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Bringing the Pieces Together
Today has been a very strange day. It probably has something to do with being on a vacation - a true, real, relax and don't worry about things vacation. Suddenly, a bunch of things are starting to seem within reach that up to now had been on my mind but somehow had been too much effort to explore and implement. I guess it technically started yesterday, when I had an idea for a story - a very rare occurrence for me, and I carefully hoard what ideas I had. This one is for a Regency, Jane Austen-style romance. Pretty vanilla stuff, but fun to research and fun to write. Then, earlier today, I had another idea for a story. I usually get about one idea a year (and I've not been writing hardly at all of late anyway) and now I've had two in two days - the second for a series of mysteries set in the Civil War. Sure, it stands to reason that these the areas where my thoughts would tend - I recently went on a Jane Austen kick and reread some of her stuff, and all of my other leisure reading recently has been....books about the Civil War, and mysteries. Shocking. But still - they're definitely real, solid ideas - kernels of characters waiting for me to set them loose in a world, which is typically how my ideas come (I don't generally think of plots, I think of people).
From there, I finally found the energy this evening to do some research on the interweb about three things that have been on my mind: drum lessons, photography classes, and joining a synagogue. And what I found was...the information is out there, the options are within reach, and all it takes is me putting in the time to learn about them. Whether I have the money for the first two is one question; whether the third is something I really, really want to do is another question. As for money, I'm inclined to think that if those are things I'd like to do, they are well within reach. To the other question, I'm far less certain. My relationship with Judaism as an organized religion has always been tenuous at best. On the one hand, I've been in a couple of synagogues in the past year and have found the experience rejuvenating, pleasant, and alluring. How that speaks to my own desire to try to forge myself a place in a community by similar means, that I'm less sure of. But I did some research anyway, and it ends up that there's a very promising looking synagogue which is a ten minute walk from my apartment. It's Reform, it has a young rabbi (always a good sign, imo) and it seems to have an active membership and relatively forward thinking classes and such. It would be a way for me to meet people in my neighborhood, build some relationships, get involved - especially in community service type stuff, which is always a component of synagogues, but it will force me to confront the simple fact that I don't believe in organized religion as such. Now, believe it or not, I don't think that that fact means I shouldn't do this. I'm very drawn to my heritage precisely because it's my heritage. I'm just not sure if the way for me to explore that is to join a synagogue. At the moment, though, I'm leaning towards just jumping in and seeing how I like it. I can always leave if it's not the place for me, and either join another synagogue or move on and consider it a lesson learned.
Then, after I did all that research, I wandered over to Facebook and found that a friend had sent me an e-mail inviting me to join a D&D game. Despite some issues (the game is Jersey...) I'm strongly leaning towards doing it, and wrote back to that effect.
The net result is that it feels oddly like, out of the blue, some new life is coming together, that something is changing. I'm not quite sure what, but maybe like I'm finally managing to put together some kind of life for myself in NYC. For whatever reason, I've been very reticent to do this beyond the surface level and, for the most part, I haven't really been unhappy, either. A little lonely perhaps, but nothing more. Yet I've also felt rather incomplete. There were things in my life that I wanted, that I didn't - and don't - have, and I knew, kinda, what I had to do to get them, yet I couldn't bring myself to do it. Somewhat, what I was able to do in Japan - take a chance, meet some people, find a game - had proved too intimidating, daunting, overwhelming, unnecessary, or something, for me to attempt to do in NYC. In recent months, that's extended in to other areas - particularly writing, where, despite getting 120k in to a book between April and September, I've just not been able to find the energy and take another month or two and finish the damn thing, or to work on either of the projects that I've started in the past year. Even as I've continued to do many other things that matter to me, I've managed to erect internal, nigh-insurmountable barriers to doing some of the other things that I've known all along were absolutely necessary for me to become really happy. Whether the things that have come together today are those things, I have no way of knowing from my current vantage point, but I do know that I'll never find out if I don't start moving forward, but this bitchy inertia has been really hampering me.
But that it's all coming together in one 24 hour period is very, very odd - but rather liberating. I'm very daunted by how much work I have to do when I get home, and I know that adding new things to my schedule is probably the worst possible option, but even so, I feel like just maybe I've got a little momentum just now. I wonder how long it will last?
Well, that didn't come together in quite the way I expected it to, but I suppose for all that it accurately reflects things at the moment. I just feel...kind of odd. Ambivalent. Daunted. Determined. Very strange.
