Spoiler alerts

I'm at my Nana's right now trying to work on my lit review. I have a section to add that's proving to be uninteresting and a bit of a pain. We're toggling back and forth between movies: A Star is Born and a schmaltzy Christmas movie. Nana is a living spoiler alert. She's seen both movies and is more than happy to pre-narrate events. It's comforting and a little annoying... Maybe we don't always want to know what's going to happen next. Maybe all of my worrying about the future is what's holding me back. Maybe I need to relish in the unknown.

Crying wolf

I'm super tired of trying to be done and keep having to push the date back. I'm looking at a May graduation date if I can get this lit review done and this data analyzed. My goal is to have a draft of the dissertation in before the end of this semester. I don't know if it's doable, but I'm trying.

Here's a list of things I'm going to do when I finish this degree:

Learn how to sew.

Submit fun stuff to a publisher.

Garden more.

Learn French.

Make wine.

Clean the house.

Get a pet.

Drum.

Do more yoga.

Get in shape to do crazy circus stuff.

Knit more.

Do more calligraphy.

Inches

Coding is done. I'm over it. I'm excited to be finished with this step. I actually got a congratulations from my advisor. My computer stopped letting me log on. Exciting too. Pffflt.

I'm reaching back into my proposal and seeing how my data answer my questions. How to analyze. How to align. How to finish as quickly and painlessly as possible.

All these things that I have done...

I'm sitting in Barnes and Noble with a cup of coffee and two folders of coding. One is ready to go, the other needs to be prepped. They are students 8 and 9 of 19. I'm nearly halfway through this hellacious part and that's what I have to focus on. All that is done. The word counts on up to 30 tasks per student. Reading and rereading for use of humor and for grammatical errors and checking and rechecking coding for errors to make sure I'm not missing anything.
This has been an interesting process so far. It has thrown me into cahoots with one of the best friends I've ever met. I have ease dropped on a dozen first dates and witnessed two breakups. Now, I'm seeing a wedding being planned. I have had to make my own tough decisions and had tough decisions made so easily for me by coming back to my values. I have test tasted a few varieties of their scones, but have yet to attempt their lunch menu. Seasons have changed out of the large domed windows. I've gotten caught in multiple storms of multiple persuasions... some brought on myself. My rituals of grad work have served me when I have served them. I have abstained nearly religiously from my usual tech binges. I have renovated my Linked In, which led to a renovation in my own life: my rituals of grad work, of trying to prepare myself for the best of what could be out there are how I re-met my boyfriend.
I'm musing with nostalgia today; with letting things go. I'm being provided with constant reminders of someone with whom I can no longer speak. Obscure things that are at once coincidental and converging in such strange ways as to be nearly spooky. It all makes me sad and broody. It also serves as a giant reminder: everything is a gift and these things that I have done, this degree, they are gifts to myself.

Only for a moment

I see a little kid waiting to be discovered for her ballet moves in her soccer uniform and I wonder how many times I've done the same thing. How many times I've played to the wrong audience. How many times I went big when I really should have just gone home.

I'm trying to hit halfway through coding tonight, but it's slow going. I want to go home.

Below is something I came up with almost a month ago. It describes me perfectly at junctures.

I can be big and brave

I can venture a conscious dream

I can dance professionally

I can dare to publish baby books

I can be happy and un wary

I can live a hundred lives and be guest to a thousand feasts

But my feats are unconditionally tied to my courage

My fleeting, waning courage

So I can feel the sweetness of a victory, but only for a moment.

Inch by inch

There's an Irish folk song about gardening that my family loves that starts "inch by inch". And that's exactly how I'm living my life right now. It's difficult not to be moving in leaps and bounds, but there is a time for that as well and my sense of urgency needs to chill the heck out and accept that right now, slow and steady is what is working.

To be less cryptic, I have 19 participants for my study. I've only completed coding on a couple, but even those don't feel complete. It's frustrating and a little daunting, but it was my choice and I'll only be done when I'm done. It's easy to think of how wonderful life will be when it's done... I think the metaphor the "grass is always greener where it is tended" is absolutely dead on for my life right now. 

