Early Morning Musings

It is an early morning writing session for me today. I woke up at 5:45 a.m. and decided not to try to go back to sleep because I had to get Victoria up at 6 a.m. Maybe I will catch a few more winks after she gets on the school bus at 6:45 a.m., we will see. I have a lot to do today.

Tomorrow morning, my writers’ group is meeting at my house. Tomorrow night, my family is going to see a performance of Riverdance at the Wortham Center in Houston. Very exciting. And Saturday morning Tori and I are going to Girl Scout camp for a weekend campout. I have to buy groceries for our troop. So I have quite a lot to do to get ready for these exciting events.

It is different from the Studio Center now that I am back home, that is for sure. I find myself waiting a little too long to get started on things because I have forgotten how much time everything takes. Or I have forgotten I have to do something to make certain, for example, that there is food in the house to cook. How easy and wonderful it was to have all those items taken care of, even if I did not get to pick the menus!

My office/studio is functioning quite well. My friend, Karen Smith, suggested that I have some ritual that would signal my “arrival” at work. A good idea. At Christmas, my writing colleague Zoe Nonemaker knit everyone in the Friday Morning Writers’ Group a scarf with beaded ends. It has become my writing scarf – I wore it everyday in Vermont while working on the book. So I have decided that when I put the scarf on, I am at work and no longer responsible for household tasks. It is very liberating.

Michael and I recently heard from an old friend, Dale Swoboda. Dale stood up for Michael at our wedding and we lost touch about 25 years ago. It was a surprise and a treat to hear from him. He found us on the internet – of course – and I suppose I could find most anyone from my past there if I tried hard enough. And if the person had an internet footprint, like a blog or website. Women friends are harder because they often change their names.

I dislike that, yet I did the same thing in my second marriage (to Michael). It was a pragmatic decision and I do not regret it. Devereux is a very classy name, even if just a peasant Irish one, and easier on the tongue than Gustafson, which is my maiden name (and peasant Swedish).

This is a rambling post today. Perhaps because it is 6:21 a.m. and my focus is not red-hot. I would like to get back to posting more regularly, so I may have to work on developing some cause to energize my messages. I do not see myself as a pundit, so do not expect anything political. All I could produce in that area would be rants against the Republican establishment. I feel like I am back in 1968, which is the year I went to college. Antiestablishmentarianism. That is a word that we used to make jokes about spelling when I was a kid. Did not really know what it meant then, although I do now. I had not thought of it for years.

The other day, NPR’s All Things Considered did a piece on constructed words. For a lark, they asked the audience to make up a word to describe the condition when you are about to sneeze but you do not. I thought of a great word, but I never got around to sending it in. So I am going to share it here. My word is SNIZZLE (a sneeze that fizzles). Makes me smile every time I say it.

If you do prayers, say one for my best friend Ann. She lives in Minneapolis, in case you do directional prayer work. Ann is having a very hard time with serious family issues and with finances. She has maintained a very positive attitude – better than I could have done – and is working very hard to handle the problems, but she needs more than she can provide for herself right now. So say a prayer for her. Or two or three. Thank you.

Now I will go. It’s 6:30 a.m. and Tori is prowling around, bugging me a little because she’s ready for school but it’s too early to leave and she wants company. I had better go be a mom.

Ciao.