waiting

This drawing is waiting for colors while I wait for Saturday.

Just two more frogs. Two more work things that need to be done and then I can begin a much-needed long work break. That means two weeks of no day-job work in any form. That means time to take care of my moving places and time to write and time to make art.

Work has been causing me pain. The fatigue stings and pumps venom into my spirit.

My tolerance for doing things that I must for the sake of paying bills has been at an all time low. I don't drag myself out of bed in the morning but I do drag myself to sit in front of the work computer and do the same old thing. Because it is the same old thing. The only difference is that I have bargained off money for time. Yet even time is stolen from me when the work had to be done because my heart is focused on something else.

That is why I need this long break. Too much of the past few months have been about making ends meet and paying bills and working too hard and not having enough in the end to treat myself. When I write or make art I don't need to treat myself even if both are actually hard work in themselves. But when I do day-job work I need to treat myself or else I might go mad in both senses of the word.

I cannot make it to this year's Book Fair but I will go to the Cut-Price Book Sale in one of my favorite bookstores. I have squirreled away a bit of cash so I can buy some books. I was saving it for a turntable but I can't think of letting go of the money without a cringe. The cash outlay is still a bit steep for me and in my case, the music can wait (a little bit more) while the books can't.

This is what I have in mind:

from Satchmi

There has been too much waiting lately. Too much.

The solution is not to wait. Of course that is what I need to do. I must not rush or be impatient. Easier said than done.

Just do what I can each day. Be happy for all the little boxes ticked off at the end of the day, even if not all the boxes get ticked off.

midyear review

Come with a whoop,and come with a call.
Come with a whole heart or not at all.
(Neil Gaiman, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane)

I am on my third year of being independent from employed work. It has been a very rough road but every time I look back, even though there are a few tweaks I would like to have done, I never ever regretted the move to resign from a very lucrative employment.

Whenever I look back, what stand out are the shining moments of my rediscovery of my passions. The first time I painted after more than two decades. The first time I wrote a novel. The first time I acknowledged how much I love writing, reading, and making art after many years of believing that they were dispensable hobbies next to the career that everyone measured me with.

Last year the solo work got to a point that I was desperate. I was in danger of losing my home because I had missed payments. There were no projects for more than six months. I wished for a job.

This year the job came. And so did the projects. And I found myself in a quandary. But in the end I chose to be true to what I have become.

It sounds crazy. A steady, most likely very fat, paycheck given up for a continued life of financial roulette. All I had to do was say yes. But I said no.

It was not an easy decision. But my heart has been more vocal since I started on this particular journey and it would not give me peace. My mind came up with exquisite arguments, logical explanations of the hows which, I have always been told, should be left in the hands of the Universe. Logic can only take me so far. In the end, will I be happy? Will I wake up in the morning with optimism or with dread? Will I risk the joyful creative life I have started to build for a life that satisfied only the expectations of others?

At the hardest point of my contemplation, Neil Gaiman's The Ocean At The End Of The Lane presented itself like a sign. It had completely slipped my mind that it would be out already, and I stumbled into it on the way to a client meeting. A beacon amidst the turmoil of my own thoughts.

"How can you be happy in this world? You have a hole in your heart. You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know. They will call you, as you grow. There can never be a time when you forget them, when you are not, in your heart, questing after something you cannot have, something you cannot even properly imagine, the lack of which will spoil your sleep and your day and your life, until you close your eyes for the final time...you will die with a hole inside you, and you will wail and curse at a life ill-lived." (Neil Gaiman, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane)

The Year of True Paths is halfway through. After finally making that crucial decision I need to make a plan. Solid enough so I will be true to myself in the daily choices I make, loose enough to allow for the playful storytelling of the Universe. For instance, London. I know I want, I need, to be there. The how is not clear, but I can do my part every day in little ways. London is my love story now. Each day is a step closer to a happily ever after.

"...so I turned, randomly, down another road, and took a left, and a right. It was only then that I realized where I was going, where I had been going all along, and I grimaced at my own foolishness." (Neil Gaiman, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane)

I heard it said, "When two points are destined to touch, even if a direct connection is impossible, the Universe will always find a way."

My heart tells me it is only a matter of time. And what of time? There is plenty. There is always enough. It is always perfect.

Good Old Thing

This old electric typewriter has been hidden in my parents' storage for YEARS. My dad found it when he was doing some cleaning and asked what I wanted to do with it. I want to keep it of course! So I brought it home and plugged it in and it is still working perfectly despite a lot of missing letters. There is even ink in the ribbon still! I will just need to replace the letter wheel and the correction tape and it will be good as new.

The sound as I was typing was simply glorious for me. It was like being transported somewhere back in time. It is like a time machine in its own way, just like when I play my vintage LPs on my record player.

