Everyone should take a day of rest.  I don’t care what religion or not that you are.  There is something about taking a day off, brewing up some coffee, grabbing your favorite book, or if religiously inclined, your favorite verses or Torah portions, and settling in.

A day of rest is reflection and meditation.  A day of rewarding yourself for the week and also for repairing the damage of the week.  It is a day of gentle recharge.

Technically, in a day of rest I shouldn’t be writing a post. That implies work and effort and an appeasement to the outside world.  I get that.  I am a bit of a rule breaker.  As a writer, many times I choose that inspiration over required rest, lest I forget it (or lose my enthusiasm for it).

However, to appease my guilt, I will end this post now and get back to rest, reflection, reading, and learning.

Listening to: Dangerous by Big Data and This Love by Taylor Swift

Reading: Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion and East of Eden by John Steinbeck

My family and I just got back from traveling the state of Oregon.  Plenty of adventures, plenty of pictures, and plenty of food.  Also, tons of thoughts as we covered the hundreds of miles.  Now back home to writing.

Today was spent transcribing and updating pages.  Time went by without me realizing.  All my thoughts and musings were spent in my journal rather than here.

So yes, New Monkees. The project that has turned me into the crazy, flustered, and emotional writer I am today.

At the start of this project by biggest fear was losing myself.  I actually said that.  “I am afraid I will lose myself.” A remarkable statement because that is what happened.   The moment I took on this project was the moment I fell in a big pool and sunk to the bottom.  It was up to me to learn how to swim.

Funny how with New Monkees my analogies and metaphors often involve water, whether that be swimming pools or oceans.  It is either me drowning or Marty, Larry, Jared, and Dino patiently treading water and easily riding the waves of my turbulent thoughts.

It is now over 5 years since I took on this momentous project.  Picked it up and slung it over my shoulder and carried it. At times it overwhelmed me, I cried from the weight and doubt, at times I crawled with it, at times I set it down and walked away from it. Little did I know it was tied to me, so I never walked away, it simply dragged behind me.

Over the years and with age and experience and wrinkles and aches and pains this huge weight became a part of me and I developed my writing muscle and with that my confidence.  I read books that mattered and books meant to teach me the art of creative nonfiction.

And the men, the New Monkees,  opened their lives to me.  I say this a lot, and they did.  Then a part of my brain became just for them. The Marty, Jared, Dino, and Larry portion.

4 New Monkees walk into a bar, my brain played out such scenarios.  What would each one do.  Now write it.

Yesterday my dear friend Lynn asked me about the book and how it was going.  I haven’t been asked that in awhile. Friends and family are used to the New Monkees. My kids, my husband, my in-laws, the dear men and women in my life.  They know the New Monkees well.  Some have listened to me for hours and offered gentle counsel.  I told her things were good.  Too much to explain in one sitting.

Yes, for a long while I wandered lost.  Of course, you have to lose yourself in order to find yourself. That is common knowledge, but knowledge I didn’t know I needed.  And I lost myself in all of it and stayed in the pool like a young Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. I simply floated at the bottom and looked up.

Gradually I found my way up and found my writing voice.  A voice I never knew I didn’t have until suddenly it spoke and words started to come.  Suddenly all four men became characters and I could move them with their assistance, their hours of recorded words.  All of that gave my characters life and the ability for me to move them.

That is one of the greatest experiences as a writer, when you know yourself, that you have it.  Like learning how to play the piano, your fingers just move, and off you go playing the melody.

I have a lot of chapters written and now I have connected with them, enough to connect them with an audience.  Enough to bring them out and describe them and develop them and it is a good feeling.

So yeah, that is my latest update on this crazy journey of Weather the Storm: A New Monkees story (working title).

Currently reading: See previous post 🙂

Currently listening to:  I could use a love song by Maren Morris

I am a candle of shining hope.  As I lie in a cold room, cold yet comfortable, cold yet pleasant.  As pleasant as can be imagined with a first cold now room temperature probe inside my vagina.  The probe gently guided by a lab technician.  As she stares at a computer.

Musical notes as pictures are taken. Ding, ding, ding.

I am made comfortable. I stare at a crooked flower poster on the ceiling.  No tears or scotch tape to hold up this piece, just crooked, but not unpleasant.

I joked happily about this appointment.  Pounding down 4 glasses of water and laughing.  Waddling in with a full bladder and a jovial attitude. Making conversation with nurses and trainees.

