Author: sundaydutro

Burgeoning author.
Time

Time

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Two years I started this blog post below and had to walk away from it. I re-read it today:

“I’ve been reading this book by Ann Patchett, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, and in it she describes a weekend away. She needed to get some reading and writing done and simply couldn’t do it at home, so off she went to a hotel. No big deal, just up and off to a hotel where she did nothing but read, write, order room service, go down once to the pool. I read this and I’m so jealous I could spit. The idea of having time to read and write…glorious.”

I have to say, the idea still makes me so jealous I could spit. Although spitting is gross.

What’s hilarious, is that I can’t remember exactly what had me so busy…will I look back in two years on this point in my life and wonder what kept me so busy? Of course. Definitely. Without question.

Facebook also gives me these memories to look back on and in them I see my oldest going from a smoosh baby to a toddler and think, oh my gosh he was so little! And then I look over at him now, at six years old, and realize this is going to look little someday too.

Where does it all go?

How do I feel like I have zero time for anything and yet time is so clearly passing, and passing quickly?

And the thing is that I’m not anywhere near where I thought I’d be two years ago, and yet I’m further…or maybe just different.

Two years ago if you told me I’d be living in Montana I’d have laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed. Because moving to Montana is something crazy people do. Who needs all that winter? Who needs all those prairies and cowboys and endless skies?

Well…me, it turns out. I need them.

Two years ago we were gearing up to live in our trailer for a few months while we purchased a property in Oregon.

One year ago we were moving to Montana, to a property I’d only ever seen pictures of and to a home my husband described as “live-able.”

This year I’m reading a post from two years ago wondering how I could have possibly thought I was busy then, when I’m so obviously much busier now. What a laugh. All of it.

Today has been about breathing. Fears are constantly popping up in my mind:

  • I don’t have time for this
  • I haven’t made time for my #writethirtyminutes yet and won’t have the time
  • How is it possible that I’m constantly making food for two creatures who survive on air
  • My husband is so excited right now, that makes me excited, he’s doing what I have to do, that’s scary
  • I signed up for that webinar but I’m going to be late cause the kids still need to be dressed, brush teeth, take vitamins
  • I don’t have time to eat lunch with these boys because I need to do that thing for my husband and I still have to #writethirtminutes and I need to get that roast in the InstaPot (“Insta” my a$$)

It all comes down to fear and mostly fear around time. So my mantra for today has been:

“I have as much time as I need to do what needs to be done”

It’s been proving itself true, so far. I made it to my webinar just as it was starting, missed nothing. I was able to do a little bit of homeschool prep stuff during the webinar while still digesting the meat of the course. I still need to do that thing for my husband (and for myself once I confront my fears), but I will do that after I get the roast started and the InstaPot insta-ing.

The day is proving that I absolutely have as much time as I need to do what needs to be done. And the thing is, if it doesn’t get done today, it didn’t need to. Remembering to breathe, remembering to focus on the now, remembering to “sit and know I am sitting” as the Ten Percent app guru says, has been tremendous.

The days will always be packed.

The key is to recognize that there is only so much you can do, only so much you can reasonably expect from yourself, or anyone, and that when it comes down to it, I have as much time as I need to do what needs to be done.

Progress Every Day

Progress Every Day

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They say that to reach your goals, you just have to make a little progress every day. I suspect there’s truth in that, although it doesn’t feel like it. For example:

Meditation

I’ve been doing a daily meditation on the Ten Percent app after having read the book Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris. I do whatever the daily meditation is, for however long it last. The first one is roughly two minutes and they gradually get slightly longer. I have no idea what I’ll do when the free meditations end…maybe it will be like the Calm app, when the free ones are gone, so am I…but I’d like to think that because I’m making slow and steady progress in daily meditation that I’ll continue on my own when it’s required of me.

Homeschooling

My boys are still young enough that there’s not much involved in homeschooling and I tend to get by with all the Q&A of daily life with an added dose of weekly Outschool classes and daily book reading. Still, I’ve been creating meetups for my local homeschool group and researching ideas and and and…. My daily progress on this end has been reading one chapter a day from the Homeschooling and Loving It! book by Rebecca Kochenderfer and now that I’ve finished it, I’ll be reading a chapter a day from The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer.

