DECISIONS

There are times when we need to make decisions. I'm talking about coming to a solid conclusion about things; a place of unwavering surety where one has settled into the peace of knowingness. I'm talking about looking up to the Creator and within to the Creator and saying, with all surety and without doubt, "There it is. I am done." And then, really and truly, from the most honest place in your being, Let It Go.

Lately I've been thinking alot about my Plan B. In a previous post I ran down my beliefs about my convictions about Plan B. Or, as I like to call it, Backup Plan. It's the "what I'm going to do, if XYZ doesn't work out." It's the "I'm going to save X dollars just in case my honey ever decides he/she ain't my honey no more." It's the "I'm going to keep my resume updated, just in case these folks up in here try to act the fool." It's about staying in the ready and being able to jump when you need to jump. It's about making sure you are in a place of Self-Determination -- ALWAYS -- needing no-one (keep in mind that needing and wanting are two different pigs).

I was raised by a single, strong woman who taught us six children if nothing else but the clothes on your back, always always always have a Plan B. A modus operandi.
I have lived by those teachings all my life.

And so here I am, for the past few months thinking about my plan B. Early thirties, knowing that Western Medicine is not where I want to spend the rest of my life. As I was explaining to a girlfriend recently, I live a double life. I work with scientists but I dwell with artists. I work with the concrete, but I dwell in the abstract. I work with what the eye sees but I dwell in the imaginative. And everytime I have to pull my two twelve hours I feel, literally, physically ill. Like a child being drug into the doctor's office, kicking and screaming.

Now I admit, I do have the life that many people would envy. I work two twelve hour shifts and I'm done. I'm comfortable with my income and my needs are met. My kids are happy; they never go to bed without seeing either Daddy or Mommy. They get a bedtime story every night and I haven't missed a field trip yet. The hours are long, yes, but the idea of going into anybody's workplace five days a week makes me nauseous.
But on the same hand, I don't want to do this forever. I have a lot of serious problems with Western Medicine and I have always believed that the best thing you could ever have is a family member who knows how to navigate the system and understand the lingo, lest you find yourself with the wrong limb cut off and failing kidneys cause some sap resident didn't know what the hell he was doing.

But I digress.

So I've been troubling myself with the notion of going back to school. I say troubling because I ask myself: for what? Aside from a few courses in women's studies, archaeology, a couple languages, and of course, writing craft courses, what would I want to commit myself to that strongly that I would put aside my writing and the projects I want to do? What could convince me to incur the kind of debt that colleges are calling for nowadays? Virginia Woolf had it right when she said " a woman, if she is to write, needs a room of her own," but what homegirl forgot to add is that a woman better be damn sure she doesn't have a whole lot of debt cause debt means working a whole lotta long ass hours doing stuff you don't want to be doing. I am through with that student loan stuff and I mean that. I am spoiled with my two days a week, let me tell you. And so, I ask myself but what then? What do I do about the future.

What if ..... and then I start having all kinds of what if's floating through my mind about my writing career and panic sets in.

But what I've come to understand about all of this is that this is the way I was raised and mantras have a powerful, powerful effect. Spouse said, in no uncertain terms, Angel you've got incredible talent. You've got commitment. You've got drive. And you're always going to be a Student. The Universe always responds to that. It may not be tomorrow. It may not be the next day. But It always responds. Just trust.

And so I ask, why can't we artists trust? Why do we buy into the notion that we can't sustain ourselves with our art? Why do we always think about the plan B instead of thrusting ourselves full force?

And so I've made some decisions. Some, Here Creator I Am Done. I am pouring everything I have into it. In the last day, I have shoved aside every non-essential task and committed to the creation of my art. I spent two hours last night and eight today updating my palm, buying software that enables me to write on the go (so I can stop wasting time typing my long hand stuff in), creating a To-Do List so I can stop bogging my mind down (why try to remember if you can write it down??) and looking at my date book clearing all non-essential appointments. I pulled open my latest chapter and went at it full force. I pulled the latest edition of the Writer's Chronicle off the shelf and resumed my independent study of literature and writing, taking a fresh look at Contradiction and Charachter:

"I began to notice a kind of contradiction that I had for the most part overlooked in literature...Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Bruno Shulz, Alice Munro, Joseph Conrad, John Hawkes, Jean Rhys, Ernest Hemingway--all of them used irony, which implies contradiction; all of them built stories around contradictions BETWEEN charachters; but what interested me most--what came as a revelation because I'd remained blind to it for years--was the pervasiveness and importance of contradiction WITHIN charachters.

...Students of craft will immediately recognize the most pervasive use of all. It is often contradiction that allows a literary charachter to change over the course of a story.

...If we do not know ourselves--if our charachters do not know themselves---who can prredict what we will do. Another layer of complexity has to be added: if our charachters KNOW or FEEL that they do not know themselves, if the tremble from contradictory impulses, they will also tremble with suspense, driving themselves and the reader, AND THE WRITER, to the next moment and the next.

And so, I move forward, full force now, knowing that this is IT. This is the IT I've always wanted. IT will come through reading and writing and living and being and...simply DECIDING.

Be Good.