Month: April 2020

And again…

I have written a third song, now!

What is this life I’m living (right now, anyway)???

The world is going crazy having to stay home, and I am here being extremely productive, and somehow still napping as needed, or just lying on the floor for a bit, multiple times throughout the day…, and eating a lot and often… and still getting my job done…

This has been rather good for me, I think, having to stay home and all.

It was rough at first, especially since I really want to get to know this guy I kind of just met, but I think I approached the whole ‘stay-at-home’ situation with a genuine and thorough consideration for my health and well-being, and I have acted accordingly with my self-given guidelines and encouragements, thereby helping me to be extremely sane and comfortable and confident, and also, somewhat surprisingly, very productive (more so than usual, even).

And it was really good for me to have to sit with so much discomfort around that guy for the first while – I needed to be able to get through any panic and just chill out, approach the situation as myself, and not as the crazy person that sometimes won’t shut up in my head… she’s funny, but can get way out of hand, if I indulge her.

So, yeah…, this has been very good for me.

And, as mentioned, I have written now a third song… that’s three songs in a week’s time… crazy… and in a good way… a very good way.

🙂

Post-a-day 2020

The time is now

There’s no time like the present, right?

Which, I guess, means that there’s no time like one in the morning! 😛

I had just completed a few hours of meditative work both for myself and for a friend – making a mala, and being very intentional about the whole thing and its entire process, thus taking hours to do it all, to meditate first on what to do, and then meditating by doing it – and, as I was packing up things, I acknowledged that the pull I had felt the past hour or so to play my second song (with the hopes of getting it recorded to share) was worth it… bed could wait a little longer – it wasn’t like I had to be anywhere early tomorrow, nor that I couldn’t nap as needed throughout the day (though I do have to start work at 9am, it is from home, and I don’t exactly have to talk to anyone first thing, possibly at all, so I’m okay to be a bit short on sleep…, even though I struggled with sleep last night…, but I’ll get back to that in a sec…).

Plus, this pull was more than just one to record a video or audio recording… there was something emotional pulling at me through it…

All these emotions that had gone into the song, they were ready to release, to be expressed, and to start to move onward… I had sat in them consciously for long enough – it was time.

Just to be sure, I played once just for myself, just to see how it went.

It was practically flawless.

So, then, yes, it was time.

I pulled up my computer, tested the sound and video and all, and then recorded…

And it was perfect.

And it was 1:12 in the morning, and that was perfect, somehow, too.

And now, without sharing the video, I will go get ready for bed and go to sleep, with hopes that, with these emotions out of me like this, I will find rest tonight, and can wake up refreshed tomorrow… unlike today.

And yet, even with these thoughts and feelings waking me while it was still dark outside, and not allowing but another short bit of respite – although, can we call it respite when we just end up inside stressy dreams with all the same thoughts and feelings that kept us up in the first place? – I still seem to be functioning at, now, almost two in the morning… I trust that I will be okay tomorrow, especially after resting for real… yes… I will sleep well tonight.

Thank you, God, for the music and the words… they are invaluable to me right now, and I am immensely grateful.

And I am ready for whatever is next : )

Post-a-day 2020

And another…

Well, another song has come into being by my hands.

And I like this one, too.

No, it is not so love-overflowing and happy and hopeful as the first, but it is still honest, and, while it hurts some, it is releasing…, cathartic, in a way…, and it offers hope.

Tomorrow morning, I will do my first of two workouts for the day, then I will start work on yet another song as part of my homework (due at 4:30pm tomorrow), then do another workout for lunch, and be delighted in the accomplishment of my one-year relationship – the only anniversary I’ve ever had – with the gym.

I am excited for tomorrow, and I am grateful for today.

God, help me to be true to myself and thereby share and create true love in the World.

Amen

Post-a-day 2020

Grazie, Prego

I have a language exchange partner.

He’s Italian.

He’s asked me to marry him.

Neither of us is looking to date (or anything of the sort with) the other – we genuinely just want friendship through language sharing, as we each improve our own abilities in the other’s native tongue.

In a way, we hardly know one another.

Yet, we chat (via messages that are mostly text and sometimes voice) and send one another photos and videos and updates basically every day… yeah, every day, I think…, so it feels like we are closer than we are.

We are honest and open with one another… in a way, it is an extremely low-risk situation for us both, you could say… I wouldn’t say yet that we are friends, but I no longer describe him as ‘my conversation exchange partner’, but as ‘my buddy’…, because he really is a buddy to me, and I hope I am to him.

We know about highs and lows in love and heartbreak for one another; we talk about finances and healthcare systems and death – so much death right now in his part of the world, but we never seem to dwell longer than is respectful; we get nerdy about grammar and explanations of turns of phrase; we share about work (we have very different jobs yet similar setups); I sent him my song before I shared it with almost anyone else (Since he isn’t great with English, he said, he could be a good testing ground for sharing it…, which he said after encouraging me through my nerves of wanting to make the instrument side of things go well, but being worried at my skill level…)…, and he knew what and whom it was about, without a doubt (It was not about him, of course, but someone in my life here.).

(“Comunque si. Sei cotta!😂,” he said after reading the lyrics. Anyway, yes. You are cooked. (A phrase which here means, “Out of your wits in a crush on this guy”) 😛

And, what’s extra fun is that our time difference and lifestyles actually line up perfectly that when I’m getting up and going to bed happen to be perfect times for him to be messing around, messaging me… so we have two good chunks of time every day to be in communication with one another.

And it really is fun… honest and fun.

I think meeting this buddy of mine has been one of the most valuable parts of this year so far.

And I am extremely grateful.

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Singing Sunday

Well, I accomplished a lot today, I believe.

I lay in bed, exhausted, for an extra hour and a half, after already having woken up almost two hours later than usual (!) (and I went to bed earlier than most nights); danced around my living room to the test recording of my song, to grow accustomed to it before recording it properly; stood in my open doorway, enjoying the weather, and watching people pass without even noticing me; I walked in the sun and shade on my own; I heard French(!) from some neighbors; I practiced, finalized, and recorded my song (only a video and simple audio version [versus with a good microphone, as for a CD or something], but still a finalized one!); played it for my mom (she almost teared up a bit, and really complimented it with her words along the way and afterward); painted a whole painting (from a fun and loosely-guided tutorial) on the porch, with my mom painting alongside me for a good while; I made another mala; I ate a lot of home-cooked food; I shared my song online (eek!), carefully excluding certain relevant individuals from seeing the post (okay, well, it was really just one person, but that’s beside the point); I listened to a lot of music from musicals that I hadn’t known until this weekend (Hadestown [stellar music!], 36 Questions, Heathers, Co-Op, and one whose name I am not currently recalling [only got one song so far from it and Co-Op and Heathers, but I’m liking them all so far!]); and I started to figure out the chords to a set of songs I want to learn to play on guitar.

Suffice it to say, today was a good day… emotions are very real and honest, yet very light… it is a beautiful feeling.

So, yeah… this was one of the best standard Sundays of my life… and I also stuck to my regular goal of having Sundays include painting, without even originally realizing that I was planning this particular paining event for Sunday.

With that, I go to sleep, exhausted on the other end of the day, and deeply satiated… for now. 😛

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Woohoo!!

I just ran-slash-pranced around my house, laughing and yelling cheerfully, “I wrote a song! I wrote a song! I wrote a song!… and it’s good.”

It has been a good night, I say… 😀

Song is officially recorded (though not a version to release yet), I have listened to it, and I loved listening – it’s actually good!

First time after years of preparation and training’s a charm, right?? 😛

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Who’d ‘a thunk?

It appears by, well, all accounts, that I have just written a song.

I started at about 7 PM, and finished the initial complete draft around 8:30 PM tonight.

I then cleaned up all of my materials from my task of the day, brought them upstairs where they belong, showered and started preparing myself for bed, and then pulled out my notebook and laptop so that I could type up the lyrics and put them together, organized and in an easily rearranged format.

I then did some slight rearranging, and phrase editing, and am now ready to go to sleep with a deep sense of satisfaction both in my accomplishment and in the awesomeness of the song itself.

I can hardly wait to record it and get some instrumentation figured out for it(!).

(I’m a dork, I know – always have been and always will be, and gladly so!)

I want to get to sleep as fast as possible now, so that I can wake up sooner to work on it in the morning.

Woohoo. Haha

This has really been a fun miniature adventure today and tonight… I kept wanting to write a song this week or next, and I couldn’t seem to get the right style or topic – I kept straying from the focus every time I started to write, and then didn’t like it… until a friend (? We’ll call him that, anyway.) shared a song that he had written…

When I heard the first line, I felt struggle and pain being released… by the second line, I was almost certain I knew the origins of the song, the cause for the emotions expressed within it through its music and words… and it was, somehow, so relatable, although I had never been in the same situation… it was also so vulnerable…, which made it all the more powerful.

Thinking about the song today, I thought, Man, those are Real, meaning the emotions in there…

And it struck me: What would happen if I did that, went ahead and wrote about the heavy, loud emotions going on inside of me right now?

It might be embarrassing…, but it would be honest and to the heart…, which, I think, is a huge part of what makes my friend’s song so amazing – you can feel it, deep inside.

So, let’s get deep and put it onto paper, I guess…

I pondered on it as I walked for a while, listening to musical songs, and then, upon returning home and preparing to start work on a new mala (meditation and prayer beads), I was suddenly feeling a need to write down this idea calling out to me from inside my head – I am real emotions, hear me roar and write me down poetry style(!), it was saying to me.

And so, I did.

And now I have a song. 🙂

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Skin and Clothes

Okay, so this time all on my own and with my lonesome thoughts has been tough and uncomfortable on me…

🙂

In a way, I’ve been totally fine, yet I’ve been kind of a total mess – I’ve had to sit in some really uncomfortable space emotionally, and, not having any distractions from life has really given me the conscious opportunity to be okay with the discomfort. :/

So, though it has sucked, it has been good for me as a person, I believe… and it will continue to be better and better for me, so long as I persist is allowing the emotions to happen and then to disappear after being heard.

Also, I desperately miss hugs and physical contact right now… another really stressful point for me that has been bringing up a lot of history for me…, yet a good opportunity for me to learn to be my best self, even in the face of no agreement from the world.

I am finally doing a bit of genuine work for work, as of yesterday, and not just waiting around for e-mails most of the day, however, my time has passed greatly in the pursuit of playing music (learned to play the harmonium!), listening to music, making malas, making an art journal, painting, walking, cycling, checking on my friend’s cat for her, cooking and eating food, exercising, sitting on the porch swing, working on photos, watching(?) a few movies, reading books, daydreaming like no other, reminiscing, eating loquats off the tree out front…, and I started a puzzle today… to name a few of my activities 😂

That vein said, this has really been a wonderful time lately of me exploring my self-expression in my wardrobe… one area where I do feel comfortable and at ease.

I just put on what I genuinely want to wear each morning, and I don’t even have a thought of concern when I have to go outside or to the store – I am comfortable and confident in my clothes, and excited by each outfit, every day… and delighted at how varied it all is, and at how I find myself chuckling at times, when I see how much skin is (potentially) visible – I never would have Dared wear such an outfit as some of these before, even at home… let alone Out in the world!

Yet, today’s outfit was just the same: I dressed how I truly wanted to dress this morning, having true fun in picking out the pieces, and then I had to go to two grocery stores…, and I never even considered a need to change clothes or anything, because I was already so okay with what I was wearing – of course it was fine to wear in public.

And so, I publicked in it, I laughed when I realized how I couldn’t possibly have worn or even considered this outfit in the past, and I was overjoyed at my clear progress in this realm of my life.