Writing

My daily progress is tracked by my #writethirtyminutes, catalogued here on the blog and doesn’t include any behind the scenes writing I do (although to be honest, I haven’t been doing much). I’ve been allowing myself the excuse of keeping up with my inbox which includes emails from Authors Publish and Writer’s Digest as well as reading a chapter a day from whatever writing tomb I’m reading, The Savvy Writer’s Guide to Productivity by Bryan Collins is the current pick.

Life

There’s also this thing called life, which, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through. Life includes making three meals a day, doing dishes from said meals, laundry, going to/from soccer practices/games as well as karate classes, the weekly running of errands, making kombucha every five days, cleaning the house, doctors appointments, etc. Nothing everybody doesn’t already deal with, but things we tend to ignore or consider unimportant because everyone deals with them. These things, however, are a major time-suck and it behooves us to be honest about just how much of our time and energy they take.

What’s My Point?

I don’t know.

Okay, seriously, the point is that it doesn’t ever really feel like I’m making any progress towards my goals, but I am. The going is slow because the progress is slow because it’s daily. These things aren’t about immediate gratification. It’s not painting the bedroom where one day it’s off-white and boring and the next day you’re surrounded by sumptuous color that immediately makes you recognize just how badly you needed to paint. This is stuff that goes the distance.

I want to make meditation a part of my daily life forever, so the effects of the meditation, less anxiety and longer fuse, are going to be noticeable as early as a week from starting, but the bedroom of my mind isn’t going to be painted overnight. It will take a lifetime.

And the same goes for everything else I’m attempting. There will, hopefully, be small wins all along the way, but the path is long and winding and I’m learning to be okay with that.

The Injury

The Injury

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It wasn’t supposed to be permanent. The injury. The injury was supposed to heal, to mend, to become a thing distantly remembered and the scar discussed at a roundtable of drunkards a la Jaws. But it didn’t. Heal, that is. The injury didn’t heal.

…

People had rather gotten used to the young woman limping to and from town every few days. Always the same route: post office, library, market. Those who saw her insisted she ought to have a bicycle, a wagon, a horse, something they’d say as they watched her pass. No one ever asked if she wanted a lift to wherever she was going when she left town. No one. Not after the first week of watching her routine, nor after the first year. What could possibly be so intimidating about a young woman with a limp?

…

He watched her limping towards him. It would be 10 am on the dot when she arrived. Always was. Just as he was finishing up the post office boxes and preparing the outgoing mail. He’d taken to checking that his watch was accurate by her arrival, checking that the old clock kept on the wall didn’t need new batteries.

The first time she came he’d noticed the similarity in her gait, the hitch in her giddyup as he thought of it. So familiar, like watching himself approach, if you didn’t notice the long light dress or the long bundled hair, which he did. How could he not. His first thought was that he’d finally found her, the perfect woman, the one who’d understand. His second thought was that she was much too young to settle for the likes of him, not once she knew…though maybe she’d be just as relieved to find herself in him. No, he shook his head, dismissed the thought, she was too young.

…

She never noticed the weather much, a heavier coat or a lighter one, waterproof boots or trainers. Weather was nothing more than a fact, and could easily be ignored, her life revolving as it did around supposition.

Suppose instead of going to the post office, the library, and the market, she went instead to a beach somewhere. Surely there’d be all the same necessaries, but perhaps with a better view. Not a beach though, her leg would stick out like…well, anyway. Perhaps a city, a major one, where the library would have multiple levels and ladders that rolled along walls. But no, that would all require more strength than she felt she had, despite walking the mile in and out of town every few days. No. She was where she belonged, even if she didn’t yet feel settled. Known.

And how was a body supposed to be known anyway when that body never made the necessary overtures.

Perhaps now that she was well and truly decided upon staying, perhaps now that a year had passed and her routine had settled, although who was she kidding, perhaps…

…

“I wonder if you know a good place to eat?” she asked.

He blinked twice, trying not to appear ruffled. This being the first personal question she’d ever asked him. Although what was so personal about it really? A place to eat. Not what deodorant he wore or which side of the bed he slept upon. Food. Simple. He blinked twice more in quick succession, and tried to reply without a stammer, not wanting to be taken as slow.