Shown my room and my robes. One open to the back, the other opened to the front.  Keys for a locker.  Everything so clean and so quiet.

I lie down and warmth begins.  The warm lotion, the pressure, the quiet with the occasional questions of, “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.”

My thoughts once occupied dealing with other things like getting my parking validated, suddenly settle here.  Then like savage thorns grow in my once peaceful mind, choking out all concept of rational thought.

“What if this is it? What if she finds something? What does her body language look like? Boy she is taking a lot of pictures! What do all those colors mean?  She just took a sip of water, that’s good, or is it good? Does that mean something?”

And I bear the questions like turbulence on a plane.  What if we suddenly fall?  What if she sighs? What if we nosedive? What if her hands shake?

And the room so quiet.  A potential crashing plane in my mind in this quiet tranquility in the room.

I breathe but all my muscles are tense and ready.

Currently reading:  East of Eden by John Steinbeck, The Path to Power by Robert Caro, Codependent No More by Melody Beattle

Listening to:  Can’t listen to music right now, my writing garden soil is a bit over watered.   Just writing to the background noise of the television.

Got up this morning and went to work.  Upstairs for a bath filled with lilac smelling bath salts and flowery scented soaps. Then it was a quick slather of cocoa butter on wet skin.

Clothes went on, jeans and t-shirt.  Hands eager to get started.  A jaunt downstairs to work with hot water and soap.  Take out the trash, dishes scrubbed and in the dishwasher. Then a quick mug of good, hot coffee.

Mom-in-law sings as she waltzes down the stairs, eager to prepare the morning Father’s Day feast.  She asks if I need help with the dishes, I tell her just to worry about the food.

She gets to work, the refrigerator opens and out comes the pickled herring, cream cheese, lox, and vegetables.  Bagels are sliced, chives picked from the garden go on a china plate, the feast comes into fruition.

We sit at a table filled with wonder.  All on mismatched plates, china and ceramic.  Gold spoons and silver forks.  I slather my bagel with cream cheese and pile it high with lox and onions.  I sip my coffee.

We rest after breakfast and watch movies.  John’s choice.  Dinner comes upon us as the tropical stormy day turns a brilliant golden.  I sit outside with a bowl of watermelon, mint, banana, and pineapple.  I dash back inside for cappuccino fudge candy.

And I crawl back on the couch and think of things to write.  Running outside when I catch the golden hour of the evening which causes the household to stop.  “Everyone, you have to come downstairs and see the sky!” Mom-in-law shrieks.  I race to get my camera.

Then it is homemade hot chocolate filled with marshmallows.  Another announcement to head outside to admire the fiery pink and gray clouds.  The sky mixing with the sun and the storm.  Finally settling on a brilliant bright rose with golden hues. The colors reflected off my son’s blonde head.

A delicious day indeed.

Listening to:  Maroon 5 Wait

Currently reading:  LBJ (STILL, I am not going to to bother to write the title) and At my father’s wedding by John Lee

Back in the days when I was a baseball mom, I was an organized baseball mom.  Rather I was a creature comfort baseball mom.  I wasn’t the Team Mom who provided all the snacks and knickknacks, buckets and banners.  I wa a strictly in it for me kind of baseball mom.

I wallowed in this.  I loved watching my kiddos’ baseball games because of the homey conditions of my vantage point.  I came bearing covered wagon.  A wagon filled with blankets, books, snacks, chairs, and drinks.  I was like a traveling gypsy who simply brought her home around with her.

I would pick out a spot on the cement. Grass I couldn’t stand. Grass equaled moisture and wet blankets and dirt.  I would search for any cement spot, usually by the grandstand benches.  Often times there would be this wonderful cement area,  one time much to my delight a push broom was provided.  I swept off all the dirt and leaves, and set up shop.

The blanket came first then was quickly piled with a low sitting lawn chair, another blanket nearby in case I got cold.  The wagon carried cup holders for my drink (hot coffee) and I packed numerous Ziploc bags filled with anything from popcorn to nutrition bars.

I usually had at least one child with me.  This child also required his stuff. Stickers, books, toys, and goldfish crackers.

Upon completion of camp set up, I hunkered into the little home I created.  There I’d be, sipping coffee, writing in my journal, reading books, or munching on chocolate raisins.  A delightful existence.

