Cynthia Harrison's Blog, page 42

Serve Somebody

If the kingdom of heaven is within, then that’s where I want to travel. In fact, I think I need a nice long visit with the goddess inside before I can even begin to contemplate serving my life’s purpose. Kate said my life’s purpose is service to others, and involves travel and public speaking. I only recently got over a lifetime fear of public speaking, so even the thought of such a lifes’ purpose terrifies and exhausts me.

I understand this is a normal reaction to the next step toward the last one.

“Be here now” wrote Ram Dass. Astute advice and Eckhart Tolle lays the how of it out neatly in The Power of Now. I’m a believer in present moment awareness. Right this moment is all we have. So be in it. Not in the future of some “next” and certainly not in the past, which is gone. Therefore, I shall not fret more than momentarily about my “next.” I’m into now, and now is crazy enough that it makes me want to jump out of it into anywhere else.

Except that serving others “next” thing. Don’t want to go there. Selfish, I know. It’s a trait of Aries. We are the selfish sign. It’s all about us all the time. I used to think everybody was that way. It’s certainly the way things work in fiction. Every character believes they are the star of the show. And aren’t we all starring in our own lives?

How much better would that be if we knew our heaven inside? That’s where I want to go next.

Tagged: #MondayBlogs

Full Moon Messages

Laying low in October may have been easier to do if not for the full moon early in the month that rocked my world. There has been a measure of success in this period of rest, but it has come at a price. For every rest, the next day just jams up with more “to do” on the list. I really need to learn to let go of some things, and I’m practicing.

Success in the kitchen is happening. Easier meals, still healthy but with some short cuts, are fully in swing. It’s not unusual for Al to pop in the kitchen to ask if I need help these days, a big change. Because I’m communicating with him and expressing my needs as I have never done before–that’s the part of the full moon most helpful. Self expression outside fiction can be difficult in close relationships for me. I have trust issues, what can I say?

But as I move into the “next” phase of my life, whatever that ends up looking like, I am broken open, but in a good way. My heart has cracked wide and trusting is on the agenda. I have to, it’s part of my life’s journey, and as the lines on my face attest, it’s in a later rather than earlier stage.

I said a few blogs ago that I’ve been seeking out various therapeutic remedies to help me learn balance and calm, including massage for my sensitive outer skin and seeing a psychologist who has helped me become more fully the person I want to be inside. Yesterday I consulted with spiritual counselor Kate Surgey via Skype. (She’s in London; I’m in Detroit) and her “life path” reading helped me make sense of my journey thus far and where I need to go next.

I didn’t tell Kate anything about my life, but she knew all about it anyway, and as I always suspected, my first thirty years were the most difficult ones. I was truly prepared to settle quietly into retirement from teaching, from the work in the outer world. Then, a few things happened. I won’t tell those stories again; they are here in the posts, which have become so much more personal in the last six or so months. Events threw me in the air and spun my head around. I got a little dizzy! Like Dorothy in Oz, I landed in a strange unfamiliar place where I didn’t know the rules, and I’ve been sorting things out for awhile now.

It seems my life is destined for a third act and it won’t be the sweet hibernation I crave. One of the things Kate said is my life’s purpose is to serve others by communicating helpful information on a world stage. Well, yeah, I’m a teacher, but she said no, that part is over. I’m a writer, I said, but I’m a novelist, I write from home. Take your message into the world, Kate said. Travel. Teach other age groups what you’ve learned in this life. I told Kate there was a part of me that wanted to do just that, but another part argued that who am I to tell anybody how to do anything?

Sure, okay, maybe I can help seniors write family memories if that’s something they want to do. Maybe I can share my experiences of divorce and child custody issues, which is what my upcoming novel is about…but that’s the thing, I told Kate. I don’t want to talk to people about important soul-destroying things like divorce and child custody only to say “And by the way, buy my book.” I told her about the shirtless cover. She laughed and said that would be a cute anecdote for the talk, but I was right, this next new thing isn’t about money or marketing my book. It’s about the intention to help others by sharing my experiences. Kate said if it flows, it goes. If there are blocks, stop.

Makes total sense to me. That’s how you know you’re following the dharma. Namaste.

Tagged: dharma, life path, spiritual counsel

Cover Story

Nothing beats the feeling of seeing your story captured in cover art. At least for me, it has always been a delight.

Some of the things I love about my upcoming release cover art … well, Luke. He’s a laborer with his own landscaping business, so he comes by those muscles through hard work. The shirtless thing — this is my 8th book, it’s women’s fiction, and it’s the first time a character is bare-chested. But this fits Luke, too, since mowing lawns in the summer can be hot work and he’s been known to strip off his shirt on 90 degree days.

