Med City Write Now (but I don’t want to).

I’m sitting on a red velvet couch, in dim lighting, at our collaborative artists’ salon. Every Monday we have our writing group. I’ve missed the last two weeks primarily because it’s cold and dark now at night and I do not want to leave the coziness of my room.

Even though I only see these people once a week (unless I participate in other salon events) these are my peeps. We sit, we write, we share. It’s a social introverts dream; socialization in silence. A time to write alone with others.

We begin with a prompt. Some days we write on this subject, then pass our work to the right every five minutes; each writer beginning where the last left off. I  love these communal works of fiction.Today we did a short prompt followed by 45 minutes to work on our own stuff. We are a diverse group; a film writer, a poet, sci-fi writers, the undefined, and I, the blogger.

Before group tonight I was at home daydreaming about Bass and not wanting to post anything on my  blog. But here I am, on a comfy couch, in total silence, writing for you. Well, not total silence; just heard the helicopter bring some poor soul to med city central.

Our prompt tonight  was “A Superhero whose power is only activated when he/she is drunk.” We had 15 minutes to write. My story is about a criminal  defense attorney, who is a non-drinking Mormon, discovering she can read minds after drinking a Long Island Ice Tea. Fifteen minutes is not long enough to write fiction, or even flesh out a concept, but it gets you writing. For this girl who did not want to blog today, that short work of fiction with this group of writing misfits inspired a necessary November post (NaBloPoMo).

Happy Blogaversery to Me: Thank You!

It has been a fabulous month since I began Sober and Single in Med City. Starting my very own blog is something I have thought about for years. I began blogging in 2003 with a small group of people on Perfect Duluth Day. Now that community blog, for residents and lovers of Duluth, Minn., has over 2,000 users. Being that I no longer live in Duluth, I do not post there often and also would never delve as deep as I have here.

I began this blog mainly to write personal essays, which for years have been taking up space in my head. Since I have spent fourteen years administrating and writing blogs for employers, I knew this format would hold me accountable to my craft. I’ve developed an innate work ethic regarding blog writing whereas if I just scheduled time daily to write essays I wouldn’t do it. Pleased to Meet Me delves more into why I write here.

My perceptions of how this blog would contribute to my life and who my readership would be were much different from reality. The reality is much more wonderful. I thought my “followers” would mostly be my friends, forgetting this format’s uniqueness is the community of writers and readers within the blog platform (WordPress).

I really am at a loss of words to explain how grateful I am to WordPress’ readers and writers, and also BlogHer who sponsors NaBloPoMo. I’m taking the Blogging 101 course through WordPress and doing the NaBloPoMo, which were both blogging blisses I knew nothing about a month ago.

The “followship” amazes me. There are so many wonderful writers with whom I connect. And my writing reaches out to bloggers, galvanizing my need to keep writing. It’s been a wonderful month. So I will end where I began on Oct. 21st with “Wonderful Wondering.”

Throwback Thursday: My “Going on a Hot Date” Song

I never tire of “Brass in the Pocket”. I first heard this song by watching the video on MTV, probably in 1981. It came out in 1979, and Chrissie Hynde, lead singer of The Pretenders, initially did not want it released.

I have listened to this song before every “hot date” I’ve had since 16. By hot I mean a date with a boy/man I really like. Now that I’m older, it’s my anthem of feminist sexuality.

My Sister is Her Own Muse: Artistic Autonomy

The Artist’s Way, “Week 11” : This week we focus on artistic autonomy. We examine the ongoing ways in which we must nurture and accept ourselves as artists ~ Julia Cameron

Usually when I read The Artist’s Way, I have a profound revelation regarding my creative recovery. Not this week. The chapter “Recovering a Sense of Autonomy” spoke to my artistic being, but primarily brought about an even greater appreciation of my sister’s talents. She has always been able to cultivate her creative power through artistic autonomy.

Autonomy: Independence or freedom, as of the will or one’s actions.

Weird paper bowl my sis made.

My sis has always been her own muse; following an inner artistic spirit. I believe she was put on this earth to create. Ten years my elder, my first memories of her are as a ceramicist; she worked wonders with a wheel, clay and glaze. From the age of five to thirteen, I saw pottery as her calling, as I saw pot smoking as my brother’s. It was such an integral part of my perception of her that I could not understand why she would switch artistic mediums.

