Just Like Starting Over

Exhibit A: If you've ever loom knitted, you know it's a
ridiculously easy craft. You can loom a hat in an evening.
Or, if you forget about your blanket project for a few months
at a time, you can loom a blanket in approximately 2 years.
The 2 years part is a projection based off of my current rate
of "do 5 rows, get bored, and put it away for a week or ten."

So, after reaching 108 days of continuous writing practice, I skipped a day. I got the journal back out, started up the next day, and then...skipped five days. The sixes-and-sevens poems have been hit-or-miss for a month. And I'm okay with all of that, because...life happens, and it gives me the opportunity to be kind to myself, which is a skill we all need.

I get a LOT of opportunities to be kind to myself. It's one of the side effects of having a teeny tiny attention span.

I blame Buddha.

So, I read a book about 15 years ago called, "The Zen of Eating." I was curious about Buddhism, and one of our trainers said, "If you want to understand Buddhism, read this book." It's a diet book, but it applies the Eightfold Path of Buddhism to eating...making the very abstract concepts of Zen extremely practical...and thus very easy to understand for those with a teeny tiny attention span.

Exhibit B: The jewelry repairs box. It's been there a long time.
Some of these are easy repairs. Some are failed projects or
partly finished projects or things that I kind of like but
have no idea what to do with. Every once in a while,
I go in and fish out a project and do something with it.
Most of the time, I pull each item out, go, "Wow! I
forgot that was in there!" and then put it right back.

One of the key takeaways I got from that book was not to be so hard on myself (which, frankly, may be a recurring life lesson)...that every day, every moment even, is a new opportunity to make better choices. In the context of the book, when you have a crappy day at work and eat a pint of Hagen Daz with a chaser of M&Ms, if you follow that with guilt and recriminations, your diet is going to fail because in a way, you're building your identity around that failure.  You become "a person who failed" rather than "a person who made a bad choice." One of those two is mired in identity; the other has a chance at self-improvement. The goal is to say, "My, that was a bad choice. But tomorrow, when I can once again look at food, I can choose better." Then, as you get more mindful about your choices, as long as you believe you can choose better in any given moment, eventually your choices align with your beliefs.

That practice has become a foundation of my identity: the ability to detach from present failures and acknowledge what went wrong without judging myself paired with a commitment to better future behaviors. So, when I realized I'd skipped a day of journaling, I didn't waste time berating myself for snapping a writing streak. I thought, "Okay, well then. That sucks. Guess I'll start a new streak tomorrow." And when the new streak lasted ten days, I shrugged that one off, too. I enjoy writing in the mornings; I have every confidence I'll do it again.

Highly recommended, even for non-Buddhists and non-dieters. Find it here.

Oddly enough, I've been mesmerized throughout October by watching somebody else's daily routine. I follow Shelby Abrahamsen (Little Coffee Fox), and in October she did a watercolor journal page a day, posting them on her YouTube channel, sped up so that you can watch her create a watercolor journal page in about two minutes. It is mesmerizing, particularly since I have limited artistic ability and it is therefore a bit like magic: watching lines evolve into shapes, colors layer, in surprising ways shadows deepen, highlights crackle on the surface...every day, my routine became watching her routine (which may, in hindsight, have led to me getting sidetracked from my routine, in one of those call-Alanis-Morrisette-THIS-is-what-irony-actually-is realizations).

It gives me a true appreciation for how much complexity is involved in art, which may not seem like it should be that much of a revelation to you, but you don't realize that the main thing I remember from sixth grade art class was getting pops from a coach because I drew a permanent line on the art work of an annoying table mate named Taco. I learned several things from sixth grade art, none of them about color, shading, or perspective.*

At any rate, when your artistic education ended with a loud thwack! approximately mumble-mumble years ago, the basics of watercolors can seem pretty magical. The whole time, you're like, "No, Shelby! Mushed pea green? There? On her face??? Wait. Whoa--that's beautiful! I never would've thought of doing that...which is why I should get out the loom and do another five rows on the 2021 blanket!"

Exhibit C: For someone who's been waiting anxiously at the ol' inbox for 2-3 months for her developmental edits, it sure did take me a long time (3 weeks) to actually open up the redline edits and go through them. Then it took me another 3 days to admit to anyone I'd actually finished. 