“The market there has take away items, if you’re in a hurry,” he knew she’d be heading out of town and on her way to wherever she went in an hours time, but realizing that perhaps he oughtn’t know her schedule or exactly where she went every time she came to town, he rushed ahead, “there’s also the little cafe round the corner there, a bit french if you like that sort of lighter lunch with a bit of wine?”

She smiled at his pronunciation of cafe as though it were a baby cow, a light lunch of veal, she pictured herself a fork in one hand, steak knife in the other, a big eyed snotty calf standing docilely before her.

This post was written as a thirty minute writing exercise, no editing, no stopping and was inspired from a writing prompt in Bryan Collins’ “Yes, You Can Write!” book available here.

Classical Music

Classical Music

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I recently read the If I Stay and Where She Went books by Gayle Forman, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And because they were partly about a cellist, I retrieved the names of two cellists to lookup on my iMusic app and I’ve been playing them on occasion (luckily I like classical music to begin with).

There’s all the hype about classical music being good for your brain and studying, which is fantastic, but the thing about classical music, that I love, is how it makes you feel. Any music, really, has the ability to take what you’re already feeling and amplify it or even change it. Have you ever desperately needed to hear a specific song? Have you ever been sad and required sad music or switched it up for something happy to lift you up?

With any song or piece of music the opening notes can completely take us over, send us back in time to a well worn memory or completely gut us with the emotions it brings up. I love that some people see color when they hear music and while I’ve had that happen once, I’d love to have it happen again.

Generally I surround myself with silence when I can get it. With two kids and two dogs, four chickens and five cats, and a husband, there is rarely a moment of silence around here. I cherish the silence.

And yet…

The opening notes of Rachmaninov’s Theme of Paganini can transport me to the book shop where I worked for a year and had to play the same piano CD every.single.day. with this being one of the songs. Despite getting thoroughly sick of the CD, I love to hear the song now and remember how wonderful it was to be surrounded by books all day.

Just about anything by Bach sends me back to college whistling to myself as I biked through campus or walked the arboretum in a moment of stillness and decision making.

Brahm transports me to Budapest where I attended an orchestral concert that played over and over in my brain as I walked the bridges and riverways for days trying different random bits of wild game: bear (not a fan), boar (not bad), and venison (my favorite).

While all music transports us, part of why we love it, there’s something about the sounds of classical music without the interruption of words, the words that pull us out of what our brains and souls are doing as we listen to the music, that’s part of what makes classical music so essential.

In an attempt to get our kiddos to appreciate all forms of music we routinely mix up what we listen to in the car when running errands or driving long distances. They’re mostly exposed to music from the forties on but every now and again we slip them a classical album or a meditative suite. I won’t lie and say these are their favorites, but they also aren’t opposed.

Just now as I was listening to Yo-Yo Ma play cello my oldest came running to let it wash over him as well. The kids are alright.

This post was written as a thirty minute writing exercise, no editing, no stopping and was inspired from a writing prompt in Bryan Collins’ “Yes, You Can Write!” book available here.

Ray Bradbury

Short Story Challenge

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I would very much like to believe what Ray Bradbury says is true, “write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” I want so much for this to be true, that I’m taking it as a personal challenge, although I’m sure I’m not the first. I’m not sure exactly when I’m going to start (she hedges quietly from behind the safety of her computer), but I’m doing it.

I’ve been doing these mostly-daily thirty minute writing warm ups and then moving on to other things…other non-writing related things. I’ve got two kids to homeschool, a house to keep clean, chickens and dogs and cats to care for, groceries to shop for, three meals a day to make, a garden, life…and let’s be honest, my husband does at least half of these things for me cause I can never get to them.

All that aside, I’ve got to get back into a rhythm and since all of my major excuses are used up (our lives are a shambles as we figure out where to live, our lives are a shambles as we live in a trailer, our lives are a shambles as we actually move somewhere, our lives are a shambles as we clean the place we moved into, our lives are a shambles as we get settled and acquire the things we need to live…like books), it’s time to get cracking.