Around 26 (me,16) she had her first major gallery show in Phoenix. It did not feature her pottery, but instead large abstract portraits she drew with cow markers; the late 20th century humane alternative to branding cattle. I have no idea where the artistic shift and medium came from. Did she just wander into a farm feed store, see these huge crayon-like markers and say, “Hey, I’m going to take a rest from clay and start drawing with theses!” I do not know what was her “Ah-Ha!” moment; she was just following her own muse.

These portraits were artistically awesome, but at 16 I did not understand how she could “give up” ceramics for an entirely different fine-arts medium. A medium of her own making! I’m sure there is not a “Cow Marker” category of artists.

Zentangle Green Man ; No cow markers were harmed making this art.

What I didn’t know then, but know now, is that creative beings cannot be confined into one category, or they become creative cripples.

Sis’ Tree

I cannot even begin to tell, or even fathom, the vast artistic endeavors in which my sister is prolific. She’s created her own spin on Zentangles, which has been turned into fabric, then turned into bags and other useful items. She paints, draws, knits, cooks, but what she doesn’t do is pigeon-hole her artistry.

The function of the creative artist consists of making laws, not following laws already made. ~ Ferruccio Busoni

Vegetarian Haggis Days: The Beginning of My Edinburgh Adventure

Salad Days

One of the greatest periods of my life was the year I spent in Edinburgh, Scotland, age 24-25. This was a goal I worked towards for three of my five years of college. In fact, I did not even attend my graduation ceremony, opting instead to catch a flight to the U.K., celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday traveling with him and the rest of our family, then catching a train to Edinburgh with no reservations at a hostel and no idea where I’d live or work the next year.

Photo: © Shutterstock / Vichie81

I was an adventurous spirit in my youth, not putting too much forethought into my actions. I did have a work permit through BUNAC and had gone through their orientation in London prior to meeting up and traveling with my family. Being that the BUNAC London headquarters were so big and supportive, I figured I‘d find the same in Edinburgh. Unfortunately their office was a small room tucked away in an alley off High Street and was closed when I arrived. The youth hostels, the only accommodations I could afford, were all full.

Lucky for me I had a very supportive, non-blood related British family, which I called upon in this moment of crisis. The Brams (pseudonym) whom I lived with for a year when going to Birmingham University, England when I was 19, are one of the most amazing families who have “taken me in”. What happened next was miraculous.

Ben, my “house brother” was going to Edinburgh Uni but was in Birmingham at the time with his family. However, his girlfriend had an extra room in her flat, and agreed to take me in for a few weeks before her roommate returned, either for free or for very cheap. This gave me the time I needed to find a job and flatmates of my own.

Josie is a young (a little older now) lass who epitomizes Scots’ hospitality and warmth. While I was living with her another flatmate from Canada joined us. She was much more organized than I, arranging her living and work situation before she left North America. I was a vegetarian at the time, and Josie decided to make a traditional Scottish dinner for us three.

Upon our plates were these ugly, gray, fat, encased lumps of something. They did not look very appetizing. We asked what we were about to eat, and Josie exclaimed, “Wa, Vegetar-rian Haggis!” When asked what vegetarian haggis was, Josie said “Wa, it’s an oats an’ bean pudding in a wee fake sheep’s stom-ach!” The Canuck and I laughed until we nearly peed our pants, while poor Josie looked on, disgusted that we would criticize both her fine dinner and accent. The Vegetarian Haggis Days were the beginning of my wonderful Scottish adventure.

The Untold: Or All the Minutiae of Violet’s Week

It’s the end of NahBlahPostMore Week Two. Luckily Blogging 101 takes a break for the weekend, but I thought I’d let you know some of the changes made this week due to this course.

1. Monday, November 10 – I made my “About” page irresistible and added a text widget briefly describing my blog on my home page.
2. Tuesday, November 11 – Added a purple header to my blog.
3. Wednesday, November 12 – Explored my neighborhood.
4. Thursday, November 13 – Built a post based upon one of my neighbor’s post.
5. Friday, November 14 – I spruced up my sidebar by adding the “Follow Me” widget.

