personal reflection

June 17, 2010 – Loving the Process

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Wow. I just realized as I was finishing a previous writing that I do indeed love the process. At Tribal Revolution, on a creativity profile that Ariellah had us work on to get to know ourselves better, one of the questions was “Which do you enjoy more, the process or the result?” I just realized that I love the process. I love the result, too, definitely. But getting there is what drives me, what I love.

I love working on a story, researching it, editing it, fact-checking. I love learning things that I never knew before. I loved learning about the Star Wars Universe pretty much from scratch to write my first story. I loved studying Etruscan history, social and politic structure and burial rituals to add only a few  points of interest into a fan-fiction piece. The process, the need to learn and know those things and incorporate them into my art, it drives me.

I love developing and putting together costumes, letting the creativity flow in the pieces that I pull together, modify, or whatever. If I cannot buy what I want, I will figure out something else that will look lovely. I am not very talented with sewing but it doesn’t mean I cannot create. The make-up, the hair, the accessories, they are all part of the costume and all equally as fun to create. I mean, when else are you going to pack on the black eye shadow, just to smear it all over the place to be a crazy version of Harley Quinn? Not to mention giving yourself a Glasgow smile with red lip stain.

I love learning a dance, even though practice can be hard, I love it. The finished product only lasts a few minutes but, because of the practice, I can keep a dance piece in my head for years.

I love the creative process! I love the result, yes, but I love the process of putting things together. Watching the pieces fit, or fixing them so they do, learning new things to incorporate….creating.

June 16, 2010 – Leather-bound Life

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I love looking through my old journals. I have all of my journals from my first or second year in college until now. I’m not as prolific in writing in my journal as I used to be, though I am trying to still update it as often as I can. I would love to be able to leave those journals to my children someday; I think they would find their mother very interesting and, most likely, crazy.

One Christmas, when I was home in Cayman on break, the electricity went out on Christmas Eve. With no TV to watch with my mom and no music to listen to, I decided that some alone time was appropriate. I took a candle into my room, to my desk, sat down and opened up my journal. I began to write, just laying out my vacation thus far. Mom came into my room and chuckled at me. “Playing Jo, sweetie?” she asked. I couldn’t help but smile and nod, “Yep!” I enjoyed sitting there and writing by candlelight, letting myself fall into my thoughts, the starlight twinkling in my windows.

In college, I had an observation table at the Student Union, where I would sit and people watch and make comments in my journal, usually about the theatre students, who fascinated me. They were always so loud and boisterous and interesting to watch. It was like being at the butterfly farm or a bird sanctuary and trying to take in all the color and movement at once. I would sit there for hours and just write about what I saw and what was in my head. It gave me a certain sense of accomplishment, I think.

For a long while, I took my journal to work with me so that I could write in it during lunch, and, for a long time, it became my sounding board. The place where I could yell and scream and loose my venom. The first two years of teaching were extremely rough for me and my journal became the place of cries, prayers, and lamentations. When Ben and I were dating, I wrote everything down, what happened when, where we went on our first date, what it was like getting to know him. My students are amazed when I can recite the dates when we met, Ben asked me out, we had our first date, we officially became a couple, Ben proposed, we got married, etc. These were my firsts, my only’s, and I want to remember them.

If you have ever seen the movie “SE7EN”, then you will remember the scene I am speaking of. The detectives find the home of the man who has been killing people according to their vices (greed, lust, sloth, gluttony, etc.) and one shelves they find dozens of notebooks, every page filled, front to back, in every book, in some of the tiniest lettering. Morgan Freeman’s character refers to it as “his mind poured out on paper”. I like that feeling when I am writing in my journals, or on the computer. I enjoy pouring my mind out on paper and into print. There’s a freeing sense to it, like letting a weight off your back. I imagine that it’s a similar feeling to, if it were real, siphoning your thoughts off into a Pensieve. Yes, I am a geek. Deal with it. But when the thoughts flow and so does my pen or my fingers, I sometimes find myself sighing when it’s all over, as though I’ve run a marathon or built a wall and I flex my shoulders now that the weight is gone. I even enjoy the resettling of a new “weight” so that I have to pour myself out again to have it lifted. What can I say? I love the process.

June 15, 2010 – Light in the Dark

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At the height of day, the Darkness came. No one knew why or how or from where, but it came. It last for 10 days and 10 nights. Some went mad. It is even said that some died for want of light.