You might notice a darker tone to this story … that’s because it is. While Luke and Chloe fall in love, things are falling apart around them, especially Chloe’s ex-husband. This story deals with divorce, addiction, and other dark subject matter. So that little bit of a darker tone in the cover conveys that this will not be a light romance, despite Luke’s pecs:)

I love how cover artist Angela Anderson captured Chloe and got a little bit of Blue Lake into the background of the photo. I wondered how she’s deal with the title, which is a bit unwieldy. Love how she pulled the L in “rule” up to the apostrophe in “Luke’s” and how she changed up the color a shade or two on #1. I just love everything about it.

Book’s not out yet, but should be available for pre-order soon. Meanwhile, I just want to stare at the cover:)

 

Tagged: Angela Anderson, cover art

Nature’s Way

Yesterday, Al and I had a quiet adventure. We went into the world and explored our surroundings. We have been caught up in too much work, too little time together, and a couple of other things pulling at the fabric of who we are together. Just because we’ve been married for 29 years doesn’t mean we don’t have to work on our relationship. I think sometimes you need to do that even more the longer you are together. Sometimes you take each other for granted. Sometimes you need to fall in love all over again.

One of the things we did when we were dating and then continued all through our married lives was visit a cider mill every fall. It’s a little thing, right? But if you start dropping the little things, they can turn into a big deal. I mentioned to Al that we had not done our annual cider mill visit in a few years. So what did this guy do? He not only took Friday off to support me at my beloved cousin’s memorial, but he also took Saturday off and devoted the day to us. Two days of no work for both of us is highly unusual. I’m more busy than ever and so is he, but that’s just present circumstances. We can choose to change how we operate. We can choose to slow down.

We recently moved and it really changed our world, in good ways and some not so good, for me at least. I was disoriented for awhile. I lived in my last house for over 25 years, so this new place took some getting used to, but little by little, I am making it not just a new house, but my home.

One of the best things about our move was that now we live in the country. It’s like a dream, because I love nature and here there is so much green space, so many meadows and trees and trails and tiny wild creatures. Also horses. We have both been so busy working that we have not explored much of our new environment, but death makes you stop and think about life. After a week of grieving the loss of my beloved cousin, we needed a day just for us.

And yesterday was sunny and crisp, perfect for a cider mill. We decided to take a walk, too. There’s a little town just north of us I wanted to explore. When we got there, we found a trail that goes on for miles and miles. The trees are turning and the entire path was arched with golds and reds and greens. We walked for an hour and saw maybe three people. Quiet. Secluded. Peaceful. Then we left and went to a new cider mill where the donuts were still warm and the cider was sweet and cold. About a thousand bees joined us under a tree. That’s the way it always is, and we laughed about those predictable bees.

We’re nearly at the end of harvest season, but we snagged some tomatoes and fresh bread for BLTs. I have not been cooking much, and don’t fry bacon at all anymore, but yesterday was special in an ordinary way, so yes, I made bacon! Didn’t eat any of it myself … but Al enjoyed it so much. The tomatoes are still juicy and you know what? So is life.

Tagged: death, grief, marriage, nature

Alone Together

Everybody who lives with a sports fan but is not one herself needs a room of her own. Sometimes, it might even save a marriage, because when one person in the house takes over the main space without regard to the other, and the other just lets it be, resentment might simmer. Not mentioning any names:)

But, if you’re older and your powers of concentration aren’t what they used to be and you have a guest room that hardly ever gets used…there may be an alternative to simmering resentment. Through the years, I have lost the ability to tune out sports. Used to be able to read and just have whatever game Al was watching going on in background. (I can still do golf, as the fans and announcers are so nice and quiet:)

My thinking was, hey, at least we’re in the same room. It kind of seemed romantic to me at the time, because we don’t have a ton in common, like he doesn’t read novels and I don’t watch sports, and I read novels all the time and he seems to spend about an equal amount of time watching sports, so if we can do our separate things together, we’re good.

Except. Something happened since we moved. I can’t focus on the page anymore while he’s got The Game on. And The Game is always on. Sometimes it’s a switch from one game to another. Crazy! At first, I tried reading in bed, but I’d fall asleep too early. Then I tried my office, but that’s for, you know, work.

I don’t have a comfy reading space there. I check papers there. I write blog posts there. I organize plots and things. But I don’t curl up with a good book. Or for that matter a television program, like Elementary  or Castle or Masterpiece. I like story television. Al … not so much. He likes Nashville and The Blacklist, so whew, at least we have a tiny bit in common there. Last night we watched Bones and while he got points for only checking the hockey scores during commercials, he annoyed me slightly by saying non-addict things like “Sweets is DEAD?” and “Booth was in PRISON?”

