Slinking back in

I feel like I am sneaking - I've been a bad blogger, a slacker. I've bailed on Wish Casting Wednesday and Tarot Thursday. I've squinted my eyes each week as the reports come in and I see that pretty much no one stops by here anymore - and why would you? There's nothing new to see. I feel like I need a note from the principal in order to return to class. I can come in, can't I? For a post or two maybe?

So okay - there have been some issues going on around here. They are pretty big issues and in and out of the issues I'm struggling with being very depressed and feeling a little helpless to resolve, or even begin to address those issues. Occasionally I speak about the issues in my life - this time there are so many that it's hard to begin! But I will. (You knew that, didn't you?)

I can tell you that one of the issues is my health. I find myself getting really angry about it as I type. Really angry. I have this groovy tumor that's not going to make me REALLY SICK, but it's going to make me feel really icky, experience lots of pain and try my very resolve to get out of bed each morning. But it's not going to allow me to stop working, bail out on carrying the groceries or garner any sympathy whatsoever (I mean really!). Then there's that fibromyalgia thing and we won't even begin to discuss my irritation with that little buggaboo. And! (Might as well get it all out!) about a month ago or so, I started having panic attacks. Like I needed something else! Ya, I'm miffed.

But, anger is pointless unless it leads to right action. Not to mention that the cumulative effect of hosting that anger in my body has certainly added to the symptoms of stress which have so multiplied in the last several months. I have been exhausted beyond measure, and I've experienced the greatest pain that I can ever recall. So, in the last few months I've been trying to make some changes - and for me anyway, change works in fits and spurts. I've not been as successful as I'd hoped to be, I've not absolutely stopped drinking soda and I confess that I've not absolutely stopped smoking. But! For both of those items I've cut so far back that were I not diligently honest, I could fake you out and let you believe I'd stopped. It's much improved and as a result, I'm feeling a little bit better. Not a lot, but more than a little. Issues are always easier to accept and resolve (or at least contemplate creative resolutions) when you're not feeling physically terrible too. Poor health I think can be the beginning of a vicious cycle; and I'm trying not to interrupt that cycle.

The fun part - and I say this just in case there's anyone reading that is considering making a change - is this: Once you begin, it doesn't take a lot for the snowball to begin gathering it's own weight. The positive feelings that come from just a two baby steps provide the impetus to take the next few baby steps. For instance, drinking water (I get these groovy reminders from HassleBot every couple of hours to get a glass of water - you should try it!) - once you do it for a day or two, your body begins to love you for it and beg for more. Honest! I find now that I have just as great an urge to get a glass of water as I once did to FIND A SODA NOW! I wake up each morning and now, rather than force myself to pour a glass of water, I MUST have water. I can't say, that when facing a particularly stressful and difficult moment I don't want to retreat to my old habit (and still, often I do!) but at least I have added one positive habit. Not so bad. And, the little bit of feeling better is just fuel to the fire. (whispers, don't be afraid of change). My oldest daughter, Satori Marie (google Satori, find out what it means, it's SO perfect for this blog post!) says that the same thing will happen with exercise. She says that it won't take long before you wake and find that your body MUST MOVE. I'm not sure I believe her! But I suppose I should because starting tonight, my new walking companion, Bear, is coming to live with me! I'll write about Bear another time, but he's going to be my coach and get me moving each morning. I can't wait and I sure hope Satori is right.

A couple of things happened during my haitus which would have made great blog posts. One was this beautiful orchid you see up there. My friend had given me that orchid as a housewarming gift when I moved in here a year ago (It's really been a year since I posted about that donkey!) Several months afterwards, it dropped it's flowers and looked icky. Now, if you knew me much, when I tell you the next words, you will laugh. You will think, "Yup! That's Lee!" It looked dead, it really did! And, every week, when I watered my plants, I'd say, "I need to empty that dirt and make better use of that pretty pot." And every week, I never found time. And (this is the part that should make you smile) every week, as I stood there, watering can in hand, tending to orchid's neighbors; I was unable to resist giving him just a little water too. I mean, I was right there, eh? What could it hurt? Yeah, I know he's dead, he's really dead and sorry looking, but it's just a little water and it doesn't hurt anything. Then - several weeks ago - TADA!! There bloomed that incredible flower. Is that beautiful? It was like a sign to me. In the midst of all this rotten stuff, life goes on, beauty exists, and there are lovely surprises. It's a simple surprise, just a little flower. And in its simplicity,it is perfect. Don't you think? I welcome more of those surprises into my life!

I'll leave you with that thought. I think I'll be back soon; I'm feeling a little better and some of the issues are not quite screaming at me in the face. Still there but more like whispering behind my back. And I have to tell you all about Bear!

Cheers!
~Lee

Round in a circle we go:

I love to blog. I love to write. I love words and the play of words on the lips, on paper and spoken.

