Here I Go Again!

So, I'm submitting myself and my family to this nonsense yet again. It is almost NaNoWriMo time! That time of year when words become electrons and invade my computer by the thousands -- 50,000 at the least --as I race --along with scads and scads of others (no, I don't know the exact  numbers, you'll have to visit NaNoWriMo to find out) to complete a novel, or at least 50,000 words of one. I've had success for 2 years running, so far, and both novels turned out okay. I'm revising both of them with an eye toward publication.

Of course, that means weird(er) hours and more staring at my computer and strange mumblings coming from my mouth as I grouse about the nonexistence of ideas, the cold of the fan,  the discomfort of my chair, the cats, the dogs, and the idiot whose idea this was anyway. Yeah, that -- as my long-suffering husband gently reminds me -- would be me.

Me, just another NaNoWriMo participant once again. Let the madness begin!

Findng Me

Lately it seems I've been delving a lot into the past. In a good way. 

I've been getting back in touch with people from various stages of my life. Family, friends from Nashville, childhood friends, online friends, friends of our kids' (that's always fun). Interestingly enough, there seems to be some similarity between what I'm learning from the interaction with my own childhood friends and our kids' friends. 

Getting over the move from Nashville and building new lives for ourselves here in Fayetteville has been a difficult process for me. Even though I've lived in 5 states and moved around a lot for 11 years, we lived in Nashville for 24. It was the longest I lived in any one place. 5 of our 6 kids were born there; they all consider themselves Tennesseans. I was involved with their schools; I wrote for a community newspaper as well as freelancing for magazines; I invested a lot of time working with the dance studio we attended; and I was active in the church. I even had a small reputation because of some of my affiliations. Just enough of one to make me feel good. Moving to Fayetteville, frankly, took all that away. 

Now, I'm not pitying myself, or even complaining. That's just what happened. And it was up to me to build something for myself here. However, it has been tricky. Kids had to be established first. And then I had to find work, steady, part time work to fit our needs. That meant re-learning how to job  hunt, and then learning the new job. Meantime, hubby had to work out a new post for himself, and the kids were moving onward in school to college. Now there is less than a year til our youngest starts heads off, too.

During the four years here I started this blog and numerous other writing projects. And there have been health and family issues to deal with . Obviously I've not been lacking for things to keep busy with. Yet -- and here I have to put in that some things may have been due to unknown health issues affecting me -- I've had trouble lntegrating my new life with my old. And it was bringing me down.

While I am the same person, I'm not living the same life I did for so long. And, honestly, for the most part, I loved my life in Nashville. Not that there weren't problems; there always were. But I knew how to cope with them, and when problems were absent, things were great. Here if Fayetteville, life is just -- different. Let me be clear that the people here are wonderful. My issues do not have to do with them. No, it's more like I'm not completely sure what my life is supposed to be here or how it relates to my lives elsewhere -- in Nashville, in Syracuse, in Vermont or Maryland (including D.C.) or in Castleton. 

If there is a thread that runs through the fabric of a person's life from start to finish, tracing their initials and plotting their journey onto the surface for all to see, I had lost that thread. I could not relate how I am now with how or what or who I was before. There seemed to be nothing to tie it all together.

Somehow, recent contact with old classmates, and hearing from friends of our children that we knew in Nashville, as well as talking with my far away relatives, has somehow combined to re-integrate me with myself. I am feeling, and acting, a whole lot more like 'me'.

I don't have all the answers -- kind of hope I never do, because then I will become obnoxious and boring and will stop seeking to conquer new horizons -- but I'm beginning to feel like one person with a continuous story again. Whatever fraying was taking place has been repaired by being reminded of who and where I once was. I can see my journey again, and so I know that there is more road ahead, with scenery, and things to do, and more to write.

If there is a moral to this, I think it is to keep trying to sort things out, stay in touch with your various past lives, and with yourself. Like looking for a single thread in a piece of cloth, if you don't give up, you'll find it.

