fake it till you make it

MONDAY GROANER TIME

I thought it best I try my best to stay with my self scheduled writing time on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Good habits build good days and a life well lived. I’m as sleepy as can be. It would feel so good to cuddle up with my little quilt and have a sleep. Talking about quilt, my log cabin block building has been at a standstill for quite a spell. Life, the garden and yard happened. I couldn’t do it all. Some things have to give. Summer and the growing season is only so long. The sewing got put on the back burner. To be resumed later. I hope I will remember to hit that button later.

It’s a cloudy, breezy and cool day. It tries to rain and pour off and on. You can say it’s a typical 2022 June day – unpredictable and changeable from minute to minute. I’m trying to roll with it all. It’s giving my moods and body a good workout. I should remember to take a tylenol morning and bedtime to keep me physically supple. It’s the new lube for old achy bodies. This weather and garden and yard work are taxing on the joints and bones. I was not happy or moving well in the morning exercise class. The sluggishness, aches and grumpiness were all trying to get the best of me. I prevailed though, beating them back. I’m getting good at faking it till I make it. How do you do it?

I can’t believe it is 5:30 already. Where did the day go. It’s rolling away faster than the end of the toilet roll. I’m calling it quits now. Going to have another cuppa. Talk to you on Wednesday.

MONDAY WHINING – Mother’s Day

It is Monday morning, another first day of the rest of my life. It is time to fulfill one of my do-it-list of showing up here Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It is not a hard thing. I can do it now that I’ve made it as an intention. My new motto is not to make intentions that I’m not going to keep. Words are important. They matter. If you don’t live up to them, no one will believe you ever after. They would guffaw and say, Oh, she’s just talking. Don’t pay any attention. She doesn’t mean it.

Another Mother’s Day is over. Have I told you that I have fallen out with all these occasions – birthdays, Christmas and Easter, too? I am exhausted by the idea that we are obligated to feel celebratory, joyful and all that jazz. I feel guilty and bad for saying all this, but not bad enough because I am saying it. Anne Lamott says it much better in a piece she wrote about Mother’s Day in 2015. Needless to say, she received not a small amount of flak. I suppose I will, too, even though and more so because my voice is small. It does not carry much weight.

It’s not that I have anything against joy and celebrations. It is not that I don’t love my mother and motherhood. I feel uncomfortable. I have adopted all these occasions and traditions because it is ‘the right thing to do.’ When in Rome do as the Romans. But when you are not Roman, you can’t quite pull it off authentically. Everything felt fake and not as good, especially when I was young. It left me feeling less of everything. Things have changed over the years and now we seem to have a monoculture. The whole wide world is celebrating Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day. You would think that would make me feel better. But it has left me feeling that things are more meaningless.

So what to do? I do not like feeling like this. I don’t want to be a badass. I’m a bit of a rebel but I’m not great at it. The thing to do is to adopt those wanted warm fuzzy good feelings and fake them till they become real. Enough said but one thing more. I tried to do all that stuff regularly if not every day, in my own ways. I love and care for my mother every day and not just on the official Mother’s Day. I used to buy her presents. Now I give her my time and attention. Still, at times it is hard to quiet the voice that say’s buy her something. So I do Chinese take-out to feed us both.

DOING THE HUSTLE

One of these days I will have to hustle my ass and get with the program. I’m always lagging behind, dragging my butt. I’m continuously just treading water and not getting ahead. Wish it could wear off pounds and inches. That would be getting ahead.

I could just pretend I’m that energetic girl. They say you can fake it until it becomes you – if you want. December is a bad month to fake it but it is also the perfect time. I don’t think I am alone in my tiredness. Someone else whispered agreement along with me this morning. We’re all faking it until we make it. A relief I’m not alone.

Sometimes I feel like such a rebel rouser, a bad mouthed, sorry ass gal. In these times I see the world with jaundiced coloured sunglasses. I try to keep these sentiments to myself. I guess the secret is out now. Better here on the page than a verbal diatribe. The written word is much gentler than a shout or rant. But most of my ragging are against myself. It’s all about me. I hope at the end of it, I’m more mellow and positive. I always hope for a transformation.

Yes, it is hard to keep with the program. I try not to rain on others’ parade. This morning I was stepping along with everyone else in our step aerobics class. I wondered how our instructor keeps motivated. What if she was feeling like me. How does she carried it off then? Well, I am recalling there were some days that she was not so together. She lost track of some maneuvers, etc. We are all the same – human. A big sigh of relief. I listened to the beat of the music and kept my body parts moving. That matters. You get the same results however much you enjoy or not. Even if I felt shitty, at least I would be looking trim and fit.

TALK LESS, DO MORE

August days can be perfect days. August days can be trying days. Clouds and sun chased each other all day, each determined to outshine and out shadow the other. They have been playing havoc with my mind and mood for the last couple of days. Charlotteville and now Barcelona add their drama to the mix.

How do you tackle these days, whether they be in summer, spring, winter or fall? I haven’t had to deal with them for quite awhile. My year of doing different must be making a difference. Even though I’m not feeling terrific, I am feeling a sense of accomplishment. I still have desires and purpose. I am feeling annoyed I got tripped up though. But then I am human. There are no perfection in this journey.

