Summer of Something More

Has someone ever placed a burning birthday candle in front of you and said, “Make a wish!” leaving you to realize you don’t know what you want? Have you ever stood in front of a wishing well with a pocket full of change and a mind gone blank? Maybe your eyes rested on a clock as it flicked to 11:11 and your momentary excitement (“I can make a wish!”) was immediately dampened by an inner voice whispering, “Why bother?” Perhaps the neon lights framing our hopes and dreams are dimmed a bit by nagging pessimism, overriding practicality or just a plain lack of imagination. Our world is full of paralyzing stings: the fear of failure, the restraints of time, the cost of taking a chance, the act of walking away, the risk of abandonment, the prospect of starting over and so on. The trick is learning how to deal with these poisonous barbs before they shut us down forever. Will we avoid them altogether, pry them out of our skin or leave them in and develop immunity to their sting? 

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A life without risk, reach, hunger and drive would be terrible. Living in constant fear of stepping into the great unknown would be a stagnant, solitary and meager existence. Certain aspects of my life are frozen in fear. For example I have always loved marine life but I am terrified of going into the ocean. Shark attacks make up a large part of this fear but the realist side of me knows that my chances of being stung by a jellyfish are much greater. My fear of jellyfish began when my kindergarten teacher came back to school after going on vacation to Hawaii. She had been stung by a jellyfish and she showed us her wound. Her leg looked torn and raw – like she had crashed on a bicycle. The thought of stepping into dark water and being stung by a silent, invisible predator terrified me. I am willing to take risks but I always need to know the potential consequences of my actions. There always has to be a warning signal that I’m about to get stung. Then I need to know how to treat the wound. 

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 Leading your life with a healthy anticipation of disappointment, shake-ups and break-ups is probably a wise decision. If you “put yourself out there” you’re bound to get hurt, but you’re also bound to grow. Build yourself an emotional first aid kit. It can consist of phone numbers of loved ones whom you can always fall back on. It might be a slush fund for “retail therapy” sessions at Nordstrom. Maybe it’s a couple of airline vouchers for a quick getaway to clear your mind and gain perspective. It could just be a tennis racket and a bag of tennis balls that you’ll smash the crap out of as soon as you can get out onto a court. Always keep your tools of choice at your disposal. Make sure your kit includes a map home and a pair of binoculars for the road ahead. I recently “escaped” to the east coast (positive that a week away was what I needed to reset a few uncomfortable situations at home) but I couldn’t get my mind off of the problems that awaited me in Utah. What really did the trick was opening up to friends and admitting that I was struggling even though I was “supposed” to be having fun on vacation. Acknowledging my struggle caused a few of the stinging barbs to dislodge from my skin. The problem was I still had a few left in my heart. 

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 I’ve been home from my east coast trip for two and a half weeks. Last week I thought I made leaps and bounds of progress with one of the problems I’ve been having. This week I have experienced a major relapse. This situation began two months ago with a few stings on my skin but the effect has traveled through me and lodged internally. I can’t reach these barbs and I can’t pull them out. They are pushed deeper multiple times per week. I have asked God to take them away but instead they stay. Last night I thought, “This is ridiculous. It’s like trying to become immune to poison.” This morning it hit me: Maybe this situation is my “iocane powder.” In “The Princess Bride” Westley wins the freedom of his true love by playing a game of wits with her captor, Vizzini. He poisons two goblets of wine out of Vizzini’s sight and allows Vizzini to decide which cup is poisoned. When Vizzini finally makes up his mind both men drink from their respective cups and Vizzini drops dead. Why did Westley survive? He had developed immunity to iocane powder. I have no idea what might have inspired him to purposefully ingest poison in increasing doses over the course of a few years and to keep a vial with him at all times. Maybe he knew he’d need it one day. As much as I want this problem to go away it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere fast. As the pain and discomfort continue maybe I can become tolerant of it. Then I’ll lock it away in my internal arsenal for future use. Venom is required to make anti-venom, after all. 

So far this summer I have been lucky to spend time doing wonderful things with great friends. If I were to look up at the stars tonight to make a wish I wouldn’t be able to put a finger on what I want. I just want something “more.” I can already feel summer slipping away like sand through an hourglass. Soon it will be fall, and in October I’ll be facing a birthday cake that will probably resemble a flaming porcupine more than a fine pastry. What courage can we summon when facing a flickering candle, a pool full of coins or a constantly ticking clock? I suppose the greatest comfort we can take is in knowing that we have been through tough things and we can get through much harder things. Close your eyes, take a breath, and make a wish. There is no shame in wanting “more.”

