October

Gotta make more money.  Got to. Have to. Gotta have to. Keep taking steps,

keep sending out ships.

One day at a time. Right? Got to find a way to create a financial bridge from today into tomorrow. What else is new, right? Am I just not seeing the open doors? Or are they all behind me? Clients are coming back to the studio--but it can't happen too soon.

The looming holiday season, following Halloween, appears at a distance on the calendar's horizon... About as friendly as a tornado. I have to assume that there are many of us single artists living in a land here, far from home.

For the last three days I've been trying to remember what I did for Thanksgiving last year. I looked at my calendar from last year. Nothing. I know I worked Halloween night at the bar. Wore a skimpy cop uniform (which holds some irony for me now). I remember Christmas. But Thanksgiving--no recollection.  Why was that part of the year so...fuzzy? 

Just: Thanksgiving written on Thanksgiving Day. A blank day. I have things written on either side of it, on all the other days of that week. On that day, nothing. It weirds me out that I can't remember. My kid was with her dad--so I know I was solo--but what did I do? I don't want to look back on my life and realize--the holidays I experienced without my daughter were so insignificant: that I CAN'T REMEMBER THEM. What did I do? What will I do? And my twenty-eighth comes, sandwiched unpleasantly, in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Good Lord. Hibernation has its appeal. The funny part: I remember a client bringing me left-over turkey in a plastic bag the day AFTER Thanksgiving, when I was working. That's all.

Printed out an application for something else today--seeing if there are any immediate reasons I'd be disqualified. There's aren't. Digging up some old information, required for the background check--might take me a couple of weeks to find it all. Interviewing and researching possibilities within that...possibility. Started a running program. How serious am I? Well, what if none of the other ships I've sent out bring back any gold, or get plundered by pirates, or simply get lost at sea? What then?

Well according to Napoleon Hill,

"Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache carries with it the Seed of an equivalent or a greater Benefit."

Pause. Enter thoughts...

Please. Please be true. Please be true. Because yesterday, while running, for the first time in a very, very long time, I had the thought, "Wouldn't it just be better to be the wind in the trees, the dirt on the earth, the molecules of the air...why must I needs breathe?"  A thought that sounds gentle. Nonetheless, a snake in the grass, whispering in the ear. One that watches as Eve looks at the fruit 'in hand', precariously sweet..."eat!" ...enter, exodus.

It was a flash through the brain, nothing more...but it sent a red flag to my soul. The kind of red flag that reminds me, not to drink, not to smoke...  Because it will only do harm in a body--in a mind already loaded. Do not be reckless with thyself. Do not be reckless. All is not lost. There is much good to be had.

At least I can say, I cleaned my house yesterday. Sort of. --Eve White

Comments

[Cole Matson]

I just said a prayer for you and your lovely Cricket.

[Hideo's Dance]

Have a secret that no one knows. Many will flock to hope for a whisper.

hd

[Star]

Come, drink the mystic wine of Night,
Brimming with Silence and the Stars;
While Earth, bathed in this holy Light,
Is seen without its scars. ~ Lois Untermeyer
I know the night can be frightening and the dark is hard to Know. In the dark of night, it is ourselves that we must know and see. The mystic wine of Dark times is the Peace of Knowing.