog is fine for me. I am perfectly ok with NOT doing these things.

I’m probably NOT going to grow up to be Aretha Franklin either…that I’m less peaceful about. But I digress…

… why the heck do I keep running when I am slow, and awkward, and really have not earned the privilege of wearing spandex?

It’s pretty simple, really. In fact, it would make a great t-shirt…

I run for a reason.

I run for a lot of reasons, really. My reasons include, but are not limited to, Dave, Genna, Rosie, MJ, Emma & Amie, Gabbie & Ori & David, Maddie, Ann, Siobhan, Jennifer & Patrick, Jaxon, Meadow, Ryan, Jenna with a J, Preston, Jerry, Katsie and Carly and Genna’s new friend Tommy and Drew and Joey and Nora and our beloved Sandra.

Frankly, I think my reasons to run are better than my reasons NOT to.

Still, I am only able to run because of the NF Endurance Team…and not just because they gave me a snazzy neon singlet to wear with my ill advised spandex. Being with the team has shown me that the ability to do this is IN ME. I can do it, because the first rule of the NF Endurance Team is that we never run alone. There is a community of runners and supporters all over the country, all running for the same goal.

There’s crazy power in that.

It’s an odd thing, the NF Endurance Team. A few minutes with the families and friends and organizers of the team and you just WANT to get out and run. I can’t explain it. Even I felt that, and really, I am the Poster Gal for Sedentary is Super!

This team is just that amazing; the runners are just that inspiring; this cause is just that important; this reason to run, a cure for Neurofibromatosis, is just too compelling to ignore.

Standing on the sidelines at the Philly Rock n’ Roll ½ marathon in September, seeing over 100 runners with “NF” on their singlets running collectively for all our our loved ones…there is CRAZY power in that.

I will never be an ultramarathoner like my brother, who is once again running the Leadville 100 mile trail run in August for the Team. I may never actually get through a ½ marathon like my sister, Emily, is going to do in Seattle this spring. I may not even actually join Dave except as a cheering squad leader in Philly at the ½ in September. But my 4.5 miles at the Jersey Shore Relay are the way I can oh so slowly do something proactive for my family in the face of NF.

I may be slower than beach erosion in Point Pleasant where I’ll be running—in the broadest sense of the word-- on April 16, but I run for a reason.

You can too. Even if you are slow. Even if you hate moving fast. Even if spandex is not an inalienable right for you either. Come be slow with me. You won’t regret it.

There’s a famous quote by the runner Dean Karnazes that keeps me going when I’m training or when I’m discouraged in our long trek with NF. Run when you can; walk when you have to; crawl if you must, just never give up.

My girls face a marathon every day. Their battle with NF is involuntary and unending, and the fact is, we really don’t know what kind of roadblocks we are going to face in the future. This past year was a tough one. We faced the real prospect of restarting chemotherapy with Genna. Rosie started having hearing issues related to her tumor. To try to encapsulate the fear and despair and helplessness of the second half of 2010 in those 3 sentences is almost ludicrous. 2010 was a tough year. And in the last week alone, two of our dear friends in the NF community got really bad news…two children at a crossroads, again…
What more reason do I need to run?

So with NF Endurance I run against NF. I run for my children and my spouse and my friends and their kids. I run for a reason… and for that reason, I will Run when I can, walk when I have to, crawl if I must: but I will never give up. And I thank you for joining us in this race. Thank you.

Now the remnant of our old Smile Crew is going to sing…a song about being there for each other, a song, as always, dedicated to Sandra Blumberg, who showed us with endurance with a smile was all about….

I Heart Sherlock Holmes

I heart Sherlock Holmes.

Ok, maybe that’s not TOTALLY accurate. Yes, in high school I had 2 different versions of the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes mysteries (one with the original illustrations, leather bound), and yes, I read them and read them and read them. I used to fiddle with our tv antenna so I could watch Jeremy Brett on the PBS Mystery version of Sherlock Holmes when I was in 8th grade, huddling close to the fuzzy tv and trying to drink in EVERY detail of my beloved stories. I aspired to BE a Baker Street Irregular. When Young Sherlock Holmes came out during my high school years, you could have knocked me over with a feather, I was like a screaming teenager at an Elvis concert, without the screaming, or the music, or the white leather jumpsuit…just the smitten joy of the whole thing.

But still, to be TRULY accurate…it’s not Sherlock I love.

I heart Dr. Watson.

I do. I have had a major crush on a fictitious 19th century sidekick for 25 years.

Dr. Watson is just so…solid. He humanizes the fiercely analytical Holmes. He’s friendly, normal, reliable, occasionally even jolly. Holmes needs him, depends on him, seems constantly a step ahead and yet when Dr. Watson gets shot, it’s a distraught Holmes who saves him. Watson may not be on the cutting edge of mystery solving, but without him around, Holmes would be lost. Watson brings out the best in Holmes.

