STETCHING OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE . . .

There is simply no subtle way to put this . . . I am a bona fide, world class weenie . . .


Yeah . . . pathetic, but true . . .


I am just not very brave. PERIOD. For all my love of my pioneer ancestry and my identifying with them and their courage in the face of heartbreaking challenges like cutting off their own leg to free themselves from a frozen river (OK, I may have made that one up) . . . Still, the point is that I LOVE pioneers . . . I am FASCINATED by their courage and resourcefulness and faith . . . I ADORE that I have honest-to-goodness pioneer ancestry . . . and yet I whine if my air conditioning is slow to kick in and I refuse to eat anything that even looks slightly weird (including guacamole and sour cream and cream cheese and a lengthy list of other nasty food items).


I am -- at the risk of repeating myself -- very much a weenie.


My comfort zone is roughly the size of a postage stamp, and it has taken me DECADES to stretch it this far.


I at least am aware of my weenieness . . . and I AM working on it . . . sort of. This year for my New Year's Resolution (which I LOVE love LOVE to make . . . I may be a weenie, but I am a weenie with GREAT intentions) I vowed to do one stretchy thing a day. It could be big or small, but even a teensy tiny stretchy thing counted . . . and honestly, MANY of my stretches have been microscopic.


That has been an interesting journey. Here were are inching towards the end of February, so I have nearly two months of 'stretchy things' under my belt . . . and for the most part they are NOT particularly impressive. I went up and shook hands with an unfamiliar face at church (well, actually I shook the HAND of someone with an unfamiliar face . . . I didn't really think they would appreciate having their face shaken) . . . I smiled at a stranger at the store . . . I gave up a primo parking space without ANY bad words muttered . . . I listened patiently to someone drone on and on and ON about something that had upset them . . . I took the time to tell someone that they looked extra pretty today . . .


Yeah . . . I am not exactly curing cancer or halitosis or taking a stand on world peace . . . but I AM making an effort to being more open to stretching a little every single day in a way that I probably would not have without the challenge.


Last night my stretchy thing was to FINALLY print out my NaNoWriMo story from 2011. I kind of liked my one from 2010, though it is still in the editing process, but I am fairly positive that my 2011 story stinks. For one, I inexplicably went with a genre I have never had a desire to write before AND it is the first time I have written a story for an adult audience. Children's literature is what really fascinates me, and honestly almost all of my favorite books are children's book . . . When writing I seem to find my voice most naturally in a precocious, thoughtful, ever watchful child . . . perhaps because I WAS that child. A long time ago.


So for whatever reason, even though I am NOT a 'lets-throw-caution-t0-the-wind' kinda girl, I wrote a story for adults (NOT to be confused with an 'Adult' story . . . no XXX's for ME, thank you very much) . . . and even while I was writing it I could tell it was bad. BUT I decided that the exercise of stretching would be good for me anyways. On November 30 I validated my 50K+ words and promptly forgot about the story. Oh, I would have put it aside to 'rest' for the month of December anyways . . . because it is MOST helpful to come back to it fresh when you are ready to edit and revise and see if what you have written has any merit, anything worth salvaging to it at all . . .


So in early January, I THOUGHT about reading it over . . . and chickened out. I just couldn't bring myself to do it . . . to face just how truly awful it was. My reluctance was sort of like trying to talk yourself into getting on the scale when you KNOW you pigged out on your two week vacation. You just want to accept the fact that the product is bad without being slapped with the details of the awfulness.


I thought again in late January . . . well I really should read it through at least once . . . and promptly pushed the thought aside again.


Here it is late February, and last night I decided that two months of weenieness (three, if you count December) was enough . . . I printed out all one hundred single spaced pages and committed myself to actually reading it. Oh, this IS -- without a doubt -- VERY raw . . . Like I said, I have never even read through it ONCE . . . in fact in that hectic month, I rarely even reread the last page or two I had written before jumping in to begin writing again.


HMMMMMMMMMMM . . . .


It IS very disjointed. Someone is mentioned in the first little bit that as far as I can recollect never gets referred to again . . . People changes names . . . Sometimes their physical descriptions change . . . Lots of details don't add up . . . and yet . . .


It isn't ALL absolutely HORRIBLE . . .


It isn't GOOD . . . but there are parts of it that when reading it, I suddenly think "DANG . . . I was MASTERFUL at describing that" . . . (Hey . . . if I am willing to face the stink-o parts, I should also be able to acknowledge the parts that aren't so stinky, right?)


This IS stretchy . . . but just like the exercise of writing it was good for me as a writer . . . so is the exercise of facing exactly what I wrote . . .


I mean . . . I am only like ten pages into it at this point (there is no need to get OBSESSIVE about this, after all) but I am pleased. Not because the story is any better at all than I remember it . . . but JUST because I DID write it . . . and even if my 'baby' IS awful homely . . . It IS, after all, MY baby . . .


YAY for stretching!!! I am microscopically less of a weenie today than I was yesterday . . .




Go ME!!!!

MISSING IN ACTION . . .

Wow . . . I cannot believe that Mother's day(ish) was the last time I posted here . . . I don't even think I have signed in or read anything anywhere since then . . . I guess LIFE happened . . . and -- literally -- almost death . . .


I am still trying process that whole experience. I almost died. I came REALLY really close . . . Maybe I should have died, I don't know . . .


I have had some close calls before in my life . . . lots of trips to emergency rooms for stitches . . . once when I was a teenager I jumped into a swimming pool onto a floating raft, and to my surprise, it flipped out from underneath me and I FELT my head brush the side of the pool, narrowly missing having my brains splattered all over the deck . . . Nobody else around me knew what had almost happened, but *I* did . . . I knew that I had come really close to at best, a very very serious head injury, and at worst, death.


Another time my brakes went out on the freeway when I had a car full of kids. I have NO idea how I managed to maneuver over to the side of the freeway safely, let alone get clear home . . . Again, everybody else knew it was DANGEROUS, but I am not sure anyone else knew that our lives had been spared, but *I* did . . .


Then last summer happened . . .


In the midst of an exciting, thrilling, joyful family gathering to celebrate new love and the start of a new family unit, I was once again tapped on the shoulder . . . or more accurately, I was mugged in the alley with a baseball bat by the grim reaper . . . and when I woke up after about thirty hours during which I have NO idea what happened, except what I have since been told . . . and as I gradually became aware of what was going on, I realized that it had happened yet again.


I don't know why that thought is SO difficult to wrap my head around, even now, seven months later. I almost died. I came really, REALLY close to dying . . . for reals . . .


I have always sort of thought that when it was 'my time' that I would have at least a moment, if not longer to sort of realize I was headed 'out' and to at least briefly look back over my life and see if I was going to be leaving behind any unfinished business . . . any loose strings that needed to be tied off . . . and some sort of split second awareness that 'okay . . . this is IT' . . .


Last summer there was NONE of that . . . and perhaps THAT is the most disconcerting part of it all . . .


But then again . . . I did survive . . . I did wake up . . . I AM still 'here' . . .


But even so . . . I still wonder about that . . .



And more often than I care to note, in the midst of playing with a grandchild . . . or cuddling and reading with one . . . or caught up in the absolute wonder and enjoyment of watching each one blossom and become who they are ultimately to be, I find myself catching my breath and the thought pops, unbidden, into my head "I would have missed this moment" . . . It happens with my precious grandchildren . . . with my beloved children . . . their spouses . . . friends . . . with my husband . . .


I guess what that all adds up to is that while I may still be coming to terms with the experience of last summer . . . I AM -- with all my heart -- VERY grateful to 'still BE here' . . .



VERY, very humbled and grateful . . .