Yay...I can add photos, not so boring now

This is a photo I used for my Memoir Workshop in Brooklyn. It was taken in 1988 in Texas and I was newly divorced, back in school and also living with my folks, my sister and her son, who was the same age as my older girl. My nephew must have taken the photo, especially the pensive way Leila is smiling as if to wonder what the heck is he doing?

I love it. I think it shows how each stage of our lives hold exquisite memories. This was the beginning of my life as a single parent. What I would change knowing what I know now. But it was a fantastic ride. Both girls are grown. Next week I start flying solo as Sarah goes off to college.

Another set of memories coming round. Maybe this one will include my head.

Nash Nailed It

Having so much trouble blogging lately. My heart is heavy. Don't know why...well, let's be real, what I'm trying to do is madness. October is rapidly approaching. I keep saying, "But I have September, a whole month!" Yet still my heart freezes and I lapse into fear and sadness again.

Well get over it, Sheela.

Heard Steve Nash, Point and MVP of the Phoenix Suns on Charlie Rose yesterday. He said that while other players had enormous talent as he admitted he had, yet, what kept him going when others lagged behind, became unfocused, lost their window, what he did was become "unflappable."

I adopted such a word as mine. From now on, I shall be unflappable.

For I am close to the crevice and wondering what to do? I still have major responsibilities and I do enjoy a roof over my head, food on the table, lights and cable on, so this is when the fear overwhelms me and I panic, thinking my talent isn't enough. So today, on Wednesday, August 29, 2007, I become unflappable and continue.

I am my most valuable player, after all.

We all are.

Love

There's a full moon out tonight or at least that's what it looks like to me, staring out my sole window in the living room. Almost a blue moon. Takes me back to June. One thing I know, have realized tonight, is that fear cuts you off at the knees. I have got to stay in the present and quit thinking backward or forward.

Tonight, I took all my rough drafts and ideas from the three spiral notebooks of this sabbatical (as the novel ferments on my desktop) and placed them categorically into a binder as Sarah and I watched Miss Teen USA and sadly shook our heads. Inbetween we watched Jeopardy and Democracy Now and Amy Goodman aired a past interview with Grace Paley from '93 since Ms. Paley died on Wednesday. I remember discovering her when my school threw me into an American Lit class and I stumbled upon her stories. But it was her poetry that she read in this interview that calmed and stirred me in renewed action:

"In poetry, men must become women and women must become women."

I have a binder with rough ideas and thoughts, first drafts of my refusal to be cut down by fear. I have the determination and peace that passes all understanding. I continue on in the spirit of Grace Paley.

--Dedicated to Leila Sandra Wolford, slaughterer of fear.

Ruby Tuesday

Back in the Fall of 2004 as I was leaving the Time Life site of Literacy Partners, I walked out with Anna, a site supervisor. She told me I had inspired her in my latest step out of my shadow work and closer to my real profession as writer. "I used to want to write as a journalist," Anna said, "and somehow I've gotten here, but I'm going to regroup and get back to it."

Today, Anna takes her lunchpail and goes back to school to learn broadcast and print journalism to a finer degree as she steps into the shoes of a CUNY grad student.

Go, Anna.

Now I tell her I have to run to catch up with her.

Last night I started going through my journals shortly before the sabbatical to now. I am looking for patterns, connections. Investigating Sheela. Interesting. I speak about being disconnected so much in my pre-sabbatical. I still know I am floundering, but here in the sabbatical I have the blessed time to swim stronger, search, seek, and do the breast stroke to the current I have been sadly watching go by as I have held onto the side.

If you're stuck, swim free. The simple, tiny, what seem like meager movements will direct you (as you direct you) to the stream of life, of understanding.

Let you determine you, not events, people, loves or lost loves. What you came to Earth for, continue.

Beyond the Sabbatical

I awoke this morning still in a daze from a dream I had. It was of my ex-husband. One of those dreams where I most likely was communicating with him, already crossed over, and I was in his reality. We were in a large house that lingered between wide open big as a gym or department store, lots of rooms and odd separating walls, like a dressing room. Craazy. Lots of color and billowing pieces of material. He and I were together, like we used to be, trying to make it work. And as usual, there were other people around, people who were both good and bad and once again, I realized how different were and are the needs of my children's father and I.