What I can and will do is to sit with my feelings and tap out my words. They are but physical discomforts. I will feel them, observe and let them be. I will carry on with this experience a little slower and with more attention. In the past, my first instinct was to rid these feelings as fast and as soon as possible. It didn’t really work. It has to bide its own sweet time. It demands to be acknowledged and felt.

This is what I am doing – acknowledging and feeling with every tap, tap. I have turned off the television, silencing the reporting of our human horror drama we are living in. We are in tumultuous times. We can hear a pin as soon as it’s dropped. The world is at our back door. We can no longer ignore anything.

But life is still sweet. The sun rises and sets as always. There’s the total solar eclipse to look forward to on August 17th. I’m breathing in and out, getting up, dressing up and showing up. Sometimes I fake it till I make it. But my fakes are getting better and better. I could do with less verbalizing. It usually doesn’t help much. Sometimes it makes me feel worse. It happens. That happens. But I feel pretty good about my accomplishments today. Painting and baking are good things to do on a day like today.

SHIFTING

IMG_2885What I know for sure is there is no certainty. The world according to our plans does not exist.  Faced with reality, there is no comfort in known adages the likes of:  You are not getting older you’re getting better.  You are not alone.  You are beautiful just the way you are.  Funny how time and circumstances can change my outlook.  Once upon a time, I believed in those truths.  Now…I am older  wiser, and more vulnerable. I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore.  Perhaps it is with the shift of the planet and the sun.  I feel and smell the coming autumn.  The sun comes up a bit later.  Its slant and quality a little different.

photo credit: Ava as Wonder Woman via photopin (license)
photo credit: Ava as Wonder Woman via photopin (license)

I feel a little melancholy with the change.  It is not a bad thing but somehow I do feel inadequate and apologetic that I do not put on a brave face and say regardless, the show must go on.  To whom, I do not know.  Yes, I would like to stand tall and be the Wonder Woman of my dreams.  I want to pump that fist and give life that confident pump.  But I do not have the bravado to fake it till I make it.  I wonder if it is true.  Maybe I CAN fake it – not to make it, but to become it. Life and our planet are shifting.  Things are never the same.  We stand on feet of clay in the sand.  I am shifting.  I am changed.  Maybe I need to change my stories, too, along with my posture. I can learn to strut and punch like the Wonder Woman that I am.  They say body language sends powerful messages about who we are.  I want to pump it up a little.  So what if I am faking it?  Do you want to make something of it?  Bring it on!  I’m ready.

WORKING THROUGH NOVEMBER

IMG_1911November is coming in like a lion.  The yard is speckled with snow as I let Sheba out this morning. It is wet, grey and dreary.  I am reminded of another autumn, the time after I came back from a holiday in China.

It was the fall of 2001.  I had not expected that it would be so dreary and so cold.  I had expected that there would be some sunny and warm days yet to come. There would be time for me to put the yard and garden stuff away.  After all, it was still September.  But there was none.  I had to use my hairdryer to thaw out the garden hose from the outside tap.  Greyness permeated my days and being.  I had difficulties with sleep and jet lag.  It was a difficult autumn and year to follow.

Remembering that, I am watchful of myself that I don’t fall into that deep abyss again. Experience is a great teacher.  Routines and healthy habits are great aids.  I pay attention to my inner voice.  I breathe and give myself time.  A nano second can make a difference in how I see and feel.  Sometimes I fake it till I make it.  This is the time for all those would’s  and should’s.  I ask myself, how would/should a reasonable person behave?  In that nano second I ask again, Is that true?

And so, I am living my life best as I can.  I am trying again and again, struggling with all of life, struggling with my outer and inner moral compasses.  I am choosing my well-being and happiness over everything, over being right.  I’m deciding on what is best for me in the long run.  It is a difficult tug of war for my puritanical mind.  It is hard to compromise.  I’m trying hard to be kind to myself and others as well.  It is not easy but practice does make for better.

I AM making for better.  I am getting up, dressing up and showing up every day.  I am tap, tapping out the words.  They are showing me the way, lighting up this grey dreary morning.  There is no novel in me yet.  Perhaps I am afraid of letting it out.  But I am working hard.  I am still working towards my goal of 1000 words a day.  I’ve accomplished the 500/day for the month of October.  I can stretch and reach a little further this month. It’s a good way to chase the blues away.  And I’ve found help from Henry Miller via Brain Pickings this morning.

“COMMANDMENTS

  1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
  2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’
  3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
  4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
  5. When you can’t create you can work.
  6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
  7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.

  8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.

  9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
  10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
  11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards. ”

Perhaps I can write my own manifesto in this dreary month of November.  I can adopt Miller’s motto:  “When you can’t create you can work.”

I am so grateful and appreciative for the support of friends through the Internet.  Likes and comments mean a lot – most especially during this time of coughs, sniffles and I feel sorry for me.  I try to r reciprocate in kind.  There are great communities out there.  It is wonderful that we can reach out and ‘touch’ each other, no matter how far away we are.

IMG_1896There is light in these grey days of November.  I can shine despite the darkness. So let me share a little glow here. I zentangled this little chameleon from a template of Ben Kwok’s that he so generously shares on Ornation Creation. What a great group it is, too, sharing and showing their work and giving encouragement to others.

 

How is November treating you?