My first new habit to practice is meditation which I will begin tomorrow. Once I’ve got a solid week or so under my belt I will begin the short story challenge: one short story a week, every week, for one year.

Has anyone ever done this? I mean, I could Google it, and knowing me I will, cause I’m curious:

  • How does one go about it?
  • Do you write the story in a day or two then spend the remaining five days editing?
  • Do you spend the first day coming up with the characters and idea, the second day writing it all out, the remaining days editing?
  • Are there any days left open for giving the product to someone else to read and comment on leaving time to re-edit afterwards?

The how-to part is what I will work on and determine over the next week as I get my meditation habit going and gear up for taking on this challenge. I’d love any feedback anyone has on doing this.

Horse

Horses

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We buy a quart of goat milk every week from a neighbor and today we went to pick it up in person. The kiddos got to meet her goats, adorable, and her chickens and ducks, and then we got to go say hi to the horses.

There’s something magical about the horses. They smell like comfort.

Every summer when I was growing up I’d get to go to my cousins ranch in Arkansas and ride horses (and work in the chicken houses, but we won’t talk about that here). Riding horses was magical for me, a city kid. And even now every horse I meet is Sugar in my head cause that was the horse I rode every summer.

My kids, especially the oldest, have been begging us to get a horse for years. Especially now that we live in Montana where it seems every single property you drive by has at least two horses. We’ve been sticking to our guns, their dad and I, no horses because money, feed, time, manure…but it’s not easy.

I don’t enjoy being a crusher of dreams, but the idea of getting a horse just so I can smell it and my kids don’t have to be told no is a pretty obvious no brainer. Still.

I’ve smelled like horses all day. I have had every opportunity to change, but haven’t because then I wouldn’t smell like horses anymore. I love that smell. I love the idea of heading out to the pasture in the morning, swinging up on a pony’s back, and riding down to the river…but since I can barely make time to exercise in the morning before the boys wake up and I have to schedule in the twenty minutes I need each week to clean the chicken pen (lemme tell ya, it doesn’t always happen), I think it’s pretty clear we don’t have time for horses.

But maybe goats?

Just kidding.

I know our lives don’t have room for any of that right now. And that’s a good thing. Our lives are very full. Our lives are very wonderful. And there’s always time for these grand things in the future. The boys will keep getting older, as much as I don’t want them to, and there will be more time in each day and then one day, there will be more time in a day than I know what to do with.

In the meantime, maybe I can go pick up our goat milk and snuggle up on our friends horses every now and again and revel in the smell of comfort.

Ivy Gordon Photographer

The Photograph

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The colors in the photo are simply stunning. The vibrancy of the orange, how sheer on the mother and how thick and comforting on the child. They seem almost out of place until the same lines of orange are caught in the upper left on a skirt or sari hanging out to dry. The orange also seems an odd choice when paired with the purples of skirt underneath.

There’s more to this though. There always is.

This woman appears well off, her clothing isn’t frayed and there are bits of beadwork evident along the edges of her shawl, in a pattern on her skirt, even along the rim of her shoe. Yet the child with her, clearly with her seen gripping her shawl, appears half-naked, hair tussled in a way my own mother would never permit, “you look like a ragamuffin,” she’d say. So too the alleyway they’re walking down appears run down, although clean, large bits of plaster flaking away from the buildings, laundry left out to dry.

The juxtaposition is all quite striking.

The orange alone enough to draw the eye repeatedly.

The child’s jacket appears to be a fleece, warm and comforting on a chilly day, several sizes too large with the sleeves rolled up, the bottom sitting somewhere above the knee but below the seat. Exactly as my youngest’s jackets fit, handed down from his older brother. Despite this warmth above, the child wears nothing below, or at least nothing visible from behind. Beautiful bare toddler legs in sandals, a bracelet around the right ankle. No visible goose bumps, however, so clearly not uncomfortably attired.

My favorite part though, the way the adult and child are in step with one another, the way the child grips the adults shawl in a confident, claiming manner. I’m left to assume this is mother and child, that mother has something in her hands and is thus occupied, unable to hold hands. This gripping of clothing a reasonable alternative for them both, confirmation, yes, I am here.