So, I'm okay with my lapses from journaling and acknowledge that I have the potential to make new good choices in the future. However, I do have that teeny tiny attention span, so I think that I want to give myself a shiny new challenge or two. I like the idea of building an image library and doing creative free writing based on images. I want to keep the poems and the Tarot, but give myself more flexibility in alternating those. The possibilities are endless; all I need is a brand new day to start over again. And a pint of Hagen Daz.

*Things I learned in sixth grade art: (1) Being a coach affords many opportunities to perfect the art of swinging wooden objects. (2) Sharpies are not an instrument of social justice. (3) "Because he's always annoying me" isn't an acceptable defense for vandalism.

Wearing No Masks

2007, Fairy version 2.0 with a fidgety (yet adorable) monkey.

Yesterday, of course, was Halloween--or, as we like to refer to it around here, five days till Eleanor's birthday (which, to bring it full circle, is known as The Day to Get Rid of Excess Halloween Candy...in fact, if you were to ask her what to serve at her birthday party, the first thing she'd say is, "Halloween Candy").

When the kids were younger, we went with more traditional, store-bought costumes. Eleanor was a fairy for four years straight, Bruce was once a pumpkin, Betty a bumblebee. I wore jeans and sneakers and accompanied them on their trip down Sugar Street.

All that changed a few years back. First, they all got big enough that store-bought costumes became exceedingly pricey. Second, Molly, their bonus mom, and I were separately in agreement that homemade is more fun. Third, I rediscovered the joy of dressing up.

And thus, the fruit fly was born. Note that
I am proudly carrying my Mini Max and
have a fruit necklace. 

It was 2011, and, in a move that should surprise no one who follows state government, our agency had decided to cut back on janitorial services and implement personal responsibility for trash at the same time. We were all issued a small plastic recycle bin with a mini trash container that hooked onto the side. I think this was supposed to encourage us to create less trash and recycle more. However, people still eat at their desks, and some of them even eat healthy things like fruit. If you have a little bitty trash can right there, you throw your peach pits in it, and then it may sit for a few days because we're saving all this money on housekeeping. And that is how you get fruit flies. This led management to send out stern letters about fruit flies and the need to empty your Mini Max regularly and perhaps not throw food waste into it. I believe it was suggested that we get up and walk to the break room to throw away our food trash. This was not a popular concept, and I rode that groundswell of bitterness to a 2nd place in the Annual Costume Contest. (Note: I do not remotely feel robbed of the title, because 1st place went to our CFO, who dressed as a pirate, and the depth of irony in that is a thing of great beauty.)

From there, the costumes got more creative. In 2013, Eleanor was a kitty cat and Betty a bee. Molly made Bruce a robot costume, starting a two-year trend where Bruce wanted a costume with a mask, only to insist on taking the mask off within the first few houses.

I was Incognito. All night, every time someone said, "Mom!" I'd say, "I don't know who you're talking about. You don't know me."  Or, "SHHHH! I'm in the witness protection program!" Or, in an accent, "Whoo izz zist Mom you speak of?"

In 2015, Eleanor was Teen Wolf, with knitted ears and a poofy yarn tail. Bruce was a ninja, and Betty was a cheetah. Cats are a recurring theme with Betty. She has stated on many occasions over the years that her life goal is to be a Crazy Cat Lady, and the number of her future cats has varied from 10 to 300. We've tried to explain zoning laws to her, but this has merely strengthened her desire to live in an unincorporated area. Which would be helpful, because she also wants goats.

I was Bad Mommy. I wore pajama pants and fuzzy slippers, a bathrobe, hair rollers, and a shower cap. I had a fake cigarette and some very dark eyeliner circles under my eyes. All night, Bruce would tell people, "This is a costume. She's really not like this! She's a good mom!" And I'd be like, "What are you talking about? I'm not wearing a costume!"

