Tag Archives: persistence

The Best Way Out is Always Through

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, Christmas, Moments of Delight, Musings, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments

I took all our Christmas stuff down this morning.

The tree, the decorations, the lights, all the little vignettes I had created in various parts of the house — everything was bundled back into boxes and put away.

To be honest, it’s not a task I particularly enjoy. It might not sound like a big job, but given that I have managed to accumulate baubles and tinsel in every colour of the rainbow, not to mention all manner of decorations from tiny timber cottages to little green pine trees to sprigs of lifelike mistletoe to shiny bead garlands and butterflies and bows and even an angel we call Shazza that I use to decorate our home come Christmas time, it is actually more onerous a prospect than one may think.

At the beginning of December, I keep adding Christmassy bits and pieces all over the house until I feel it looks suitably festive (and also completely out of season, since it’s high summer here in the Antipodes). Come the end of the month, removing it all takes considerable time and effort, and the sort of self-discipline that is required when you’re sorely tempted to chuck anything and everything into an oversized container rather than making sure it’s properly stowed. The whole process inevitably ends up with me covered in a tonne of glitter and cursing when I discover one last recalcitrant string of bunting or a rogue wreath hiding where I forgotten I’d put it.

Despite the drawbacks, however, putting the Christmas away it is a job I tend to do on 31 December every year. It helps me make space for the new year. And every year — especially in the years since we rebuilt our house — I find myself delighted by the all the space that opens up once the tree and all the decorations come down.

This year, it felt positively E X P A N S I V E.

Like a massive, audible sigh of relief…perhaps that 2024, which has been a challenging year in ways I never expected, is about to make way for a new year.

So, as I wandered around the house this morning, collecting decorations and sorting them into colours and stowing them carefully away, I found myself reflecting on some of the things 2024 has taught me.

The Best Way Out is Always Through

    I thank Robert Frost for this old thought, because it’s still a good one — and I found it applied to 2024 in several ways. For me, 2024 will always be the year I FINISHED WRITING MY NOVEL! I can still recall writing the first sentence of my book, which has remained (quite remarkably) unchanged after all these years. But I suspect I will never forget the spine-tingling excitement that accompanied the moment when my fingers typed the last sentence, and I knew it was the last sentence, and that it was a good finish. I might have even taken a photo of the date and time in the corner of my laptop screen, so momentous did that occasion feel…but that is a tale for another time.

    The phrase has also applied to my husband battling some health challenges in 2024, and to the various operations and tests and bits and pieces he’s gone through over the year. We know it’s not over yet, but the best way out is always through has a ring of truth to it about that I find myself trusting in. The Bloke and I have weathered storms before, and we will ride this one out as well. (Go us).

    Water is Really, Really Good for You

    This may seem to be an obvious statement, especially coming someone who has been on the planet for the better part of five decades, but it is something I am still learning. Just typing that line reminded me to get up and pour myself a glass of water. Being better hydrated is life-changing. If nothing else, it provides a fabulous boost to your skin care regime. But for me, water has been helpful in other ways too. Showers are particularly therapeutic. So is swimming the our backyard pool (especially if I’m alone and if it’s been recently cleaned and it’s a clear sunny day). And if I’m feeling down, looking at the ocean always makes me feel better, even if only for a few minutes.

    Unpacking Intergenerational “STUFF” is Useful

    I’ve been fortunate to have had great support as I’ve navigated this year, from friends to professionals who have enabled me to get through (which we now know is the best way out) and to see things from different perspectives. One thing that changed me for the better in 2024 was identifying some of the patterns of behaviour I had been raised with which, for better or for worse, have impacted the way I live and raise my own children. Please understand I am not suggesting I had a traumatic or abusive childhood — far from it. But I think there are learned behaviours every person takes into their adult life from their formative years, and I have found it worthwhile examining or re-examining my own behaviours to see if they fit with how I want to live my life today.

    It’s as the late, great Maya Angelou said: Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. The older I get the more I am aware of how much my life is a work in progress.

    Live Music is Genuinely Amazing

    2024 is a year in which I went to two massive concerts: Taylor Swift and Coldplay. I got to see them both with Marvel Girl, one with Miss Malaprop and one with one of my dearest friends. And about 80,000 other people on both occasions.

    There is nothing quite like the feeling of rocking up to a gigantic stadium to see an artist perform. They are doing what they love, you are there because you love what they do. And everyone else is there for the same reason. Being at a concert is one of the most joyful experiences in the world, and can be (even for this introvert) the best expression of being in a crowd. In Sydney we’re lucky that when major events are on special trains and buses run, so even getting to and from the event is a positive experience, shared with people who are just as excited to be going/have been to see and hear someone whose music they love.