~ ~ ~ ~

She never considered herself to be special. Not a whit. She was short, scrappy, and loved to read. But she couldn’t talk. She had lost her voice to the Great Night. Her mother used to say that the Darkness scared her daughter’s pretty voice away.

Mayree sat in the cool shade, a scroll opened wide on her lap. Her long black hair was bound up with red yard, the vibrant color dancing against the stark blackness of her tendrils as her head bent over the scroll. She twirls her hair – one long, silky strand- around her finger as she read.

“Always reading, Mayree,” a voice above her drew her out of the world of the pages before her. Standing there was Tal. Beech-tall and russet-headed, Tal had always been there, ever since Mayree could remember. He had always lived in the farmhouse across the creek.

Tal’s smile was bright in his bronzed face, blue eyes shining in the sunlight, and Mayree’s fingers moved.

“Hello, Tal.”

He was one of the few people who had bothered to learn the little language that Mayree had created with her fingers for herself.

Smiling up at him, Mayree moved her fingers again. “How is your mum?”

“Oh, she’s fine. Her foot’s just a bit sore, though she’s threatened to turn Bell into stew.” The unfortunate cow had stepped on Tal’s mother’s foot two days before while the woman was milking her. No one had known that gentle Anya could swear like a blacksmith before then.

Tal lowered himself down next to Mayree, peering at the scroll in her lap. He could read, never really cared to. Mayree sometimes signed abbreviated version of the stories to him. “Are you ready?” he finally asked.

“Give me a minute,” Mayree signed and rolled up the scroll, hurrying towards the house. She soon returned with a large basket on her arm. “Ready,” she signed, and they were off to market.

The market was hot, dusty, and busy. A myriad of voices clamored to be heard, some offering, some refusing, and others haggling. Mayree pointed to the stalls that she needed and Tal guided her through the crowd.

Quite a few of the market folk knew Mayree after so many years, but she sometime still needed Tal to interpret for her. Market was one of her favorite things, no matter that she couldn’t speak. She was good at it, haggling in market. And Tal always interpreted clearly for her, along with that infuriating smile that said, “I’m just telling you what she told me.”

Some fruits, vegetables, some worsted wool for mother, some more meal and flour. Soon, Tal had to help Mayree carry the basket and there were still coins in her pocket. She split one to buy Tal a hot bun as a thank-you. With the bun in his mouth, he took the whole basket and hefted it onto his right shoulder, grasping Mayree’s hand with his left to weave their way through the afternoon’s crowd. Mayree smiled in her silence, letting herself be pulled along through the sea of people by Tal’s strength; it was one of the reasons that she loved being around him. He always was strong when she wasn’t and it made her feel safe. Soon, they left the dust and clamor of the market behind, heading for the outskirts of the village.

June 11, 2010 – My husband, my lover, my friend

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I am rarely away from the hubby, by choice. He’s, well, my husband, my lover, my best friend. I adore being around him, spending time with him, just being in the same room with him. So I don’t spend a lot of time away from home, away from him. Actually, it is difficult for me to do so. I find myself growing very homesick for him very quickly and thus becoming melancholy when I’m away from him.

Like this weekend. I worked really hard to set up stuff for the Game of the Month and yet I’m not even there. But I’m truly missing gaming with my honey. I miss him. I miss soothing his feathers when things get frustrating, making things easier by having the answer before he even had the question formed.

I guess I have become very used to be helpmeet and for the next day and a half, I won’t be helpmeet and I’m too far away to do any good anyway. But I miss him. I will sleep in a bed without him tonight and that makes me sad. I’ll miss his weight next to me, his warmth and sigh when he turns over in his sleep. It will be hard waking up in a half-empty bed in the morning. I know I’m only gone for two nights and I’ll be back by dinnertime on Sunday but still. I’m a long way from home.

It may sound like I’m whining and it’s not that I don’t expect to have a great time here at Tribal Rev., but I do miss him. I miss his presence, his sudden piping up with a new thought or idea to share. I will dress up tomorrow night without him to tell me how lovely I am or to make sure that I’m put together properly. No one dresses me better than he does.

Yep! I miss the hubby! Ariellah’s great but she cannot compare to my husband, lover, and best friend.