The inevitable question.

When you write a lot and then you don't, the inevitable question arises. What happened? Well, I don't really know. I don't know if something happened.


I gave the blog a rest while I was writing elsewhere. Thinking other thoughts.
And then, out of the blue, someone asked me what I want to have done by the time I'm 80 (which, by the by, rather far off) and I blurted out, “Well write a book that's for sure!”


So, someone living deep inside me, who I'll assume is an inside-voiced version of me, is speaking up. I'll listen. I'm good at that. Not as good as my friend Lori, who listens so intently and completely I often wonder if she's fallen asleep while I'm talking or has gently set the phone down so she can attend to a project as I go on, but, is really just fully listening.


But, back to me being a good listener.


I am listening, and I'll say based on this, writing has become a goal for the year. This means, I have a plan, or at least I'm formulating a darn fine one, to write every single day of my life for the next year. If some of it goes beyond the morning pages and begins to draw the tale of Ethel and I tooling through Europe with 52 years between our ages, or summons the memories of the first time I laid eyes on my mothers' group and the attendant baby sausages swaddled and lying on the hospital meeting room floor, well, I'll be happy to let that happen. Welcome the reveries which turn ideas into lyrics or stanzas or just fine paragraphs.


I do it anyway. I may as well do it with pluck and purpose. So there.


It isn't a resolution. It's a plan. Kinda formalized.


And again the answer to the aforementioned inevitable question is this: We remodeled the kitchen and for a while, I lost my chair.

Happy 2018.

Writing my way.

Today I asked Amanda how I'd know she's a writer. I wanted to hear about when and how she writes. She went right to journalling and blogging and how she is rather on and off with it. Cycles. And I thought two things: right! and then, wait a minute. I write just about everyday. Journaling, Artist's Way and I drifted (everyone is now talking in the rooms - back and forth - about her writing and the whatever else) and I think, I've never excelled at anything I did cyclically. They were just things I did.

At some point Chris said, "Vicki should have a blog."

I thought, (really), "Mercy. I have a blog." I said. Oh, yes. I do.

Then I went back into the drift and wondered, what am I doing? What's so important? Where is my writing. My art. My stuff. And it occurred to me, things don't become cyclical (other than seasons and things like that) we lean into them in cycles. I learned to be a cook by cooking everyday. Writer by writing everyday. Violinist by playing everyday (until I stopped).

What are the everyday things?
What are the joys and actions we love and have to do?

Rest.
Consider.

A week before my birthday I picked up a wonderful small book by Claire Diaz-Ortiz: DESIGN YOUR DAY. On my birthday I started reading it. I had to stop because she asks that the reader (that would be me) stop and take the required time to find ONE WORD to hold in focus for the year ahead. For me that is not the literal 2016, which, as you likely know, is 5/6 over. But for the seasonal year ahead. The one that follows the season of my birthday. So I'm doing that.
And somehow,
the considering
of what
makes up the
ABCs of me
is all
a part of my
pondering my way
into focus.

I have a blog.
I have a voice.
I love to write.

Stillness.
Resting.
Considering.

I choose writing.

I pondered.
I'm writing.

It's just too sweet to consider and lay down a strings of words as they become one thread to another. An idea, a thought, a story.

Today I chose someone else's writing. Here's a wonderful string of words, ideas, actions that will end up a tasty plate for you.

So here is David Leobovitz's fabby way to roast tomatoes.

This is my before picture:

If I showed you the after picture, you'd want to eat them and you can't because they went so fast it would make your head spin. They were sprinkled with a little mineral salt, thyme and chopped garlic before they hit the oven.

My friend Claudia found Kumato tomatoes at the 99 cent store. (Those are the dark green/brown faces amid the reds.) They are super delicious. So there's your start. Go make them! Report back.