So, when I find that I’m not writing, in some form or another, there’s generally one reason. And that reason, generally speaking of course, is that my thoughts have become a tangled ball and I’m searching for the one magic strand that I can pull, releasing the jumble so that it flows effortlessly through my hands, my head and my life in a smooth, straight and easy pull. This time is just like the others. Sometimes I can’t even find the tangled ball of yarn, it’s hiding beneath the couch, or in the car, or somewhere in a forgotten satchel, and the satchel is in Indiana, forgotten beneath the crumbling statues left behind. Often, I don’t even know I’m looking for the tangle until I find it.


Tonight I found the tangled mess of thoughts and I saw how it had wound its way around the whole of my life. I might not quite unravel it all in one post – I know you all don’t like to read that long! But I’d like to begin.


Some of you have actually followed the progression of my posts – and only a very few have been astute enough to follow the path, and a few have been kind enough to notice and email. On the surface, my blog has no cohesion. Okay, I can live with that. I am a librarian, I knit, I craft, I sew. I am a mother and I have a wild variety of English garden interests. Those are many, but not all of the things that I am. I am passionate about many more things; even more than those mentioned here. And that is where some of the trouble begins.


For the past few months I have made for myself a quiet commitment. That commitment has been to be more the librarian that I dream that I would be if I were working in another magical library someplace in the ethers. That library would be filled with other librarians, with students asking “hard” questions, I would be creating magnificent displays and tutorials. If only….

So, I’ve begun really doing that.

When I have students ask more one more time! to fix a printer jam, I’m taking the time to then ask them about the project that’s jammed our printer (that I even said OUR printer is really a strong indicator of the change in my attitude.) Once I find out about their projects, I’m able to ask questions, to show interest and suggest resources. I’m working on tutorials and doing all that paperwork that sometimes seems so simple and routine that I let it pile up to gargantuan proportions. I can see the results of my efforts. I can actually count the results each morning as I record the door numbers. I no longer leave that silly task for Friday knowing that the average will be the same whether I record the number daily or weekly. By recording daily, I am able to see, or at least assume with some certainty, the results of what I did the day before. Ah, yesterday I was very proactive and walked around, chatting a bit and smiling at students. I willingly worked on the printer rather than doing so in a way that no matter how I thought I protected my secret resentment, surely must have energetically jumped into my students’ being. And, the numbers were UP! My circulation has increased because I’ve been making suggestions and asking questions. I have been present.

And, I come home more tired each evening. The enthusiasm seems to have stopped at 5 PM. Why? Because when I get home, I can no longer turn off the effort it takes to not look for that ball of tangled yarn. It has been as though, somehow, if I am to be a real librarian, I cannot knit, I cannot give any energy to those other parts of myself.

It would be easy to say that the circumstances of my life are the root of the silence. Indeed, my current circumstance is quite difficult and challenging. It would probably more true to unearth some deep and engrained pattern in my thinking and my way of being. But for now, here’s just one of the small threads that I can pull.


As I become more and more enthusiastic about my work and focus more on practicing the real skills of my profession, there is less and less time for other pursuits. No. Let’s say it correctly…there is less and less time for the expression of my other pursuits here on my blog. Here’s the real truth. I received an email from a reader who indicated that she could no longer read because I am blogging about the ummm, I’ll just use my own words, about that evil, occult stuff. Now, on the surface my thought in response was, “okay, don’t read.” I am not here, or at least I have not been here, to attract some gaggle of readers or make myself a name. Right? Really? Well. Maybe not.

At the same time I am reading all “that stuff” about your individual, personal online brand. Oh no! I’ve no brand! I am all over the place and writing about the wrong things for the wrong audience!

And so, I did not write that blog post about the Fool card as I committed myself to do. Honest. I worried myself that it didn’t look very “librariany.” The phrase that comes to mind, as I finally claim the tangled ball of my own yarn is, “that sucks!” Really. That sucks. What if all my (there are hoards you know) new librarian friends stop reading that crazy, occult lady? What if my new librarian friends think my silly, not often perfect craft projects are less than professional? OR! What if I offend with my political views? What if I stumble in my expression of my social and cultural beliefs? What if I photograph the garden that I intend to grow this summer and it dies? I hope someone can see where I’m going. Cuz we’re almost there.


Yes. We’re here: The Fool card. The post I didn’t write. Look at that happy fellow! Look at how his feet land just inches away from disaster. Why isn’t he disturbed? Why isn’t he looking around and behind and below? The Fool travels light. He’s not carrying around all that concern about what others think, about whether or not he’s done the right thing or spoken the proper words. In utter and primitive innocence he goes where he must. Yes, there is more meaning, deeper and more profound meaning. But what is seen in the card changes to meet perfectly what we need to see in the moment. And for now, for me, that’s enough. And to make it all perfect I have a song stuck in my heart tonight, I haven’t heard it played. I only hear my own voice singing it in my body, “We are all innocent….”