Poems, short stories, essays, journals. I could hear them chattering in delight at the possibility of being written with this good old thing.

Sunday Morning

April is not my best month. It started off with two trips out of town for fieldwork (for me that means visiting households to conduct two-hour interviews with consumers) which left me too exhausted to write or make art. Then it has been a mad rush to get things done before another wave of fieldwork comes in at the end of the month. This cycle will last until early July and I have been struggling with finding the time and the energy to write and make art. It is rather frustrating, and it reminds even more strongly of how work can eat up so much of myself.

There was a ray of hope sometime at the end of the second week when I got to talk with a dear friend from years back who is now top boss at an ad agency and was asking me if I would be interested in rejoining the workforce as part of their team. I had half a week to think about it. When time was up I told her I was interested in exploring the possibility further.

So what does it mean? It means leaving the home-based work setup I have had for the past three years. It also means faster savings for London which is the most important and biggest dream I have right now. It means funds for self-publishing my books. It means funds for setting up an art exhibit. (With my old self, money would simply mean retail therapy.)

But more than the money, I found myself looking forward to a new social group. The one I was hoping to bond with in the past three years has proved to be very disappointing. I had thought they were my long lost tribe but I was wrong. It was just like high school all over again with all the cliches and givens and templates. I was an outsider in high school. You get the picture. Heck, I could not even expect a decent reply to a text message. Few things smack of being totally ignored and unimportant as a totally unacknowledged text message.

There is also the advantage of learning new things, and a change of scenery.

However, it must not be misinterpreted that I am bored. I am never bored. And I don't miss agency life. It is more like I see now that it may be time to step back into the old fray as a whole person compared to what I was before and to go into it with my priorities clear and my goals clear. Maybe this time it will finally work with me instead of against me.

I have tried many times in the past three years to consider exploring re-employment but each time the answer from my heart and my core had been a resounding No. This time it feels different, so I finally said Yes. Maybe the lessons have been finally learned. It is Time.

I still don't know how it will all turn out, or whether it will even push through with this agency or another, or when it will happen. But it will happen. I know that now. I will flow back into the system but I will be different. I come from my personal hero's journey, a Wanderer who needed to define herself, and now getting ready to shift into a Warrior, someone with a context and a cause and a purpose. (References from The Hero Within by Carol Pearson - a great enlightening book!)

So these are my thoughts on this Sunday morning as I prepare for some deep working (delving into analysis and interpretation of data) to make progress with the project. I am hoping that having written this blog post I will be able to do some writing with my Camp NaNo stories -- I am way behind and in danger of not completing as I have only written a bit over two thousand words out of forty thousand.

And maybe I can sketch something during my fifteen minute breaks.

How is your Sunday going?

tick tock thursday

Time felt fast but it actually flowed syrupy. I got a lot of things done but I felt like I have not done enough.

Got a nice working lamp for the craft and sewing space. Got sturdy pretty containers for supplies at 50% off. Found out that thread is a rare commodity in modern stores and malls - didn't find any for proper sewing, only those that came in emergency sewing kits. Swam in the cold pool. Got my mail. Sorted through the scrap fabrics and segmented them by size (big ones for big projects, small ones for practice). Spent time with my family. Spent time with the turtles.

Did my first practice sewing project all by myself -- a small pouch. Mainly got the hang of working with the sewing machine, threading it and fixing gnarled thread.

Repainted an old wooden container. Now it's ready for use in the craft space and in the shop.

Felt like dressing up my makeshift bedside tables with lace doilies.

I will be grateful. I am grateful. Thank you, Universe. Please send me peaceful dreams tonight.

Mr. Time, where did you go?

I just had a chat with my sister and we both lamented the fact that we both feel like Mr. Time has been in a hurry to leave us the past few days.

For my part, I always have a lengthy to-do list and I know I will never finish it in one day. Things get moved to the next day, or the next week, or sometimes get cancelled altogether. I am often trapped by house chores -- which I sometimes find frustrating because I have a tiny studio (a mere 375 square feet) and if I don't clean and clear as soon as something gets dirty or out of place, it can easily transform into some sort of hell-hole in a couple of days. (I actually read somewhere that small places are prone to look messier because of the limited space.)

The house chores fight it out with the money-making work - whether a writing assignment or a research project or a bit of both. At the end of a day when I have to tick off chunks from these two time-gulpers, I barely have enough time (and energy) left to read or do something closer to what I am passionate about like crafting and writing poetry and more creative activities.

I am still figuring out the whole formula of 24 hours for 24 million things to do. And that's on top of allotting time for sleep, food and exercise. I truly marvel at working moms or those who get to do their beautiful crafts and baking from scratch while raising children.

I don't think I'm lazy. But I wonder what I'm missing.