For a teenager who pretty much always felt lost in her own bleh, Dr. Watson seemed like a wonderful guy to have on your side.

In the Young Sherlock Holmes movie, Watson loves pastries, and his terrifying hallucination after the evil society shoots him with poison is about Pastries Gone Wild (ok, that seemed much more plausible when I was 15). Watson shares my passion for éclairs! What else do I have to say?

A few months ago, a modernized version of Sherlock Holmes appeared on PBS. In this version, Holmes is a “high functioning sociopath” and Dr. Watson a vet recently home from Afghanistan. The writers worked on Dr. Who, so the whole show has a sharp, witty, BBC-esque edge to it that frankly is almost better than chocolate for my brain. My spouse and I watched the series together, a rare moment when we actually enjoy the SAME tv program.
And in watching this remake, in the surprise of feeling that long lost excitement at

seeing a Really Good Mystery with characters I love, I had a moment of enlightenment, an epiphany, if you will, one that blew my adolescent longings to smitereens.

Guess what I realized?

I married Dr. Watson.

Bear with me here…I really did. For those of you who KNOW my spouse, think about it. I actually DID marry an Italian version of Dr. Watson.

Reliable? Check.

Hard working? Check.

A good listener, even if he doesn’t quite get it the first time you say it really fast? Check.

Generally thinking the best of others? Check.

Just a genuinely NICE person? Check.

Patient as all get out with the odd cluttery foibles of the people around him? Um, check.

Really good at what he does, even if it’s not always flashy? Check.

Deeply loyal? Check.

See what I mean? I MARRIED DR. WATSON!!!

The real mystery is why the heck he married ME…probably because I look like Heidi Klum, but I could be wrong. Hm.

So see, watching tv isn’t always a waste of time. Who knew PBS Masterpiece Theater/Mystery would be a celebration of marriage?

Of course the first 2 times I meant to post this I got randomly irritated with the resident Watson, and said forget posting this nice post. Ahem. I am so mature. And early winter was a rough season here on many levels. But really, at the end of the day, I am grateful for my spouse, and kind of tickled to discover this weird parallel to my teenage world, a world before I really knew my spouse at all. Now there’s a narrative arc for you…

Food, Glorious Food!

(my delicious crumb cake)

“Food, glorious food! Hot sausage with mustard!
While we’re in the mood—cold jelly and custard!”
--Oliver!

My love of most things edible is not a newsflash to anyone. Eating is one of my most favorite pastimes. I only really have two criteria for food:

1. No tentacles
2. Not a garden pest

If these two criteria are met, I will eat almost anything.

As a child and young adult I admit, I was picky. Once I had kids, and endured hyper-emesis for 9 months straight 3 times, I could eat nearly ANYTHING. I have to be careful of certain rich foods and sadly cannot eat Mahi Mahi or Chilean Sea Bass (alas! I was a slow learner on both of those), but generally if it can be eaten, I will eat it.

Granted, my family picked up where my pickiness ended, almost as if I birthed my pickiness right out of me with the delivery of my kids! My eldest will try nearly anything, but Kids 2 and 3…eek. We have pictures from Easter several years ago of all of us around the table of feasting…and Kid 2 has a bowl of Cheerios in front of her.

It took the squashing of certain key portions of her brain for her to become a good eater. Now we have trouble making her stop. But still, vegetables are taboo.

Anyway, we have never wanted for food. There are about a half dozen grocery stores within 10 minutes of my house. We have a couple of big box stores only a bit further than that. I generally hit one grocery store and one mega store at least once a week.

When life looked a bit bleak at the end of last summer, I created a food hoard. I still have pasta from that time…my pantry was PACKED with canned foods, sauces, pastas, peanut butter. I was afraid, and I met my fear of the unknown with cases of Orville Redenbacher.

But this isn’t the situation for everyone.

This isn’t even the situation for most people, I’d say.

Our family volunteers at an urban soup kitchen about 25 minutes from our house. Just over a week ago we arrived at St. Ann’s to discover that it was not a meal day but a food pantry day. Lined up on the floor in neat rows were brown shopping bags full of groceries. Most had one bottle of juice, a bag of rice or pasta, some random canned goods, and a bag with some meat and cheese.

Each client had to present ID to get a bag, and multiple IDs (for kids, etc) to get 2 bags. The system is strictly adhered to and runs pretty smoothly for the most part.

As we worked to distribute the bags, alongside clients who help out before they take their bags (I love working with them), I was struck by how flipping lucky we are.

The idea that THIS could be our food for the week: a bag of random what not, all healthy and generously given, but beyond my control as mom, was staggering. Folks asking if there was any toothpaste to be had, folks wishing they could change what they had in their bags for something different (not allowed, chaos would ensue)…it was staggering.

