Sunday Creative: Comfort

I did not complete the creative prompt this week.  I started to write a character sketch but instead ended up with this:

This week I've been teetering between comfort and discomfort.

The discomfort of my childhood and adolescence, with its glasses-wearing, braces-needing, bad haired, uncertain where to sit at lunch, stumbling over words, awkward self.

The comfort of being a woman, being loved and loving.

The discomfort in exploring the possibility of a new job, learning new people, cultures, systems, deciding if I would fit in, succeed.  The discomfort of turning it down; the greater discomfort of quitting.

The comfort of a team, co-workers, clients, my tiny office with its golden light, the predictability of me, knowing my role and my possibilities.

The discomfort of fear and anxiety.

The comfort of rhythm, pattern.

Deciding how much discomfort I can tolerate.  And recognizing how much I already tolerate well.  Knowing that I sit in my discomfort quite often:  listening to and sitting with pain, tears, hurt, hatred; riding through another's anxiety; searching and probing; knowing when I am being lied to and not being able to do a thing about it; talking to people who should be helping who are not.  I handle more than a lot.

I recently read about the transformative power of sitting in something distinctly uncomfortable, like anger, and exploring the intensity, the jagged edges of the feeling, the power.  I'm learning that it tells me that I am alive.  If I can sit in my discomfort, I can tolerate another's.

Somewhere along the way I grew so comfortable in discomfort that I forgot that it was okay to push myself within the parameters of my comfortable boundaries instead of picking up completely and moving squarely into the middle of uncomfortable.  I tend to use that escape to mask the need to focus on something else uncomfortable.  I may change my mind by tomorrow but right now I am going to stay in comfortable, but push some of the other uncomfortables that I have.  That's a new discomfort, staying put.

Sunday Creative: Timeworn

She stepped out of the silent gloom of the train station into the heartbeat of the city, a frenetic pace timed by pinstriped men and sensible heeled women racing against the countdown of the stop lights, a rhythm accompanied by the low grumble that breathed off of the homeless tucked in corners and edges.  A skyline of towering buildings lumbered over her, rendering her dizzy.  Her legs hurt, her heart raced; she felt overwhelmed and stunned.

Her granddaughter reappeared, demanding that she keep up, stay with her, don't get lost.  'I am lost', she thought.  'I belong in the country, why have I come here?'  She gripped the strap on her purse, dry swallowed and took a lurch forward, the buildings weighing her down, bringing her tiny frame closer to the earth.  Car horns, hands on her arms pulling her back.  "Not yet!  I'll help you!"  Impatient, ready to prove that she had conquered the rhythm, that it had not defeated her, her granddaughter glared at the masses around her little grandmother, thinking 'she is eighty, what have I done, inviting her here?  How do I keep her safe?'

The granddaughter glanced around for their third party member, finding him with camera up to eye, proclaiming the magnificence of the architecture while reaching out one hand to find his wife.  A habitual act, one that mimed taking care of while belying his own uncertainty and fear.  In one smooth motion, they were linked.  Sixty years of births, deaths, accidents, poverty, loss, jobs, moves led to this crossing of a busy street in Boston.  Those towering buildings sat back, the car horns grew muted, the business people arced their paths to flow around the elderly couple, faces growing gentler, hands reaching out to hold doors.

She felt her heart return to the rhythm of the wind in the trees in their backyard, the predictable flow of raucous morning bird calls into the silent evening chase of fireflies.  Two lifelines worn into matching patterns, the steady pulse of safety and trust.  They smiled at each other, and at their granddaughter, flitting about trying to prove her competence, and stepped into Boston.

Happy Anniversary.

already solving my dilemmas...

Wow, I solved my first problem without too much effort using this tutorial.  Now all comments can be replied to.  Plus, your comments are on the sidebar instead of only hidden in the posts.  Yay!  Another quick tutorial here.  And, I created an extra page to start listing all my favorite links.  I read a lot of blogs thanks to my google reader, but I want to make sure they get some link-love.

Finally, I figure its a good time of year to start things (hmm, although mercury is in retrograde), so I am going to start the Sunday Creative.  I meant to pick up on the Sunday Creative when the Creative Bootcamp ended, and I of course punked out.  I'm working on something for this week's prompt to solidify my commitment.   And I'm also going to try the 365 photo project.   I only have a tiny little camera but it takes some darn good photos, and for me, its about practice not product.  I took some photos today, but I'll post them all at once at the end of the week.  But first, a teaser...