I'll write about the trip some other time. I'm having a great time, though! PR is beautiful. Postcards went out this morning... :)
From there, I finally found the energy this evening to do some research on the interweb about three things that have been on my mind: drum lessons, photography classes, and joining a synagogue. And what I found was...the information is out there, the options are within reach, and all it takes is me putting in the time to learn about them. Whether I have the money for the first two is one question; whether the third is something I really, really want to do is another question. As for money, I'm inclined to think that if those are things I'd like to do, they are well within reach. To the other question, I'm far less certain. My relationship with Judaism as an organized religion has always been tenuous at best. On the one hand, I've been in a couple of synagogues in the past year and have found the experience rejuvenating, pleasant, and alluring. How that speaks to my own desire to try to forge myself a place in a community by similar means, that I'm less sure of. But I did some research anyway, and it ends up that there's a very promising looking synagogue which is a ten minute walk from my apartment. It's Reform, it has a young rabbi (always a good sign, imo) and it seems to have an active membership and relatively forward thinking classes and such. It would be a way for me to meet people in my neighborhood, build some relationships, get involved - especially in community service type stuff, which is always a component of synagogues, but it will force me to confront the simple fact that I don't believe in organized religion as such. Now, believe it or not, I don't think that that fact means I shouldn't do this. I'm very drawn to my heritage precisely because it's my heritage. I'm just not sure if the way for me to explore that is to join a synagogue. At the moment, though, I'm leaning towards just jumping in and seeing how I like it. I can always leave if it's not the place for me, and either join another synagogue or move on and consider it a lesson learned.
Then, after I did all that research, I wandered over to Facebook and found that a friend had sent me an e-mail inviting me to join a D&D game. Despite some issues (the game is Jersey...) I'm strongly leaning towards doing it, and wrote back to that effect.
The net result is that it feels oddly like, out of the blue, some new life is coming together, that something is changing. I'm not quite sure what, but maybe like I'm finally managing to put together some kind of life for myself in NYC. For whatever reason, I've been very reticent to do this beyond the surface level and, for the most part, I haven't really been unhappy, either. A little lonely perhaps, but nothing more. Yet I've also felt rather incomplete. There were things in my life that I wanted, that I didn't - and don't - have, and I knew, kinda, what I had to do to get them, yet I couldn't bring myself to do it. Somewhat, what I was able to do in Japan - take a chance, meet some people, find a game - had proved too intimidating, daunting, overwhelming, unnecessary, or something, for me to attempt to do in NYC. In recent months, that's extended in to other areas - particularly writing, where, despite getting 120k in to a book between April and September, I've just not been able to find the energy and take another month or two and finish the damn thing, or to work on either of the projects that I've started in the past year. Even as I've continued to do many other things that matter to me, I've managed to erect internal, nigh-insurmountable barriers to doing some of the other things that I've known all along were absolutely necessary for me to become really happy. Whether the things that have come together today are those things, I have no way of knowing from my current vantage point, but I do know that I'll never find out if I don't start moving forward, but this bitchy inertia has been really hampering me.
But that it's all coming together in one 24 hour period is very, very odd - but rather liberating. I'm very daunted by how much work I have to do when I get home, and I know that adding new things to my schedule is probably the worst possible option, but even so, I feel like just maybe I've got a little momentum just now. I wonder how long it will last?
Well, that didn't come together in quite the way I expected it to, but I suppose for all that it accurately reflects things at the moment. I just feel...kind of odd. Ambivalent. Daunted. Determined. Very strange.
I'll write about the trip some other time. I'm having a great time, though! PR is beautiful. Postcards went out this morning... :)
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I'm happy for you to be finally getting settled! I hope you enjoy some of the new stuff. Weird though -- 2 days ago one of my old friends said she was enjoying the Episcopal church.... she also hates organized religion and is agnostic, but really likes going to the church. You both surprised me!
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And then unrelatedly, I've also been reading about Judaism lately (because it's in the book I'm reading on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) and it kind of makes me wish I could join a synagogue. I like a lot of things about Judaism. (Though I guess that means one of the things I like about Christianity is that they let any old riffraff join! Which is kind of the opposite of your heritage thing. But then, one's heritage is also valuable.... I sort of wish I were more connected to mine. I wanna go to a country I have ancestors from some day! I've only been to one out of many.)
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I think I understand where you're coming from as far as the religion thing. My own experiences with my family's faith have left me very disappointed but I do sometimes feel the need to belong to something larger than myself. I've considered going to a Unitarian church for a sense of community, but at the present, I haven't enough energy to expend in that regard.
Drum lessons are awesome. I think you'll really enjoy them. You might even look for a drum circle- less professional instruction, usually, but also no cost.
I'm also very interested to see what happens with your story ideas. :)
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