The idea that I would have to get a number, wait on a line, present ID, and then get a bag of something that would become my family’s meals: I just felt flattened by the psychological enormity of that.

When my kids need food, I run to the store. When I was first married, and our budget was really tight, we ate more simply. We made do. My kids have NO CLUE about those days. Not that we are eating filet every night, or only drink Perrier (we don’t), but still: I buy food in packages (! The Tightwad Gazette lady would have my head!) , we always have cheese and meat in the house, we have plenty of milk and I no longer only get half and half on holidays.

We are so lucky.

I love being able to go work at St. Ann’s, and I wish we could go more often. I need that reminder to be grateful. It’s not like we did anything to be lucky. We are just super blessed that life, while smiting us in an awful lot of areas, hasn’t messed with lunch.

With new energy I am getting a bag for our county food pantry for collection next week at church. If we all gave one can of corn or one can of tuna, just imagine how many more people we could feed? Even if we don’t have a ton, just one can could really help someone who has less than we do.

Food brings people together. Sharing food with those who are hungry brings the world together, I think.

Add That to the List

My lists have lists.

It’s true. My lists sprout other lists, and those grow little piles of paper, and from there a jungle of lists spreads throughout my house.

I can’t help it. I don’t know if it’s just that I’m a little unfocused (understatement!), or stress has finally gotten to me, or my brain just works in circles, but if I don’t make lists, I’m lost.

The problem lies in the where of it all. I list things on envelopes, on the backs of notepads, on post-its and index cards. I list things on calendars and official letters from school. I list things on a whiteboard and on library receipts. These lists get all mixed up, and then start wandering my house in a hungry pack.

I am not particularly more organized because of my burgeoning List Herd, but I do derive extreme satisfaction from checking things OFF whatever lists I can find.
One helpful list I’m trying to keep this year, in my so far completely unsuccessful attempts at a year of zen, is a calendar list. I took an extra calendar and I am trying to list the things I do that are steps towards my goal of positivity. I write down when I exercise & what I do (Gilad! Or “run 3.04 in 36 minutes, knee at 2.6  “ ). This way I can see that I am not as much of a lump as I usually think I am—and I can keep track of my preparation for the Jersey Shore Relay in April.

I am also writing down a little “V” for when I remember to take my new vitamin, Stress Plus Zinc. Really. That’s what it’s called. How could I NOT buy that? I’m not sure taking stress in pill form is a good idea for me, but the bottle made me laugh. Normally when I buy vitamins I take them for a week and then forget until the bottle reaches its expiration date. Hopefully the calendar will help me remember to try and be healthy.

This blog and my daughter’s Caringbridge page also get a notation. I need to keep on top of writing. Filling in “blog” or “CB” on the calendar keeps me up to date on getting the blender-y ideas out of my head and into a computer.

I also decided to write down what books I read. In childhood I was a voracious reader, I devoured any book I could get my hands on. After college my reading dropped off, and once I had kids, reading got relegated to vacation time. Once I went back to work I HAD to read a lot, and now I am trying to read more for my own mental health, fun things not about modern history. So far this year I’ve read “La’s Orchestra Saves the World”, “A Thousand Sisters” (a must read, but NOT fun at all), and a book on cd for the car about “An Organized Mind “(yeah. Still working on that). I am midway through “Founding Foodies”. . .

Honestly, I only really started reading for fun again when my daughter started needing to get books for school from the library. The new releases are right next to the Children’s Section. But writing these down lets me see progress. I am not always floundering.

I also note roadblocks like “hospital day” or “felt like road kill”, just so I can avoid beating myself up over days where I AM a lump. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to call a doctor and actually get some annoying things checked out. I listed local doctors to call. Ahem. That’s a step, right? My calendar will hopefully help me narrow down some of those roadblocks to health that I need to ask a professional about, and guide my understanding of what issues are perhaps stress related . When Road Kill Day is the day after Hospital Day, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out there might be a connection.

I guess my calendar is really a list AFTER the fact, almost like writing an outline after the essay or story is done. But this list in reverse helps clear the cloud of incompetence I normally feel like I live under.

The other day I found a list my 8 year old made to cover What We Need To Do at the fundraiser we run in March. She included pictures and numbers, and left her list in the pile o’ lists I have in my kitchen.

Huh. Who knew list making was genetic? I should make a note of that somewhere. . .

Cookies for Breakfast

As usual, there is a song stuck in my head.

It’s more of a jingle, really, but it is stuck. Maybe because I am eating Cinnamon Life in an attempt to not eat leftover Christmas cookies.

“Well, you can’t have cookies for breakfast, but you can have Cookie Crisp!”

I have several thoughts on that.

