quotations

Weebles wobble

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

If you presume to love something,
you must love the process of it much more than you love the finished product.
 ~  John Irving

Right now I’m not entirely sure I love the fiction-writing process. As I revise this young adult novel, I’m starting to question whether I have any business trying to get published. I received some feedback on another manuscript that has me questioning my talent, and today I’m more wobbly than I’ve been in some time.

So. The bad news is I’m scared and exhausted and wishing someone could cut out this obsessive writer part of me so I’d never have to feel this way again.

The good news? My experience tells me that this ugly fog will eventually lift and then fade to a very faint memory. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I might not always love the process, but I trust it.

a copy

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Wildebeest migration

/ Tracy Abell

On Saturday, Wildebeest drove for six hours to come home and see his brother before Zebu leaves for ten months in Sweden. (In the time-honored tradition of all young adults, Wildebeest brought his dirty laundry with him.)

Zoey keeping watch on the clothes hamper and work shirts.

Zoey keeping watch on Wildebeest’s hamper and work shirts.

A few minutes ago Wildebeest hugged us all goodbye, loaded up his clean and folded laundry, and headed back home. He’s leaving one home for another.

I’m hyper-aware that whenever I refer to this, the childhood home we made for our sons, as HOME, I run the risk of minimizing the lives our children are creating for themselves. But I also want them to know they are always welcome here and will always have a home with Zippy and me. This is their home. We are their home. So I use “home” to refer to here and there, wherever there may be.

Wildebeest is currently on the road, migrating back to the life he’s chosen for himself. I miss him already, but will see him the next time he comes home.

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
~  Matsuo Basho

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Note to self

/ Tracy Abell

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.

~  Joseph Chilton Pearce

scream-cartoon-painting

Anyway, “wrong” is a subjective term except for when I’m doing math.
Which I most definitely am not.
So it’s all good.
(Okay, not “all” good. But mostly!)

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Fight or flight at the library

/ Tracy Abell / 8 Comments

I’m at the library again, doing my best impression of The Little Engine that Could. My study carrel is in the quiet section that is liberally decorated with these signs:
20160810_144334

About an hour ago, a man had a conversation on his phone within spitting distance of one of those signs. Several people glanced around as if to say, “What the hell?” but no one did anything. Including me. I figured we all deserve one free pass and that was his. Well, the dude started up another phone conversation. So I channeled my inner Pete Seeger who once said, “If there’s something wrong, speak up!” (and yes, I do realize that Pete was talking bigger issues than cell phone etiquette.)

I stood quietly by the man’s carrel as he continued to talk. And the longer he talked and refused to acknowledge me standing there, the more uncomfortable I felt. But I stayed put and when he hung up, I held out the sign and politely said something like, “I wanted to remind you about this.” He finally looked at me and his faux surprise at seeing the sign was laughable, but he did say, “Oh, okay.”

And that was it.

I’m taking the time to blog about this because I couldn’t believe how much adrenaline was pumping through my system after that interaction. I felt physically ill because of one polite conversation regarding cell phone usage, and I’d like to figure out why.

At this point, the only thing I know for sure is this:

Pete Seeger quotation

 

 

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This may or may not be evidence

/ Tracy Abell

Zebu has completed two years of college and is getting ready to study abroad for the next year. He just finished sorting through an accumulation of notebooks, folders, and binders filled with paper from high school and the last two years.

He came across personal notes that made him cringe, Calculus test scores he’d rather forget, and class notes from his all-time favorite class so far, a Latin American history course.

Here’s something I rescued from the recycle pile:
Zebu vocab notes

He believes it’s from a high school English class and as he held it out for me to see he said:

“This may or may not be evidence of me cheating on a vocab test.
I honestly don’t remember.”

Know what?
I honestly don’t care.

Gaining perspective is a beautiful thing.

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Free to be me

/ Tracy Abell / 1 Comment

I dislike having my picture taken.
I dislike seeing photographs of myself.

I would much rather I didn’t care one way or the other.

I just used my old phone to take a few pics of myself
and I’m posting them here.

