hibernating

slow news day. again. tried to sit down to work on Great American Novel and nothing but blah blah blah flowed from within today. bitter cold is back. leftovers for lunch today. coffee in hand. kitty sleeping under bed. hubby working all day, open to close.

could talk about billy corgan, my new customer. or slumping music sales. but blah blah blah.

when it's a slow news day, i whisk myself back to France.

Journal entry from Fall 2005, my last Parisian excursion. new commentary following.

aie aie aie
such a strange time to be here in paris. globalisation slammed right up in your face. fires burning. social unrest. capitalist hierarchies. wealthy nations not comprehending why third-world natives want to grow in lands of opportunity. i guess this is it. the future. no more hope, just a lot of war blowing up all over the planet. this can't be it. this can't be our reality. somewhere there's gotta be a light.

when i get back stateside i think we need to band together and spread some love, kids. where are all the hippies? where's all the action? did we get lazy and just decide to spew our opinions on the internet? there is a big friggin world out there and, babies, i'm right in the middle of it, and i don't really think it's time to laugh and fantasize and play in imagination-land anymore. America is no longer disneyland, Wile E. Coyote has finally caught Roadrunner, and Starbucks has invaded Paris. The world is morphing back to a Pangean state, but it's people are not. I like to laugh and roll around in the balls at Chuck E. Cheese and ride bumper cars at the fair just like everyone else, but it ain't funny anymore...

I've been sitting on the steps of the Parisian opera house each nite before I catch my train back to the fiery suburbs, just watching the world pass before my eyes, and after a million Americans stop by to ask me directions to the Eiffel Tower, I'm tired. Really friggin tired.

By the way, I need a job. Anybody hiring? I'll go anywhere.

---

I found your journal (from Amanda's) and was just catching up on your great adventures! You are having the wonderful time you knew you would and learning more about your soul - that is a good thing! I am sure you will find just the right time to start writing. You can be the female (hah!) David Sedaris of Paris. Maybe you should find him to see if he needs an assistant? That would be a great job for you. Good luck with the adventure and I will keep looking every day for more fun. Take care - Love Teresa

Several years later, and with a new president in tow, I feel rejuvenated. Running off to France for five months is not an option at this time, but participating in Obamarama global overhaul is.

Inspiring.

connective tissues

In the spirit of subconscious signs that I am to follow without speaking of (my secret new year's resolution which I just broke), I am finding lots of resonance in simply enjoying moments. Any film I watch, any new piece of music I discover, I am allowing it to resonate, sans critique, sans comparison. Just enjoying for the sake of enjoying. Certainly there will be things that don't jive, people who don't float my boat, anger that I will find repulsive, unneccessary angst, but I will quickly move on and seek the next moment in my path.

Am I on a path? Certainly I must be. We all must be.

A year and a half ago, I spent a few days in the hospital delivering an almost five-month old fetus. The extremes of emotion were relentlessly brutal. What was John Lennon saying...life is what happens when you're busy making other plans? I was preparing to take that journey toward parenthood, to step away from Self, to devote my world to this new creation and I was neck-deep making those plans.

Then death stops you in your tracks.

And you return to the Self to deal with it.

We never found a scientific explanation for the loss, so I turn to the Spirit to duke things out. When you turn to the Spirit, see, you no longer have to deal with the Self.

I was in the hospital two other times prior to the miscarriage. And the focus at that time was a psychiatric focus where I was forced to turn away from the Spirit and deal with the Self. Because I was told the Self was not well. I often wonder what those 'friends' who veered me down that road are up to.

These were all very strange times in my life. And they seem like a distant dream I once had. They don't even feel like they happened.

But the point of all this is that we are all searching. Or rather, those of us who are truly ALIVE are still searching. This is only further demonstrated to me when a big rock star comes in and buys Paulo Coelho and self-help spiritual guides from me.

I often wonder where my focus should lie in my Great American Novel I need to chisel away at. Maybe the topic of miscarriage is a journey I was guided to write about?

coming into focus

I envy those friends of mine who knew early in life what their calling might be. Particularly those of the creative persuasion, and how productive their hobbies and passions actually turn out.

While dawdling in a little bit of everything, or as I like to say 'Jill of all trades, master of nothing,' I want to fine tune all of my interests into one sweeping finale. I am not a photographer, I am not a sports fanatic. I can knit the most minimum of all basics, paint when I feel inspired, play a few songs on the piano and strum some sounds on the guitar. I truly enjoy writing, but have been having major struggles finding things to write ABOUT.

On a day like today, where the snow and antibiotics have kept me indoors baking banana bread and zoning out on television, all I can do is sit and watch the thermometer fall and rise to zero.

So my grand focus is a rather broad one. I just want to tell stories.

Stories.

Bonjour 2009

Another year dead and gone. 2008 was a quick year, it seemed. It started off with a Vegas wedding, continued through last winter with long work hours, awoke in spring with more work. Summer lent itself to a few outdoor music and food festivals, September allowed for a quick week in Florida and the year rounded out with Chicago politics on a global stage.

And snow.

This photo was shot just outside my home in the early evening of a wintry blast of a storm just before Christmas. The snowfall, in its moment of conception in this local realm surrounding me, is certainly heavenly in its own right. The calamity of life lessens, the air seems to whisper softly and everything looks gorgeous.

We won't talk about what happens over the course of the days following a heavy snowfall.... of the polluted black snow mounds, slush, and potholes. That would ruin the mystical quality of the winter songs Mother Nature sings.

(But it suffices to say it doesn't last long.)

2009 begins another year of hard work. For most everyone, it seems. The economy is what it is. I feel a serious tone almost everywhere I turn, which may not be such a bad thing after all. I have always lived a frugal lifestyle, as has my husband, so this isn't any new contender in the fight. But I do anticipate a sort of change among people. Will it be like the snowfall? Peaceful in its meager beginnings? But leaving behind a very difficult and ugly aftermath?

Only time will tell, I suppose.

Some Bests of 2008? Getting married, Slumdog Millionaire, Obamapalooza, Paul Weller's 22 Dreams album, a customer stepping up to pay as I was ordering my lunch, getting back in touch with old friends, Lucinda Williams' Little Honey, several Netflix finds and a new television set.

It's the little things, you know?