Maybe it's just that I'm staring down the barrel of my third of the fourth month of my sabbatical. If you've never taken a huge chance, I challenge you to do it at least once before you cross over. I absolutely love this solitude and precious time to develop myself, but I am constantly fighting off the fear of failure. I have been studying and reading enough to know acknowledgement of fear promotes more fear and that only brings doubt and failure. I will be writing about it and sending it out as a book proposal.

I have learned in this time period that in having days and days of freedom - even while tragedy and unforeseen events come like clockwork - the willing body begins to adapt to the spirit that wants to express. I keep feeling like I'm spinning my wheels and I'm sure family, colleagues, and friends are proud but wondering, 'whhaat?' because I don't have finished pieces to show, yet, but it's building. Everyday I write something. Maybe it's not publishable yet, but it leads me to the next and the next and it is building in strength and vision. The novel sits like a fussy child and I will please it and finish. The answer, the next part of the fossil is hiding, teasingly, waiting for me to get my shit together and give it full attention rather than worrying about rent beyond the sabbatical. For I got a call from my department chair insisting I tell her how many physical classes I would teach in the Fall. I said none and asked for online ones.

Pray for me. (Can you read the terror in there?)

The stamina I have developed during this summer of my flight tells me this is the way. Yes, I should have been doing this while working full-time, but was that my process? Or is it now? Are there no mistakes? Is this the way for me? Definitely pressing the issue and pushing the clock, that's me. But I want to say that I love this process and this is my dharma and many, many good works will come from this. It has been the greatest test of my inner self and even if no one or everyone (that would be fab) understands it, I get it. I will not abandon this or fall out of love. And I know what will sustain me is on its way for I have been faithful in this process. As I was faithful to my husband. I tried with him, but now I am firing with all cylinders and finally have found my true love.

Twister

This morning around 5, I awoke. The sky was white and yet it was night? Like a great fog and then these strobe lights kept trying to beam through. I laid there and watched it, waited for loud claps of thunder, but none (or I fell back asleep). Then came the rain and it tore at the window so hard, I went back to sleep thinking surely this was one of the greatest Northeastern storms yet. It just gets wilder - these four seasons.

Smashing.

Then this morning Sarah and I went to have her MRI done on her foot and it was within walking distance. Once there, the staff was flustered and minimal in number. I asked a question and one young man raised his hand to me and said, "Please, we just got here. I had to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. There are no trains running because of the tornado."

Tornado?

And then I realized, "ahh, yes, that's what it was." I hadn't seen the ingredients of a tornado since my Dallas days in the 70s and even then none touched down. But this one did. In New York City! Bay Ridge in Brooklyn and Staten Island got the worst of it.

Sarah shook her head and said, "global warming."

But I rode the whole day remembering the flashing lights of a white night.

Definitely a keeper.

Something in me is shifting. I'm nearing the middle of my sabbatical and yet it always feels, everyday, like a new beginning. Yesterday I picked up a book titled, "The 3 am Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction." That is why Brenda Ueland says the true self is always changing. I've been reading Dr. Wayne Dyer's essays on the Tao. Water runs in the direction of the terrain, going where it must, not forcing, just running into crevices and paths. I do not want to be a pool of water, stagnate.

"When attacked by anger and hate, become the water: fluid and flexible. Water cannot be broken, it changes form effortlessly and is impossible to defeat. It will eventually and always overpower whatever it faces." - Bumbleananda 1434-1535

The peace in me is gaining momentum. The fear growing more and more distant. I am staying in the present and maybe I'll be mowed down, uprooted, or spared, yet, I have no fear. I write and have a schedule and it is coming together.

Minus any claps of thunder.

Cookin'

What a weekend. My landlord called Friday and said a new stove was coming my way on Saturday! Hallelujah. Now I won't have to pray my next door neighbor is going out of town this Thanksgiving and wants me to keep an eye on his pad, ie I can use his oven! So yesterday was spent going up and down the stairs to let in the stove toting men and my landlord's son, and then to discover they brought the wrong size and the old stove back up, the new one gone, and everything to happen again today, on Sunday. This morning I was deep in a strange multi-layered dream when my cell phone went off. It was 7:30. The men again. Downstairs. Did I mention our buzzer is broken? So down I went, babbling and trying to look sane. The minute I let in the two young men, my words came out in Alien-speak. They looked at me quizzically and I prayed my demented verbage was falling on foreign ears as to why they were looking at me as if I was mad?

