Spring

So much work to be done, everywhere I look.  Mulch to be removed from the bases of roses, pruning to do.  Perennials that need to be freed from last year's dead growth, so they can eagerly grow again. And all the plants need to be fed. I love Spring.  Everywhere I look I see something amazing happening, to me the tips of tulip leaves poking through the ground will never be less than magic.  Every day something else is pulling itself into being, making itself known, waking from dormancy to life.  The closed and withheld, opened and expressed. What was under the ground unfurls into a life in the sun wind rain.

 There is a lot of cleaning to do too.  Spaces want to be aired out and unencumbered by was left over from winter, or some other earlier manifestation of being. The rooms want to be reborn, want to be able to grow something new.

Last weekend I was at a three day writer's conference.  There is still some collateral damage from attending.  That said I do believe the over effect of the impact will be good.  It just didn't feel that way when I crashed.  I went hoping to feel inspired, hoping to pull more energy into my work, and to carry that motivation with me through times of doubt.  Instead my own ineptness was glaringly presented.  I didn't like looking at it, and I still don't.  How far, how far I still have to go.  I know I must have made some progress because I started so long ago, and I remember the beginning, and I know I am no longer standing at it. But I feel like my goal is centuries in front of me.  I might need to be reincarnated and have a whole other life to get there from here.  

My own attitude can be a problem at times, I get annoyed with what I should do. Though first most definitely I know, I need to fully learn it.  But even once I have, I like to write in other ways.  I don't want there to be commas in between the sun, wind, rain. I don't want to put an and in it either, the sun, wind, and rain. I want them to sit together as one entity.

There were of course inspiring moments and positive things to take away from the conference, and I will talk about those, just not today. Today I am going to sit with, um that which I must figure out how to go around, or go through, so as I can come out the other side.  The one is grammar, evil villain once again.  Yes I know it is a tool, yes my friend, helps me to express myself, gift of words. If I was evil then words should be my henchmen, sent out to help me achieve my goals. But instead grammar feels like my foe, like something in the way of my saying what I mean to. And my inability to grasp and use it, results in a mangled mess.

Yes it was unfortunate to be told how badly I was doing it.  She calmly lit a match and set the page and me, on fire. I still feel the heat of it, the burn, the scorch, the ash. How obviously I think that I can write but that I can't.  And she was indignant, there was the assumption of laziness, and of not caring about craft, which cut the flames deeper.  I have tried to learn, I do care; so I was left with only the recourse of feeling stupid, and unable to learn.  It was horrible living there, like death.  Or no, because there wasn't yet nothingness, it was extreme pain, and knowing that nothingness was the only release that awaited.  But there will be no nothingness.  No death.  There will instead be more pain, as I must endure and go on and try and try and try again, one way, and then another, until I figure it out.  Stupid plague of inadequacies I will be sweating it out my entire life. But I will survive and I will become stronger, and I will learn.  If it takes me halfway to forever, I will learn. No matter how small each step, there will be steps, and I will take them.

The other comment that really got to me, was the one I had not expected.  Unemotional.  My writing, unemotional. Hhmm...that is very bad.  I mean that much I thought I had.  My craft I knew sucked, but I thought the passion for the story under it, would be felt.  I thought it would be more of an, if only she could master these other skills, how incredible this story could be. In the moment, in that moment, it made it all seem pointless, having no merit or value at all.  Why bother, clearly I should give up.

But, it is Spring.  And I just can't manage to do anything, but be resolved to being better.  Be resolved to transformation, new life, new birth, and opening,  unfurling, releasing into a life of sun wind rain.  No matter that for me it wont take mere weeks, like the transformation of the Spring world.  How amazing it is, how quickly it goes from barren to lush beauty. It does so by design.  Everything, the blueprint tucked inside, it just needs the right conditions outside to release it.  Something divine in such science, in such magic. I must remember the same divine design lives in me.  And I do believe is what calls me to be a butterfly hunter (aka an artist, a writer), that is another post for another day.

There is so much work to be done.  I need to improve and learn so much. And it is Spring, and I am smiling.