SO MUCH FOR THAT

So much for writing every day. Life intervened, and I'm not even going to try and catch you up to date. Let's just start anew. Suffice it to say that I'm doing well, maybe better than that. I have a new job and a new outlook. I've been working on being positive more than negative. It's the 5 to 1 principle. This means that you give five positives for every negative comment or redirection. This is based on research that shows successful businesses and marriages are based on this principle. I learned this in research I was conducting to create and present information in a workshop for my new position. It changed my life. Well, I hope it changes my life. 

My son is a recluse at 16 years old. I don't know why. He's had a Beaver Cleaver childhood with the same home, parents, and rules. It's not that we are overly negative people. But the odds are that if you do something, our immediate family and extended family will tease, lecture, or give you advice. This is negative and we definitely don't overpower this with positive remarks or recognition. It comes from a good place; we want to help each other get better.However, it makes the odds of dealing with each other, and in the case of my son dealing with all people, a losing proposition. So, who's going to play those odds? It's a game my son has opted out of.

I have been trying to turn around the odds in favor of interaction by educating and emphasizing the importance of positive feedback. There has been some hurt feelings and arguments in this process too, but I assure them all that I'm also on a steep learning curve. It is important to note that positive feedback is most effective if the feedback is genuine and specific to an action that deserves positive attention and is beneficial in its repetition. In effect, we make our interactions an overall higher percentage of win to fail. THAT's a game  worth playing; one in which you have a great likelihood of winning. Therefore, the hope is that my son will get back in the game of personal interactions because the odds are in his favor to feel good when he interacts with people.

In the first week of my new 'smiley face' theory, my husband began kissing me good-bye in the morning again after ten years. I hadn't even thought how this would impact my relationship with my husband. We had a good relationship. We liked to spend time together. I feel more loving towards him too. WOW! I even began sending him nice loving text messages during the day.

By the second week, with a few renewed efforts, my son began to seek us out for interactions and conversations. He began to go places with us again like the store and the movies. He began initiating hugs and affection-he had never done this before. He began saying nice things to us! Yes, he's a teenager. He would call me 'Dumbo' before, and now he's telling me that I'm a great teacher. I am flabbergasted and elated.

I never thought that such a small change, though it does take concerted thought to continue, could impact my life so completely. Give it a try and share your stories with me. I hope they transform your life too.

If Only...

If only I had all day to write and dream up words and worlds that would last forever. If only I didn’t have a time job that sucks out most of my energy. If only I didn’t have a family that I love to spend time with. If only I didn’t have to bathe and eat and all those other things necessary to survive in society. If only I could prove and show the genius behind these bars to the world. If only I could let loose instead of tapping a tin cup against the steel cage in which my writer’s soul thrashes. If only I could deny the world my presence to create a present the world can unwrap their minds around for eternity.

DREAMER

Who am I if not a dreamer?

Not a writer or poet

not a teacher or mother

maybe before the age of steam

people worked too hard to dream

Who am I if not a dreamer?

not a sports enthusiast

not an actor or gardener

work is now compartmentalized

our extracurricular is super-sized

Who am I if not a dreamer?

not an adventurer or student

not  game player or changer

my mind is buzzing and blinking

multiplied by facts for thinking

Who am I if not a dreamer?

professor of possibilities

and a strategic schemer

I am not just a survivor

there is magic to fly for

Are there people without dreams? Who are they? What do they do?

INTERRUPTED

I am sitting at my desk looking towards the door because I have family that will sneak up on you and laugh as you clutch your chest, not to mention erase the one great thought that you were nurturing  for just the right moment to BOOM! So, I boot up the laptop and open the project that has been consuming me. I reread what has been written and get back into the story. Thoughts are whirling around so I close my eyes while I type to shut out any visual distractions. I capture the word marquis that moves through my mind with racing strokes and...the door squeaks open.  

I try to keep my eyes shut but the fear of being pranked is too great.  I open my eyes and try to pause the flow while glaring at the intruder. My husband stares until he realizes that I'm focusing the death ray vision at him.  He walks in like he has an invisibility cloak and riffles through the drawers for some papers. All the time I stare at him over the laptop screen. He thinks that by not looking at me that he hasn't actually 'bothered' me or the writing process, but the cinema of words so carefully crafted in brain vision is now gone...forever.  He walks out without looking at me and closes the door. He doesn't actually take anything except my  laser beam focus. He will suffer later, I promise.

I tell myself to let it go and move forward. If after forty-three years of obsessive reading I can't come up with another idea or some visionary phrases, I should call it quits anyway. I tap out another tune, and I'm getting a whole new groove on  in a new direction. Suddenly a tantalizing twist turns through my thoughts, I try to capture it like a bubbling floating upward when my daughter barges through the door.

She twirls around in the middle of the carpet, goes out, comes in, and then stands before me with her hands on her hips. "I'm bored," she says. I keep tap, tap, tapping. She gets closer and waves her hand in front of my face. "Hello?" she demands. My fingers freeze and I try to capture the twisting turning bubble as it slips away from conscientiousness.  "You're not even writing!" she screams.  "Go away," I say. "How rude!" she stomps out. I yell to close the door. I bellow two more times. I try to ignore the open door, drone of music, and incessant TV chatter.

I can't recapture any semblance of pace so I take a break from the aforementioned text and switch to editing a poem that is half begun. I read it through until the thoughts, rhymes, and connections zoom through my mind and my fingers, and SPLAT onto the screen. As I muster up the middling climax, my 'tween son pushes his body through the door and flops on the sofa (okay it's really a bed) with his arm dramatically flung over his face. I look at him...the screen...him. This too shall pass. He has to learn to figure out his own problems. Right?

Growing up among girls, I didn't know how dramatic boys could be until this past year. His storms are not episodic like my sisters or daughters, quick and explosive. His are epic with a beginning that builds to a massive middle and ends as a novella with a possible sequel. He quakes and boils, holding back tears. His voice cracks as he tries to man up and put his tragedy into words and grunts. Can empathy emanate from my pores while I continue to write? What was I writing? Will he notice? He will surge for hours, brew deeper injustices, and plot strategic solutions or revenge. It breaks my heart as he starts to gasp for air and his body trembles.  It's hopeless,  I must batten down the laptop hatches before I throw it through the window and weather the storm  to shelter my musings for calmer conditions , like maybe a class five rapids.

What distractions are disasters that keep you from capturing the fragile flight of ideas and drive you mad?