Yesterday, I went running around our neighborhood. I passed a cute little old woman who was walking with her friend and she stopped me.
“How old are you?” she said.
“24,” I told her.
“You are working really hard running like that. I don’t know how old I am, but I must be at least 10 times older than you, and I’ve never run like that!”
I thought to myself, “Well you sure are in good shape for being 240 years old!”
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The new year is always such a fresh beginning for me. Not only is it a new year, I meet a new age each January 5th.
For the past month, I’ve been looking into the shadow that is screaming at me, “You are going to be 24! THAT IS SO OLD!” I kept joking to Jason about how old his sister is going to be. Everytime I strained myself I would say, “Welp, I just felt another egg dry up.” He would laugh and say, “Yeah – I heard it too. You are getting old!” Thanks, Brother.
Everyone keeps telling me how young I am. But the most liberating present that I received on my 24th birthday was from my dear, young, 19 year old cousin Kelly – Age Defying, Anti-Wrinkle Cream. We laughed so hard and I sighed with such relief before quickly applying the cream to my face to prevent those rotten awful crow’s feet. Kelly always knows how to make me feel better.
Twenty four. These are no longer the days of princess parties and Chuck E. Cheese. I’ve already driven a car, voted, and gotten into a bar. Been there – done that. Now, let me give you an inside peak at the age of a 24 year old who graduated college a year and a half ago and doesn’t really know what she’s doing.
“When I was your age, I already had 3 kids and was pregnant with the fourth. I had been married for about four hundred years! Why aren’t you married? Will you ever have kids? So what exactly do you do?”
AH! My head is about to explode! Marriage, careers, babies, grey hair…
Have you ever heard the saying, “Look before you leap.” Before this point in my life, I always leaped without even looking. Leap leap leap. Never never look. But NOW, I think I am looking, scouring, starring, gawking, and looking yet another time before I leap into any decision. I’ve almost taken away my privilege to leap due to excessive leaping. OR… I feel like I should be leaping, when maybe all I want to do is lay back on my lilly pad and smell the roses.
24 = try to leap a little before I have to us a walker and physically cannot leap. But always remember – leap at your own pace and don’t let the other frog’s bug you.
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Tags: birthdays
In 2007, I learned that I need to be accepting of the present. I must add that this took nearly the entire year of 2007 & every year previously to figure this one out. But, I’m glad that I caught on before 2007 shut it’s doors. I was always consuming my time with, “I would be happier if only I could change this,” or “My life would be complete if I just had this,” and “This would be perfect if I could make it like this.”
I think I nearly drove myself mad playing this game. And even when I did meet that one change or complete that one thing, I always found myself thinking, “Oh… that’s fine, but it would be much better if I could do this.” Sometimes, I completely miss the joy of want is going on now. And by the time I realize that I had something great, it is already gone.
I grieve the wasted time I spend making these empty wishes, these unattainable goals of perfection. I feel ashamed for dragging loved ones into my misory of unhappiness when I don’t think things are quite good enough. (What is good enough?) I revel in the fact that I will try to submit to imperfection in 2008. I will find beauty in the imperfecct and the unfinished. I will find hapinness abd acceptance of what is. That doesn’t mean that I have to settle, or I have to stay in a situation that I don’t want to be in. But it’s also doesn’t mean that everything has to be not good enough.
If only I can do this in 2008, I will be truly happy and enjoy life.
JUST KIDDING — Do you think I’ve fallen back on my New Year’s Resolution already? Even if I do stumble at this, which is very likely, I vow to have a great 2008 anyway. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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Hear, Taste, Touch, See, Smell
Last week in writing class we got down to business. We started writing scenes. We each wrote a scene of our choice and when we were done, we were asked to circle all of the concrete words that were in our scene. Concrete words are specefic words that are appealing to our five senses.
OOPS! Turns out I forgot that portion of in my writing. I realized that I have lots of descriptions of peoples emotions and I am very good at analyzing why characters are feeling a certain way. But I never think about what people may be hearing, tasting, touching, seeing or smelling.
