Uppity Downity

I'm flapping and flopping around in a big puddle of anxiety. I hate it when that happens, as it's terribly uncomfortable. I'm just anxious about (flap flap flop) pretty much everything at the moment, but I will try to focus on one specific.

Nothing new, of course, just my currently dim author aura. (Low wattage, that one.) I am not commercial enough, either in my work or in my aspect, to attract attention. So, dim dim dim it goes.

But I don't want to dwell on it or get the self-sorries. Mostly I just want to comment on one of the things about being an artist that is true: you go up and you go down. I think (here I'm feeling superior to those who are successful) that if you are lucky you experience the downward turn at a lower level of popularity. Because if you are very popular and then you go down, well, that's crushing. But if you are not so high up and go down . . . okay, it's crushing, but at least you haven't yet begun to feel you're too big to fail. (Sorry. Couldn't help it.)

Of course, if you go up in popularity and stay there and never come down, well, this post ain't for you, so scram!

Anyway, I am grateful that I can see the arc of my work, and that after the depression of failure and loss comes acceptance. And--I am hopeful I will rise again! Which saying, in and of itself, makes me sound important. So there.

Peas Porridge Hot

I am passing time before I commence making a (very simple) food dish to bring to an Easter dinner gathering. Concerning cooking and cleaning, I have pretty much given up on my ever being anything but a household clod, and have come to feel more acceptance of my actual domestic nature.

On the writing front, I am making slow progress on my current work-in-progress. Approaching the end, but I won't get there for a while. I wish I were a speed-writer, but I'm not. In fact, the only thing I approach with any speed at all is a piece of chocolate. So today, Easter, is pretty much my day. :-)

Still, with some authors whipping out books right and left, as if they're on a speed-date with fame, it can be disconcerting. I, myself, actually went through a relatively fast whipping-out-of-books period a few years back, but have since resorted to my usual lumbering pace. I knew it was out there waiting for me.

Coming to terms with one's imperfections is the work of the mature. By which I mean old. By which I mean probably older than you, but maybe not. When you are young you intrinsically understand that the perfections are coming. They will be here next week or next year, just hold on!

Part of me is still holding . . .

But by the time you figure out that the word "mature" applies to you--yes, you--well, you have two choices: Despair over your generally rotted state, or accept the imperfections, much as you would accept a raggedy garden. Needs weeding and watering and fertilizing, but by damn a few pink and yellow flowers are still blooming!

So maybe this is my Easter sermon. I didn't plan to have one. I don't go to church precisely because of the word "sermon," though of course that is unkind to good sermonizers everywhere.

At any rate, I wish a Happy Easter to all who are Eastering, and a happy just-plain-good-day to those who are not.

I, myself, will sit quietly for a while and try to muster my cooking gene. It's in there somewhere, waiting to flex its tiny muscle.