I realized that I put this blog on hold while I waited to hear back about the Music Man auditions. To be truthful, I put just about everything on hold.
I still haven’t heard, but I realized that I don’t like living in the future like this (way out in front of myself trying to see what my life will be like if I get a role in Music Man). It’s uncomfortable, and ultimately, unsatisfying.
So here I am. Bread rising, ingredients collected for the Chicken Paprika Strogonoff thingy I’ll be making for dinner and thinking about being in the present moment.
It’s funny how sometimes it feels like work to stay in the present moment. My monkey mind wants me to try to figure out the future. What will it look like, how can I plan for it?
It’s all very silly, because at any given moment the entire picture can change. Big, unplanned for events happen. In a novel it would be called a plot twist. In “real” life, it’s things like earthquakes or hearing from someone from your past out of the blue, or car accidents, or a windfall of money from an aunt you didn’t even know you had, or the flu. Plot twists come in many forms, both “good” and “bad.” And often, what looks like good turns out to be bad, and what looks like bad turns out to be good, so it’s all arguable.
What’s true for me in this moment is that I’m enjoying thinking about these things and noticing, as well, that I can hear the bread machine chunking away at the dough for the second time, because I didn’t check on it when it was kneading the first time. Turns out I didn’t have enough liquid in the batter, so it didn’t really stick together and it obviously didn’t rise, so my “perfectly timed” bread event is now not so perfectly timed. Or is it? Who knows? Who’s to decide what’s “perfect” timing.
I’m also enjoying the play of my fingers across the keyboard as I watch the words emerge on the screen. I love that I learned to touch type. Now I can pretend that I’m creating that scene in the movies where you can see the typewriter keys flying up, with that special sound that an actual typewriter makes.
Of course, I have to replace the keyboarding sound with the typewriter sound in my head, but that’s alright. I’m imaginative. I can do this.
I can also jump up and down making funny noises to express how frustrated I am that we haven’t heard anything about Music Man!
Oops. Scared the dog. She wasn’t expecting me to leap off the chair, flail my arms around and growl.
I do that often enough that you’d think she’d be used to it, but she still jumps every time I do.
I make a lot of strange noises. I’m in the house, all by myself, a lot. So I talk to myself. I sing. I growl. I cry. I yell. I laugh. Mostly I laugh. Out loud.
It’s a good thing – laughing.
Ooh, now the bread machine is beeping. This is my notice to run downstairs and make sure that the dough is actually a dough this time instead of a lumpy mess.
Back. The dough is fine. I took out the compost while I was down there. I opened the door and the dog came racing down the stairs to go out with me. She loves to out in to the backyard when I take out the compost.
I don’t stay nearly as long as she would like.
Present moment. Breathe. Breathe again. Feel. Breathe. Express. Breathe some more.
It’s a practice. A ritual.