After I went home, I realized that this may be a reflection on my life. I must admit that when I was coming up with the name for this post, I forgot the fifth sense in the 5 senses and had to look it up on Wikipedia. (Smell = duh.) That just proves how much attention I pay to the five senses in my everyday life. There have been so many times where I am lost in my own thoughts or concerned about how so-and-so is feeling. Then someone will ask me, “Did you see that ___? It was so awesome!” Then I inevitably respond, “What ____?” Observant person replies, “You can’t be serious! You didn’t see that! It was right in front of us!”
So as they say, I guess its time for me to wake up and smell the coffee… stop and smell the roses. A friend suggested that I take a little time out of every day to sit and be perceptive of everything around me. I’ve got to get to work…
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Cautious Hips
Hmmm… what’s been going on lately.
I started taking NIA Dance class on Wednesdays after work. I must admit that we didn’t have class on Wednesday (b/c it was Halloween) and even if we would have had it, I would have skipped it. Why, you might be asking yourself? Because I injured myself two Wednesday’s ago at NIA due to too many wild hip movements. I thought that you only had to worry about that when you’re ninety, but apparently I need to tone it down a little. Back to NIA next week with a smiling face and a set of cautious hips.
My third writing class was on Tuesday. This week we focused on Character. Most of the people in my class are writing fiction novels. Many of the exercises that we did in class were so much fun for them, as they are creating the characters in their minds. However, since my novel is non-fiction, my characters are actual people, so I don’t get to let my imagination run wild as freely. (This caused me to make a vow to myself that I must write a fiction book after I write this one because it would be so much fun to create something real from your imagination.) It was still fun to think about how I want my protagonists portrayed in the book though. I turned in my homework assignment, which was a plot outline. She said it could be about a page, but we could do whatever we want. I turned in a 6 paged plot outline. I felt a little bit silly doing it, but I couldn’t help myself. I have been working on outlines for months on my own, so this was fun for me and I was finally able to outline the entire book in a way that made sense. We were also assigned to talk about our book to another person and get some feedback from them. My person was Nik’s Mom, Barbara. She graciously read all six pages, and gave me some helpful ideas. I was scared to have someone else read my plot line, but I am so glad that I did. The rest of writing class will be focused on actually writing the novel. THIS IS THE MOMENT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!
This writing class has spiraled me into a frenzy of reading. I want to read everything I can get my hands on, and I want to do it now. The problem is, it is not physically possible for me to read five novels per week. I went to the bookstore and frantically wrote down every book that I saw that I instantly thought, “I must read this!” Then I went home and put 7 books on the hold list at the library. The books are streaming in and I am like a fanatic trying to read and read and read before my next book on the hold list comes into the library. (One of the books I am 256th on the hold list, so I think I have awhile.) I’ve become completely obsessed. Whenever I really get into something, I can’t just do it, I have to over-do it. But I can think of a lot of things worse than being a book junkie!
What else… Two of my friends are pregnant with their second child. I am spending the weekend with Ellen & Reed. We went out to dinner for Nik’s friend’s birthday at Bucca de Beppo and sat at a table with a the Pope’s head starring at you in the middle of it and the ceiling shaped in a way that you can hear everyone’s voice like their plate is their own personal microphone. Nik and I are going to Las Vegas for New Years with a big group of friends… the girls have decided we are wearing dresses on New Years Eve and we don’t care if we are surrounded by boyfriends that choose to dress in sweatpants. We’ll be in Vegas and we will be fabulous. My cousin Ian opened a store in downtown Snohomish called “Shoppe Random” that has items that will keep you mesmerized for hours like solar powered jars, potato guns, flying monkeys, sunglasses with rear view mirrors, temporary bling tattoos and cards that say things like, “Happy Birthday, Best Friend… actually you are my third best friend, but they don’t make cards for that.” I love it.