    Other Random Learnings from 2024…

    • My favourite cocktail is a French 75.
    • If you ask for what you want, you should be prepared to get it.
    • The unmistakably awful sound of a small child attempting to play a recorder is a complete and total nuisance in your house, but can be quite funny if it’s happening over the back fence.
    • I really like dresses with pockets.
    • I’m waaaaay too old to keep up with my kids’ slang.
    • Persistence pays off.

    I’m sure there are plenty of other things I learned this year, most of which will come to me right after Ihit the publish button, but those are the random musings that came to me this morning.

    And, since I love books, I thought I would leave you this year with a blessing for the new year from a great fantasy novel I read recently, because it’s full of passion and integrity and ever so slightly over the top — and those are all good things to be in this life.

    May you be strong and courageous. May your enemies kneel before you. May you find the answers you seek. May you be victorious and spirits-blessed, and may peace follow as your shadow.

    Mind yourselves,

    BJx

    Write Like You’re Running Out of Time

    Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, Books, Musings, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , • 4 Comments

    I’ve not been posting much here lately.

    It feels like my patch of cyberspace is looking a little desolate: far more like a wonky pavement with weeds spilling from between the cracks than a verdant, carefully tended garden. That said, there is a good reason why I have neglected this space, despite my various attempts to nurture it over the years, and that is I’m trying to finish the first draft of my novel.

    Writing is one of my great true loves. I love the feeling of sentences pouring forth from my fingers, pooling themselves paragraphs and flowing into pages of prose. I savour the feeling of selecting precisely the right words and placing them in a specific order to bring a particular scenario, emotion, or plot point to life.

    But it takes time.

    It takes time to enter the headspace of the character whose perspective you’re writing from, to inhabit their skin and to bring their inner life and backstory to the forefront of your own mind so you can produce a believeable, genuine response to what is happening in the story at any given time. And to achieve that, you need to possess a clear understanding of exactly where the tale you’re telling has come from and where it will end up — because you’ve had to create all that too, not to mention the world in which it takes place.

    And sometimes you need time just to sit with an idea.

    For the past two days I have been allowing a scene to germinate in my head. I’ve got some writing done, sure, but writing is not always about how many words you’ve got on a page. I’ve needed time to flesh out a new character in my mind, to understand where they fit into the action and how they relate to the other characters who already populate my world. I have needed time to figure out what they look like, how they move, and what makes them unique. And then I have needed time to turn my attention to the first impressions the character whose point of view I am currently writing from might have of them, and what knowledge these characters possess about themselves, each other and the wider plot of the novel as a whole. Only then could I map out how these characters might interact, and to decide what information I needed to hide or reveal to build suspense and drive the story towards its climax.

    And that’s just for one small scene at the end of Chapter Thirteen!

    Writing is hard, sometimes, no matter how much you love it.

    It’s hard to find uninterrupted time to let the story unfurl in your head in the way I have just described.

    It’s hard to admit you’re writing a novel in the first place.

    It’s hard to answer questions about when your book will be finished, or where you’re up to, or whether it will ever be published.

    It’s hard to silence the ever-present and insistent voice of my inner critic, who frequently tells me I am a fool for attempting to write a novel, or I’m arrogant to assume anyone would want to read it, or I’m any number of other negative things. (Then again, I’m yet to meet a writer whose inner critic does not persist in making a multitude of unhelpful comments and suggestions, usually at the most inopportune times).

    It’s hard to keep believing in yourself and your story, knowing it might never make it onto the printed page.

    But since I have started creating my characters and the world in which they live, I feel a strange sense of duty to make sure I see them through to the end — even if it means my patch of cyberspace suffers from benign neglect in the meantime.

    As Glennon Doyle says, we can do hard things.

    So I wish you well with whatever hard things you’re doing.

    I’m off to write that scene.

    Mind yourselves,

    BJx

    The Strangeness of Flames

    Posted on by • Posted in Divine Qualities, Musings, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 1 Comment

    Since I shamelessly borrowed Anne Lamott’s quote about drinking gin from the cat dish for my last post, I thought it entirely appropriate to turn to her again for inspiration in this, my next foray into the Bhagavad Gita. And, brilliant writer as Lamott is, it did not take me long to find words of hers that can easily be applied to the Divine Quality of Steadfastness.

    Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.

    ANNE LAMOTT

    You see, there’s something quite paradoxical about steadfastness: it brings to mind words like immovable, unwavering, unchangeable; yet it requires persistence, tenacity and constant striving. How is it that staying the same requires such effort? And even though steadfastness suggests remaining fixed, doesn’t sustained effort end up producing a necessarily different result or state of being?

    Steadfastness is sort of like a flame.

    Flames, like hope, begin in the darkness.