Last year, Betty found a yellow dress at the thrift store, paired it with yellow tights and a yellow boa and a Chica mask and became her favorite video game character. Bruce and I made a Pokemon trainer costume out of a thrift store t-shirt/cap and some duck tape. Eleanor found and ripped up an old plaid shirt at the thrift store (there's a trend here...it is well understood in the family that Macklemore & Lewis's "Thrift Shop" could've been written for me) and sprayed it with fake blood. (Ripped jean shorts, however, are all the style, so she didn't actually have to doctor those.)

I was Medusa. I painted my own snake on crepe paper and attached plastic snakes to my headband. I borrowed the snakes from Betty. I'm not sure how she came to have technicolor plastic snakes. And I'm not entirely sure what happened to them after Halloween. With Betty, you never know. They could reappear anytime, probably in the toilet.

This year, we were very resourceful. Betty wanted to be a llamacorn (which, to the uninitiated, is a unicorn-llama hybrid, that evidently has self-esteem issues because it hates unicorns). We found some colorful leg warmers, which Amazon, mysteriously, described as "club wear." I had sort of assumed that was some sort of Chinese translation error, because I really couldn't fathom anyone over age 9 wearing them, but my friend works near UT and says that, no, the college girls really are wearing them, even at 2 p.m. in broad daylight, and we are just both getting old.

Those leg warmers make me so confused. And a little despairing of the future of America. But mostly old.
I was a Precious Little Snowflake, Just Like Everyone Else. I overachieved by making quilled snowflake earrings (which promptly dissolved in the rain) and a woven snowflake necklace.
Yes, Bruce and I got our shirts from the thrift store, why do you ask?

Anyway, I made her a rainbow yarn tail, and we found a unicorn horn on Amazon, and she was set. Bruce wanted to be the Candy Bandit. Since he has started Theater Arts, he takes character development extremely seriously, so the Candy Bandit wasn't merely a costume--he was a character. A complex character, with a backstory that was revealed gradually over the course of the evening.

The Candy Bandit, you see, is the spirit of a 17th century Portuguese pirate who is possessing the body of a sixth grader for one night. This is an obvious plot hole in the backstory, because nobody, ever, would willingly possess an 11-year-old, but I didn't point that out. The Candy Bandit's goal is to use Bruce's body to steal candy from people in the greater Fern Bluff neighborhood, and he uses his arsenal of a trick plastic knife and an arrowless bow (he thought the crossbow was a bit too intense, so he took off the cross piece with a screwdriver) to liberate candy from people. On the way back home, Bruce began to reappear, dazed and vaguely amnesiac, claiming to not remember the events of the last few hours, almost as though he had been possessed by a rather underachieving 17th century pirate who prefers Skittles to gold.

Eleanor, however, wins for the Most Overly Complicated Costume Concept. In order to understand her concept, you have to have watched The Little Mermaid as many times as Eleanor has (approximately 862). For those of you who haven't (I'm assuming that's pretty much everybody), the sea witch Ursula steals Ariel's voice and keeps it in a sea shell. She then transforms into a beautiful human named Vanessa, and bewitches the Prince so that he thinks Vanessa (rather than Ariel) is is true love. Eleanor wanted to be Vanessa for Halloween. Teenagers are so complicated. And edgy.

So we found a tank top, and I made her a skirt out of a pair of $20 faux silk curtains that my mother has already claimed for her room, although Eleanor sent me a text today, "DONT UNWRAVEL THE DRESS YET I NEED IT FOR RENAISSANCE," which is teenager for, "Please remember that I was planning to wear that dress to the Renaissance Festival, so, if you would be so kind, please don't take out the stitching and give it to Nana just yet, Mother dear!" Although, if you read the last post about Eleanor being a Scorpio, you'd know that it was more likely Eleanor for, "IF MY REN FEST DRESS GETS TURNED INTO CURTAINS I WILL IMPALE YOU WITH THE CURTAIN ROD. Kk? Luv U! Thx." Eleanor spent Sunday painting a shell gold, and borrowed Nana's shiny shoes to complete the look, which would have been a spot-on reference, if anybody had actually known who Vanessa was without being told.

Already, some of us have ideas for 2018. Betty, for one, is going minimalist. She wants to be a PJ party, so she can wear PJs and flip flops with a party hat. Bruce has suggested that I embody the pun, "Mummy," and do some sort of Mom-mummy hybrid. We'll just have to see what strange new characters possess us next year.