Moving ahead Artistically...

I'm reading from my manuscript "Fire on a Circle" this coming Saturday. I've put this manuscript together with the thought of submitting it as a whole to some of the book-printing contests. I think it's almost there, but reading in front of folks always makes a person hear the clunker lines and feel the surety of the good poems.

Feel free to join me! I'll feed you and ask your opinion afteward!

Kim

New Year, New Me

It's been a wild ride through 2009. I am stepping into a new skin, learning to relax into the 'now' and working at refocusing my life on my passions. Terri, Writing, Theater, Friends, Family, Cats.

Henry here is a cat that belongs to my friend Susan Baker. This picture was taking in Texas. I haven't seen her in a dogs age (no offense Henry) and neither have I seen my friends Daniel and Sarah (who are in Austin, TX) or Tim and Jean (who are now in North Carolina).

Time to take a trip I think. Perhaps Terri and I need to do a year of travel in 2010. Perhaps I really need to stick to home and 'don't change anything for 6 months after someone close dies' or perhaps life is to short to follow that advice. We'll see.

How as the new year you ask? Trial-by-fire, hold-on-to-the-seat-of-your-pants wicked. I know this will sound like whining, but here is how the last week or so have gone:

• 12/30/09: I got the flu & it lasted three + days
• 01/02/10: some 89 year old guy driving his car on bald summer tires slammed into us on route 15 demolishing my new Honda CRV, which we hadn't even paid our first payment on, bumping and bruising me, my sister, my nephews Ben & Chris and breaking Chris's thumb.
• 01/06/10: Terri went for surgery. They found a cyst on her overy and her CA125 (something that can be used to judge risk of cancer in your blood) was up into the 300s. They had to give her not only an oopherectomy but a full hysterectomy and we'll not know until this Thursday whether there is anything cancerous.
• 01/06/10: I started to feel a cold coming on
• 01/07/10: it really started to hit.
• 01/08/10: still feeling crappy, but got to work OK
• 01/09/10: Rest! Ah... Saturdays are good for something!
• 01/10/10: afternoon: Went to ER with Terri to be sure everything was good as she had a low-grade fever Evening: lounged awake on the couch gasping for breath through my nose as I was too stuffy to lay down and sleep...
• 01/11/09: WOW is it Monday already?
• Well, you get the point...
  

I just started a class this week which I am loving, though. It's called "living on purpose." it's sponsored by the ToDo Institute. Check it out of interested here: www.todoinstitute.org

I've just calculated my remaining 30,000 days (a rough guess of how long most people in developed countries can expect to live). I've got about 14,055 days to go, folks. Now the interestin part, to list what I would do if I had only 100 days to live and knew it...

• Publish my poetry
• Produce my plays
• Write a musical
• Teach kindness
• Volunteer with a family planning group
• Help a stranger
• Help a friend
• Help an opponent
• Paint a landscape
• create, storyboard, draw and write a comic book
• Spend as much time as possible with friends & family
• Go to Australia & New Zealand
• Return to London
• Walk in the woods
• Lay out in the sun
• Watch the snow fall
• Sip a cup of Tea
• rescue a child
• rescue a puppy
• start a band
• tour that band...

I think I get the idea. I think the list needs refinement. The question is, what's important? What would you do...?