Now I must go and put my nose back in a book…
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Tags: NIA Dance, novels, writing
Week 2: Plot
2nd week of writing class has come and gone. It was nice to walk in seeing some familiar faces, and everyone was so excited to be there. We talked a lot about plot and did the coolest exercise. You make a bubble chart of important events in your book, except you only write the first main event, that cause two other events. Then you pass your paper to the left twice. Then you write two events that you think could logically happen from the first two events, on one of your peers bubble chart. Pass left once. Pass left twice. Now you have your own chart back and it is overflowing with events that other people have created. It was so awesome to see what other people thought should logically happen in my story. Some of them were right on, some were way off, and some opened my mind to new ideas.
At the end of class we partnered off and told our partner about our story. I loved what my partner said so much, I wrote it down in bold, “We are the sum of our experiences.”
This week we are to work on our plot outline… I love that this class has really gotten me thinking about and working on my book. I think about my book all day long… sitting in the car, at work, at home, lying in bed, and sometimes when I’m supposed to be thinking about something else. My mind is an explosion of ideas.
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Once Upon A Time…
Once Upon a Time… the theme for the our first meeting in the class I’m taking called, “Writing Your Novel.” It was such a great feeling to be in a room surrounded by other people with the same passions and goals. The room was bursting with excitement and ideas. The main thing that everyone said at the beginning of class was, “I’ve always wanted to write a novel, but I just have never gotten around to it.” Our instructor, Waverly Fitzgerald, started out the class by writing a quotation on the chalk board:
”There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” — Someret Maugham
The first thing she asked us to do was write down five of our all time favorite books, look for a common theme, and share it with the class.
My List (I know she said list five, but I couldn’t help myself):
- A Thousand Splendid Suns
- Eat Pray Love
- A Long Way Gone
- Memoirs of A Geisha
- Tuesdays with Morrie
- Marley and Me
- White Oleander
After looking over my book list, I realized that the common theme in my list is that each book is about a spiritual journey that ends in self discovery through struggle. And that is the exact direction that I want to go in my book. We read a short ‘blurb’ of our book to the class, which is basically what we envisoned would be written on the back cover of our book. It was neat to hear about what my classmates are working on and to actually form my ideas into something real.
Waverly also told us about NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. Nanowrimo takes place in November and is a challenge to write 50,000 words of a book in one month. The idea behind this, is to stop talking about it, and actually write the book you’ve always been dreaming about. I am still looking into it whether or not I want to be a nanowrimer… it seems so intense, but also something really fun to be a part of.
Next week we focus on Plot & Character…
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Tags: nanowrimo, novels, writing
NIA Dance!
Tonight I went to my very first NIA Dance Class! NIA is the integration of Yoga, Tai Chi, Aikido, Tae Kown Do, Modern Dance, and Jazz. The idea behind Nia is to exercise your mind, body, and soul. One minute you are doing the cha cha. The next second you are karate chopping and punching the air in front of you. Seconds later, you are pretending to fly, and the end is topped off with some silent meditation. After, I was so relaxed and stress free… plus I had so much fun. I love what my instructor, Adi, said at the end…
“Be grateful for what you had, be grateful for what you have, and be grateful for what you will have.”
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The fall leaves are turning, and now its time for me to take a turn for the positive. Whenever the weather turns or things aren’t going my way or I am stressed out, I am such a whiner! Except, I don’t think I’m being a whiner… and then I just start getting pouty (I know, it’s pathetic).
I didn’t really realize until this weekend, when I started projecting my judgement on someone else. I told this someone, “You give me a dollar everytime you poke fun at me.” Then someone said, “Okay, fine. And you give me a dollar ever time you start whining.” I happily took the challenge.
Needless to say, by the end of the day, I owed $3 and someone owed $0. That’s when I heard a big silent “WOOPS” in my head.
My theme for the week: “There is a season – turn, turn, turn”
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
I cannot rave more about A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. It made me open my eyes when I wanted to close them. It made me smile, and it filled me full of sorrow. This is a great read. I must say it has been the best book I have read all year (and I have discovered a lot of great books this year)! Now, I can’t run to the bookstore fast enough to get Kite Runner.
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