Busy

New year. New goals.  Not ramping things up, but slowing things down.

September is, and will be for many years, the new year.  It's a time to rethink how things are going, to clean out the clutter, to refocus my efforts and make some goals.  This year though, I want to do that by easing up on my days.

I feel that this year will be a year of writing.  Currently I'm in the middle of writing a screenplay.  We're in full pre-production swing and aiming to shoot next March/April.  It's an exciting process that has really kicked me back into gear for writing.

The nice thing about writing is that, for the most part, it's a solitary exercise.  I must force myself to withdraw from the busyness, give myself some space and some breathing room, and slow down enough to immerse myself in fictional lives.

And, as always, I'm constantly trying to get rid of the stuff that surrounds us.  These days I feel like I stand in a room and just stare, trying to find ways to simplify what's around me.  Last week the boys ended up at the wrong end of my futile efforts when I forced them to clean out their "stuff boxes."

This is my last year with Juliette home.  It's already tough, as usual, with her intensity and independence.  But I'm hoping we can find some fall forests to wander through, some adventures through the library, and perhaps even some ventures out of town (how long has it been since I left our little town?)

So here's to a new year, with a little less busyness around.

Days

Today was a day.

I marvelled at Caleb.  He told me he'd decided on a career - a nuclear scientist.  He wants to figure out how to "neutralize nuclear bombs before they go off." (his words.)  So he found a science book that explained the theory behind nuclear energy.  Then he came up with the idea that, because the protons and neutrons and electrons spin in a tight cycle, and if he came up with a second layer that spun even tighter it might prevent the destabilization and detonation.

I got news that a screenplay I wrote passed the last hurdle before going into preproduction.

I met a wonderful kindred spirit at a friend's house, and when I left I couldn't wait to meet again.

I hashed out some organizing issues with some smart women, and I realized that I don't have to own all the decisions about how to keep this place clean.  Two things have bugged me for a while... The first is how frustrated I get at having to organize and reorganize my husband's clothing drawers every week.  Every week I take everything out and put it back in nicely, in order.  And every day he rummages around and messes it all up.  I would stew about how he doesn't appreciate my effort enough to keep it tidy.  Well, today I realized that not only does he probably not mind the drawer that way, he probably never even noticed whether it was tidy or not.  So now I just shove it all in each week, and he hasn't noticed and I don't fume.  The second is that he always put his work and church binders on the cubby in our front hall.  I would clear the mess down to his office in frustration, and then he would be frustrated the next morning when he went to pick up the binders and they weren't where he left them.  So today I gave him a cubby box for his binders.  Problem solved.

Juliette screamed for an hour in protest at bedtime.  But the boys all read to themselves for 45 minutes and then turned out their own light promptly at 8pm.

I paced around the house, desperate to purge and realizing there isn't much more to go.  And still I don't feel quite settled with it.

I sat out in the backyard of my friend, taking in the quietness of the country and the indigo jewel of a pond and the hazy air and the infinite shades of green.  I was there for 4 hours, and the light was perfect every single minute.

These are the days I'm living.