The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

To Win.

What amazes me is that I sometimes have these moments of clarity and awareness, only to later realize that everyone knew the answers all along.

One of my goals for this year (and all the ones preceding it) was to get a poem published. Now that this has been accomplished, a sudden birth of new goals has happened, each one gliding into position painlessly and wordlessly. I know that I have to keep trying, that I need to keep writing. I've no lofty delusions about it, mind you. I know I'm only so good at this, but what I need is the feeling of achievement, no matter how small, and if you can get that doing something that pleases you than I say you're better off than someone who succeeds without feeling the pleasure of the pursuit. Something I like to do actually pleased someone else. There is a strange sobriety in knowing this. What impresses me the most, though, is suddenly realizing that action is the only way to achieve any kind of goal, and while I know that everyone else on the planet has long ago figured this out, I have to admit that I thought things just happen to people. Not so, apparently. Turns out that you have to try. You have to make an effort to move and to make. Only then will you be in line for victory. I am a bit of a slow learner, but steady wins the race.

I have been wondering how to handle myself about this. Here, on this site, this recent achievement of mine is not a big deal. Everyone here is after the same thing and many have already made something of themselves with their words. In my real life, though, there was the question as to how to make it known that I've actually done something I said I would do. I wondered if I should be coy about it, or if I should just push it aside altogether as it isn't really that big a deal. Then, I realized that my successes of late have been small and private, that I am largely viewed as something of a do-nothing by my family and peers, someone who has great dreams but little follow-through. Also, I had a right to be proud of myself, I decided. We get the praise as children, but as adults we tend to push ourselves aside to allow for praise of others. How many of us can ever say that we are proud of ourselves? How many of us ever participate in anything which would involve a possibility of triumph? On this site there are contests, and occasionally I take part in them like a lot of people do. I've been fortunate enough to win or at least place in some, and each time there is a feeling of appreciativeness and gratefulness at having been recognized, but that's where it ends, because no one in my real life knows or would care much about these small successes. I keep them to myself, feel glad to have competed in a small way and to have made some kind of impression, but the anonymity I labour under here keeps me from acknowledging any of it to people who live and breathe the same air I do. What's more is that none of them would really care about it, unable to relate to my small love of words, so I say nothing and leave the completeness I feel in my portfolio after I log off. I don't want them to know my identity on here for fear they'll muck about in my journal and portfolio and find themselves in it. While I'm mostly honest with all of them, I try to keep my criticisms filed under katwoman. It's better this way.

So, I emailed everyone I know who might care about me the link to the poem, and each of them were happy and bubbly about it. Most of them admitted they didn't really understand the poem, wrongfully leading them to assume that I'm 'deep' or 'an intellectual' which is ridiculous. No, I said, just read it again, you'll get it. I don't see how it's possible for anyone not to. What I didn't expect was that most of them asked how much I got paid for it. Paid? Seriously? When I explained that I didn't receive a dime, and that I had never expected to be paid in the first place as that was not the goal, I got several flat and confused 'oh's', followed by 'well, that's okay then'. Then, I realized that this is likely always going to be my own 'thing', that I'll always be alone in it because no one I am immediately related to or associated with actually likes poetry or writing that isn't about teenaged vampires or whatever the minivan set are into these days, and that's okay. It can be mine, and I can love it with or without them.

The bar has now been raised. I have been de-virginized in the world of publishing, in a small, one thrust kind of way, and I know that if I want to reach climax there is much more work to be done. I'm okay with this, though. The practice is painful, yet exquisite.

In other news, I have returned from a small trip to Toronto for my brother-in-law's fortieth birthday party. I bought him a book on Lance Armstrong and his step-by-step instructions to cycling, as well as a magazine about triatholons, which my b-i-l is into. I have to admit that I can't stand Lance Armstrong and his smugness, find him to be far less inspirational than I do annoying, but I am in the minority, I know it. Even his name irritates the hell of out of me. Lance. Ick. B., my bro-in-law, loved it though, and took himself to a couch in the corner of the dining room to flip through both, ignoring the guests who milled about him, paper plates full of food in hand. I was pleased to know that I got him something he actually liked. I never know how to shop for men, usually.

My wee one had a great time at the party, although at one point I found her playing alone in the upstairs play room, and when I asked her why she said the big kids were too wild and that they 'tuckered her out'. She was lonely, she said, but she didn't want to be involved in the huge fracas in the basement, where all the other kids were knocking each other down and sucking helium out of the balloons. I got a perverse delight in knowing that my four-year-old thought the older kids were ridiculous. I was like this at her age. I view this as a positive.

I've decided my nephew Jack is delightful. Maybe this is because he seems to like me so much, or maybe it's the impish face and the shock of red hair on his little head, but yesterday when he got mad at my sister for taking a toy away, and he decided to lock her in the garage as punishment for doing so, I could not stop laughing. I know it's wrong and that if he were my kid I'd be ready to punish him, but the craftiness of his swift decision to exact his revenge and then to stand back as she pounded on the door, his arms folded and his face twisted in evil glee was something rooted in sinister genius. That he has little remorse over his evil deeds is a bit disconcerting, but if you're fortunate enough to be an onlooker rather than the victim, it's good entertainment. Take that you dirty git!, he said, smiling. How could you not love that?

I am trying to be positive these days. These days meaning 'this past week'. Positive visualization does work, I know it, but I'm not going to go out and buy 'The Secret'. I do believe that you get what you project, though, I mean it's just logical. That said, I've been bitter for ages and it did nothing for me, and I know that I'll likely be bitter again because it's probably in my DNA, but there are good times to be had, there are successes to take in hand. Being happy to point of being annoying is a far cry better than feeling superior to everyone else while basking in the glow of my monitor in a blackened room. I'd rather be happy. I'd rather know what it is to win.