Left with the Pieces

I never thought you’d leave my life

You were the one sure thing

But you decided to leave this world

Why couldn’t you take me?

You were always there

To spring me loose when I got caught

You were the brightest beam

Now I am here and you are not

Here I am – left with the pieces

Drawers of clothes, boxes of books

Pictures in frames– 

It’s harder than it looks

So many times I’ve wondered

If I should come to your side

But I know I would hurt others

So I keep it all inside

Here I stay – left with the pieces

Piles of letters, vases of flowers

A eulogy to write–

Plenty of work to fill the hours

I’m trapped with nowhere to turn

I can’t say how I really feel

Instead I will praise your life

I’ll keep my part of the deal

Here I lay – left with the pieces

A heart full of sorrow

A head full of memories

A life without tomorrow

.....

This one's for the survivors.

Spring of Dreaming

I am overdue in addressing my blog name change. In December I changed the title of this blog to “The Dreamer.” You may remember it was called “Discovering Me.” I am not saying my quest for self-discovery is fulfilled and over but I am saying I know I’m a dreamer. I would also like to say that I feel like the old name was pretentious. I think a lot things I do are pretentious. I’m trying to fix that. The URL of this blog hasn’t changed (discoveramber.blogspot.com) but hopefully you’ll forgive me. I always wanted to find a sweet picture of a mosquito frozen in amber (à la Jurassic Park) and use it as the main image for this blog but I was worried about getting into copyright trouble. I wanted the picture to tell you something along the lines of, “Hey, ‘discovering amber’ kind of has a double meaning – like – it kind of has to do with discovering that dino DNA (or something equally as fantastical) can be found in amber!” Hopefully the title of my blog didn’t make you roll your eyes too many times over the years.

I spend a lot of time apologizing (see above) or blaming myself for things that go wrong. That most likely won’t change. What I would like to change is the over-arching career and life path I’m on. Right now it’s all “slow and steady” and I prefer to see the action pick up. As I’ve discussed before I have always valued stability. I just re-read my “Fragility/Stability/Agility” post from last May and it was an interesting look back at the past. I made a big decision and moved from P-town to New City (not to be confused with NYC) in August 2012. I’ve been here for almost eight months now. The move was good for me. I am able to keep in contact with friends in P-town (only 30 miles away) and I have made wonderful friends in my New City. I hit my five-year mark with Adobe on February 25^th and I couldn’t have been happier to “make it.” My coworkers and I have been enjoying our shiny, new office building since November 2012. I feel like some great things have changed in my life but there is huge potential for more change. I am open to it. I just need to believe the following:

-I have the potential to change my career

-I can do more than what I’m currently doing

-No matter where I go I can call it “home”

-People care about me and they’ll help me succeed

-I will be guided when making big life decisions

-I should wish for the presence of hope, not the absence of fear

-If I decide to move on with my life my friends will support me

-"Change is always a good thing" (according to my friend Malin)

-I can be confident in my abilities

-I should listen to my heart

-Risks can pay off

-If all else fails I always have Mom and Dad

After reading the list above you might think I’m getting ready to move to the moon or something. I assure you that is not the case. Right now I’m just getting ready to consider moving somewhere if that is what it takes to keep my life moving forward. I am happy where I am but I can’t tell if I’m progressing. It’s like being on a ship that is so far from the coast you can’t even tell you’re moving.

Basically, this spring is about “dreaming a little bigger.”

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May your dreams be bigger and better, too.

The Boys Are Back in Town

The Dixon Boys

Guess who just got back today?
Them wild-eyed boys that had been away
Haven't changed, haven't much to say
But man, I still think them cats are crazy  

Several weeks ago I was resigned to a nearly TV-less life. All of my favorite shows were on hiatus and so was my TV-fueled happiness. My DVR never had anything to show for itself when I got home from work. I spent most of my newly freed-up time eating junk food and thinking about places I’d rather live. Without recorded shows for company life was just kind of “eh.” I felt like the lone kid who had to go to summer school while all my friends were off on exotic vacations. “I wonder what ‘Psych’ and ‘Covert Affairs’ are up to. Is ‘Grimm’ having fun in Europe? Did ‘Survivor’ ever decide where she was doing Study Abroad? Does ‘Amazing Race’ really get to travel the whole globe again? Can ‘The Walking Dead’ please hurry up and come back home already?’” Lucky for me three of my besties (“Face/Off,” “Switched at Birth” and “Modern Family”) trickled in during the month of January. Although it was great to have them back I couldn’t help but daydream of the mid-season premiere of “The Walking Dead” and the season 26 premiere of “Survivor.”