Currently reading:  still slogging through LBJ and the Path to Power.  Still a good book. I am also rereading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

So I restarted my Artist’s Way curriculum today.  The author, Julia Cameron requires two tasks be done.  No negotiations. That is the morning pages (3 page journal freewrite) and the weekly artist date.

So I sat at the kitchen table and wrote.  My anxiety going up and down in waves along with the clenching of my chest.  I am at a point where I need guidance or direction or something.  Maybe none of that.  I just need to instill some kind of routine and ritual for just me.

I took myself out on an artist date to the local used bookstore and thrift shop.  However, this time I found myself  not intrigued, enlightened, or entertainment by their massive collection.  I felt a little overwhelmed.  So many choices and topics.  I stared mindlessly at the huge women’s studies section then found two books on male specific psychology and grabbed those.

I wandered through the rest of the store and found a little art piece for a buck 99.  It was a sketch of a man, hands in pockets, slouching,  titled, “The Bystander.”  I walked away from it but like the cliche it spoke to me.  I bought it.

Home now, ready to get back to work on the book.  More transcribing to get through.  Working on the book gives peace and order to my tumultuous days. Days when I find it difficult to relax, or feel too lazy, or whatever thing.  It sets me back in my rightful place.  A working writer.

Off to go find something to munch on and get back to work.

Listening to:  Laura Marling’s You know, Master Hunter, Devil’s Resting Place,  Rambling Man, and Devil’s Spoke 

Currently reading: Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

I am currently residing on a very different island.

The first island I wrote about was cold and rainy.  One that demanded a person stay indoors, wrap themselves in a blanket, and drink hot coffee.  An island that willfully accepted hibernation and crispness, rain jackets, and umbrellas.

This island is the opposite.  This island yearns for the people that inhabit her to be outside.  And if propriety’s laws were lax, completely nude.  Running among the sand like babes getting browned in a gentle sun.

My husband is a list maker. The first day he scanned a book on Hawaii and we have a full agenda of activities.

We have visited volcanoes and beaches, little tourist towns, tropical libraries with all the windows open letting in the sweet, breezy air.  Tennis balls attached to table legs and chairs to foster the illusion of silence.

The island sun has embraced my beautiful family as their own.  My love and my children’s skin has darkened to various levels of honey.  A light brown here, a dark mahogany there.  They run on the beach with sand in their clothes.  The sand pure and soft and clings to the skin but causes no abrasion.

And the flowers smell so sweet.  John buys me a lei and it smells deliciously of plumeria.  Intoxicating and seductive like the island. We attend a luau filled with indulgences like roasted pig and fire,  beautiful smooth women and tattooed fire eaters,  white toothed smiles and long hair, and coconut tops.  Drinks in abundance.  And the warm wind blows just warm enough.  Just loving enough.

I walk through the tourist traps filled with cheap knick knacks for the masses, none of it made in this tropical paradise.  Shirts and magnets.  I snatch a bottle of plumeria perfume and spray it to capture the scent of my lei.  It didn’t work, and resulted in a rather disastrous cloud of offensiveness which caused another tourist to look back at me angrily.  I understood.  I now reeked of backdoor brothel.

I laugh at the silliness of it.

Today we head out again to watch sea turtles.  My baby just walked out with a bag filled with snorkeling equipment.  Maui sends yet another invitation to journey into her depths.

At the moment, I must refrain because I am still attracting sharks (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) but once that is done dancing into her waters is where I will go.

Mahalo.

Listening to: Alone by Halsey ft. Big Sean, Stefflon Don

Reading:  The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson) by Robert Caro

Warm, tropical, and safe.  The rooms painted in colors of the sea.  Bright blues and sea greens.  She walks me through the house.  Shoes removed at the door.  The very picture of Hawaii.  She is tan, hair trimmed short and clean, wearing a flowing black dress.

The house with well swept floors.  Every piece is selected in her house.  Every piece carefully chosen.  Pictures painted by her children framed in the hallway.  A Kandinski of circles, an Ansel Adams of stones, a  “Starry Night” created by a 5 year old.

All her books are used.  Well read and well loved.  Tattered covers.  Much like content rows of Velveteen Rabbits.  Two copies of one of Margaret Atwood’s books.  I knew the reason why.

“One of those is autographed isn’t it?”  I ask.

“Yes!” She eagerly grabs the copy and tells me the adventure involved.  Her story to get the autograph as exciting and colorful as all of her favorite books.