I know lots of people have televisions in their bedrooms but we don’t. And I really don’t want one in there. It’s a personal choice. We used to have one, but he’d always fall asleep, you guessed it, with sports on. So there’s been a ban on television in the bedroom for at least a decade.

We do have other television sets, one in a rarely used guest room upstairs. Which got me thinking…and that always leads to trouble. In this case, Al was totally against me fixing up a Sports Free Zone. Because I have LOTS of ideas. I wanted to take that hutch off the dresser and put it in the basement. (“It cost an extra $1000 for that hutch!”) I wanted to get rid of the black and glass television console and put the television on the tallboy. (“It’s a perfectly good television stand.” “Takes up too much space. Not feng shui.”) And I wanted the old end table beside the bed swapped out for a lovely bookshelf we were not even using.

So we did all that and then he tried to hook up the cable. Oh-oh. Time to update the old cable box. Also the lamp needs to be replaced. And the hutch had the mirror, so I needed a new one. Plus a few other things. You can see where all this is going, right?

$$$ + Time = Unhappy Man

But finally he has given in, as he always does when I really want something, and I’m working on my Sports Free Zone. I listened to music in there the other night. Still no cable, but soon. He’s trying to “fix” the old one in the meantime. Marriage is all about compromise. I’m getting my new space, and that’s what matters.

Bonus I had not considered: by using the room, I’m finding ways to make it more comfy for Tim and Alicia when they arrive on Christmas Eve. It is going to be perfect! For them and for me.

Tagged: marriage, space, sports

Hunters’ Moon

A total eclipse of a full moon is a big deal, and we’ve got one coming this week. Native Americans called this moon “Hunters Moon” because it was time to go out, aim arrows, and bring home the meat that would see the tribe through winter.

We still have our hunters, and they are out during this lunar eclipse. Just about everyone will feel a shot through the heart on October 8, with shocking news, the big feature of a total eclipse full moon, taking each of us by surprise.

This news could be business-related, romantic, or even concerning your health. What eclipses do is reveal information about a situation that you were not fully aware of … and now that you know the full story, it changes everything. There is no turning back, so you have to deal. Eclipse news is always final, but you have a choice about how to handle it and the new information will help you make the best decision for you.

One caveat: we are also in a period of Mercury Retrograde, and because Mercury rules communication, it would be easy for you to misinterpret the information you receive. Pay close attention, ruminate, take notes, think back to that last eclipse April 15. Whatever came up then is likely to be resolved now, one way or the other, forever.

This is why I’m lying low in October. I’m going to take the blast from the eclipse (because the news will be jarring, whatever it is) and think about it, reflect upon it, write about it. And I’m going to wait to act until I’m sure I have all the facts straight.

I don’t know what to expect. This news can be in any number of spheres: personal, work, or health. Things have been stirred up for me for awhile, and I can think of something in each of these areas that needs resolution, so anything can happen. I’m excited about it, though, because even if the news that comes from this hunters’ moon seems sad at first, the stars promise that it is beneficial in the long run.

Total lunar eclipses, which always mean the end of one thing and the beginning of another, are not to be feared. They are here to help us understand a situation close to our hearts more clearly, and in positive ways.

And who knows? If your heart is a lonely hunter, cupid may draw back his bow and let his arrow fly. If work has been stagnant, a shake up may initially worry you, but in the end it will be so good for your career. As for health, take care of any little thing immediately and all will be repaired before it gets big.

Happy huntingJ

Tagged: full moon, hunters moon, lunar eclipse

Lying Low in October

Mercury retrograde almost all month. Hunters out stalking prey. Novel deadline looming. Papers and exams multiply, spilling from my book bag as if by evil magic. Homework! Mine AND theirs. Other stuff. One order of Quiet Reflection to go, please.

I have a plan for this month that involves nothing more than stillness and quiet as often as possible amid all the crazy. At one point, I almost went away to achieve it. Then I decided to find peace right where I’m at, in the middle of more stress than I can manage on my own. So I called in the troops.

Dinner? Maybe. It’s still harvest time here in Michigan and slicing fresh tomatoes is easy. Stirring up acorn squash soup soothes me. Roasting the last of the corn, slicing apples and eating them raw. No shortage of food in the fridge, but if dinner in the traditional sense doesn’t happen, I’m not stressing about it. I need to get over that forever and this month is the perfect time to begin. It’s not like I have children to feed anymore. More like an inner directive “Thou shall make dinner every night.” New memo to self: don’t sweat over stove duty.