I recall once, when I first experienced the profound reality of Confession. I said to my Confessor, “But God sees all that really ugly stuff inside of me!” I was truly humbled by the reality of my failings. “Oh yes, but God doesn’t have much time to waste on what’s ugly because the Universe is too much in love with all that’s pure, and Holy and RIGHT.” Over years I have come to see that I can only be the whole being that I am. And, most of the times that I have attempted to be crafty, to conceal what I thought should be concealed and reveal what *I* thought should be revealed when I thought I should reveal it – that I have done damage. And, the pole of that is that I have also come to realize that on at least a few occasions, when I expressed the wholeness of who I am, without doubt, without contrivance, that in innocence some thing, or some one, heard something RIGHT.

I am willing to be the Fool for now, to try on his garb, and dance in those innocent footsteps, sometimes courting disaster. And don’t you find it quite interesting that the fool card is followed immediately, not ten or twelve cards from now, by the Magus? The one I think of as the Master, the one focused with purity and singularity of purpose. Is it possible to dance between the two? It must be or one would have to leave the Fool long behind to experience the Magicaan. Instead, they are friends, traveling parallel paths, one on the footfalls of the other.


Surely there must be some occult librarian to whom I can point for justification?
I hope that made you smile.

~Lee
The librarian who knits, who sews, who tries to grow gardens, who argues with her children, makes not so wise decisions (sometimes when she knows she’s doing it too!), reads less than she likes to confess and is looking to travel light.

Another PinCushion and a bit of knitting

I have made another little pincushion. My newest Library Assistant, the most cheerful, organized young woman I've yet to meet, cannot be with us for the next academic quarter. I made this little pincushion from scraps given to me by another of our students as a "thank you" to Kayla for all her efforts in our library. Kayla was very helpful and our library is a better library because she was here. I hope she can join us again in the future. Thanks, Kayla!

I'm following this knit-along. The project is just the right simplicity level for me; 6 inch squares that can all be joined together to make a blanket. It's not a big project at any point in time and each touchstone feels like a small victory. I don't have to buy 3 pounds of yarn for a project I might never finish, I don't have to carry a huge project to the dentist's office and there's no pressure to finish by any particular date. I like the project but more, I like the idea of sharing the project with a woman from the other side of the Universe. I promise not to get on my "Blogging might could lead us to world peace" soapbox. Nevertheless, it makes me smile throughout the day when I think about this simple project, shared by women around the world. What do you suppose the feminine equivalent of WHOOOHA! sounds like?

I also had some great fun experimenting with marbleized papers.


I found the directions here, at Calamity Kim's. My photos of the project were, as usual for me! horrible and do not accurately display the resulting papers which are magical. And, I must tell you this: This activity is somewhat addicting. I think even that even if you never plan to use these papers for ATCs, or anything else, that it's just FUN. The process of watching the colors emerge and morph is mesmerizing. I found myself making up stories, it felt like having a magic wand and painting pictures with the clouds. Very relaxing.

What have you been doing that's relaxing for you?

Lee

MamaLeeA

Wow...three posts and it's not yet noon! Please don't stop at the top post; I hope you read down and see my most recent give-away of a really fun book. This is just a quick, informative post. I'd like to let you know about MamaLeeA.

After reviewing some of the emails which I recieved after my recent plunge into my past, I have made a decision to separate those parts of my blogging into another blog. I like the name! I find it quite fitting that an Irish, American Indiana woman should have an Italian sounding name on her blog. What do you think?

I'll keep posting here; probably here much more than there, this blog is fun for me - the other blog is more like work/therapy and so it'll be much slower to update I think. Shortly, I will go through the tedious process of lifting those posts from here and replacing them on MamaLeeA and then, soon enough, I will begin sharing the rest of my journey. I sure hope you stop by from time to time. Leave a comment to let me know you've visited - like all of us, I like that.

LeeA

Goodies in the mail

Look! is this just the coolest?

I wish I were able to take better pictures! All of these amazing things come from Amanda. I am so touched by her thoughtfulness. Every little thing was nicely wrapped, and there were several items not included in her give-away - that pretty embroidered towel underneath it all; and the cute fabric wallet. Then there are letter seals, with "L" on them! I am just amazed! The inspiration jar has my name on it and I will be until next June examining all the little goodies it contains. Thank you Amanda; I have such a smile and will for days.

