Welcome To the Cedar Grove

The first time I felt this way, and had the very same thought, I was standing in the shower watching the snow fall down outside the frosted glass of the bathroom window; the second also in the shower, though this time the sun was shining - or trying to shine - outside. This third time I am once again in the shower, but this time it is dark, the temperature of the shower is far too high, and rather than watching the distorted world through the bathroom window's frosted glass, I am watching the steam obscuring my view, the condensation settling on the window, shrouding the frosted glass and the symbolism of it finally penetrates my brain as the question surfaces again: Why have I not been blogging? Why do I not post my status on Facebook? Do I truly have nothing to say?

Oh, certainly, I might share a whole bunch of photographs or inspirational quotations from other pages that I find meaningful or poignant, and sometimes I might even do more than just hit the share button, and post a word or two about why I have shared them, but little more.

I've known for some time I've been censoring myself; editing myself so that the frames come together to tell the story in another way, because... well.. frankly it's just easier that way - far less conflict.

Except inside myself.

So I said, on several occasions, that I wasn't going to do it any more, and yet here I am still doing it... and frustrating myself in that. I have ended up feeling like I have (or worse yet, should have) no voice, no opinion and certainly no feelings. The upshot of which has further hampered any sense of creativity and life that was all but stifled - as if with a pillow over the face - by a year long sojourn in Egypt.

Happily I'm out of that situation now. Still not where I truly want to be, but... what can I say? Some countries and some of her peoples are certainly backwards in their own sense of egality and in following the literal, and the meaning in spirit, of their own founding principles. So much so, that they shroud any route toward said egality in so much thorny red tape that even their own citizens do not know and cannot understand all the ins and outs of navigating it in order to gain admittance. I hate politics... and that's one thing you probably won't find me blogging about any time soon, (more than I have done just here anyway).

So what's to say, and what's to do, and definitely what's to write when all that was creative in my soul has been somehow deadened to the point where, yes - I will latch on to anything that is in the remotest bit a resuscitation, a work around, or even a leg up and over the dreaded wall of 'writer's block' that has been plaguing me for the last eighteen months or so?

The Use'ara cycle was coming along nicely, getting the Nano treatment but then was interrupted by the move to Cairo. Similarly the Life After series ground to an unceremonious halt. I turned to fandom to keep some shred of creativity alive, and managed at least to finish the 13th story of a series I had been working on before the block caught up even there.

But I digress...

As far as Facebook is concerned, I feel... uncomfortable, that's a nice gentle word, let's use that one, posting about what's going on and how I feel about it. I know I shouldn't, but sometimes, some of the posts I read on my news feed seem so much like people just airing their dirty linen in public, as it were. Do I really want to do that? Maybe it's just my overly conservative (note the small c) British nature that causes that. Should I adopt a more bolshy, forthright approach like other world citizens and just... tell it like it is, warts and all? Maybe I should try it for a while and see or feel the results for myself.

As for blogging, well, I find that the trouble with a lot of blogging is that in many cases, it tends toward political comments. I've already stated I don't really do politics. Oh, I live with them, like everyone has to because they're a sad fact of life. I have an opinion on political matters too, but in most cases that is my own and not for sharing. The trouble with political blogging is that, at least to me, it seems always to be hateful and angry. There is much to be said for exercising the option not to say anything at all, and to allow that to speak for your opinion and feelings on a matter. Is that not the basis of the advice your mother always told you: If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all? Other types of blogging require... well... something to happen to inspire it. Stuck in my little hamster-wheel I usually end up feeling like the most boring person on the face of the planet. Who wants to read over and over again about the traffic on my way to wherever, and the kids (Whether hellions or angels) that I meet and work with?

Oh, I know there's more to it than that, and yes, I'm probably making excuses because - as happened very recently - when I do open my yap about something or another, it rarely ends up with me feeling any better about things and/or myself. But, since discourse is generally thought of as good, and because I have to do something to unlock this door, or take a wrecking ball to the wall that is standing between me and the creativity, which I know has to be on the other side of the wall, let this be a public affirmation of the permission to at least try... and feel free to poke me - but gently - with reminders to comply with my own wishes.

(A/N: As an demonstration of what I mean through all of this - it has taken me 3 months to write this.)

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

If not now,
when?

It keeps coming down to this: there is no tomorrow, only a string of todays.

Yes, I have a great big long to-do list, but you know the thing about those kind of lists – they only become done lists if you stop procrastinating (and making lists) and get on and do it.

That being said it does help if you know what you have to do. I was talking with a friend recently, and she asked if I do the same as she does and kind of stumble to one thing from another and another, as if not knowing what to do. For me, that's when lists come in really useful. Not so much that I make a schedule for myself, saying I'll do this, then this, then this, and so on, but it helps me to know what is outstanding so I don't wander by way of Facebook games, simply to avoid making the choice of what to do next.

I do have to limit the length of my list though – or else it becomes overwhelming, and Garden of Time looking more and more attractive. I find that three is a good number. A list of three things is doable… so long as item number one doesn't say: Finish Use'ara novel because that's something that obviously is going to take more than one day… but a scene of the novel, and a writing exercise, and an update to a web page… those are three achievable goals.

Achievability is the key.

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So many places... but fitting for today, I would go to Dubai, and to the Meydan racetrack to see the World Cup. Obviously not just to there, I'd like to explore the rest of Dubai as well, but from watching the live feed from Meydan today, (sandstorm notwithstanding), that is where I'd like to go.

Next on the list would be Egypt... specifically Amarna, not just the usual tourist places. The sense of history, the majesty of the desert, everything that goes along with that - and maybe take a cruise down the Nile as well.

I'd like to go back to places around Europe too - Valencia to see all the places we didn't get to see last time we were there... another trip to Italy... Germany... yeah, like I said, so many places...

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Beauty is... always has been, and always will be in the eye of the beholder. To look merely at a persons physical personal is a shallow seeking that will always yield a shallow result. For me, to share with a romantic partner is much, much deeper than that. Yes, there must be a certain amount of something in the physical for that person to catch my eye, but the true attraction comes from getting to know the other person, leaning who they are deeply - inside - in the dark as well as the light.

I consider myself blessed... I share my life with the most wonderful, romantic person that could ever be, and I love her dearly.

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My guy - reflection of my heart.

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You can't expect me to choose just one, because there are so many beautifully and expertly crafted worlds out there in the fiction-verse. Among my favourite would be Pern (because of the dragons and firelizards), and Arakis, because let's face it, you can't get much more epic than that. Then again, what about Vulcan, and Andor(ia), and Bajor, because in the Trek-verse there are so many awesome places also.

Then, (blowing my own horn/trumpet), there's Use'ara... a world two years or more in the making. I'd like to really go there, not just in the process of creating it, just to see the kind of life it could have taken on for itself. I'd like to meet C'Logi, and the misguided B'maat... and see how the colonists learn to survive in their new ecology.