She walks me through all the rooms in the house.  The master bedroom and her sons’ bedrooms.  Both boys’ rooms are filled with books and art.  Hand painted pictures of whales and manatees on the walls.  Crosses over every entryway and over every door.

The crosses are warm and welcoming.  No browns or blacks or hard steel but created  with bright colors. The primary ones. Reds, yellows, and greens.

She takes me outside.  Her backyard a well kept jungle. The palm trees tall.  The highway noise  on the other side of the fence.  This side, however,  houses an oasis.  A line of wind chimes decorate the back porch.  One made of bones.

“I found these pig bones by the side of the road so I took the bones home boiled them, cleaned them, and painted them.”  She is a vegetarian.

“So you were paying honor to the pig in a way.  So his death could be made into something beautiful.” I say.

“Yes.” She smiles.

She cruises flea markets, consignments stores, and Etsy.  Bookshelves made of thick, strong, re-purposed wood.  A framed burlap sack painted with a lighthouse and beach.  An old card catalog shelf filled with knick knacks.  Rows of bottles above her kitchen cabinets with a potted plant over the sink.

A place of warmth and safety.  A place happily residing with strength, beauty, and independence.  A symbolic representation of the beautiful island of Maui, and a perfect representation of the woman who lives there.

This space feels like an open spot on the busy chaos of the internet.  I don’t seem to have many followers here, or viewers for that matter.  Perhaps I do this on purpose.

I advertise this page on my Facebook page and have this web address listed but admittedly I don’t care for many people.

This space for the moment seems to be like a quiet studio space.  A place where I can just quietly create, listen to music, and then publish.

I am aware that after time and once there is more interest in the book that this blog will be discovered as well.  My blog posts will be read and discussed perhaps, or skimmed over.  It doesn’t really matter.

The last of my New Monkees articles posted today and it proved to be a successful venture.  The fans and the New Monkees liked my pieces.  Marty and Dino liked their pieces even though the articles were very direct and in a way very blunt.  I punched hard and only held back a few strokes.

It was an arduous exercise.  It was like a message in a bottle in a way.  Me on one shore, putting my thoughts in a bottle and setting them out to sea.  Well, no not really the sea.  More like just handing it over to the reader, most importantly, handing it to Marty and Dino.  Head bowed quietly, and saying simply, “Here, this is you.”

And they both took it well.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  Form and content were sound.  I delved quite deeply and quite personally I think but it was still taken and accepted.

Encouraging.  I will see where we go from here.

Music:  Black Sun by Death Cab for Cutie

Reading:  On the Concord and the Merrimack by Henry David Thoreau

This place is clean, and remote, and alone.  Standing full of trees in a tranquil sea.  The ferries providing the communication and life to this little space.

It seems to be a place where people go to vacation, or rest, or start a small business.  To drink coffee and read a book, or be concerned about the environment, but in an organized, clean way.

The restaurants are pleasant.  Messages are meaningful but polite.  A rainbow flag flies beneath an American one.  The bakery here is politely controversial, not Eugene controversial.  What is it with bakeries and coffee houses and controversies?

Is it because artists crave the sweet and crave the caffeine?  Why does all the local artwork live at the local bakery or coffeehouse?  Why is all the poetry housed there?  What is it about the bitterness and the sweet mixed together with coffee and cream?  What is it about art and controversy?

Could I ever live here on this island?  Perhaps when I am older and more weathered and ready to lay down my weapons.  Observing here makes me realize that I indeed am carrying weapons.  That I do have more battles or more moments or more whatever to keep seizing or fighting.  To move here would be to rest, to give those goals to a younger generation or not even them, perhaps to others who still have beasts to slay.

This is such a wonderful place to visit though.  It is so gentle and peaceful and kind.  But yes, still not the right place for a restless mind, who still feels she has the ability to persuade and convince, and give of herself.  No, this is not her place yet.

Yet.  It is funny I say that. That the possibility of existing here for the rest of my life could actually be something worth considering.  It is in a way picking out my own grave site near a beautiful and rolling sea.  On one hand, oh so welcome, and on the other hand so chilling.

However, when I am ready to give up my weapons and long to simply sit on a balcony and watch the water, read books at midnight, enjoy long meals and daily strolls into town, I may come here.  When I am ready for conversations over delicious chocolate muffins, and live out the rest of my days, yes perhaps then,  I will come here.

This place feels like an ending.  A place too close to paradise.  I am too young for it yet.