I really wasn't kidding when I connected peace and blog give-aways. Each time we write even the most mundane pieces of our lives, we are giving away. We share here our vulnerabilities, our struggles and our joys. And, in reading, I embrace daily that I am not alone, that many of you are just like me. I speak with people "on here" who I think I might pass by in everyday life; too young, too old, wrong political party, too many kids, or not enough, single, married - somehow I'm sure there's no potential friendship there. And yet, I read from others who have fibromyalgia, who like smoothies, who struggle with pain, who screw up their projects, who are sad and disappointed with their children, or proud of them. And later I find out that they are, too young, too old, wrong political party, too many kids, not spiritual enough or too spiritual or whatever. By then, of course, it is happily too late and I have a new friend and a dialoge. Just opening "that much" is truly a give-away. I think, these small open doors bring us closer together - a way to go round, underneath and through those things which divide us. Am I hopelessly pollyanna?

And sometimes, we share tangible, physical gifts. And that's really nice. Soooooooooooooooo :) I'd like to add to the energy and grow it too...Be the 5th emailer to leeannwilmot@gmail.com - and I'll make you a dotee doll. Just a little cheery something for your day.

And Dana- you don't count :) Something pretty cool is happening to the Dana Dotee - it might be delayed a day or two but it has to do with couture and a world-known (maybe famous), what would I know, designer. So you just have to wait!

Everyone have a delightful day.

Questions for You all

I just happened to be skimming through some older posts of mine and noticed that there were new comments! I wonder if people thought I was rude not to respond. I'm afraid to name you now and mention your comments lest I forget someone. But do know that I love those comments! So, here's the question: How can I be notified of comments posted to older posts? And, I've noticed that for a few commenters specifically, I recieve no notification. I'll go back and check all my settings, but if someone would suggest a convenient way to make sure I never miss comments, I'd appreciate that.


I guess it was Thursday after all. What do you know! That really should be, "waddaya know!" I had a very quiet evening dozing on the couch; I sewed a little bit, did a few embroidery stitches and finally slept. And now, it's Friday. Yes, it is. It's Friday and my library is very quiet. I usually do paperwork, book reviewing, ordering and the like on Friday when there are no classes. But this morning I spent doing a job that I don't usually have to do, and for some reason which I avoid - shelving books. I suppose shelving books seems like (umm dare I say this?) menial work, beneath me. I am, after all, the manager here! I have no assistant at the moment though, and the job must be done and so I've done it. I can barely vbelieve my own snobbery sometimes! And, each time I do this work, I remember how much, once begun, I love it. I get to hold some of the loveliest books around - it's an art school! Just the sheer beauty of some of our volumes makes my mouth water even as I write. There's something magical about being the caretaker of books - I know, I know, it's not cool to accept that notion, we are, after all, the gatekeepers of the information. I know, I know. But the books, oh my, the books.

I've followed this with staightening some shelves, wiping tables, moving chairs, and in general, cleaning up. It's felt good. And my library looks just like any librarian wishes her library to look, neat and orderly and eager for Monday students to tear it all apart again. I really do love my job and I really am quite blessed to have it. I enjoyed waiting tables, and I still really love doing massage, but nothing ever felt this right....but then again - it's Friday and I'm alone in this quiet, organized space - I'm sure I'll feel differently next Thurday night. Everything cycles, yes?

I had some tender thoughts brewing all day Thursday and I want to write a really thoughtful blog post later on this weekend. Kismet. I suppose that some of your comments, and some of my own internal experience helped to bring the frothy stuff to a nice simmer. And, I'm grateful for that. It'll be ready soon to share. But for now, I'd like to share this lovely website that came to me; you might enjoy it.

Tschuss

Why do I have a blog revisited

Okay, let's be honest, I don't just have a blog, I have a 360, a Myspace, thanks to my daughters I have an empty Facebook, I have this blog (if you can call it that for all I've blogged) and some days I've thought of adding a knitting blog, a sewing blog and an I'm a mama and a grandmama blog. This is getting out of hand don't you think? And yet still, I feel compelled to sometimes write a blog - to articulate some issue I'm grappling, to post a photo of some project I've finished, to vent and to support others. But clearly, none of those moments are enough to sustain a full-blown blog in each little piece of my life.

Initially, I wanted to keep separate blogs because I did not want students or colleagues to read posts about my personal life but, I think the lines between work and personal grow more and more blurry. I knit sometimes at work, the textile students learn to knit each quarter and so, knitting once a week in the library is a service for the students, and it helps my door counts a bit. But the knitting I do there, is for ME. Then again, I answer work emails at home, I do bits and pieces of projects at home in the evenings; certainly many of the books I read are for work, but I love my work and so perhaps those are for ME too. I might not want my colleagues to read about a personal struggle - as if my colleagues couldn't find that 360 or that MySpace if they wanted to - or worse, as if my colleagues don't have personal struggles of their own.

So, perhaps of laziness, perhaps of some need to stomp my foot and declare, "I am a WHOLE PERSON, not fragmented bits of this and that!", I intend to blog here about my whole life, my life which includes my librarian's hours, my knitting and sewing, my mothering and grandmothering, partnering and reading. I am all these things and many more and I suspect so is everyone else.