I look at this picture, with it’s simple white matting and modern black metal frame, which doesn’t “go” in my home in any way, which stands out as an awkward choice, really, and I love it. I see motherhood and childhood and security and comfort and joy. I wonder if this is her first child, her last child, if what she’s holding in front of her out of my view is another baby or a sack of rice for dinner or a pregnant belly.

I didn’t choose this photo, but I would. It was gifted to me, and I’m grateful. I can look at all the separate elements in the photo and see nothing of note, nothing that would draw my attention or emotion a second time, until put together as it is. When looking at the photo as a whole, I see love.

To view all of Ivy Gordon’s incredible works, please visit her gallery and website.

This post was written as a thirty minute writing exercise, no editing, no stopping and was inspired from a writing prompt in Bryan Collins’ “Yes, You Can Write!” book available here.

Going Back

Going Back

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They say you can never go back, but I had no choice. When my grandmother got sick there was no one to care for her. No one but me. So I went back.

My grandmother raised me when my parents died. They weren’t even together, like how much did God hate me to make that happen? My mom was on a regular weekly grocery shopping trip when a semi truck blew through a red light, crashed directly into the drivers side of her car, and killed her instantly. Everyone says at least it was a quick death. I don’t get the comfort in that at all. My dad was coming back from a business trip to some big city, I can’t even remember and don’t want to, the fight was perfect, the landing was stellar, by all accounts there was absolutely nothing notable about the flight, except that when it landed there was a dead body in one seat. Heart failure. And I always thought you had to have a heart for it to fail.

So my grandmother raised me for the remaining three years before I could legally emancipate myself early based on my ability and the fact that my grandmother was too old to be raising me, especially when her memory was failing and what she needed was someone to care for her. But I didn’t know that at the time. She hid it well. If she was even hiding it. Who knows? She seemed fine when I left a couple years ago.

I left at sixteen and started my career. Ha. It’s not work to throw paint around on a canvas and have everyone under the sun declare it a masterpiece because what they’re really seeing is your tragedy. At eighteen I’m more famous than that Warhol guy although I never really understood his “genius” either.

Eighteen and going back to figure out what to do with my grandma. How do you care for someone who doesn’t even remember you? It’s only been two years! How did things change so much, and why didn’t I notice?

I guess I should be grateful. I may not know how to care for her, but I have enough money that I can pay someone who does. Grateful. I should be grateful my mom went quickly and grateful my grandma won’t but that I can afford to care for her. This makes no sense. I’m supposed to be grateful for opposite things? What a racket.

It would probably have been better to pack her up and send her to me rather than going back to her. She wouldn’t know the difference anyway. I still don’t know why I didn’t do that. I did think about it. I’m not completely witless. But I didn’t. I came back to this place I swore I’d never come back to. I guess a part of me had to see if it changed.

It didn’t.

In books the characters are always going back and realizing how small everything is when it all looms so large in their memories. What a crock.

Everything is exactly as I left it. Small town, small house, small minds. But I supposed I’m meant to be grateful for that too. Whatever.

This post was written as a thirty minute writing exercise, no editing, no stopping and was inspired from a writing prompt in Bryan Collins’ “Yes, You Can Write!” book available here.
Please note that I’m well aware I am not using Bryan’s prompts as he intended, but because they are spurring the pieces, I’m giving credit where it’s due.

Meditation

Meditation

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Have you ever tried to meditate? Did you enjoy it? Did you create a lasting habit of daily meditation? Were there any specific apps or resources you used and enjoyed?

I’ve tried meditation a couple of times. I was really quite successful with the app Headspace until I ran out of freebie meditations. Then rather than continue the practice on my own or pay for more, I stopped.

My husband is a phenomenal meditator. Meditates every day. He can do it without a guide even! Can you hear how jealous I am?

There are countless stories about how wonderful meditation is not just for your mind and body but for your ability to think clearly, act efficiently, and maintain equilibrium in stressful situations.

In other words, if anyone needs meditation in their life, it’s me.

I started a book last night called Badass Habits by Jen Sincero and as part of internalizing the tools taught by the book, the author wants me to either choose a habit I want to pick up or choose I habit I want to be rid of. There are plenty of both to choose from when I stop and think about it. But I’ve decided that daily meditation is a habit I most sincerely want to pick up sooner rather than later as I already know all the reasons I ought to be doing it.

