Going to the Beach

Ok. This is going to be a rambling post before I leave for the beach today. I'll be back tomorrow night. Finally going to make it up to my family's cottage in Port Dover. It's cold and somewhat rainy today, but the sun is peeking out, so I'll brave the lines at the bridge and GO. My whole family is there (or at least a lot of them---I have a BIG one) because it is the weekend (Friday 13th) when thousands of bikers descend on the little town. Should be some great photo ops. I am looking forward to that.

I was thinking today that I am at the edge of a creative plateau. I've been here before. I can feel the new things pushing their way to the edge with me. I've been at this same place for quite awhile. Stuck. Writer's block. Music block. No playing or singing or dancing since school. And no poetry until very recently. And for years, I stopped being enthused about my photos as well.

How do I know I am moving past that? Well, this blog excites me more than any of the others now. I take my camera literally EVERYWHERE (you never know). I've been jotting down writing notes on napkins and the backs of envelopes and dropping whatever I am working on and scribbling poetry before I forget the lines that appear in my head. I sing again. I mean really sing. My voice is back (after losing it completely 100% last year---it's back altogether, finally). I am thinking (and starting to sketch out) of the series of accapella hymns I've been contemplating for years. In four parts. Using sacred texts from a number of traditions. I feel like paring everything down. Shedding. Just the voice. Just the bare minimum words in poetry. Just the feelings in story. Just the flash of movement and light in photos. No perfection needed anymore.

It's been going on in my personal life too. Fighting with people who I wouldn't have dared to stand up to before. Standing my ground. Really, defending myself. It's absolutely necessary for me to grow I think, personally, and artistically. Saying what I feel and mean, not without fear, but feeling it and doing it anyway. Because it's the only thing to be done. Truth is always best. Even when it seems to cause chaos in the short term, it really feels right in the end.

So Y and I are through. I feel it. Not because he has decided it, and not because I won't ever speak to him again. But because I need someone to know me. He doesn't, though he says he does. The truth is, he's mad (because I have been standing up for myself over and over) and he'll come back, but I won't be the same. Because I can't be that "girl" anymore. Part of me wants to be, but the truth is I need to move past that.

For me. Zenchick says that when you don't know what to do, you must let the dust settle and things become clear. I have really taken that advice to heart this past year. It's good advice. Let things settle and things do become clear. It's been a struggle, because I do like to figure and talk and process and fix (the social worker in me--always). So it's been hard. But the times I've been able to do it, just sit. Just wait. The universe takes care of it all. It's an amazing concept. One which I am finally integrating.

So this weekend I am letting the dust settle (and there is a LOT of it...lol) (irked my mother to no end that I'd rather let dust settle than clean when I was little---maybe I already knew about letting things settle, even back then--just forgot :) When I come back, I'll clean house. I've been doing it in relationships. Now it's time to do it practically speaking. I need to clear things out physically now too.

I've been so consumed with getting a fellowship or working abroad for the last year. Maybe as someone told me, I was meant to stay here. I don't know why and I rebel against that idea, but it seems that's the plan for now. I wasn't ready. I needed to get things in order, clean house. And probably, when I do, I won't feel the need to go like before. I'll still want to, but it won't be necessary.

I feel excited. Like something wonderful is coming. I haven't felt that way in a very long time... :)