Also booked a massage and a reflexology treatment. I’ll do that a couple of times this month. I crave the soothing touch of a person trained to ease every muscle in my body. Today, instead of hitting the yoga studio, I’m going to practice in the quiet of my own home. Morning meditation already met. Thoughtful reflection in diary instead of dashing off final chapters of novel. I’m seeing someone, a therapist. She’s given me a writing assignment to help sort out a personal mess.

If I can get things to slow down, find time to just be, I think what I will be is fine.

*Photo by Debra Bressman from a limited edition short story that eventually became Gypsy.

Tagged: mercury retrograde, overbooked, peace, reflection, stress

Confronting My Heart

Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Mix these five ingredients, psychology says, and you have the human personality. Add intersections of relationship and environment and the impact of each trait lessens or heightens. And none are all good or all bad, either, although the word “neurotic” has never been a favorite of mine. Much to my surprise, I recently learned that because I have, at times, suffered acute anxiety to the point of panic, that’s part of my personality. And the phobias that have been part of my life for so long are part of being neurotic, too.

Everyone suffers from anxiety. Neuroticism, like all the traits, is a spectrum, everyone falls somewhere on it. I just happen to be left of center. Way. Or I was. I’ve been getting better and that’s because without understanding why or even what I was doing, I was working on it, intuitively.

My wedding anniversary was this past weekend. There I am in a photo on “the day” happy not to be cooking but not really looking all wedding anniversary happy. That’s because my marriage has been going through some changes. It seems that as my anxiety lessens, and I confront each of my fears and face them down, my marriage takes another hit. Which is ironic because my husband is the one who first led me to seek help. We were driving and I couldn’t catch my breath. I was telling him I was scared and could he slow down as I held my hands in front of my face. “What, do you think we’re going to die?” He was really angry. “YES!” I said. “I think that. It feels like that.” A beat of silence. “Well you’re just crazy. You better go see somebody.”

Neither of us knew I was having a panic attack brought on by a phobia related to driving. He just knew crazy when he saw it. So I made an appointment with my doctor, who referred me to a psychiatrist. Lovely woman. She gave me the information, and the help, I needed for that particular phobia. I also learned that it’s really not crazy to be afraid for your life if someone is driving drunk or high, if there is black ice or a blizzard or a severe rainstorm. Those are pretty natural reactions to driving in dangerous conditions. Beyond the pale, I had those kind of reactions all the time, for no reason. But I kept at therapy, and I got better.

After psychotherapy, I started to crave calm. I’ve always been impatient and anxious, busy and social. Those things didn’t feel so right anymore, so I took up, and have kept up, yoga, meditation, prayer, visualization, nature walks, vegetarianism, periods of retreat, alcohol moderation, and yes, medication for when the panic gets severe. After 25 years, I have crossed several former phobias off my list. I am no longer afraid of speaking in public, flying, or heights. I drive with very little anxiety except for brief flashbacks due to a recent accident that totaled my car and bruised my body and mind.

That’s my history of anxiety. What I didn’t know was that my problems took a toll on my husband. And my marriage. He is not a nurturing type. He’s not given to huge emotional gestures. He really doesn’t get it or me and even after all these years I cope alone, which is fine. He never asks me for help with his personality issues. Or anything else, for that matter. He actually likes being in charge of stuff. Which has led to some problems now that I’m sliding more toward normal on that neuroticism spectrum. Because now that I’m less focused on my own wellness, I want to help decide the wellness of our future.

Neuroticism never defined me. I have other, better, stronger traits that have led me to follow my dreams and do some things I never imagined. Persistence is part of “conscientiousness” which really just means you finish what you start. Like that novel. Or you do what you say you will, like send the finished novel to publishers. I have that persistent thing in vast quantities, which helped me publish my books way more than my writing skills.

Twelve years blogging? Again, that’s just me following through. Seeing something to the finish. I’m pretty open to new experiences, too. Yeah, funny for a fraidy cat. But I never jump in the water fearing sea serpents. And I’ve never met one yet. So, I’m not an extrovert. I do a great imitation of one. Even I didn’t know I was an introvert until Myers-Briggs told me so. And it’s a good thing I am, because writers need a lot of time alone. Those words take time to put on paper.

You might thing agreeableness is a wonderful trait. I have a lot of that and it’s caused me as much trouble as the phobic stuff. Because when you always say yes, some of those things you are yessing to are things you should be no-ing. And my Mr of 29 years now doesn’t much like the word no coming from the lips of his formerly compliant wife. He doesn’t much like some of my ideas for changing things up in this relationship of ours. And I can’t believe how long I lived with things the way they were. Bet he wishes he never called me crazy.

