Gallileo, Newton and me

What will I say today?  A friend of mine was working on growing her business and the business coach told her to blog every day for 30 days.  I don't have a business coach, but I would like to.  I love the idea of coaches!  I'm not  sure I have a business and I'm not sure I could sustain one.  But I want to express my creativity.  And I don't want to be stuck any longer.  And since writing has always been the way I make sense of my life, here I am again, writing.  

So, what will I say today?  I've been thinking about physics a lot lately.
What will open my heart and allow me to be more than a passive observer? 
 What disrupts inertia?  Newton's First Law states: 

"An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."

Could it be my life is too balanced?  It doesn't feel like it.  I don't feel at a point of equilibrium.  I think of balance as good, really good.  But according the laws of the universe, to move beyond being a body at rest, this body needs to be acted upon by an unbalanced force.

"To determine if the forces acting upon an object are balanced or unbalanced, an analysis must first be conducted to determine what forces are acting upon the object and in what direction. If two individual forces are of equal magnitude and opposite direction, then the forces are said to be balanced. An object is said to be acted upon by an unbalanced force only when there is an individual force that is not being balanced by a force of equal magnitude and in the opposite direction."

I'm going to have to think more about what forces are acting upon me.  And of course I don't know if you can apply Newtonian laws to emotional inertia.  But on the other hand it's a whole different way to think and maybe that in itself is an unbalanced force!



For more info on the science, check out The Physics Classroom   

She Don't Look Back

 That's the part of the lyrics I have always struggled with.  On the one hand I love looking back.  I am fond of telling stories.  My young adulthood was a most magical time and I mine it for smiles all the time.  But I think Dylan was talking about a woman who didn't bother with regrets.  And while I have no regrets from  high school or college, I have looked back over the last decade or so and wondered if the song lyrics still pertain to me.

I discovered theatre in high school.  Freshman year in college I wandered over to the theatre building and that's where I spent all my time for the next year and a half.  I was certainly too quiet and self conscious to take acting classes, but I felt right at home in the design/tech part of a production.  I loved the creativity. Designing sets is a combination of drafting skill and artistry.  Costuming is a combination of sewing skills and creativity.  And building sets, painting backdrops, sewing costumes with a bunch of dedicated folks is absolute heaven -- no matter how late you have to be there! 
 
However, the reason I love the lyrics is they were the first time someone told me I was an artist.  I had a friend.  I met him that freshman year in theatre design class.  He was an artist and hip and experienced and someone I felt amazingly connected to.  He really made me feel special.  We'd go to a party and I always knew where he was, we'd catch each others eye and smile at some private joke.  We'd jump into each others conversations from the across the room without skipping a beat.  At least that is how I remember it.  I never thought it would go anywhere -- like marriage or children, but I loved being in his company and he was always a lot of fun.  He was someone I felt comfortable talking to and sharing my feelings.  Since I was usually tongue-tied around guys I liked, this was a revelation!  We stayed friends all through college.

I don't remember exactly how it came about, but I must have been bemoaning the fact that I wasn't an artist and I wish I was, or something like that.  And my friend quoted Dylan,  "She's got everything she needs/she's an artist/she don't look back."  That's you, he said.  Art is a state of mind.  You are an artist because of who you are, not what you do.

Powerful stuff.

Heart of Mine

It has been a tough couple of years.  Two years ago, after a glorious month in France, I came home knowing the answer to the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  I knew, as I probably haven't known since I was 15, I want to be an artist!  But the road has been anything but clear.  I closed my antique shop/turned it into a studio.  That was s'posed to take the pressure off and allow me the time and space to create.  Meh!  I have made art, some of it glorious, some crap!  (I'm really not being hard on myself, I know the difference).  But not nearly enough art or joy has been evident in my life.

And I'm not feeling like an artist.  Do I know what an artist feels like?  Does he have to be missing an ear?  Does she have to work in the studio every day?  Must the work be sold?  Must she conform to Dylan's definition? -- "She's got everything she needs/She's an artist/She don't look back."  I must have a picture of the artist in my head; a picture I somehow don't fit.  Or is it the emotionally tough couple of years I've had?  I think maybe one needs to feel to be an artist.  You can feel good or bad or angry or sad or any other of a million emotions, but ya gotta feel.  So probably the reason I'm not feeling like an artist is I'm trying real hard not to feel anything.

My means of escape can be found at the local public library or our subscription to Netflix. Makes sense that this piece of wisdom is the voice over from a show I watch.  I'm not there yet, to the last sentence of this quote anyway, but I know that is what needs to happen for me to be the artist I am, deep down:

"We try to live responsible, logical lives.  But we can't tell our hearts what to think.

Sometimes our hearts lead us to places we never thought we wanted to go.