So today I picked up the book Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris and I downloaded his app Ten Percent.

I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, it’s only noon and I’ve already been triggered to overwhelm several times today by simple things:

  • two people needing my attention at the same time
  • two people yelling and fighting
  • fear that I won’t get to my #writethirtyminutes today
  • fear that I’ll forget to sign the kids up for the dance class they want now that we know their soccer schedule
  • anxiety over being billed $20 for something and not knowing why and when will I have the time to figure out why
  • how is it that no one has any clean shorts when I’ve been doing laundry nearly every day (because all the clean clothes are in the dryer and/or hanging up over drying racks waiting to be folded/put away)

You get it…right? These are common, daily things that crop up and absolutely should not cause overwhelm. They just are. It’s not like I’m in an enormous crowd of people and my hands are full and I can’t find my kids or my husband…but that’s the kind of scenario I want to be prepared for, in addition to the little daily things. I want to soar calmly over the overwhelm. Just breathe.

As I said, I’ll keep you posted….

Gilded

Epitaph

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I’m not much for morbidity. Although I suppose some would argue that planning for you death isn’t morbid but smart, forward thinking, another part of the circle of life we all must deal with.

My prompt today, care of Bryan Collins’ Yes, You Can Write!, is to write my epitaph.

No, thank you.

It does bring to mind, however, a book I recently finished that was above and beyond my expectations. I don’t normally read fantasy or young adult books, even though I love them. But this one was recommended to me by several different people multiple times, so I read it.

Gilded by Marissa Meyer.

And as soon as I finished it I looked for the sequel…which won’t be released until November 8, 2022. I’m devastated, because I simply must know what happens next and I need to know now.

But why would I think of this book when tasked with writing my epitaph? And how to tell you why without a massive spoiling of the book? I suppose I can’t. So instead, if you’ve read the book, and you understand what I’m talking about, excellent, send me a note and we can geek-fan-out together. And if you haven’t read it, please do. Even if it’s not your typical read. Especially if it’s not your typical read. Then, please contact me and we can *squee* over it.

In the meantime, I need to write about something for thirty minutes as that’s my current self-imposed writing challenge, and then I need to make lunch for my kiddos, and then do dishes, and then I need to finish the kombucha process so I can bottle again in five days, and then I need to do some one-on-one time with each of them before we rush off to the rest of our day.

An epitaph.

Nope. Can’t do it.

How about this, how about what I hope people remember about me when I’m gone?

  • I love to laugh and be the reason others laugh
  • I love to read and will read anything if I forget to bring something to read and the time presents itself
  • I love to volunteer especially when it comes to anything to do with children or animals
  • I was a floozie (okay, not an actual hooker, but a pseudo-actress in my previous towns annual production of the Melodrama)…and it terrified me to get on stage each and every time, it never got easier
  • I want to write something that makes someone feel something true
  • I went to college because I felt I had no other option and it was four years of exquisite torture but I also did some things I likely would never have been able to do otherwise, so I wouldn’t change it but I also wouldn’t do it again…like being a kid, why do people say it’s the best time and that they wish they were young again? No you don’t you big liar, being a kid is hard! Everyone makes your decisions for you and you’re completely overwhelmed by emotion at all times…but I digress
  • I love to hike and mountain bike and kayak, I loved to snowboard even though I was terrible and don’t know if I’d still love it as it’s been at least twenty years since I’ve done it
  • I say I love dogs and hate cats, but I actually love all animals and the five barn cats on our property have been known to appear sleepily purring in my lap on occasion
  • The most important thing, perhaps more important that anything else, I love my family. My family is everything. I would literally do anything for them. I love them fiercely and fully and without end

That’s as close as we’re going to get to an epitaph. And if there’s one thing I’d want my family to know, the world to know, when I pass it’s that my family was my world. I wanted them with every molecule of my being at every moment they were mine and before, and I’ll still be loving them with everything I have after.

This post was written as a thirty minute writing exercise, no editing, no stopping and was inspired from a writing prompt in Bryan Collins’ “Yes, You Can Write!” book available here.