When the creative spark alights...

I wrote three songs yesterday. I haven't written since I was in Chile. It feels amazing, just an effortless flow of words and sounds that strike some pleasure center in my brain. Last night I listened to most of my discography and was touched with how great it is. Songs that I couldn't stand two years ago seem sweet and worthwhile. Taking time and space away from things is so, so important.

In other news, I cried out of joy three, yes, three times today while watching the most recent episode of Glee: "Born This Way". The episode centered around self-acceptance and bullying, something that was rarely addressed in any effective manner when I was in high school. Add to it the fact that it is such a gay positive show, I choked up on how things have changed so much in just 15 years. Of course there is still injustice and cruelty but I can see a positive change; see how the world shifts in good ways (culturally) and not just in environmental apocalyptic ways. Society is so quick to throw out good, having such little patience for the quiet hurrah of most positive success. If only we could harness the world's addiction of worry and fear into a viable energy source, we would be set for generations. But I can see it; I can see good things happening.

Of course there is bad as well. Always both. Where there is good there is bad but where there is bad there is also good.

Humidity

This is what my hair looked like when I got up this morning.

This midwest humidity is truly turning me into a Disney princess. That or June Carter.

Latin love

My morning Zumba class ends this Wednesday. It's been a great experience not only because I love to dance but because the ladies are so sweet to me. They gave me an Easter cookie last week and now I feel like I have three new grandmothers.


Plus they are VERY vocal about how much they are going to miss me.





Plus they love to party and will use any excuse to make a baked good. They nonchalantly asked last week what my "favorite flavoring" was...in regards to breakfast foods. ??? We got on the topic of cinnamon and it was settled: they surprised me cinnamon rolls this morning. This gluten intolerant lady is overwhelmed by love and wheat sluggishness.


But it's all good.

21 Questions

There is a FB game called "21 questions" where person A anonymously answers questions about person B, C, D, E...and then hopefully persons B, C, D, E... want to know who answered the questions. The only way to unlock the answers are by answering more questions about other people and so it continues... Out of curiosity I checked it out, though luddite that I am I refused to answer any questions to find out who said what. What I did get from the answers is still fascinating information:

-People believe I have slapped someone but not ever punched someone.
-People think I am smarter than George W. Bush and Jessica Simpson
-People think I am a reliable person that can easily run a mile and do 20 pushups.
-People think I have a cute butt, have a crush on me, think I'm cute, would look good in bikini and yet the majority would not hook up with me. (can't win 'em all)
-People don't think I'm greedy, would easily loan me $100 and would like to travel the world with me.
-There are some fierce disagreements as to whether I sing Brittany Spears when I'm alone or not.
-One person even thought that I recycle 'dirty' underwear. I'm not even sure what that means...

Overall, I'm not as blundering a human being as I could be. :)

Triggers and Randomness

When is it best to cut ties? Um...I'm guessing: when it's time to heal, time to move on, time to get some space or when regardless of your best intentions you hurt more than help (and vice versa).

Sometimes I really get the metaphor of life as a great big play with me just a hired actor reading my lines. I can try to divert the course of the production with incongruent actions or misplaced lines but the other actors remain consistent and I am left alone with my wanting.

As an adolescent, my biggest trials struggling with depression were:
1) not knowing what was wrong with myself/why I was hurting myself so then I couldn't really ask for help
2) being furious with adults telling me how to live my life when it was clear they were neither happy or at peace or even enjoyed being an adult.
3) the only thing I've ever wanted was to be happy, to seek out joy and to keep on learning and growing. Sadly, there were no such classes offered at the University of Illinois in 1999.

Now after nearly two decades of suffering and learning, I know how to make myself consistently happy 90% of the time and how to equally be at peace 90% of the time. And while this is quite an incredible feat for someone of my depressed and lethargic generation, I am a little chagrined that trials/challenges don't stop. At times I am surprised to see that my words or actions could trigger someone to such heights of rage that they would call me "malevolent" or "warped". And it's those times where I need to look very openly at my actions, taking responsibility for what is my shit and to steer clearly away from what is their shit.

I hate all of it: hate having been triggered to anger, hate triggering someone else. I feel so helpless and sad. Mostly because I know there is nothing I can do to help, thus I need to go away for a while. When what I want (to MAKE/FORCE/CONTROL things to work) is not what actually needs to happen (give everyone their space, reflective time), I fall back into the space of my own presence or some sort of vital cellular energy. I come home to what I truly am after the hard day's work out in the chaotic and insecure world, to the one consistent source of happiness I have: myself.

Relief

Out of love and purest observation, my dad called me a control freak last week.

It was such a relief to hear someone say it out loud. :)

Because a good day deserves a good picture.

100% practical, 0% magical but overall a cloudy delight.


Karina as a Disney princess at Beth's house regaloneando with Kaincito, the sole existing picture. (That is unless you want to jack into about 25 Indian families' Iphones)