Call it photographic immersion therapy.

20160802_171851 20160802_171954

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20160802_172036 20160802_171928

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he’s wearing or how he looks.
~  Richard Avedon

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Peachy keen, yo

/ Tracy Abell

Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring,
and because it has fresh peaches in it.
~  Alice Walker

Zippy went to two farmers' markets in search of these organically-grown beauties.

Zippy went to two farmers’ markets in search of these organically-grown beauties.

 

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To bee or not to bee

/ Tracy Abell

Last night we had a hail storm that stripped leaves from trees and petals from flowers. The yard and patio are a mess. I went out with my camera to assess the damage and was happy to find many busy bees.

Don't think I've seen this type of bee before. Many on flowers this morning.

Don’t think I’ve seen this type of bee before. Many of them were on the flowers in one bed this morning.

 

Bee with pollen

Meanwhile, in another bed, some bumblebees were hard at work. Note the pollen on back legs.

 

Didn't even know that bee was in frame until after the fact.

Didn’t even know this bee was in the frame until after the fact!

Earth is a flower and it’s pollinating.
~  Neil Young

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Endless series of little details

/ Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

Wine glass

 

A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth.
The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water.
Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions,
speeches, and thoughts.
And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them
are far-reaching.
 ~ Swami Sivananda

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It saves going to heaven

/ Tracy Abell

I’m posting this Cliff Swallow photograph from over a year ago because birds always, always make me feel better. 
Cliff Swallow enlarged

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.
 ~ Emily Dickinson

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Wrote some blues

/ Tracy Abell

Woke up this morning feeling low,
nothing specific driving my blues.
More like a muffled blanket of sad
wrapped around me.

I forced myself out of bed for:
stretching
yoga
hooping.

Slightly better
but still wanted
to crawl back under the covers.

Grabbed some coffee and breakfast
along with my YA project notebook and pages.
Got to work.

Slightly better
but still blue around the edges.
Trying to use it to my advantage.

Grape hyacinth

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
~   Duke Ellington

Karl Pilkington for the assist

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

For much of yesterday and today, it’s felt as if a railroad spike had been driven into my left eye.
railroad-stakes-1110431_960_720

I’m tired and nauseated and sick of just about everything right now, and thought I’d post a quick spike image that might convey those feelings. But then I came across this quotation:

The other day I was thinking – because I get a lot of headaches – I was wondering whether the head should be where it is. Because, at the end of the day, it’s probably the heaviest part of your body, right? And yet it’s at the top as opposed to, I don’t know, dangling at the bottom somewhere.    ~  Karl Pilkington

And now I’m laughing and feeling a tiny bit better. Karl Pilkington saves the day yet again!
karl pilkington

Thanks, Karl!
P.S. I thoroughly enjoyed THE WORLD ACCORDING TO KARL PILKINGTON

Adopting the Mandela and Roseannadanna perspective

/ Tracy Abell

IMG_9957

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.         ~ Nelson Mandela

Or, in the words of another great humanitarian:
“Well, Jane, it just goes to show you, it’s always something — if it ain’t one thing, it’s another.”  ~ Roseanne Roseannadanna

Ain’t that the truth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some days I want to cover my eyes

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

“There cannot be enduring peace, prosperity, equality and brotherhood in this world if our aims are so separate and divergent, if we do not accept that in the end we are people, all alike, sharing the Earth among ourselves and also with other sentient beings, all of whom have an equal role and stake in the state of this planet and its players.”
~  Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck 

Double-blooming clematis from my garden.

Double-blooming clematis from my garden.

Every gaudy color is a bit of truth

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Today I was treated to a Western Tanager sighting.

Public domain photo that I wish I'd caught.

Public domain photo that I wish I’d caught.

As before when I spotted one of these birds, I wondered what it’s like to wake up every day looking so very eye-catching. Is there a lot of pressure associated with displaying those bold colors? Are there days when the tanagers wish they were more finch-like and adorned with dull, brown feathers?