On a more personal note, I made some decisions in regards to the “dating experiment”. It stopped being fun. I enjoy spending time with Bass so I took down all my profiles on the dating sites. It’s a relief to not have my email flooded, especially with the really crazy, unsavory messages. But I’m not changing the name of my blog, because I’m single until I, or the legal marriage system, says otherwise. We had a nice date at home last night and tonight we’re going to dinner and a comedy club. The fact that this introvert is willing to spend two nights in a row with another person is dating progress.

And a big THANK YOU to my readers! I now have 112 “followers” and 1,088 views! My arbitrary goal was 200 followers by October 2015, so I am pleasantly surprised, and very grateful to my audience.

Hello G.O.D, It’s Me, Violet

“One of the things that I have struggled with during my many years of participation in AA and NA is what some of us call “the god stuff.” The references to religion, spirituality, God, and Higher Power are everywhere in the literature and the culture of AA.  Even in the best efforts of the folks back in the 1930s, the “Chapter to the Agnostic” pretty much assumes that as soon as you start to come out of your addiction, and into the light, you will happily go back to some concept of God, albeit not necessarily the God of your childhood.” ~ HANJE RICHARDS, “The God Stuff.”

The “God Stuff” has been the hardest concept for me to grasp in my Alcoholics Anonymous program, followed by the concept of being powerless. The first A.A. meeting I attended in treatment was on Step One, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.” I actually said “I’m a feminist and am not powerless over anything.” This was after almost dying and being in a coma for two weeks, physical therapy for another two weeks, and in the mental health unit for a week; all due to a suicide attempt while intoxicated. If you want to V8 slap me in the forehead for the absurdity of my statement on that first meeting, I agree. That, my friends, is the insanity of alcoholism.

This brings me to “The God Stuff”. Step Two is “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”, and Step Three is “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

My spiritual path is eclectic; a little Buddhism, some Hindu, a bit of Islam, some Wicca, a little Judaism, and a splash of the Christianity I was taught growing up as an Episcopalian. In short, I am a Unitarian Universalist who believes one should build their own spiritual path, and do their own dishes.

In “the rooms” we often talk about a “God of our own understanding”, with a big G, and all meetings I’ve been to across the U.S. end with “The Lord’s Prayer.”  Although the Big Book also speaks of a “power greater than ourselves” and “Higher Power,” there is a lot of He, Him, Lord and God (all capitalized). It’s very cringe inducing for atheists, but also for people like me who believe in a power greater than myself that is not patriarchal.

As part of my “neighborhood” exercise yesterday, I was looking at blogs under the tag “Unitarian Universalist” and the first post I came across was “The God Stuff”. My God embracing AA friends would call my stumbling upon this post “A God thing”. I call it serendipity.

In this post, Hanje introduced me to  We Agnostics & Free Thinkers International AA Convention, which he attended.

As I have said, I have come to believe in a power greater than myself, but don’t have a name for it. The God talk in the rooms can be overwhelming. I do pray and meditate and have found life easier if I give my will over. Somedays I pray to  Mother Nature, others Great Spirit, sometimes Creator, other times Universe, occasionally God, and many times “Hey, You!”

It is comforting to know that there are bloggers like Hanje out there who participate in A.A. but are not God thumpers. AA is an easier, softer way for me to live after spending a decade in and out of recovery rejecting 12 step programs. But I have also loved reading other WordPress blogs by people who do not participate in AA or NA but have long-term sobriety. Jon Sleeper is one such writer.

Just like my spirituality, my recovery support comes from a variety of sources including A.A. but also Health Realization, Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Women for Sobriety. I’m getting over the god stuff, but that mostly is because I began thinking of God as Group of Drunks (those in AA who had what I wanted) and now think of God as Give Orderly Direction. I may not know if there is anything beyond you and me, and if there is what to call it. All I do know is that my program works, if I work it.

 

Like a Good Neighbor, Violet is here…occasionally

I am unable to connect to the internet in my home on my laptop or my tablet. I am the only one out of five who is having this problem. I turned the Wi-Fi receiver off then on again, but still could not connect. Therefore I am at McDonald’s using their free internet with a cup of coffee I can afford. It’s been a bit startling for this introvert. So if you leave a comment and do not see it on my blog or are worried because I have not “liked” what you’ve said, never fear Neighbor, it’s because my internet is down.