Dead asleep on the stoop.

They made it upstairs faster than me and they were pushing a 24-inch stove versus the gigantic 30 inch one from yesterday. What I had been trying to mouth to them downstairs was if they were the same guys from yesterday? I had been in the middle of a chore and threw Joey, the landord's son, my keys and didn't see any of the action till I saw him back on the street and he told me of the oven woes. These guys looked at me, and then one to the other, and I waved them on, not knowing their language and how to say, "I was sawing logs when you called and I don't know my own name." Who cares if I'm sleeping. They're working on a gorgeous Sunday morning and I am getting a bloody stove, so hush, woman!

Anyway, Joey had tipped the other two chaps yesterday but now I was stuck with these guys and the other half of my visit with them was scribbling my name on the receipt, remembering I hadn't checked the stove out as previously asked by my landlord, and the guys were ready to go and leave this crazy-haired mumbling woman. But I was trying to rummage my purse for a tip. Please let there be two fives (that sounds so cheap), but all I could find were eight singles. They took it and their eyes to each other translated in any language.

But I have a stove. Joey will be by today to shove it into the space and reconnect it. I could do it, I'm sure, but it's a legality thing. Who cares? I'm either going back to bed but now it's 9:12 or committing to my official time to write. Oh yeh, and I have two tacos leftover from last night's run to Fresco's Tortillas.

Life is good.

Now I'm Cooking

What a weekend. My landlord called Friday and said a new stove was coming my way on Saturday! Hallelujah. Now I won't have to pray my next door neighbor is going out of town this Thanksgiving and wants me to keep an eye on his pad, ie I can use his oven! So yesterday was spent going up and down the stairs to let the stove toting men in, my landlord's son, and then to discover they brought the wrong size and the old stove back up, the new one gone, and everything to happen again on Sunday. This morning I was deep in a strange multi-layered dream when my cell phone went off. It was 7:30. The men again. Downstairs. Did I mention our buzzer is broken? So down I went, babbling and trying to look sane. The minute I let the two young men in, my words came out in Alien-speak. They looked at me quizzically and I prayed my demented verbage was falling on foreign ears as to why they were looking at me like I was mad.

Dead asleep on the stoop.

They made it upstairs faster than me and they were pushing a 24-inch stove versus the gigantic 30 inch one from yesterday. What I had been trying to mouth to them downstairs was if they were the same guys from yesterday? I had been in the middle of a chore and threw Joey, the landord's son, my keys and didn't see any of the action till I saw him back on the street and he told me of the oven woes. These guys looked at me, and then one to the other, and I waved them on today, not knowing their language and how to say, "I was sawing logs when you called." Who cares if I'm sleeping. They're working on a gorgeous Sunday morning and I am getting a bloody stove, so shove off, woman!

Anyway, Joey had tipped the other two chaps yesterday but now I was stuck with these guys and the other half of my visit with them was scribbling my name on the receipt, remembering I hadn't checked the stove out as previously asked by my landlord, and the guys were ready to go and leave this crazy-haired mumbling woman. But I was trying to rummage my purse for a tip. Please let there be two fives (that sounds so cheap), but all I could find were eight singles. They took it and their eyes to each other translated in any language.

But I have a stove. Joey will be by today to shove it into the space and turn it on. I could do it, I'm sure, but it's a legality thing. Who cares? I'm either going back to bed but now it's 9:12 and officially my time to write. And I have two tacos left from last night.

Life is good.

Short and Long Stories in the Making

Saw Eileen tonight. I gave her the cruddy wrong directions to Chat n Chew but she made it....looking drained and weary. It is blazingly hot in New York.

Anna, Leila, Eileen and I sat and tried to outtalk each other (okay, Anna and me). But the energy - as always - lifts me to a healthy place where I can fly. Eileen has given me my wings and I am finding ways to glide.

James, my younger brother turned me on to Abraham Hicks (?) and the necessity of 'going with the flow.'

The novel has moved to another dimension. I see how close I come and then rub my eyes and realize I'm so out of range and to apply the tools of the craft.

I am a work in progress. And I am blessed by good people around me. Eileen tells me she misses me at school, and I am humbled. Someone misses me. Me.

I miss you, too. All of you.

Thank heavens, here comes the thunder.