Yes, I realize I’m anthropomorphizing.
But that doesn’t stop those wheels from turning in my head.

“Every gaudy color is a bit of truth.”  ~ Nathalia Crane

Sharing the Trail

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

I just got back from a run on the trails.
This sign is at the trailhead:
CoyoteCountry sign

I knew I wouldn’t be lucky enough to see coyotes because I didn’t get out there until about 8:00 when they’d already be on people-alert. I did, however, see and hear many birds. Western meadowlarks, orioles, and magpies. I also saw a friend and her dog.

A few minutes after passing my friend, I was on a downhill. Running “fast.” And I heard a LOUD hissing, rattling sound off to the left of the trail. 

I startled, kind of screamed, did a little side-hop, and kept running. But it wasn’t until I’d taken a bunch more steps that my brain made the connection: rattlesnake. And then my first thought was:

How many times before I hear that sound
 and know it’s a snake,
and NOT lawn sprinklers turning on?

IMG_9421

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. ~ Aristotle

Yes. No. Maybe So.

/ Tracy Abell

I’ve spent the past couple days researching nonfiction project ideas and it’s been a joy because the planet’s animal inhabitants are incredibly diverse and mind-blowingly freaky in their behaviors. I could read forever.

20140719-BatteryParkCityNY-LunchWithErinAndrew (56Edit)

But I can’t read forever because I need to make a decision. I need to choose a topic and start writing. The problem is I want to write about all the things that fascinate and entertain and expand my world view. All. The. Things.

I’ve started three different Scrivener files, adding research sources and roughing out drafts. And then my brain says “But there’s also that other cool thing. Maybe it would be best to write about that right now.”

indecision

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve never had this problem with fiction. I decide what story to work on and away I go. Over the years I have revisited fiction projects, which to the casual observer might look like indecisive bouncing around, but I’ve never experienced anything like this. Which is kind of strange considering that the planet’s human inhabitants are also incredibly diverse and mind-blowingly freaky in their behaviors. I mean, there’s a lot to choose from there, too.

I’d love to be assigned a topic, but that’s not happening right now. So I’m going to make a decision because, like this guy says:
The risk of wrong decision quote You heard it here first.

Clean Windows, Gloria Swanson, and Me

/ Tracy Abell

I’ve come to the startling realization that when life gets particularly difficult, I sometimes cope by washing windows. (Full disclosure: I also cope via cookies, beer, and Netflix.) I just spent the last few hours washing interior and exterior windows plus screens, and I actually enjoyed it. Just me, a clean rag, a bowl of vinegar-water, and a stack of newspaper.

Big deal, right?

It is kind of a big deal. See, when I was growing up it seemed I was always washing windows (and lemon-oiling the paneling and vacuuming the basement stairs and . . .) The combination of a slightly obsessive-compulsive mother and a house full of windows made for many, many hours scrubbing at fingerprints and smudges and whatever else my brothers stuck on the glass, and I resented the chore. The Wisconsin humidity made it impossible for the windows to dry correctly and I was forever battling streaks so that window washing was more often a rage-inducer than a coping strategy.

Now I’m an adult living in oh-so-dry Colorado, and washing windows is almost a zen activity. The windows dry quickly and mostly streak-free! It’s me deciding when to wash windows, not my mother! Plus, clean windows make bird and squirrel watching so much more enjoyable!

Also? These days I don’t have to worry about anyone mistaking a clean sliding glass door for an open sliding glass door. When my sons were little, Wildebeest chased Zebu through the house right after I’d washed windows and poor Zebu hit that glass door so hard he bounced back several feet as blood poured from his nose. I heard the impact all the way down in the basement. (Full disclosure: at that point in my life I probably used the incident as an excuse for letting the windows stay dirty for a good long while.)

But I’ve since adopted a new attitude. And for the time being (at least until the cats and dogs smudge them), I have clean windows and a calmer spirit.

Gloria Swanson by Edward Steichen

Gloria Swanson by Edward Steichen

” My mother and I could always look out the same window without ever seeing the same thing.”  ~ Gloria Swanson