Some Random Thoughts...

I've been wandering through the various blogs I follow, and I was intrigued by the variety of writers.  Amongst the newest additions to my list is a blog from a schoolmate that I just discovered (see my previous post), the blog of my great-niece semestering in Italy (by the way, there's a lot of broad-spanned generations in my family, my twin girls are about the same age as this great-niece and her twin), the blog of a Southern sushi chef, the blog of writer E.J. Copperman, and a blog on literary agents. These have been added to a developing list of blogs that includes several authors and agents, more cooking blogs, blogs belonging to more relatives (okay, 4 of them are written by 3 of my kids and a niece) and several NPR-related blogs. I'm not trying to impress you, these are really what i follow. There's also a couple on gardening and DIY. Together, these pretty well embody my interests, professional and otherwise.

It's generally accepted as a given that someplace someone on the Internet tracks our purchases and our visits to web sites, and that from this information they build marketing profiles. And if they track my blog-visits, they probably pretty much have  me figured out. But.... I love to skew things. 

For instance, my browsing on eBay has led me to look at a lot of computer equipment. Have I ever mentioned that we've been into computers since 1985? Or that we have our own home network? And that we all have multiple devices? At one time I was planning on setting up a home computing museum based on our outdated equipment (hey, we started with Commodore 64!) but I've been voted down. So, we've recycled most of our stuff. Except for the units I've strategically hidden in the piles of boxes in the garage....shhh, don't tell. 

Other items I've sought out on eBay  include lots of the usual: books, records, dvds, plants, spices, and Christmas decorations. The less than usual include mortician's tools, space souvenirs, items to celebrate Day of the Dead, knives, Chein metal toys, and even cars (yep, bought a van on eBay once).

Then there's the subjects I've 'googled': Robin Sage, marijuana, classic boats, poisonous plants,  cob buildings, underwater concrete, snakes, paranormal activity, and scads and scads of  diseases. Every new one I add, my husband thinks the FBI is going to come knocking. So far we're good.

But I really don't know what those trackers must think of me. Grin.

And we begin again

I looked with shock at my last post, as I realized it was from last spring.

Son noted in said post has just passed thru the living room saying he only reads my blog to see if he's mentioned. Guess what, Mack?

He is now a senior; our last offspring will be graduating this year and heading off to some unknown institution of advanced learning. The final 4 years of 6 kids educated thru college.

You know we just had our 26th first day of school? Scary.
***
I had an intriguing experience last night and this morning. I came across a blog written by a high school classmate of mine. Like most of us, he blogs about things he's interested in. One of them is history, including his personal history and the years spent growing up in our hometown. I scanned his blog, choosing to read a handful of entries he'd written, anything with the old town's name in it. I finally had to write him a note, praising one entry especially, the post he'd written about the sounds of the village. It evoked such a response, bringing me right back to the time we lived there and the people we knew. What got to me the most, and I should have told him, was that he wrote about the very sort of things I think about when I think of that time. From his perspective, of course, but the same people and places and events. Maybe it should be noted that our graduating class had only 86 students, and it was a centralized school district populated by farms and a village with one stoplight and 4 churches. Still, the feeling was a bit uncanny.

He replied to my comment, glad to have heard from me, but saying I was a real writer and he was not. I will tell him that to me a real writer is someone who writes from the heart. Now, a published writer is maybe something else again, but there are published writers I would say are not real writers. He is.

Besides being a humbling compliment, the whole thing has inspired me to return to my blogs. I need to be a real writer on-line again. So I will be back soon, with updates on Blackwater and our family, and life. It's going to be good.

Long time passing

A long long time. No, not since I wrote. A long time I've been waiting for my son to get back from his trip to the zoo.  A high school trip which has run late all day. Sigh.

New Technology

Is absolutely amazing. Will have to blog more when I am more used to new phone.