progress report

I need to count my blessings out loud today. It occurs to me that in the last two months, I have begun changes, made changes, made progess, taken steps. I feel as though I may have lost my footing, but I'm brushing myself off today and things don't look bad at all. Here's an inventory, in no particular order:

- A new practice: Morning pages
- A new form of self-expression: Blog writing
- A commitment honored: Staying with the AW, doing tasks and excercises
- Progress: More frequent piano playing
- Progress: More frequent, deeper banjo playing
- Progress: More comfort with electric guitar; playing plugged in
- Progress: Playing music with G
- Progress: Two songs in process
- Step taken: Banjo date with P (finally coming up this Monday)
- New pleasure: Joined community chorus (We're doing Haydn's "Creation" this spring. Heh.)
- Progress: Going out for Artist Dates, walks, sitting on the porch
- Progress: Better SH sing attendance
- Progress: Seeing friends more
- Progress: Reviving friendships I'd let slip
- A commitment honored: Two months of yoga very nearly daily
- A commitment honored: Two months of regular ACIM practice
- Progress: Reading more
- Progress: Feeling much happier overall
- Progress: Much less self-harm
- Progress: Feeling more socially comfortable overall despite some wrinkles
- A new practice: Weekly mandala coloring
- A new work of art: My week 7 collage
- Progress: Learned how to use the camera with the computer and post photos
- A new creative outlet: Photography
- A new blessing: Blogging friends
- Progress: Spring is coming



I remain in the land of in-between, of not knowing. I continue; I am in process. Moving onward, not sure of my precise location on the continuum of my life's timeline, taking my steps: one at a time.

This brings to mind one of my all-time favorite songs. It's called, "Put One Foot In Front of the Other," and it's from the Rankin Bass stop-action animation Christmas special, "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." I guess I'll save my gushing about what Christmas means to me for next December. But this song really gets me, and it's perfect for how I feel now. I don't know if I've ever heard it as an adult without crying. I'm pretty smooshy that way.

I identify with the bad guy who is good deep down, since I was cast as a bad guy in childhood and the resulting anger and frustration made me seem like one sometimes. I still watch myself very carefully for meanness, and I still notice plenty there. I have often punished myself for what I believe to be bad thoughts or behavior, only to punish myself for punishing myself - for the damage I have done, for the time I have wasted in this cycle of pain. I have gotten that God loves me completely exactly how I am, with my entire inventory of "bad." The secret is that God doesn't see the bad - to God, that stuff is so illusory and ephemeral as to not be there at all. Only Love abides. Yet I still struggle, as we all do.

Anyway, the scene with this song opens with Kris Kringle asking the Winter Warlock to have the magic evil trees that are restraining him let him loose for a minute, because he'd like to give him a present. The Warlock is taken off guard by this since no one else has ever made him such an offering. He suspects a trick. But K.K. says he wants to start a new custom, the bad guy is swayed, the trees are commanded to liberate the prisoner, and soon the mean old warlock is happily smooching his new choo-choo. Then we hear a melting sound and his face goes watery, coming back into focus soft and pink where once he was icy and white. "My whole outlook has changed from bad to good!" he exclaims. "Ah. but will it last. I really am a mean and despicable creature at heart, you know. It's so difficult to really change." Kris Kringle laughs and tells him that going from bad to good is as easy as taking your first step.

Put One Foot In Front of the Other

Chorus:
Put one foot in front of the other,
And soon you'll be walkin' 'cross the floor.
Put one foot in front of the other,
And soon you'll be walkin' out the door.

You never will get where you're going
If you never get up on your feet.
Come on! There's a good tailwind blowin'.
A fast walkin' man is hard to beat.

(Chorus)

If you want to change your direction,
If your time of life is at hand,
Well don't be the rule, be the exception.
A good way to start is to stand.

(Chorus)

[Warlock:]
If I want to change the reflection
I see in the mirror each morn,
You mean that it's just my election
To vote for a chance to be REBORN?

Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you are walkin' 'cross the floor
You put one foot in front of the other,
And soon you are walkin' out the door!


The Warlock's faltering but slowly steadying steps are cheered by woodland creatures, including a fawn standing for the first time. I love this juxtaposition. The idea of that option of rebirth at any time we choose means a great deal to me. I used to want it in a lightning bolt, with a fiery angel and suspension of time. These days I notice that rebirth happens over and over, every time I feel my hard heart melting. No matter to what nether regions I take the wings of the morning (most recently to pointless doubt and ungrounded mental restlessness), the sun keeps dawning and I keep standing back up. This program and community are providing "a good tail wind." And my time of life is at hand (whether I happen to be pregnant today or not).