On Sunday night my dearly departed zombies and their precocious people prey waltzed, walked and walloped their way back onto my flat screen. And oh, the joy. The pure, pure joy. A few of my friends (human friends, not TV show friends) accompanied me as I gasped, winced and flinched through the episode. Counting down to our previously agreed-upon start time of 11 pm was like counting down to Christmas. How sick is that? It doesn’t matter. These things – strange, fictional, crazy, simple things – make me happy. To be more precise they fill a very specific bucket of happiness and dump it into my happiness well. The fuller, the better. When the well is on the verge of running dry it is most likely due to a months-long break between seasons of “Survivor.” Luckily a big ole rainstorm is brewing tonight!

“This is the DAWNing of the age of Aquarius! Age of Aquarius! Aquarius! Aquarius!” Okay, sorry, it actually isn’t. This is Dawn Meehan. I got carried away with all of that water talk. Dawn will be returning to play “Survivor” on tonight’s premiere of Fans vs. Favorites. I have not seen every episode of “Survivor” – I missed a previous season of Fans vs. Favorites – but I did see Dawn’s original season and I’m excited to see her back again. There are plenty of loonies on the Favorites team that I never wanted to see again but Jeff Probst is pumped about this season and it’s never wise to disagree with a guy who looks like this. If Sunday night was Christmas Eve then it looks like New Year’s Eve has come a few days early! Party!!!

Best of luck to Dawn Meehan, the Rick Grimes Gang and all of my friends (TV show friends, not human friends) who are still making their way back from vacation. At least the sorrow of the impending summer TV slow-down will be assuaged by actual summer weather.

That jukebox in the corner blasting out my favorite song
The nights are getting warmer, it won't be long
Won't be long till summer comes
Now that the boys are here again

Lyrics courtesy of lyricsondemand.com 

Winter of Writing

Source: etsy.com via Susan on Pinterest

Last Monday I was completely prepared to register for my third watercolor class. I had my eye on a class offered through the local school district’s Community Education program. I decided to take one more look at the program’s online catalog. I clicked on “Miscellaneous Classes” link and saw a class title that has refused to leave me alone since I first laid eyes on it in December: “Beginning Fiction Writing.” The class description looked pretty straightforward, “Exploring various works of popular fiction to determine what makes them successful. Students will have the option to submit their own works for class analysis. Students will learn to evaluate the different elements that make up good fiction and learn how to apply these elements to their own works. The course will require some work outside of class.” The last sentence was the hook for me.

I’ve had an idea for a [potentially very long] story ever since 2009. When I started this blog in 2010 I thought I would play around with the story, draft it and release “chapters” to see if the story was actually interesting to anyone. The problem is, as of last Monday, I had never once drafted a single word of the story. (I only had a few possible titles, a four-page premise and a list of principal characters). I was always too scared to start writing the story because I had never taken a creative writing class in college and I was sure my method would be bogus. This little $35 Community Education course with the promise of homework assignments was just what I needed to make me start writing something.

I set my watercolor aspirations aside and registered for the writing class. The first class took place the following evening (Tuesday 1/15). The instructor gave us a brief course overview and then we got right to the good stuff. An hour and a half later she asked us if we would be comfortable bringing a 3-page writing sample to class the following week. We agreed to do the assignment and as I drove home I realized it really was “go” time. Since Tuesday I have spent the majority of my free time outlining my characters and doing some research and development. If I stick with this project beyond the life of the writing course it will potentially turn into a multiyear project. I don’t have a great track record of sticking with big life plans but I can tell you that this last week has been a wonderful and liberating jaunt into a world that is mine to create. Life is a little more fun this way. My mind is working double-time trying to hold onto each idea that floats through it. I have never found myself scrambling for a pen and paper so many times in one day.

As of tonight I have written the first four pages of a very raw first draft of my story. I’m a little nervous about sharing it with my class tomorrow but luckily there are only four other students. (I should probably be more nervous about squeezing into one of the middle school student-sized desks!) Regardless of the feedback I receive tomorrow I am happy knowing that I have 1,997 words written instead of zero. I just need to put a little more trust in myself and keep going. For now I am going to let my mind keep wandering - with my notebook close by, of course - and see what my imagination can cook up.

Source: a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net via Susan on Pinterest