June 25, 2010
-
I wish I could get back into the routine of blogging on Xanga. Putting my thoughts down in words was such a liberating thing for me, and a good way to improve my focus. Sharing my thoughts, my photos, my accomplishments and triumphs, my fustrations and dissapointments, and my general amusement at the absurdity of life in this world with the Xanga community was also very satisfying to me.
So, what happened?
I don’t know… life, I guess.
♦ For a while it was foster dogs (I am no longer fostering, but still have four of my own, and still do volunteer work for Rescue in other capacities)
♦ And, there was the beginning of Especially Fur You http://www.especiallyfuryou.com — my latest business venture, which still takes up a lot of time, and I still struggle with the need to devote even more time to it in order to make it profitable.
♦ Then, I gave in to peer pressure, and started a MySpace page (which I can’t seem to find the time for now, either) and then on to Facebook. Joining Facebook has been a wonderful thing for me, I have reconnected with so many old friends that I thought I would never hear from again. And, I am learning to express myself in a less verbose manner, due to the nature of the Facebook Wall. (this is a real challenge for me)
♦ Underneath it all, I have the challenges of getting older, compounded with the cumulative effects of many injuries – the result of years of overworking my body, and on top of that, the whims of a jacked-up thyroid gland as I continue my battle with Hashimoto’s Disease. And I continue to deal with several annoying sleep disorders, and the effects of being in a state of constant sleep deprivation. Everything in my life is more difficult, especially physical activity. My mind is not always clear, either. I have trouble with concentration and with memory. The dark spectre of depression is never far from me, either.
Some days it is all I can do to get out of bed and dressed. Other days, the frustration of not being able to do the kind of things I used to take in stride is even worse than looking at all the unfinished projects and chores waiting for me. The same ongoing hose and yard projects I was immered in when I used to blog regualry still went on, only slower and with greater difficulty. And I continued to make art whenever I could, in a variety of media. But finding time and energy just gets harder and harder. How am I supposed to sit down and write entires in my online journal when I have all this other stuff facing me??
But, I guess it is just a part of the natural rhythms of life. Life is all about change, Nature never remains static. I know in my heart that I am right where I am supposed to be at any given time. My shifts in activities, both online and off, are just a part of the ever-changing, fluid stream of the passage of time. When the right time arrives, I will return to blogging here.
It is also the nature of the rhythms of life, I have found, for ‘false starts’ to occur. This, I think, is a sort of ‘testing of the waters’ to see if the time is truly right to do something, rather than an error. I have had that happen in all aspects of my life. It definitely happened with my business. In the fall of 2007 I hit the ground running, with the help and encouragement of my cousin, into this new venture. Within a year, we had both discovered so many reasons that it was not going to work out the way we had planned, and that we each had different expectations. Since then, I have gone back and re-worked the original plan several times, finally ending up where I am now, still redesigning the business, but with a clearer focus, and without my cousin playing a pivotal part. I don’t view these changes as mistakes, just as a part of the learning process, a part of the journey, the evolution of an idea.
I have also experienced many changes in my journey with The Drum. After closing my store in 1999, I found a spiritual and emotional necessity to separate myself from many things, and allow the wisdom of time to sort some things out. Drumming was among these things. I never ceased my keen awareness of Rhythm in all of life, of the all-encompassing pulse, but I stopped making sounds on musical insturments for a few years. I knew deep inside this was not an end to my drumming, that it was just a break, and that it was necessary. Perhaps it was the time for me to really, truly, deeply Listen for a while. Or, maybe because of the absence of producing Rhythm, I was to become more keenly aware of the Rhythm of the All around me, as my soul reached out in longing for the Pulse. I don’t know. I just know, in my heart, that learning the reason for the necessity of this break from drumming was also a part of the process, and just as important as learning to make those sounds on the drum.
I have since felt the Call back to The Drum. Yet, I am returning slowly, testing the waters more or less. I have learned to accept what I once thought of as ‘false starts’ as just a part of the relentless forward motion of Time. As with everything in my life, as I get older, I am just taking things slower. I have not fully returned to Drumming in the totally dedicated way I once posessed. Instead, it is just a facet of the myriad of things I am attempting to integrate into a new, more coherent (perhaps the proper adjective would be mature) focus in my life. I fully trust that this, too, shall unfold in the way it was meant to be.
Maybe this will also be true of blogging on Xanga. I have made several attempts to return, and as evidenced in my archives, none of them came to fruition. I willl not think of them as false starts, only as my efforts to reach out tentatively to see if this was truly what I needed in my life at the time. When it is, I know that my visits will become frequent once again, and my words and pictures will once again appear on these ephemeral pages made of light and electricity.
If any of my old Xanga friends are out there still, and reading this, I have not forgotten you. Your words and presence were, and will remain, an important part of the weaving of the threads that make up my portion of the Great Tapestry.
Namaste.
-adifrentdrumr