I'm making a series of investments with my time and attention. A garden, a grad degree, a healthier way of eating, and yoga and contemplative practices. These are not only the seeds I'm sowing in the land I've tilled, they're also the day to day and week to week practices that have me tending my garden. Maybe there is some tenacity in the ways I am learning to bless myself and others and to move forward inch by inch.

Testing...

I'm a little mushy right now. Like the oven wasn't turned on hot enough and the veggies didn't crisp.

Check ins:

Grad school-IRB gave their final blessing. Participants have been contacted and 

Informed consents are coming in. I have 6 in and I'm waiting on 4 more forms. I'd like another 5-10 participants, we'll see what the rest of the week brings. Scared as I start coding the second student. Worried about what I will or won't find. Just want to be done.

Bellyfit- I'm teaching twice a week. To no one on Monday nights and to one to three people on Tuesdays- some of them related. Some relatives are bringing in unsavory friends- not my cup of tea, but trying to breathe and be graceful and gracious... And not look like I'm screaming on the inside. I'm not loving it anymore. Need either a new attitude, venue, or activity.

The food struggle- on going. Got way worse last weekend. Out of town and a lot of things going on that I really wasn't allowed much of a say in that affected me. Have I mentioned how patience is a virtue I am without? Well, I am and it is definitely hindering the whole "let's not eat horrible foods just because we feel ____". Work in progress. Starting a no processed, no sugar, no gluten detox today. Tummy feels like it's moving already.

Weight- up still. In an acceptable 100s digit, but the 10s creeped. Working with better coping mechanisms, exercise and relaxation. The last comes in because I recently had an ongoing medical issue that was made at least 50% worse by stress. So there's that...

The finances- applied for 2, that's right, dos summer jobs. Hoping to hear about them shortly.

Creative projects- have been at a stand still for a couple of months now. Picking up the pen again. Have a shopping list for the local office supply store and I'm excited to get back to work on some stories and pictures. I have mesmerizing ideas already.

Garden plans are in the incubation phase. I have to find some more seeds this week. So excited. Expanding...

Yes?

I'm sick of doorways, porches, and strings...

Maybe I should restart with what I'm grateful for. I'm grateful for spending all of my free time with a man who adores me and tells me how happy he is when he is with me. I'm grateful for students who think well of me and value my happiness and spent my birthday letting me know how much they appreciate me with singing, gifts, food, games, and celebrations. I'm grateful for friends who contacted me to wish me well and family who sent me cards, gifts, and greetings. I'm grateful for the sound of dog feet around the house. I'm grateful for the delicious meals that have been made for me and that I've gotten to make... For two types of cake. For lounging in bed, for books, movies and tv shows. I'm grateful for a job that allowed me a weekend off to spend doing just what I wanted. I'm grateful that my proposal is accepted. I am grateful that my ducks are in a row to graduate this fall. I am grateful that I get to dance and laugh.

I am having a tough time with the caveats. With the "yes, but..." Or the "yes, and..." Living fully means accepting and letting go of a lot of sh#t you can't change. I'm working on that.

Late Fragment

And did you get what 

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

                    -Raymond Carver

I feel fragmented and a little overwhelmed, like someone spilled the puzzle pieces of who I thought I was and some will never be found again. And that is a very good thing. They are being replaced with new experiences, emotions, and philosophies. I dig. There are soft chocolate caramel eyes melting into my own, tickling finger tips, languid kisses, and a hand circling from my waist to my hip to my lower back. Warmth. That's what eggs need to develop and somewhere down the road hatch, right? 

I have failed

Because I have tried to be a nice person rather than a good one.

I have worried more about people's thoughts than their feelings.

I have jumped through hoops to get to someone who wouldn't take a step to meet me.

I have not taken care of myself- not been my own priority.

I have been impatient.

In faltering veganism, gluten free, and sugar free.

I have procrastinated with trivial things because the things I wanted were big and scary and difficult.

I have settled.

I have squandered.

I have been both too easy and too hard on myself.

I have not forgiven or let go.

I have shut out and shut down instead of listened and understood.

I have boxed and caged myself because I didn't think I was fit to be seen.

I have hidden.

I have cowered.

The great news: bed time is in 20 mins and tomorrow is a new day fit for breaking old patterns, loving, being present, and taking care of myself. Deep breath. I may have failed at many things, but I'm not quitting.

Being a fabulous mess

I am a sloppy, but beautiful mess right now. A puddle on the ground being slowly absorbed by the dirt below to sweep up nourishment and get sucked up by plants. Messes are so very versatile. I have to remember that I've been through a lot of things that haven't killed me yet... That I'm in the middle of a hell that I completely underestimated and I'm thriving in ways I never imagined. So much to do, but so much to celebrate.

Flamingoes in ballrooms. Black and white wing tips beside my little bejeweled flats in a butterfly step. Being told that I'm cute and that someone enjoys the way my hips move. Invitations. Bathrobes. Gorgeous dresses. Songs so entwined with memories that one doesn't exist without the other. Old poetry read by deep, beautiful voices. The gorgeous pain of missing someone so profoundly that their place in your heart feels like a pile of stones in a desert: a monument to a lost god... Not a monument to him, but an altar or alms to that exquisite feeling of being completely enthralled.

Lots to be grateful for. Lots of work to be done. Lots to create. Painting in the middle of a hurricane some days.

Learning to fall

This is a meanderer.

Have you ever had a moment that was so heart breakingly perfect that you don't think you'll ever be able to describe it or contain it... That maybe part of the pleasure in it is that small twinge of despair as you watch it float away like a bubble and pop upon a light breeze. Have you ever wondered if you would ever have another moment like it? A family evening on the deck on a warm May night. The perfect party dress and a smile, your two front teeth hadn't come in yet. A dance class: the imperfect perfection of new choreography, laughing, bouncing, and shaking it. A morning in bed with a new someone, giggling, lazy and lustfilled glances, and being told you are beautiful by fingers on your cheek and a slight, sad smile.

So many 'hell yes', 'yes', 'le sigh', or sweet smiling moments. All required a certain degree of ballsy-ness. Call it a back bone. Call it cojones. Call it your courage. You need to show up and you need to play. No medals for just being there and standing on the sidelines. I've never been good at falling. Both literally and metaphorically. I can count the number of times I have fallen off a bike. I can tell you the number of times I didn't show up or didn't engage because of a desperate fear of failing, sucking or not being good enough.

'The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be constantly fearing you will make one.' Elbert Hubbard

I am learning to fall now. No kidding; it's part of my martial arts training. I'm giving myself permission to screw up. To be a work in progress even when it isn't pretty. Moving messiness. Trying and trying again and trying something different. I'm giving myself permission to fall. Steps. Dance steps. Baby steps. Snow shoe tracks. Front kicks. Drum beats and all.

Olive branches

Messy. I'm super super messy and I'm exhausted. Massive things are moving and I have to move with them. 

The hilarious thing is that I wrote the above two weeks ago and I feel exactly the same today. Massive shifts are going on with the proposal/ dissertation. I decided that consernation wasn't getting things done, so maybe play would. I like it when I'm right. I also like it when I gently let go rather than prying things out of my white knuckled hands. It's a nice feeling. So I'm messy, but it's less like a tornado blew my life to bits and more like a spring breeze blew things around and now I'm seeing what to keep, and where and how it fits together again. I'm not accepting what was the status quo. I'm over that.

I'm over half way through my Bellyfit practicum. I have a place to teach it. 

I've got a coding schema and new theoretical framework together and I'm moving. I have 1/3 of a dress knit and I'm getting a starter pattern for a dress made out of this delightful material. 

I've been moving in writing in starts and stops. I've been to drumming classes/ circles and ballroom dancing. I have had meals and conversations with people I love and respect. I have been laughing so hard I've been crying. 

The only thing I'm struggling with is eating. Sugar and fat have been my go to for comfort far too often this past month. A reset is necessary... Just looking for a direction. 

I'm enjoying making peace with the fact that a mess that is mindful and moving is a very good look for me.