And sometimes our hearts can be the sweetest gentlest things we have.

Sometimes our hearts can make us feel miserable, angry, excited and confused -- all at once.

But at least my heart is open.  And I'm writing again.  I'm dealing.  I'm breathing."

                                                                                                                                                                  -jason katims

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

May your holidays be filled with light and love!

Hanging Out

I've been spending an awful lot of time by myself. It's late at night as I write this and I realize I am a bit lonely. My work as an artist currently doesn't bring me into contact with people. It just seems everything I do to connect with people makes me feel worse.

Over the years I have hung out in a few online chat rooms. I think they are probably the loneliest places I have ever been. Recently I tried out the message boards on IMDb. I like films and some TV programs and I thought it might be nice to chat with people about them. Eh. Not so much. It's a discussion, but no real connection. It looks like I am talking with other human beings, but it's just a bunch of comments that don't connect people together. At least I don't feel connected.

I've taken to eating lunch out at a local cafe. The food is really good and it gets me out of the house and around people. During the summer I sat outside and that was great. Now I sit inside with a book, but I think the other customers think I'm odd to sit by myself. Unless of course they don't notice me at all and I am just being paranoid. Could be.

I've gotten to know the counter ladies. They know my name. They know I always order ice tea. But lately I feel that I'm not making any real contact with them either. I go in and say hi, start up some sort of conversation, but something isn't right. Are they too busy? Do I talk about idiotic things? Am I too old? Are they too young?

I'm going to stop now before this gets truly maudlin. Maybe I'll call my mom. She's odd and irritating, but one nice thing, I never feel lonely around her!

After All These Years

The look on his face is adoration. So sweet!

My husband and I have been together since we were 20 & 21. I knew after 4 days that I would spend my life with him. I was hiking up a mountain. With a bunch of summer campers. They always gave me that assignment cuz I owned a pair of hiking boots. Hiking is a great place to think. I was the last on the trail -- making sure no camper fell off the mountain or got too tired. And it just came to me. This is the man I will spend my life with. Things were very clear that summer. I saw him every day. We ate meals together, spent our days-off doing laundry and getting to know each other. In retrospect I might be tempted to think it was idyllic. But it wasn't. It was real. We belonged together.

At the time I thought we were very mature. Today, looking back, I think good lord we were young! I mean - really? 20? Who knows their mind at 20? But every time I wondered if this was the right path, if we should stay together and get married, I would pray. Every time the answer came back, you belong together.

A few years later a friend of ours wrote a wonderful essay that was published in a national newspaper. In it she talked about our relationship. It was about liking each other and including other people in the circle that was us. It actually inspired other friends of ours, who thought they were just friends, to look and see they really wanted to be married partners. While the writer didn't use the terminology, one theme was we were good together, we belonged.

This has not been a fairy tale marriage. Before our wedding there was family pressure to break up. Over the years my husband and I have had our share of difficulty. Really. Downright crappy times. Not once have I felt . . . "and they lived happily ever after." And to friends who have known some of the troubles I sometimes wonder how do I explain why we are still together?

But as I was watching a TV show the other night I got my answer. In the midst of all sorts of chaos -- you know, flood, famine, evil curses -- one of the characters says to another, "You belong together." And I realized that it's true for us. We belong together.

Taking Back The Music

I love music. Folk music, roots, anything you can dance to, songs from Broadway musicals, the great rock music from the 60's/70's -- of those things, I'm a fan!

When I got married, I gave the music away. You see, it was my husband's thing, music. And I have a long history of giving things I love away if someone else has a claim. I am not going to go into a long discussion of the reasons or psychological background. I'm not sure you care. I certainly don't care anymore! And not caring might be my salvation.

This year I found myself taking the music back.

I actually went out and bought a CD. Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits. Tunes off her albums with Big Brother & The Holding Co; Me And Bobby McGee, which always reminds me of hitchhiking to New Orleans with my pals Linda & Laura; other great tunes I can sing at the top of my voice in the car. I like singing along with Janis. She had a wonderful voice, but my slightly off key singing doesn't sound bad blended with her. I play it on my car stereo & am impelled to roll down all the windows and turn the volume to stun!

It's not that I don't have some wonderful CD's. I'm listening to Richie Havens Live now and before that it was Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark. They were all gifts from my husband. He has no problem buying music!!! He bought them for me, knowing I would love them.

But I have not bought music for myself, probably not since college. I have not claimed the importance it has in my life, nor let myself spend the money, until 2 weeks ago when Janis jumped out at me. I was wandering around Borders and accidentally found the music. It was not an easy purchase. I spent a long time dithering. I even went over to their computer where you can hear a snippet of the songs on an album. In the end, who I am, the woman who loves music, won out.

It feels like a major victory. And I am at peace.