Ahh... Monday Again

It looks like I finally have some of the space that I have been longing for. How fun, how delightful, to have a space just for me and my words. I've been in such a good, good mood lately that I can't help but see this as a bonus of writing freedom.

With the turn of the year from spring towards summer, I feel invigorated and hopeful. Things in my life have been going really, really well - the hassles of school will continue to fade away as the year draws to a close, my daughters and I seem to have negotiated a peaceful co-existence where we enjoy each other's company. My husband and I have peace as well as fun and passion. So much so, that I don't really talk about my relationship very much these days except to mention to my friends that we are just fine, same as always, when they pause in the middle of discussing their own issues to ask.

Work is good and steady and there's no stressful fundraiser looming on the end of month horizon. That's a  big change from the last decade! I'm even starting to feel that if I listed out my dream writing projects, I might actually make time to get into them, and make some headway over the long vacation!

And I'm feeling just really healthy and attractive, enjoying being in this skin and who I am, even if I'm not perfect and there are areas I would definitely like to improve. It just seems like improvements will only make things better! :)

Just... To Be Accurate

I texted a friend yesterday and said we must get together this week -- it has been too long!

The only time slot we had in common was yesterday evening. So even though I've still got a full docket of writing, sunset found me at a table for two on the patio, watching the almost-full moon rise in the distance.

What I didn't know when I invited my friend is that she has been having trouble with her boyfriend again this week after a long period of calm. We really haven't had much time to catch up lately since we both work so much.

As she filled me in on all the latest twists and turns, at one point, she went back to one of her fears.
"You know I'm getting older," she said. "I just don't want to wind up alone, without anybody. After all, my birthday's coming fast and I'm about to hit my 47th year."

"Actually," I said, "it's 48th."

"What??"

"You're turning 47, right? That makes THIS your 47th year. Your next birthday starts your 48th. You know, just to be accurate..." My voice trailed off as I realized perhaps this wasn't the most helpful observation on my part.

But she had already buried her face in her hands. "Oh, great," she said. "48th, then. I am starting my 48th year..."

We burst into delighted peals of the bitter, black laughter of aging female friends.

Working and ADHD

Well, I'm at my office again. Got one proposal done. Working on the next. Solved a technical problem I had accessing the next application on the website. Blah blah. Business as usual for a Tuesday.

I like my office. It is the outdoor patio of a café. There's a big wooden table, which sometimes I share with others, but today I have it blissfully to myself. At about four feet by eight feet, it's a great work desk. I'm under a tan canvas awning that creates the illusion of a square room around me. But outside the four pillars there is an expanse of sky and tree, with the blue and the birds. Bugs buzz by and the breeze moves the flowers and strawberries. A group of older people share coffee and chat at another table, providing the illusion of co-workers.

To take a break between my bursts of concentration on my grants, I like to doodle around on the internet. Today, I was researching the best jobs for those with ADHD. Unsurprisingly, lots of us either choose high-intensity jobs (doctor, firefighter, teacher) or become entrepreneurs. We do best with a high interest environment and some flexibility in our days. We don't like sameness in the physical environment or repetitive tasks. We do like clear deadlines and expectations to help provide structure. So I guess I'm in a good place for me.

So...

An Odd Juxtaposition of Charm and Menace.

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this weekend was a revelation. Not so much the event itself -- I have seen books by the table and authors by the panel many times before in the festival's 18 year run-- as the route taken to and from the day.

With traffic almost at a standstill as we tried to merge onto the 10 freeway, I decided to chance it with a city street route. Even plodding along through the byways and stopping at each intersection seemed more interesting than just idling on the freeway. And boy was it fascinating!

The area south of the 10 and east of the 110 offered us an education. I felt almost like a visitor in a different country, so different were the industrial buildings and tiny squat, stucco apartments from my own town. We drove past graying, fading warehouses; we drove past a huge Farmer John complex painted in a disturbingly cheery palette of blues and greens, hokey countryside scenes featuring fat pigs by the dozen, and showing hillbilly farmers in an odd juxtaposition of charm and menace.

The obvious poverty of the area shocked and appalled me. Even though I know that neighborhoods like this exist, still, driving past in the comfort of my car, and comparing my own home to the tiny, yardless ones all about me, made me very aware of the inequity of our economic system.

And yet, everywhere, human ingenuity and perseverance was on display. The people in the poor areas were every bit as busy living their daily lives as people anywhere else in the world. We passed an area with lots of foot traffic, grandmothers and uncles and whole families headed out to the Metro station or along the sidewalks. Sprouting up like mushrooms were tiny stalls selling whatever someone might buy. One entrepreneur had turned a shed into a small drugstore, with tables filled with deodorant and shampoo, diapers and household goods. Some sellers operated out of push carts; others had dragged a TV tray or two out of the house. Candy, flowers, hair ornaments, clothes -- anything you could think of was on sale in the small space between the road and the thick iron fences that held postage-stamp front yards away from the street.

For a block or so, each neighborhood had a certain flavor, a certain tone or feeling. Then just yards along the boulevard, that would subtly change. As the car moved along, the income level would go up or down. The ethnicity of the people by the homes would shift. And that juxtaposition, that dialing in of a neighborhood station only to fade into static and then become a different radio spot entirely continued every time we turned onto a new Los Angeles street.

Before the day was over, we had driven through some of the poorest areas of California all the way to the tony, wide-avenued, manicured-median wealth of Beverly Hills. I noticed that the drivers were much nicer near USC than they were in their rich streets in their rich cars. We ate at a sidewalk café and heard more than 20 irate honks within less than an hour, plus witnessed five near misses. In a hurry, and acting as if the world should yield to them, the BMW's and Mercedes swerved and swooped, squealing tires and yelling with their hands or horns. Back in the dusty, grim, iron fenced world, old and ragged cars had made their way slowly and deliberately along, careful not to cause an accident that no one could afford to deal with.

In every area, we visited we found the same thing in different ways. An odd juxtaposition of Charm and Menace.

Wha ha ha ha ha...

Okay. Okay.

I get the point.

(Life is just like that.)

Mind the Gap

I keep thinking that I will write all the great story and book ideas floating around in my mind when I get some time. You know, when life slows down a bit. When I have a glorious chunk of space.

So, yeah, right. Are you thinking the same thing I am?

That's never going to happen, is it? Life is never going to slow down. I am rarely going to find a luscious two or three (or more) hour block of "free" time in the middle of my days. So I'm never going to write all that stuff.

As long as I keep waiting.

So now, I'm doing what successful writers often do. I am writing in the tiny chunks of time around all the other tasks. In the ten or fifteen minute windows of waiting or transition. In the gaps of all the busy.

Just like they suggest in the London Underground, I will need to "Mind the Gap!"

By looking for those spaces and filling them with words that are fun for me, I can make my life better, and get more writing done as well!