Day 104 – Moving mountains

I was having a conversation last week about the challenges we face in life, how sometimes things just sort of pile up and bury you, and how hard it is to claw your way out from beneath the weight of it to keep going.

Yeah…been there, done that.

But that’s just sort of the point, isn’t it…to keep going, to survive (and thrive) in spite of all the things we face that threaten to break us.

And the beauty in all of it is what we can do with the lessons we’ve learned. We get a chance to pay it forward, to be an inspiration to someone else who is struggling, to give others a chance to reach even higher.

And somehow, that makes it all worth it.

Day 69 – Tuning in

I do my best thinking in the shower. There’s just something about being in that private place, away from the noise and demands of my daily life, hot water pelting my skin washing away the sleep and stress. It shifts my brain into another gear, sharpens my focus.

It’s sort of like I’m constantly surfing through channels on the radio dial throughout the day. I pause here and there to tune into stations as needed. Then the dial spins again and I’m back to surfing and trying to make sense of the static. But those 15 minutes in the shower, standing alone in the steamy bathroom, I can dial into the station I’ve been searching for, crank up the volume, and jam along.

I’ve taken to keeping my cellphone nearby, so I can reach out and quickly type a note or capture an idea when it strikes me. It works in a pinch, but it’s not really the best method, and I constantly feel like I’m losing some of my best ideas with the water that swirls down the drain.

I’m also constantly worried that I’m going to drop my phone right in the shower and and have to deal with that temporary headache.

I need to find a more efficient way of catching that inspiration. Hit me up, people. I’m open to suggestions.

I love those moments of clarity, when all the thoughts and ideas that have been simmering suddenly come together, when I snap the puzzle pieces in place and I’m finally able to stand back, put my hands on my hips, and look at the big beautiful picture that emerged from the mess. It’s a moment that makes my stomach flutter, like that split second when the rollercoaster pauses at peak of the climb as if to admire the intricate complexity of the journey ahead before tipping forward and plunging into action.

I guess I’m sort of amazed by it too–the fact that our brains are capable of all this. Right now, my brain is doing the very important business of keeping me alive–telling my heart to beat regularly, telling my lungs to breathe in and out, scanning the entire system to detect threats, and taking in all the sights and sounds and signals to make some sort of sense of it all. All of this while still helping me to organize my thoughts into some sort of order and sending the message to my hand to form the words on page, to type sentences onto the computer screen.

I’m in awe of it, and completely humbled by the fact I’ve been given the extraordinary superpower of being able to think about and analyze and contemplate the universe around me. We humans are rather remarkable, aren’t we? To be given such an incredible gift, and an enormous responsibility.

Now if we could all just get on the same page and agree to use our superpowers for good, that would be something.

Day 35 – Monday Monday

So, I’m realizing something…I’m pretty much useless trying to write at night. I keep thinking that those quiet moments in the evening after the kiddos have gone to bed and I can finally sit and unwind should be moments when I can focus and create and get some words down on paper. But it just doesn’t work that way. I’m too fried at the end of the long day to really make much sense of anything, let alone try to put coherent thoughts in any sort of reasonable order.

I used to be better at this–back before I had long, challenging days at work and kids and kids’ activities and evening meetings and all of the other obligations that come with maturity and adulthood. These days, I have to set a reasonable bedtime and try to get up early in the morning if I stand a chance of finding my focus and getting any writing done.

And here I still sit, 10:30 at night, eyelids drooping, trying to tap into something. But the truth is, at least for today, I’m tapped out.

And that’s okay, because tomorrow is a great day to try again.

The wee hours

I really should be in bed. It’s been a rough week sleep-wise. Henry is working on another tooth (or three), Stevie was up one night not feeling well and then headed out of town, Cadence ended up in my bed and coughed through the night from her allergies, Electra has been alternating between snoring, howling in her sleep, and dropping noxious gas bombs in the middle of the night, and I…well…I can’t seem to turn my brain off once the kids go to bed and the house finally gets quiet.

Project Life 365 – Day 23 – Transparent

“Among the many thousands of things that I have never been able to understand, one in particular stands out. That is the question of who was the first person who stood by a pile of sand and said, ‘You know, I bet if we took some of this and mixed it with a little potash and heated it, we could make a material that would be solid and yet transparent. We could call it glass.’ Call me obtuse, but you could stand me on a beach ’til the end of time and never would it occur to me to try and make it into windows.” – Bill Bryson

It’s amazing what human being can accomplish when we open our minds, become transparent, and and allow the light (and the inspiration) to come in.

PL365Day23Transparentwm

%d bloggers like this: