Epilogue to End a Year: Words to Hold On To

And as the minutes of 2015 tick away, I thought I'd borrow from two authors to end the year and leave us with things to ponder:

"My little big friend Samy left me with one final scrap of wisdom. For once she didn't shout-- she tends to shout. She gave me a hug as I sat there, staring at the sea and couting the colors, and whispered very quietly to me: 'Do you know that there's a halfway world between each ending and each new beginning? It's called the hurting time, Jean Perdu. It's a bog; it's where your dreams and worries and forgotten plans gather. Your steps are heavier during that time. Don't underestimate the transition, Jeanno, between farewell and new departure. Give yourself the time you need. Some thresholds are too wide to be taken in one stride.'

Since then I have often thought about what Samy called the hurting time and the halfway world, about the threshold that you have to cross between farewell and new departure. I wonder whether my threshold starts here ... or whether it began twenty years ago.

Have you experienced that hurting time too? ... Do you mind my asking these questions?"

~ The Little Paris Bookshop, by Nina George, p. 301

During this transition time, perhaps these following words will help you. They are helping lots of people who are choosing to be Furiously Happy, no matter what.

from Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, c. 2015

Read this Epilogue.

The Entire Epilogue. 

All of it.

I keep reading it and every time I get something else out of it. Thanks Jenny.

Epilogue: Deep in the Trenches

To all who walk the dark path, and to those who walk in the sunshine but hold out a hand in the darkness to travel beside us:

Brighter days are coming.
Clearer sight will arrive.
And you will arrive too.

No, it might not be forever. The bright moments might be for a few days at a time, but hold on for those days. Those days are worth the dark.

In the dark you find yourself, all bones and exhaustion and helplessness. In the dark you find your basest self. In the dark you find the bottom of watery trenches the rest of the world only see the surface of. You will see things that no normal person will ever see. Terrible things. Mysterious things. Things that try to burrow into your mind like a bad seed. Things that whisper dark and horrid secrets that you want to forget. Things that scream lies. Things that want you dead. Things that will stop at nothing to pull you down further and kill you in the most terrible way of all ... by your own trembling hand. These things are fearsome monsters ... the kind you always knew would sink in their needle-sharp teeth and pull you under the bed if you left a dangling limb out. You know they aren't real, but when you're in that black, watery hole with them they are the realest thing there is. And they want us dead.

And sometimes they succeed.

But not always. And not with you. You are alive. You have fought and battled them. You are scarred and worn and sometimes exhausted and were perhaps even close to giving up, but you did not.

You have won many battles. There are no medals given out for these fights, but you wear your armor and your scars like an invisible skin, and each time you learn a little more. You learn how to fight. You learn which weapons work. You learn who your allies are. You learn that those monsters are exquisite liars who will stop at nothing to get you to surrender. Sometimes you fight valiantly with fists and words and fury. Sometimes you fight by pulling yourself into a tiny ball, blotting out the monsters along with the rest of the world. Sometimes you fight by giving up and turning it over to someone else who can fight for you.

Sometimes you just fall deeper.

And in the deepest, night-blind fathoms you're certain that you're alone. You aren't. I'm there with you. And I'm not alone. Some of the best people are here too ... feeling blindly. Waiting. Crying. Surviving. Painfully stretching their souls so that they can learn to breath underwater ... so that they can do what the monsters say is impossible. so that they can live. And so that they can find their way back to the surface with the knowledge of things that go bump in the night. So that they can dry themselves into the warm light that shines so brightly and easily for those above the surface. So that they can walk with others in the sunlight but with different eyes ... eyes that still see the people underwater, allowing them to reach out into the darkness to pull up fellow fighters, or to simply hold their cold hands and sit beside the water to wait patiently for them to come up for air.

Ground zero is where the normal people live their lives, but not us. We live in the negatives so often that we begin to understand that life when the sun shines should be lived full throttle, soaring. The invisible tether that binds the normal people on their steady course doesn't hold us in the same way. Sometimes we walk in sunlight with everyone else. Sometimes we live underwater and fight and grow.

And sometimes ...

... sometimes we fly.

May we all fly into 2016 and soar.

Apologies for the Quiet but ... Busy PROGRAMMING NOTE

PROGRAMMING NOTE: I AM RETROBLOGGING 2015 but posting as if it were "live." Stay tuned and poke around. I am working my way forwards and backwards. Thanks.

Programming Note: Miss me?

Image courtesy of toothpastefordinner.com

I know. I know.

Soon.

Things will be random. I may WILL backdate things. I may double up. Stay tuned. Check the archives.

Where are we with cloning technology? Or timeturners ala Hermonie Granger? I need a clone to get things done and posts writ.

Soon.

We Laugh, Because It's True

A cartoon by Roz Chast. See more from this week's issue: http://t.co/M03vQkG6Xm pic.twitter.com/raR3tc2KyP

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) May 24, 2015

Today's Daily Cartoon by Christopher Weyant: http://t.co/VMGP7sYwwd pic.twitter.com/GtistT7j0Z

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) May 25, 2015

You Should be Writing

There's a whole series of memes online, usually perpetuated by authors, academics, or freelance writers, that distills down to:

You Should Be Writing.

That could be the theme of the blog the last few years.

It's not that I don't have material. It's not that it's not germinating in my brain. It's not that I don't have letters to write, or emails to answer. I just haven't had a chance to put it all down on screen or paper.


One snowy Saturday, I was blessed with some free time between appointments, so I snuggled in at a Cosi's, with free wi-fi, all the bread I could eat, Diet Coke I could drink, some letters, a fresh fountain pen and a journal - and started writing what would turn into an epic 10+ page Jane Austen-esque epistle.

Baring time for epistles, I dash off notes, or I often use Twitter and/or my phone to jot down the kernel of the observation or inspiration. Things that might end up in other forms, later in my life. [In fact, there's one coming up this week that started out as a jotted down note.]

Here are some of my musings lately:*

Crew @ my @7eleven knows me a little too well: "Wait, you're back. What'd you forget this morning. Oh, you must be baking again. No refill?"

Overheard at train station: "Having your therapy dog stolen is a double whammy." #futurefirstlineofmymemoir #therapydog #random #whyIwrite

It must be spring in the country. I can hear the red-tail hawk crying out for its mate again. #nestingseason #springsoundtrack #countrylife

Overheard near the local donut shop. Said by father with 2 small kids. To son: "No, you can't call shotgun. It's her birthday." #birthdaytraditions

Things I ponder during my commute: Why is there a dried up, decapitated corpse of a #pineapple in the middle of the train tracks? #random

Who needs that BökFace thing when Google images helps you look up an ex just fine. Especially when you can make judgements on aging better.

Me: I really resent having to go to work tomorrow. Her: That's a problem. Where can you get a sugar daddy? Us: *laughter* #friendsarethebest

My favorite thing today was hearing how my 5yo #nephew very precisely articulates all the syllables in: ACT-U-A-LY (Very toothily) #actually

I don't normally watch the 10/11pm local news, but when I do, I miss YO-LAAANDA Vega telling me which numbers I didn't pick to win. #nylotto

3pm: Must mean it's time for an impromptu solo rave dance party in a colleague's office. I mean...3pm and SOMEBODY ELSE was, I swear. #notme

Talking to the 10yo #nephew. Accidentally broke into rhyming pattern. Was told in no uncertain terms, "Stop rapping. You can't be a rapper."

And lo, it came to pass, in the 4th decade of the life of Nettie, did she find that the balance of her coffer ledger was accidentally nil.

Mighty was the flop sweat of she upon finding it thus. Much foul words were spoke, repenting undertook, & relief upon remembering overdraft.

Forsooth, and verily, I must confess...I was not paying attention to the balance o'the coffers whilst using the card o'debit.

Yon spendthrift was trying to curb her ways of the other cards o'credit, by freezing them, but still must learn economy.

Alas, I think I've been enjoying tweets by @LeVostreGC a mite bit too much. I'm starting to tweet/writ in homage. That and scriptural style.

Excuse me? Have you seen my motivation? I seem to have misplaced it.

When you are already feeling guilty about NOT responding to a letter from a former intern c. 2/14, & she calls you today from SPAIN to talk.

I know there is all kinds of symbolism to seeing 3 crows/ravens, but what about when you spot 3 large turkey vultures "lingering" nearby?

OH at office: "Please note. That was my nose. I didn't actually lick you. You probably shouldn't lick your colleagues." We're a close bunch.

Working in the country and commuting means if you miss your train by 35 seconds you have to wait 35 minutes for the next one. #sigh

Walked by the site of my former job today. Security guards came out of the building to give me a hug. So sweet. Guys were big teddy bears.

Why was there a bowl of milk at the foot of the stairs outside my apartment door this morning?

[This was a photo reminder to myself. In the almost decade that the Attic has been located in this building, this has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!]

Stay tuned...

Maybe I'll actually start really writing again.... Can't you already envision the tale of the stolen therapy dog?

In the meantime, enjoy these random observations.

The next time you feel bad about your inbox, remember that tonight I answered some e-mail that was 15 months old. #BadPerson

— Jen Yates (@cakewrecks) April 28, 2015

Too lazy at the moment 😂 pic.twitter.com/sOzDd0zmjM

— ☆ Nica ☆ (@Nhycca) April 27, 2015

*Or to be precise, in the future. I'm back-dating this from May 2015.
TIME TRAVEL. It's not just science-fiction. It's called "retro-blogging!"

New Year's Resolutions: Write More ... Well, Edit More

One of my very unofficial resolutions, both personal and professional, was to write more this year.

Maybe I should have been more specific. BLOGGING, per se, didn't end up being part of the resolution.

However, I do have some photographic evidence that I have been in editorial/publishing mode.

Behold, evidence of the 60 page departmental "annual report" that I helped compile, lay-out, edit, print, collate, and assemble for internal use. It was a team effort, definitely, but ... I helped. Yes, we went old-school spiral binding on the 50 copies I did last week, but ... old-school was leaps and bounds ahead of what last year's looked like.

AND ... I was 3 days ahead of production deadlines.

 And I have a new appreciation for the publishing process and our in-house program compiler.

Pardon the Blog Hiatus

The next day?

I'm exhausted from the last 2.5 months.

I knew the summer would be long and hard. It was definitely something I KNEW would happen.

But man...

I don't have the stamina I did when I was in my early 20s.

This summer was LONG ... and EXHAUSTING.

I don't want to make any promises, but ...

but ...

I think ...

I'm beginning to emerge from the "Festival Fugue" that sucked me down, in, and under ... when, from early June to August, you are working so many hours/days in a row, that you can barely remember to eat, go to the bathroom, and pay bills on time, forget blogging.

There were many days -- in a row -- when I didn't know what day of the week it was ... It was just the "Saturday schedule." There were four or five "Saturdays" in a row, due to weirdnesses with weather, generators, holidays, and weekend.

There were late Festival weeks when I was just on autopilot: [get up, shower, get dressed (in a dress), find the rental car, go to work, work, rinse, repeat], that I forgot that I had scheduled myself NOT to be there. I was so worried about all the other people on the schedule, I TOTALLY BLANKED ON MY OWN DAYS OFF!

I mean...

COME ON!

Others are on vacation now. I'm back on a train-commuters' schedule. I'm reading more. I'm sleeping/napping. It's quieter. I'm catching up. ... I think .... I'm slowly emerging from "the Fugue."

Maybe I will find more time now, to blog, and to retroblog -- once this introvert has finally regrouped from having to act like an extrovert for more weeks than her reserves could handle. (Adding to the Fugue-state/zombie-hood.).

I still need about 2 more weeks BY MYSELF to finally feel like myself. Since THAT won't happen, it's self-imposed exile when and where I can.

And, I need to retroblog.

A lot of family stuff happened this summer.
A lot.
Some pictures were taken this summer.
Cute mail came in this summer.
More plans were made for next  summer.
I have more Wishes and Dreams that I need to articulate, as some from last year are actually coming true.

But for now...

Hi!

I'm sunny, but I'm still drooping.

Kinda like this

Turn of the Page/ Turn of the Phrase

It's ... June?

June?!

With the turn of the calendar page, I'm going to try and be better about adding a note or two to this blog page. 

Maybe if I ease back in, the words and creativity will start to flow down the dry paths?

Sometimes it will be a photo, or sometimes it will be a turn of the phrase.

Speaking of a turn of phrase:

These, from a recent New York Times Travel article, particularly struck me, especially after a recent quick trip back up to Connecticut's familiar back roads:

At that moment, I understood that you could not inhabit anyplace permanently, except in memory, and that this was as it should be. ...

I felt the shimmer of time’s continuum flickering against the backdrop of place. ...

... I realized there did not have to be just one home: In the mind, geography converges; beloved landscapes, villages, cities, countries, all become one, in the borderless scrapbook of memory.

 

from A Return to Rural France, and to Childhood Memories, by Liesl Schillinger on May 28, 2014, New York Times

Writer's envy? Travel envy? A bit of both. You betcha. But ... so grateful for what I do have.

Scenes from CT quick trip:

 

Xo, Auntie Nettie

Pardon the Silence ... Extended Pause

via here

But ...

via here

The words aren't coming. 

The inspiration isn't flowing. 

The "processing" isn't happening. 

Actually, nothing creative is happening lately. 

I'm in a creative winter. A dry spell. A rut of a new road.

Photo by Pete McBride, from here

 

Resources are being reallocated for other vital functions. 

I need to learn the new patterns to start things up again. 

But, until then.

Pardon the silence.

I'll be inspired  ... hopefully.

Eventually.

Image courtesy of toothpastefordinner.com

Catching Up - a Life in Snaps

I know I say this a lot, but time does kind of whip by when you are living it. Mom made a pointed comment last week about "why aren't you blogging anymore?" It's not like things aren't happening, and my schedule is a bit lighter. The commute is better and my working conditions are certainly better - so why not?

Sometimes you have to just let things go, so you can better deal with other things that need your resources. In my case, I think I was just so fried from the last seven years, (the last seven months, the last seven weeks, what have you), and just trying to survive this winter, regroup professionally, emotionally, physically, etc., that I just ... couldn't.

I couldn't concentrate.

I couldn't blog.

I couldn't organize.

I still can't really.

I only seem to have enough resources to do one thing at a time - forget the creative things. I could bake, OR I could read, OR I could crochet, OR I could travel, OR I could write letters to friends that I have neglected, OR I could try and blog -- on top of getting re-organized, getting re-situated, getting re-acquainted, getting re-acclimated, or getting through. I just really need sleep.

Lots and lots of sleep.

And I'm not getting enough.

This last past week, it all caught up with my health-wise. Which, considering my schedule for the last few months, is amazing. I had it all: head cold. sore throat. I was a Snot Monster. My back was out. I had gastro- and "lady" issues. I love it when I fall apart all at once instead of in bits.

But I still went to work.

Cause I'm dumb like that.

Whatever.

So, here are some iTouch photos of what has happened in March while I'm trying to get to and fro, survive, not freeze, etc. - not counting some work things.

In roughly  reverse order:

Another rainy Saturday. Off to do taxes today - Finally.

The day I got this book, I found this scarf. I'm DREAMING of a real vacation - in England.

Ah, dusk. I missed you. How could I have stood being chained to a screen in a cube in a big grey box for so long?

Signs of spring are FINALLY emerging.

It's a matter of perspective. One way - it's all bright -

Turn around, and winter is looming again.

I had occasion to head to the City a few days after the gas explosion and building collapse in the Bronx. The area is a familiar one from all my years on the train. The building was as close to the tracks and the windows as it appears.

Saturday morning. Above are from the night before.

As horrific as this was, and how devastating - no one really has mentioned how much worse it could have been IF the commuter trains had been right in front of the building instead of 10 seconds faster southbound toward Grand Central. The last car of that train was hit by a shock wave, but not damaged. IF it had been right there, there could have been derailments, injuries, fatalities - or worse, trains over the sides of the elevated tracks onto the streets. And a total shut down of a major transit hub. Scarey.

When I also think about prior incidents in my building, when we all smelled gas for days, propped open doors, and didn't call ConEd ... I get angry. At myself too - for not calling. Never again. We've all learned the hard way.

Anyway - it was GREAT to have dinner with my friend Michelle (no photos) and then brunch the next afternoon with Ms. Ruyi and Messrs. Matt and Ryan (no photos either!). On the way back from brunch I stopped by the quilt exhibition in Grand Central. Please see this link, or the blurb below. The work was incredible; so many versions, variations, techniques, 3-D techniques, etc. I love the turquoise fabric. HINT. HINT.

"Open March 15 to July 6, 2014 at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store at Grand Central Terminal The New York Transit Museum’s newest exhibition will honor Grand Central Terminal’s grandeur not in marble, but in textiles. Last year, The City Quilter, a Manhattan-based fabric store, partnered with American Patchwork & Quilting for a national quilt-making contest of landmark proportions. Thirty finalists from that competition will be displayed at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store at Grand Central Terminal from March 15 to July 6 in the vibrant new exhibition, Grand Central Centennial Quilts.

For the contest, The City Quilter designed two beige and aqua fabrics, one modeled off the Main Concourse sky ceiling, the other a collage of distinctive features of the Terminal, including the Information Booth Clock, 42nd Street’s imposing statuary group, train track numbers and timetables. With the requirement to use these fabrics in their design, 81 contestants from 25 states submitted quilts for the chance to win a $2,000 grand prize and display their work at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store.

The challenge to reinterpret this grand space in fabric yielded a wide array of artistic visions. The quilts incorporate Grand Central’s iconic architecture, with chandeliers, clocks, celestial ceilings, acorns and oak leaves creatively woven into the designs. Quilters looked to the past, present and even future (by way of East Side Access) for “material,” drawing on personal encounters and family stories for inspiration. Although many of the contestants hail from far outside New York, Grand Central’s influence stretches far and wide: in one work, fabric is cut in the shape of neckties, recalling the daily commute to work on Metro-North; another quilt includes a letter between two lovers who met on the railroad. Each contestant takes a different approach to the theme, utilizing complex quilting techniques and embellishments to express Grand Central’s legacy in fabric. This exhibition is free and will be open to the public March 15 to July 6 at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store at Grand Central Terminal."

 

 

What else?

Oh yes. Although I used to "borrow" the golf-cart to go on joy-rides, I have a new "deere" dream.

I want to "borrow" this beaut.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Hide the keys.

Actual e-mail conversation with Mom (condensed).

Me to mom: It's been 5 weeks. Can I kill the new job/b-day balloons now?

Mom: What? Your office mates do not like the smiley face taunting them? At least do it humanely 

Cue me screaming: DIE DIE DIE and stabbing the hell out of these helium suckers. I MAY have scared some officemates. Those newbies have NO idea the kind of personality I am still suppressing at ye old "little c."

5 weeks. Those balloons lasted a HELLUVA lot longer than flowers. THANKS MOM AND DAD!

Then there was the celebration of March 14 - AKA 3/14 AKA Pi(e) day AKA any excuse to throw a potluck. All pies, except for cow, were welcome.

Look, I know PI isn't PIE - but a) we're an arts organization b) a non-profit and c) musicians, mostly. Getting $$, budgets, and dividing up Pie = MATH! I made pecan pie tarlets and couldn't figure out what 2/3 cups + 2/3 cups = ? Fractions SUCK. Pi(e) doesn't. Doubling the recipe ended up as 3.14 x 26 = 81.64 or about how many little mini pecan pie bites I made, until I "tested" 1. (*chomp* 80)

We ended up with pizza pies, pies, homemade savory and sweet tarts, quiches, refrigerator pies, etc.

So good. What a fun March activity. 

We've Saved the Date for next year, which is 03/14/15 at 9:26 a.m. for the next one: the actual digits for Pi.

I've been asked what I am organizing for the 4/20 celebrations - and I have had to respectfully decline. 

420 = the wacky to-baccy - and that's SO not me. We don't need "funny" brownies at a place that is already "funny."

Did I mention it was winter through all this? With piercing cold winds on some days? It's enough to make you want to snap off an icicle and plunge it deep in your heart - I mean the heart of Jack Frost. Let it Go!? HA!

That "the cold never bothered me anyway" refrain. IS CRAP! It's COLD.

However, after years of being GREY - I will take these final grey rainy days of March - and a reverse commute - so I can stand outside for a few minutes in the suburbs, on a train platform, and see see the last lavender light of day.

 What else did I do in a very busy March? Oh yes ... 

There was a trip to Hershey, PA - where my fat girl, inner child may have done a little dance in front of Chocolate World. I remembered the Hershey Kiss street lights from a family trip in my "youth." It smells like chocolate ALL over the place - which, in my case served as an appetite suppressant.

For all that I was surrounded by it - especially the gift shops and Chocolate World - I only picked up presents and baking supplies. I didn't EAT any chocolate until after we left.

One rant about the lovely Hotel Hershey - a fancy, schmanzy hotel. WHAT KIND OF SADISTIC MONSTER THINKS PUTTING A SCALE IN THE BATHROOM OF THE HOTEL HERSHEY IS A GOOD IDEA? NOT TO MENTION A SPECIAL BATHING SUIT STORE?! SADISTIC HORRIBLE MEAN MONSTERS! You are in the LAND OF CHOCOLATE. YOU WANT TO EAT IT ALL! NOT GET A COMPLEX ABOUT HOW MANY POUNDS YOU HAVE PUT ON - AND THEN THINK ABOUT GETTING IN A FREAKING BATHING SUIT! WHAT STUPID COCKAMAMIE IDIOT THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?

Okay then.


Let me flip through my calendar .... Yup - so aside from work, concerts, and a few other friends dinners I didn't photograph - this pretty much sums up March. I guess I had more to say than I thought.

Bear with me - I will break out of this writers block/cage eventually. Spring will eventually break over the horizon - and maybe my creative synapses will spring back to regular blogging soon soon - aside from some family posts soon to come.

Is it spring yet?

all photos iTouch