Tagged: marriage, panic, personality traits, phobia

Blog Birthday Gift

My blog is 12 years old this month!

And to celebrate I’m giving away Gypsy  for the last five days of September on Amazon.

Here’s a very old picture with a shot of an earlier incarnation of the blog back in the day when I learned a little html so I could link and post photos. My son did the vast majority of coding, and it was only this year that I took over as “admin” as well as “owner” of http://www.cynthiaharrison.com.

So for wallpaper, I wanted blue with darker blue stars and he wrote a program for that. I wanted “A Writer’s Diary” to be spelled out in script and he wrote the code to do that, too.

Many changes through the years, in wallpaper, in blogging tools, and “rules” of blogging. This year, I finally stopped calling my blog “A Writer’s Diary” because I was ready to write about more than writing. But sometimes I still do. Now I’m just using my name. Those are two “rules” I thought made sense for my blog this year. (1. Don’t write about writing if you are a writer. Hahaha. I did that for a really long time, but at a time when hardly anybody else was doing it. 2. If you’re published, call your blog by your author name). Also pictures. I use them with every post now. This one took forever to find, but woth it.

Also, I’m blogging less. For at least five years, I blogged every single day. It’s been a great adventure. I started out with zero books published in 2002 and wrote all about my efforts to make writing a daily habit and become a published author. By 2007, I had my first book out. Coincidence I started blogging less? Nope! I began publishing novels soon after that first book. My first published novel, Sister Issues, an indie e-pub, came out the same time I landed a publisher for my contemporary novels. They’re mostly about relationships, and not just boy/girl, although there is that. I also like to tackle offbeat cultural and social issues. This year I indie published two paranormals on a whim. (Gypsy and its sequel Sweet Melissa) and revised that first book to reflect the changes social media and “The Kindle” has brought to publishing.

Biggest change since 2002? Way more wrinkles. Also “blogger” is a legit term. Wow, it really wasn’t in 2002. Readers, thank you. And don’t forget your free copy of Gypsy.

Tagged: blog birthday, free novel gypsy paranormal

Rimbaud Eyes

Our eyes tell the story of our souls. Sometimes photos capture it, sometimes not. This photo does. Just look at them. He’s a poet; there is no doubt. Rimbaud was born in 1854. Over one hundred and fifty years later, the Dum Dum Girls wrote a song about his eyes. Love the song, have been deliberate about not reading what the lyrics mean to the band, I want my own thoughts here first. And his.

“Once, if I remember well, my life was a feast/where all hearts opened and all wines flowed.”

The first lines of his poem “A Season in Hell.”

Even as a young poet, if you look, you can see that “once” is the key word. Those are not eyes that reflect life as a feast. Those eyes do not show an open heart. It’s possible those eyes had too much wine the night before.

“One evening I seated Beauty on my knees. And I/found her bitter.”

These lines follow those above from the same poem. It’s not called “A Season in Hell” for nothing. And those eyes in this picture reflect that particular anguish.

This poet, who burned all his work and never achieved anything like happiness or fame, lives on because of his lover, a famous poet at the time still taught in university today, who, thinking Rimbaud dead, published the best of his work supposedly posthumously.

It cannot be grammatically correct to end a sentence with two adverbs.

As a young poet I read Rimbaud’s work and just this morning picked up the slim volume, kept all these years, and flipped to the first poem “A Season in Hell.” That first poem hooked me on Rimbaud for life. And now I cannot stop thinking about his eyes and how they reflect other eyes I have known, including, sometimes, my own. Because Rimbaud was a gentle soul, he wanted to escape debauchery and badness as much as he craved it.

“Let me tear out these few hideous pages from my notebook of one of the damned.” Ends the poem, ends a life, ends the look in the eyes.

Rimbaud was one of several poets who convinced me to stop writing poetry. I would never have that gift, I was convinced. I moved on to other kinds of  writing. Can you image Rimbaud as a blogger? What would he say? No doubt a scathing comment here if the mood struck him. The thing that happened to me as a young poet would not have happened had I listened more to the gentle, insistent Rilke in his “Letters to a Young Poet” in which he entreats his protégé to keep writing, keep practicing, and keep hope that maybe one day there will be a poem worth its ink.

But I’m of a Rimbaud temperament, not like Rilke, more’s the pity. Wish I’d stuck with poetry. I still love it so. If you’re a young poet, read them both, but heed Rilke.

Tagged: dum dum girls, poetry, rimbaud, season in hell