The First Glimpse of the Final Inning......Part 2

At the moment I am too tired to think of a creative title to this, my second blog entry, let alone come up with pithy witticisms for even a paragraphs' worth of words. I've spent the past nine hours working on creating a website (with the generous and enlightened help of Johnny Asia who is building and designing and basically walking me inch by inch through this whole, arduous process), and being that this is territory about as alien from my abstractly-funded brain function as it can be, I am currently limp in the noodle. (That seems a sadly appropriate visual.)
I did have fun, and I did learn a great deal. However, it is painfully obvious that the construction and contents and operational skills of the brain at fifty-four years of age have quite naturally declined in both their ability to confidently grasp new concepts as well as the skills required to carry out these new mandates.
Succinctly put, I am too friggin' old for this and my head hurts.....

I have spent the day uploading to download to scan-in an opt-out and image transfer to blogspot and bookmark to cut and paste and edit to delete. And for what? So that I can webhost to e-commerce to out-shine and reign-in to rise above and make my mark to ......you get the picture.

But there is something to this whole idea of keeping yourself current and remembering that because you ARE still here after all this time and because you HAVE made it through relatively sane and in spite of the fact that the odds are decidedly against launching an old dog into a new kennel, you STILL want to be HEARD and contribute something VIABLE.

I guess I'm not as tired as I thought.

Oh, and Todd Rundgren, who has had my musical heart and ridiculous power over my imagination since 1970, added me to his Facebook friends list tonight! Of course, I was probably accepted by a computer-generated program, but I choose to believe it was Todd himself who saw my profile and decided he absolutely could not go one minute more without me in his life and immediately added me to the other 2,785 of his closest facebook friends. I'm feeling pretty darn awesome right now. I think I'll make a malted and a notation in my diary encircled with little heart-shaped bubbles and go to bed. Oh yeah.....!

The First Glimpse of the Final Inning......

For what it's worth, I'm not sure what I'm doing. You'd think that I'd have a better handle on my life. After all, I've been at it for over fifty-four years now. But for as long as I can claim a conscious participation in life (which probably didn't REALLY occur until I was about thirty), I have been processing all incoming data and experiences to such an extent and with such enthusiasm that I forgot to make a plan for myself. I failed to forge a pact between my dreams and my reality and negotiate a compromise; the outcome of which would have then become: WHO I AM.

No, I was far too preoccupied trying to figure out what it all meant; everything "out there." All that tangle of life in various stages that seemed to wrap around me whether I invited it or not asking of me only that I deal with it. And that I did. But until very recently I dealt with it in such a random way that an outsider might have thought I had a personality disorder...or multiples of them.

The reason for this being that I had no core connection to or sense of who I was so that I addressed pretty much every situation the way I perceived I was 'supposed' to; almost as though I simply plucked instructions from a book. I think this confused my kids. It certainly confused me. Imagine not knowing from moment to moment whether you were Mohammed Ali or Mother Teresa? I would 'dance like a butterfly and sting like a bee' one minute then issue blessings replete with Holy Water and the Sign of The Cross the next!

And don't get me started on religion! I read Tarot cards at psychic fairs and still said three full Rosaries a day! Is it any wonder my three kids have serious conflicts about their upbringing?

The only real constant has been my art. I have continued to explore and grow and challenge myself in that regard, and I've seen changes there as well. Good changes. Changes that seem to have assimilated themselves from everything that was good about all the wisdom and people and lessons and beliefs and dreams I have absorbed into myself from "out there." My faith in God has also remained steadfast.

It seems that it is within these two distinct loyalties that I am beginning to ultimately consolidate into one person. Perhaps a person who, by today's frivolous and fickle standards, might be a bit long in the tooth and motley; but at least I am making another go of it. I'm doing what is normally associated with and reserved for the young. I am taking risks.

Next step: Create a website where I can sell my unique, whimsical, sacred, and diverse art and jewelry.

I'll keep you posted...............