Speaking of neighbors, my assignment for Blogging 101 is to leave comments on at least four blogs I’ve never commented on before. Surprisingly to me, I commented on three blogs I had not been to before. Welcome to my WordPress discoveries:

1. Still Thinking, “The Season is Upon Us” – I found this blog in the Blogging 101 community. The blogger is a fellow Minnesotan who, in this post, displays pictures of the hockey rink he is building in his backyard. I am not a sports fan, am originally from Arizona, and only learned to ice skate a few years ago. I still am not skilled enough for outdoor rinks. However, the one sport I enjoy watching is hockey; it brings out the inner Violent Violet.
2. Grady P. Brown, “Superpower: Super Speed”– Grady and I follow each other. Even though I read his blog I have not commented until today. Grady imagines the drawbacks of having super speed in this super post.
3. Pixie Dust Beach, “You Never Know” – This blog was in my reader, even though I was not a follower until reading this post. Here I actually replied to a comment. PDB discusses her geographical audience in a warm and thoughtful way in “You Never Know”.
4. Hanje Richards, “The God Stuff” –  This was the “Violet, you are not alone!” read of the day. I found this in the tag I follow, Unitarian Universalist, which is also my spiritual persuasion. This post discusses being an atheist or agnostic in 12 step programs.

I encourage you to check out my eclectic neighbors. And if you don’t hear from me until tomorrow, it’s because my hood link has been hoodwinked.

NahBlahPostMore?! My first week, my first roundup.

I’m fourteen posts into my blog, ten in November for the first week of the infamous challenge as well as student assignments for Blogging 101.  This course has made it easy to participate in NaBloPoMo, but the Dream Blogger assignment brought my writing and revelations to a deeper emotional level. I sincerely would like to write nothing for the weekend. But instead I’ll keep up the challenge and attempt something I’ve never done; a round-up. Inspired by Life, Etc.’s “Handsome Blogs” post, here’s my fledging attempt at congruently sharing this week’s reading and writing. Sorry, no congress of monkeys or polls.

I began November contemplating what it means to be a Superhero, and then was pleasantly reminded yesterday that I am a “Recovery Hero” on UnPickled (which I read on Freshly Pressed).

I explored who I am and why I write in “Pleased to Meet Me”, a title taken from my favorite band, the Replacements. 

Through this assignment (who I am and why I’m here), I discovered an incredible writer named Ruby Browne whose post “Build” blew me away. I have grown to LOVE the WordPress community, and love my neighbors. So much so, that I would have rather been in WordPress than on my last two coffee dates.

However I am looking forward to my date with Bass, which will happen tonight instead of last night. Hope your weekend is full – of writing, reading or simple relaxation. And a BIG THANK YOU TO ALL, whether you’re followers or secret readers.

To My Six-Year-Old Self

Age six, small yellow pad and pencil in hand, observing and reporting.

This is your golden year, girl. You began writing because it surprised you how little adults remembered about their lives. Grandpa reveled nothing about growing up in Iowa. In fact you believed he was from Mesa and Colorado because those are the places you knew him to live. Life was in the present and you wanted to remember every moment. You reigned as resident princess mermaid in your backyard. You lived your life in moments. Good and bad would quickly fade. A jump in the pool solved all your problems. Self-assured and self-involved, others actions had yet to affect you.

Your stoned and violent brother was the norm, as was your drunk and belligerent mother. But these incidents happened in moments, ones you did not write down so you thought the memory of them would disappear. The memories remained. You should have kept writing.

In two years something awful will happen. Your innocence will be taken from you. It will change you from an outgoing child to a broken spirit; actions will not be taken to make you whole until 30 some years later. Everyone will act like it never happened. You will act like it never happened. It will happen, my dear six-year-old. You should have kept writing.

You will find other outlets as solutions to your problems. You will stop observing. At six you don’t know what an alcoholic is, you just know your mom slurs her words, walks funny and is mean to you and your sister sometimes. You know your brother can punch holes in bathroom doors when your mom buys the wrong type of soda. You don’t know why. You just avoid them when they are like this. You just keep writing.

Six will become your favorite number. It will take you years to figure out why. Once you do, you will keep writing.

Blogging 101 Today’s Assignment: publish a post for your dream reader, and include a new-to-you element in it.