The outfit:

I know it isn’t exactly scandalous, but that’s exactly the point: It isn’t scandalous – just great, and it happens to show skin (especially when the wind blows).

And I love and loved it.

So, yeah…, there’s that for joy from today and these past couple weeks. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

“Dreams are my reality”

Have you ever been so supremely satisfied from a dream, that, even when you wake up and discover that it was all just a dream and is not, in fact, your real life, you find yourself still feeling satisfied?

Despite the harsh reality that those amazing hours on end of your every wish right now in some aspect of your life coming true were merely a dream, and not how your brain felt and believed them to be, your deep-seeded experience of utter bliss is unshaken – you are nevertheless content…

This morning, I was heartbroken when I realized that I would have to accept that my dreams-come-true had only come true in my dreams…, yet, to my core, I was nearly overflowing with love and satisfaction, so fantastic were those lifelike dreams…

I wanted to cry, yet I didn’t even need to do so, for I was so calm and centered in my cellular and brain-function satisfaction from the night’s adventures… my mind had been so pleased, and my body had responded in kind – I was at ease, and I chose to dwell in such a blissful space for a while, merely lying awake in bed, taking note of how wonderful I felt…, and wondering how I might feel one day of those dreams really did come true, but in no way regretting their having been in my dreams last night – a spectacular dream is always welcome, when it is uplifting, inspiring, loving, and empowering… and this one, these ones, was and were.

And then, blessedly, my day today was supremely satisfying, as well – kind of a beautiful combination from the universe for today… how I would love to have another tomorrow(!).

Perhaps I can start the day right with beautiful dreams again tonight…

Here goes…

P.S. That’s a song from a French movie I saw back in high school… it had a lot to do with a roller rink with a slide, and that’s about all I remember, aside from the song. 😛

A Retirement for the Day

We had a lovely retirement party for my uncle this evening… 35 years working for the same company, doing, essentially, the same work, day after day… completed.

Of course, we are not exactly permitted to be together for a party, so we did a Zoom video conference party – which, actually, allowed even more people to come than would have been able to make it even if we had been allowed to have the party in person, and saved All of us loads of time in driving, and even allowed for last-minute (literally) guests to join the party – and made it a total surprise for my uncle.

I ended up organizing the call, since I was the most apt to figure such computer-y things out, as well to manage a group of people and make things happen the way we want them to happen, and so I arranged with everyone (via a liaison I enlisted – aka my cousin who was originally put in charge of organizing things, but who quickly handed them to me, when we discovered his lack of and my having experience in such a thing) when to meet and how, explained the goal of the quick conference and how it would run, offered up and accepted my mother’s ridiculous idea of our all singing, “For he’s a jolly good fellow”, after the initial surprise – yes, we had discussed how we would be all out of synch, but that that merely would add to the enjoyment of my aunt and uncle, who would be the recipients of our group singing – and informed my aunt that we were all ready.

The surprise was lovely, the singing hilarious; the photo I was asked to share was a hit; the ‘quick five, max ten minutes’ for the call turned into 45 minutes; as arranged, my aunt went through and had each of us say something individually, and lots of tears happened, even from those who avoid tears, especially for such occasions as this public one; and we all had a lovely time from all across the country, and even down to El Salvador.

Also, fun fact: the grandparents (my grand, that is) couldn’t quite get the technology to work for video conferencing, due to their having older phones, and so they each were Skyped or telephoned in and held up to the computer screens of others, so that they, too could be part of the celebration, despite their lack of technology or technological skills. 😛

It was adorable.

In short, it was a spectacular 21st century retirement party, in more ways than one.

Our family is no stranger to long-distance and cross-country calling and video calling (and jut working with what we’ve got and making it work wonderfully) – we have had our fair share of people living here or there around the country and world – but this was the first entirely digital event we have had…

And it was actually really quite cool.

Technology is quite spectacular, when we allow it to do its best and we use it well.

I express tonight extreme gratitude to all those who have played a role in the development in technology connected to what our family used today – thank you, all.

Post-a-day 2020