in process

So far, my song (see previous post) sounds to me like something between anything by Radiohead and every other song I've ever written. Yawn. I've only played with it a little, though. And I'm optimistically planning to apply a little treasure of genius from Anne Lamott, a doctrine known as the Shitty First Draft. Between tomorrow and Friday I will sit down and write down and/or record whatever comes out of my head as I goof around with G's and my little riff. And I will see where that takes me. Wherever that may be, it will be a hell of a lot closer to having just written a song then I've been in way too long.

Come to think of it, the first verse of the last really good rock-ish song I wrote (okay it was over ten years ago) was written in a similar manner: At that time, I had been humming a tune I liked and playing a little riff for days but not getting any words, so I sat down in the backyard with a notebook one afternoon and resolved to spontaneously compose nonsense in the appropriate rhythm and write down WHATEVER came into my head. What I wrote was a sort of nonsense, but it was madly poetic in a way, and it somehow got the story going that would end up being the song. And I ended up keeping it.

In other news... I'm not sure how it will all pan out, but some of my early AW '06 synchronicities had to do with money, unexpected abundance, and evidence of a supportive God (which I actually believe in completely), so I have taken the spirit of this week's reading to heart. Either that or I have used it as an excuse to spend money I don't yet have. I went to a department store on an errand for a few needed (and budgeted) items, and I ended up spending seventy three dollars on myself. I did pretty well though. On the "10 Items I'd Like to Own" list from a couple of weeks ago, the one item with a star was a pair of black bootcut jeans in stretch fabric for thirty dollars or less. I found some that flatter my butt for sixteen. (!) One of the tasks this week is to throw out ratty clothing. Some of my cozy clothes (which I wear for lounging and sleeping, which lately means almost always) managed to survive the closet purge of week four, just barely, because I still wore them and was feeling too cheap to replace them. On my little spree the other day I found four pairs of cozy pants, again, butt-flattering, for an average of six bucks each. I also purchased a foundation garment (to help smooth out my line, don't you know) which had been on my list for ages. And then there were the two lovely lace-trimmed hip-length camisoles, in two smashing Eliza colors, on clearance for seven dollars each.

That last item counts as a synchronicity. Sure, they've been on my wish list (though not on the 10 items list). But here's the thing. I went to sleep the night before the shopping spree intuitively convinced that I was (ten minutes) pregnant. (Don't tell anybody.) I woke up still feeling that way. In fact, my morning pages were three solid pages of grateful prayers. Yeah. And I noticed these camis were roomy, potentially helpfully so, when trying them on at the store, but I didn't see until I cut the tags off at home that they were actually maternity wear.

Lord have mercy. Okay, whether I am or not, I've never felt more ready or more calm about it, so I must be metaphysically bursting no matter the physical state of affairs. Mama Eliza is in the bullpen, and the Old Me just walked another batter and loaded the bases. It's gonna happen.

So.

I've felt inclined to veer into the overwhelm zone over the last couple days, unsurprisingly. I have pulled out my less-than-healthy emotion- and energy-attenuating tools a bit more often this week than last. But you know what? Even this week, it really hasn't been bad. I'm managing all of that much better overall these days than I have in ages.

I wrote email to a friend recently with the following update: "i'm doing swell. i am not working apart from the occassional tarot reading, i'm doing 'the artist's way' again, this time not half-assed, with a group of arty bloggers online. i'm going through the workbook of 'a course in miracles' again, too. i'm trying to get pregnant. i love being married to g. i'm hoping the artist's way will help me remember how to be a musician again. i feel happy. i am happy. holy shit, i'm happy!"

Now, I do realize that this epiphany is... just... AWESOME. However, feeling happy has not in the past been a simple matter of, you know, good stuff. It's generally been a bit more like an emotional mine field, where no possible step feels safe and I'm sure I'll be blown apart at any moment. But this time is different, more grounded, less manic. I may be reaching for my opiate behaviors here and there, not to mention the Valentine's chocolates, but I'm also doing tasks and excercises and what-not. I went for a lovely walk today instead of writing this post in the middle of an afternoon of bright sunshine and lower fifties. In February. In New England. Yes, time was I'd have sat that out rather than face the intensity of it all. (Feeling happy is one thing on the couch with Colombo reruns, a spoon and a jar of peanut butter, but it's something else entirely out on the sidewalk when the smell of spring is rising faintly from the thawing lawn. It's a good thing I was a little congested from all the chocolate. That smell might otherwise have provoked mayhem.)

So, the other way, the new way I supplementally manage my emotional experience is to do the program. Or programs, in my case. It's funny to me that for a long, long, LONG time I resisted staying with anything like the Artist's Way (or daily yoga or A Course In Miracles) because I knew it would work. I knew I would feel better if I stayed with a practice, and I didn't know how to feel good without then bludgeoning myself back into my familiar and comfortable state of chronic emotional broken-ness. I certainly didn't know how to live like I imagined a happy person lived, with no self-destructive habits and no inconvenient incongruities of bearing and disposition. Now that I've stayed with something long enough to get that feeling good is better and *gasp* easier than being broken, and that being screwy and being happy are not mutually exclusive, all I can do to maintain my new stasis of relative comfort is to do the program. Sometimes I think I'm actually avoiding feeling by doing. Sometimes I know I am. But this doing helps me manage feeling, and it makes the feelings themselves somehow more... manageable.

At the moment, I find myself in a strange feedback loop where all I can do to avoid the discomfort resulting from doing this program is to do this program.