Tag Archives: Mood

All’s quiet

Today is the last day of classes for winter quarter. I have a final exam at this table in a little while, and then it will all be over. I’m so glad. There are many things I like about this program, but getting an M.F.A is hard. It should be, I guess. I like a challenge. But I also like relaxing.

I’m looking forward to:

1) Watching a lot of Netflix. I mean a LOT of Netflix.

2) Reading books and articles that I don’t have to discuss/critique.

3) Waking up after the sun has risen.

4) Scheduling a yoga class and actually making it there.

5) Taking a road trip with Darryl who is also so busy, we’ve hardly glimpsed each other the last few months.

Somewhere in there I will also be filing taxes, submitting essays for presentation, publication and contests (which takes much longer than you would think), prepping for the new year at The Connector/SCAN Magazine and working on some freelance stuff. Ah! All this work just creeps on a girl. But I love it. I really do.

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A foggy day


Human beings are strange. I know this because I love the fog (so does Tony Bennett). This is odd, because I spent most of my life bemoaning its presence.

Growing up in the Bay Area as a small child, the fog meant doomsday. Growing up in the Bay Area, this meant you were doomed a lot of the time. It meant the sun may or may not show itself before it was time for it to go down. It meant all the adults around you were going to complain about how it was foggy (again). It meant that having a birthday in July was not going to guarantee you jubilant celebration outdoors with your friends. Fog meant a precursor to inside days and inside voices.

So it’s strange that now I love the fog, precisely because it reminds me of living in the Bay Area. See what I mean?

We’ve had a lot of foggy days around intown Atlanta over the past few weeks. And I can’t even pinpoint why it strikes me, or what memory is triggered. I’ve stood out on my balcony some recent mornings, half-dressed and half-freezing in my pajamas, looking at the fog and trying to figure it out. I just get a sense that something I forgot is letting me know it’s still around, ready and waiting whenever I need it, no matter when that may be.

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F-bomb

Week 3 is about recovering a sense of power.

Whatever.

The topics of particular interest to me this week are anger and synchronicity.

Julia says:

“This week may find you dealing with unaccustomed bursts of energy and sharp peaks of anger, joy, and grief. You are coming into your power as the illusory hold of your previously accepted limits is shaken.”

Perhaps I should have taken advantage of my very capable Google Calendar account when beginning this program. Perhaps, I then could have avoided scheduling Week 3 with the all-encompassing, energy-depriving, mood-shattering combination of MERCURY IN RETROGRADE, along with several SHARP PEAKS OF ANGER with a dash of sudden and unexpected PMS.

On anger, Julia writes it’s meant to be listened to. “Anger is meant to be acted upon. It is not meant to be acted out,” Julia reveals.

For all you mini Deepak Chopra’s nodding your head in agreement, I say, Shut up. It’s taken everything I have not to continue writing this blog in all caps, I swear to god.

Yes, Julia says, anger fuels us in the direction we need to go. Feeling like you could design a better dress than that new designer? Maybe you should hop to a-sewing there, you up-and-coming Vera Wang! Pissed off that your business idea is now someone else’s cash cow? Anger is telling you to treat your ideas with more respect, and protect them accordingly.

So, why so angry grasshopper?, you ask. I don’t freakin know! That’s what’s making me so damn angry! My anger has been telling me that everyone is annoying. Everything is annoying. My computer, my librarian, my sweet husband, the rain, small children, the ATM. Maybe my anger is telling me to abandon writing, become an astronaut, and ship off to the moon. Because, that’s what I’d need to do to deal with whatever is going on around here. And, since that’s not likely, I need another option. The hubby needs me to find another option. Please, Julia. Please.

I took to the kitchen. I’m not a speedbag type of gal. I mash things.


You start with a few fresh avocados, diced tomatoes, and white onion, and of course some S&P.


You mash and stab, mash and stab, mash and stab.


Happy you did not shatter your mixing bowl, you consume with requisite tortilla chip.

Homemade guacamole notwithstanding, the training here, Julia says, is to take the anger and let it go on the page. If you think this is nasty, you wouldn’t believe the documents I created last night. Microsoft Word damn near suffered a collapse from all the F-bombs I dropped. At one point, I literally typed, “fucking” twenty times in a row. Two-zero. Yeah. Week 3 people, week 3.

Concurrently, a few good things have been happening in my Grinch-like universe. Some prayers have been answered, in alignment with Julia’s predicted synchronicity. Like the free laptop I wanted, that suddenly appeared. We fear having our desires met, Julia says, because then we’d have to be responsible for what we get.

Ahhhhh…do you hear that?

Yes, that would be me frozen in mid-type. That would be the silence of recognition. That would be the proverbial light bulb moment.

I literally just realized all of my shenanigans are truth-hiding tantrums. That’s all. I’m a writer, it’s happening, and all the things I wanted are coming to me. And I’m being held accountable. Strangers wait for my next blog post. New friends prepare for me to interview them. Contests I should be applying to capture my eye. And really, it is good. It’s just THERE, all of a sudden. Perhaps, then, this is the power. Recovering a sense of power around what I’ve been denying, avoiding, pushing away.

I think maybe, this is where the joy comes in.

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