Tag Archives: Reading

MY WHOLE PICTURE

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Day’s end. I am again struggling to write today’s post for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Funny how some days the words just flow. Then I have these days. I am stuck at START with no forward movement. I guess I will have to work for each word and sentence until I have a paragraph, then another and another. So rather than being stuck, bored and restless I scroll through social media. I have just scrolled through Esme Weijun Wang’s Intagram. I’ve been following her for a few years. I find Esme very interesting and inspiring as she is Asian, a writer, has a schizoaffective disorder and suffers from chronic lyme disease. She has so many physical and mental challenges and yet she is very successful. It makes me try a little harder to push through my own little trials.

I have recently said that it’s not good for me to look at the big picture when I’m tackling a big job. It overwhelms me before I can get started. There are always exceptions to the rule. If I want to have a successful day/life, I have to look at the whole picture. What is it that I want for the day/life? After I have identified my goal, I then break down the steps to get there. I guess it’s called planning. It’s something I haven’t consciously done or thought to do – until now. So what was my whole picture for the day?

  • Writing this post.
  • Juicing one ice cream pail of grapes.
  • Finish reading Explain Pain.

How did I do? I’ve juiced two ice cream pails of grapes for 3 bottles of juice. I’ve cleaned up after myself, too. I have 20 pages in Explain Pain to read. I still have time tonight. I want to return it to our exercise guru at our gym tomorrow. And my post is finished. How about that, eh?

HOW I SPEND MY DAYS

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How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. – Annie Dillard

I wish I could write such insights as Annie Dillard. But then I’m not a Pulitizer winning authour. She has written many books. I wonder why I haven’t read any of them, especially since so many of them are in the library. I’ve just fixed that, reserving The Writing Life. I thought I should start with just one book. I’m still working on James Mitchener’s The Source. It’s an ambitious read of 1000 pages. I’m only on  page 207. I have a ways to go.

How do you spend your days? I’ve wondered what other people do with their time. I’m always busy it seems. I’m a doddler, poking away at life. Maybe if I speed up a little, I wouldn’t feel so busy. But it’s who and how I am. I need that slow pace to digest and process. So I can’t get up in the morning and hop to it. I have to ease my way with a cuppa tea and a few pages of fiction. Then it’s breakfast. If it is Monday, Wednesday,or Friday I’ll be heading out the door to aerobics. Saturday mornings I used to swim. Then somehow I got tired of always heading out of the door and I stopped. But I kept it up most of the winter.

I’m a homebody so I was glad to read that Annie Dillard is a recluse, albeit a gregarious one. I wish I’m like that but alas, I have no gregariousness in me. It should be no surprise that I don’t do a lot of frollicking with my days. I’m a rather quiet, somber person. I live within rather than without. That is, I contemplate alot. I like to read and muse. I wonder about the universe, why people do what they do. I wonder about the speed of the changes we are experiencing. How long life as we know will last? I wonder what gives meaning to the things we do. What does it matter anyways? I could have more time if I could just cut down all this musing.

You see, I am no fun. I do have fun though. I have numerous, maybe too many hobbies. I like to read and write. That gobbles up tons of minutes and hours in a day if I let it. Even painting my little index cards takes up at least half an hour. More if I’m ambitious. I’ve picked up sewing again. I went out and bought a fancy dancy new machine. It’s no small endeavour. It took time to learn all the ins and outs. Then there’s the organizing – fabric, patterns, projects. I’ve taken a fancy to free motion sewing, creating a picture with stitching. I haven’t thought about quilting yet. I have all the notions – collected through the years. At least I don’t have to go out and shop for material. I have a fabric shop right in my own basement.

I’m tapping here in my space. I’ve just turned the oven on for the roast. There’s a lot to do every day. Roasts to put in the oven, bread to make, lunches and dishes to do. The guy does supper and getting groceries. I start my own bedding plants for the garden. Been doing that for years now. Sometimes I enjoy. Sometimes it’s work. Well, isn’t everything? It’s worth it. It’s nourishing my body and soul. Even the cleaning and washing. It’s taking care of this business of living. What meaning or satisfaction would I get not doing any of this? Sure, I complain sometimes and wish that everything was taken care of for me. That sounds like being in a nursing home, doesn’t it?

It’s time to shut up and do something else now. There’s the dog to walk yet.

 

 

 

STUCK AND UNSTUCK – Day 22 in a year of…

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Day 22,August 13, 2016 @2:00 pm

Life is frigging hard.  I blame my brain.  It likes to be stuck in old habits.  It likes easy. Then I blame the weather.  I feel every storm brewing, every drop and rise of pressure.  The clouds are building again.  I am stuck so now I’m having a cup of tea.  That’s my remedy for everything.

IMG_7151Life was clear this morning.  The day was fresh.  I was on a new page – reading Ruth Rendall’s The Crocodile Bird.  I had already read it once but I have forgotten everything.  It read like the first time.  I was hooked on the first page!  I felt my eyes racing forward, skimming over the words, missing the descriptives for the action.  I stopped and read the second paragraph again – how the tail lights went over the bridge and the headlights came around the bend.  I found that scene so descriptive.  I see it in my head.

My intention for today is to enjoy the whole read.  It’s good to be hooked, but I should be able read all the words, see the setting and characters and let the story unfold chronologically.  Quite often I read the beginning and the ending.  I might go back to the middle.  Then sometimes I don’t.  So far so good.  I’ve read two chapters.  Can’t remember the ending from the first read and I haven’t gone to the end.

Patience, forbearance and happiness are what I am trying to develop in this project of choosing different ways/things.  I’m tired of bogged in insufficiency, ruts and having hard times.  Even little things/ways are hard to change.  They’re probably all biggies.  According to Pema Chodron the 3 big difficult practices are:

  1. Acknowledging what is happening
  2. Choosing a different alternative
  3. Making it a way of life.

It makes a lot of sense to me.  What do you think?  I’m a little unstuck.  Back to what I was working on.  Till tomorrow.