When I was a kid, we never had cookies for breakfast. We had cereal. Generally store brand, always healthy. Toasted Oats, Krispy Rice, Corn Flakes, and the occasional
Grape Nuts. Never did a cookie masquerade as part of a complete breakfast in our house.

Granted, my mother did pass on her childhood lesson of “put sugar on your cereal”. So even though I wax on about how we never had sugar cereal as kids, except for the uber-treat of the occasional vacation box of AlphaBits (which is hardly a sugar cereal), we sort of ALWAYS had sugar cereal.

Only when I had children did I realize you don’t have a natural instinct to sugarify cereal. To paraphrase South Pacific, “you’ve got to be taught”. Somehow, in one of my rare moments of early maternal competence, I realized this…and thus my children have never put sugar on cereal. I am still agog about this. They don’t know that people do this.

Granted, I face a tricky situation on those rare occasions I eat cereal for breakfast. Old habits die hard, and I have had to become a pro at stealth-sugaring. Ahem.

For years my husband only ate dry cereal because he thought he hated milk in cereal. Eventually he realized he hated sweetened milk, sugarified by the cereal. Yes, he is weird that way. Thankfully, this was not a deal breaker for our marriage.

I do find it kind of obnoxious these days that in the push for Healthy Eating, the really good for you cereals are exponentially more expensive than the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs and anything with freakishly tinted mini-marshmallows. Cereal with marshmallows is a Rubicon I have never managed to cross. Ew. But to be budget conscious AND healthy is a very challenging prospect.

I do make my own granola now, which is both healthy and naturally sweetened with honey and applesauce. Yay me!

But more days, I just have cookies for breakfast. Yay me?

Because in the final analysis, I am a grown up. Who says I can’t have cookies for breakfast? Cookies have grains and eggs in them. Some cookies even have fruit. So I can have eggs and toast with a fruit cup or one Linzer tart cookie. Really, a cookie is so portable, and such an efficient way to get all of those healthy foods in a few delectable bites.

I exercise regularly, and try to make healthy meals…so I find the world is a better place if I have a well timed choco chunk cookie before work.

As a mom, I did finally actually buy a box of Cookie Crisp. My kids were enthralled—you CAN have cookies for breakfast!—even as I was underwhelmed. I make really insanely good cookies. Cookie Crisp just doesn't compare. Alas! The disappointment after all these years of pining after those tiny cookies that stay crispy even in milk!

I can't complain. I’ll just stick with the leftover Christmas cookies, because really, those are the breakfast of champions.

Movin' Right Along...again

I would like to say I have blogged reams in the last months and that some mysterious blogosaurus simply consumed the posts, leaving nothing for anyone to read.

I would like to say that I have filled screen after screen with witty commentary and reflections on my fascinating existence.

To quote Groucho Marx, I would like a trip to Europe.

If I had ruby slippers I could tip tap tap them together and voila! these wishes would become reality. I do have a pair of exceptionally cute red shoes (ok, maybe more than one pair. Maybe more than 2…ahem), but none of them seem to possess the key wish-fulfilling properties of ruby slippers.

Alas. But I am resolved, as much as I ever make New Year’s Resolutions—which is never—to actually try to put some words in this blog on a regular basis, even if a roaming blogosaurus threatens to devour them, and even if I have nothing witty or fascinating to say. Red shoes optional.

My one true resolution for this year is to work on being happy so I can be a real support to my children, the ones who have something to truly put happiness in peril. My spouse asked me the other day, in response to me stating a need to avoid an annoying conversation (oh, the holidays!) by going to my “happy place”, “Do you even have a happy place?”

He was kidding, but I, of course, was utterly crushed. (I haven’t made any resolutions about melodrama, so I figure that was an appropriate response.) He’s right. I have to re-locate my missing happy place. As part of that, I need to keep writing. Writing keeps me from hiding under a rock, or the bed, or anything I can manage to fit under. Writing gives me the path to FIND the happy place, because if the words get all glommed up inside me, I can’t navigate a path out of myself. Does that make sense? Silence becomes the rock for me to hide under.

I’m not sure if that’s deep or cheesy, but hey, that’s the vaguely self indulgent perk of a blog, walking the deep/cheese line.

Seriously, I may be brief, or silly, or just meh in this blog, but I am determined to not let 2011 roll over me until at least February. “Movin’ Right Along” was NOT supposed to represent the Steam Roller of Life working its inexorable progress over my formerly 3 dimensional neurotically creative self. I need to reclaim progress, live my life (instead of letting life live me), and WORK at happy.

As inspiration, I am using Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project as a handy reference…I highly recommend this book, it’s a really entertaining and insightful read, and at least for me, I felt like GR was talking out of my head sometimes, which was both unnerving and endearing at the same time. Check out her facebook page for a great community of people who are thinking Happy is a good thing. : )

Carpe 2011!
Peace,
Kristin