    Flames stay the same, in that they keep burning for as long as they have fuel. If a flame is given more fuel, it burns with greater heat, light and intensity. And yet – and this, for me, is where the strangeness of flames comes in – flames are always, sometimes imperceptibly, changing. They also seem to defy gravity: you can hold a flaming candle or branch any way you care to, tilting it this way or that, but the flame always burns upwards. It’s almost as though flames are here to tell us in their quiet, beautiful, mesmerising way, that if we persist and put effort into to whatever we’re striving for, we will not only remain alight, but we will also always rise.

    I’m reminded, when considering steadfastness, of Filippo Brunelleschi, the Renaissance era architect and engineer who managed to build the dome at the top of the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in Florence. Construction of the Cathedral began in 1296 but building work paused for fifty years when the original architect, Arnolfo di Cambio, died. Giotto added the campanile around 1330. The Black Death interrupted construction again in 1348. Finally, in 1418, Brunelleschi, backed by the influential Medici family, won a competition to build the Cathedral’s dome.

    The challenges facing Brunelleschi were considerable. With a diameter of 48 metres, the octagonal dome was higher, wider and larger than any constructed since ancient times. Its sheer size prevented Brunelleschi from using rafters or scaffolding, it was not known how the dome could be built without collapsing under its own weight, and the Florentine city fathers had forbidden the use of butresses. Despite these obstacles, Brunelleschi held steadfastly to his aim: he revived old building techniques and invented new engineering technologies, he used his intellect and intuition to solve complex structural problems, and he employed hundreds of workers to transform 37,000 tonnes of material (including 4 million bricks) into a dome that rose steadily skyward from 1420 to 1436. Construction of the lantern at the dome’s apex, also designed by Brunelleschi, began shortly before his death in 1446 and was completed in 1461, before being topped with a copper ball and cross in 1469. To this day, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore dominates the skyline of Florence.

    You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.

    There are many kinds of steadfastness.

    Steadfastness in Brunelleschi produced an architectural marvel. Steadfastness in a parent ensures a baby grows into childhood, and beyond. Steadfastness in a friend or life partner allows a relationship to weather the storms of life. Steadfastness in a gardener enables flowers to bloom.

    Steadfastness can be found anywhere you need to show up, over and over again, even when you can’t immediately – or perhaps ever – see the results.

    Steadfastness knows the dawn will come.

    The dome will rise skyward.

    The flame will always burn upwards.

    In Praise of Perseverance

    Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, First Principles, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , • 3 Comments

    Tunnel 5

    These woods are lovely, dark and deep…

    Perseverance is a word which makes me rather uncomfortable.

    Not excruciatingly, wrigglingly uncomfortable, but ever so slightly ill at ease.

    I’m not sure whether it is the fact that when you say the word aloud it includes the sound of the word “severe” — which, in my experience, is frequently followed by other unpleasant words like pain or punishment, or at the very least implies the possibility of (dire) consequences — but all the same it’s a word which makes me…squirm.

    And yet, weirdly enough, I still chose Perseverance as my Word of the Month for October.

    Why?

    Tunnel 4

    …but I have promises to keep…

    Well, simply put, I chose it because I know how much perseverance counts.

    Coming from the Latin word perseverantia, meaning “abiding by strictly”, perserverance is defined as steady persistence in a course of action, particularly in spite of difficulty, delay, or discouragement.

    Perseverance requires rigour. It demands discipline. It shuns shortcuts, and makes a motto of Robert Frost’s oft-quoted phrase “the best way out is always through”. It is found in long evenings that stretch into the night, and also in the small hours, before the dawn and the next day’s deadline. It is not an easy bedfellow — perhaps because when you need perseverance, sleep is one of the things you’re most likely to have to sacrifice.

    And yet, perseverance gets the job done.

    Tunnel 2

    …and miles to go before I sleep…

    Because perseverance is all about endurance, and seeing something through until the very end, regarless of the obstacles and setbacks encountered along the way. It is more than practice. More than patience. It is simply more — because there is always something more to do, even after the longest day.

    So even thought it is not something that makes me comfortable, I am grateful for perseverance. Because steady persistence is something I can do — and even strict abiding when it’s called for.  And, along the way — though further along, much further sometimes, than I’d like to admit — I can see that when I persevere, I progress. I improve. Perseverance may involve sustained effort, but in the process I, too, am sustained.

    This October, therefore, I wish you the perseverance to persist as you continue on your journey, whatever it may entail and wherever it will lead you. Because the best way out is always through — and sometimes along the way, often when the path is most difficult, we discover things within ourselves that enable us to endure, and which sustain us for many miles more than we can even begin to imagine.

    Tunnel 3

    …and miles to go before I sleep.