10:24pm. I started and abandoned a couple of books and movies today. I'm not sure what I even did. Flitted about from one unfinished activity to another. I didn't leave the house all weekend... once again.
Wednesday was a beautiful day. I wrote about it on Facebook. I should have recorded it here. I will import the post now:
"I saw beautiful things today and it made me realize I’d rather see than be seen.
I went downtown. I was born in Dallas. I still literally live in Dallas. I’m not used to thinking of most “cities” as beautiful. Smog, traffic, homelessness, crime.
Yet how they not be? There are so many activities to do in large cities. So much evidence of what we’ve done and how much we’ve all changed.
Okay…. so maybe the back of this parking garage I passed by was an exception. There was a dumpster in the back which smelled mysteriously of fish.
And then there was the mummy at the Dallas
Museum of art, or rather, its brown foot that stuck out of bottom of the cartonnage. The brown foot exception. I was only expecting to see the safe colors of Van Gogh and Renoir along with assorted ancient relics from parts of the world that I am shamefully unfamiliar with. SURPRISE! Anyways…
I still felt God there and everywhere the whole time. So many people say they feel God in the mountains or wide open spaces. Silent spaces that are sacred as well as beautiful.
But God gave all of those artists spectacular gifts. They had the courage to use them. Fate stepped in, and now history holds them. The world is too beautiful to be an accident.
I’m a hermit. Maybe borderline agoraphobic. I chalk it up to PTSD. I count my sorrows, wring my hands in frustration. I make excuses. Defer. I have written in my diary many times about how much I don’t want to be a part of the world. I want to be in MY world. I don’t want more than a couple of familiar and safe people in it, either.
And yet… here was the world today. I heard one of my favorite authors, Alice Hoffman, speak. I don’t have delusions that I’ll rise to her level of success.
Still, I thought, “I have a voice and a heart too. Words. My own gifts. And I’m not living them.” I should be. Not for a participation trophy or even to be happy.
Wonder is more important than happiness. I see it now, so I believe it.
Today was a little piece of world for me that meant something. I’m not completely sure what. It was special and I want more. "
Not the best thing I've ever written, but still sweet hopeful words. That may be the more important thing. I meant all of that.
It turns out the Dallas Museum of Art is holding a whole SERIES - "Arts and Letters" and SEVERAL different authors are coming in the next couple of months. I bought a ticket to Barbara Kingsolver. She just won the Pulitzer. I'm less familiar with her, but I suspect that lecture will be selling out fast so I jumped on it while I could. I'm having to remind myself to be excited because that lecture is still a ways off. The "average, colorless" days drag by slowly. These are what I call most days of my life. I should be grateful for them though. I should be sleeping. I should brush my teeth and take my meds. I should do a lot of things. Appreciate the present but plan for my future. Balance my dreaming....
Oh yeah! I did an important thing this week. On Tuesday I submitted a piece I'd been working on for awhile to a small women's magazine. I'm counting every submission as a victory in its own way. It means I stepped out of my comfort zone and TRIED, dammit. But scratch that... doing is the new trying. I DID submit.
This first paper ship will statistically sink, but this exercise will hopefully help me to build stronger ships. I will keep on building stronger and stronger paper ships with better material. They will keep sailing as far as they can, some farther than others. I hope at least of them ends up partially intact somewhere. But who can say right now?
I just have to keep learning how to make them, and scrutinize the best ones I can find.
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