I Can Do Better

If I just show up every day, this is easier. And I have it on my list of things to do every day, but I allow it to find it's way to the bottom or drop off the edge of the earth. Yes my creative earth is not round. It is most definitely flat. I have to be really careful about those edges.

So I have to go back to what I used to do. Just open the page and let the words flow. It's not hard (as Samm has shown so well these past few days! WTG, S!) and I used to think it wasn't scary, but when you get out of the habit, it's easy to come up with very, very good reasons why it's okay to continue out of the habit.

So much is swirling through my head. Top of the heap--our marriage is of legal age. 21 years old today. I guess it's time we started treating it like an adult. LOL! I'm not sure what that means.

Where to go from here. See I'm stuck. Stuck because my writing muscles have become flabby with lack of use. I have to do a better job even if it's just a daily ramble. So let's go back to the start: Today's Word.

~*~Astera slowly sat down on the window seat, curling her leg underneath herself the way she did when she was ten. The apple tree was the same, the wooden fence that set the yard apart from the pasture was still painted white, and the land beyond the fence stretched out untouched, much the same as it had twenty years ago.

But it was changed. Was it because she knew better, or just looked closer? The apple blossoms were being stripped from the branches by wind that came out of the south like a freight train. They tumbled through the air like snow which she used to think was pretty. Now she found herself mourning that the trees would lose their glory too soon. The fence wasn't as spotless as she remembered, and the sweep beyond it was no longer inviting but a wilderness that made her tired instead of inspired.

Is this what it meant to be an adult? To have the slap of reality push down dreams and desires, and change the view from a painting to a pain? What was left of the child in her was screaming NO! and telling her that she needed to pull her mind out of the pit and into positive territory, but reality was saying that the ideal she'd fought so hard for was impossible. The struggle left her tired, without desire to fight.~*~

Today's word: weltschmerz: from German Welt (world) + Schmerz (pain): World weariness; pessimism, apathy, or sadness felt at the difference between physical reality and the ideal state. Somehow appropriate for the German heritage I "inherited" 21 years ago today. :)

The best news: my children's n-f instructor suggested I try sending my last assignment to Highlights. I looked up the listing in Writers Market and lost my nerve. I'm such a chicken. Now I just have to talk myself back into the idea and get it in the mail. :-