SCWC

This weekend was the Southern California Writer's Conference. It was also my first time being away from Elizabeth for more than five hours. Two things of note: 1, go to a writer's conference if you are a writer - they are tremendously helpful and fun; and 2, don't wait until your child is two months to try offering a bottles or you may end up with a very stubborn breast-only child. She only took three bottle the entire weekend, and whenever I got home at night I felt guilty. Still, she survived and I pumped standing up in the hotel lobby's bathroom.

Today I babysat my friend's daughter and then left mine with her so I could go off and write (we do this twice a week). This time I drove to Swami's Beach in Encinitas. It was chilly so I stayed in the parking lot and wrote on my lap. This would be a lot more difficult if I didn't have my dana. (http://www.alphasmart.com) Before I got my juices flowing, I journaled a bit and wrote this:

The ocean is melodic today. The waves are moving firmly but slowly, curling over before they break apart on the flat surface. Up here overlooking the sea, I feel like I could be Rohana. Connected to her in a way no one else could possibly understand. She wanted so much more than what she got. She would have loved living now. She could have moved to a natural place and set up a home for herself, free of the fear of annihilation by anyone but mother nature herself.

I wrote more than that, but it was mostly a complaint about the man smoking outside my car and how the smoke somehow found its toxic way through the tiny slit in the window. Also, there was something bobbing out in the waves but not moving. I deduced it was a buoy meant to look exactly like a seal.

Tonight I am meeting up with the Sisters of Soul (a women's group from the Soul of Yoga in Encinitas). It's "Creative Writing" night, so I just have to go and share my stuff (I pity the fool...). Usually the meetings are meditative hikes or silent mandala workshops, but I've only been to two - the first one and the "romantic belly dancing" one. (A story there, let me tell you.) I'm thinking of creating a short story by going through each one of my journals dating back to 1990 and collecting bits from them. What do you think? I hope I have the time... Elizabeth is napping - for now.


THIRTY MINUTES LATER: While reliving my nightmares from middle school, I decided NOT to make a short story out of my journals.

You know, I burned up my last journal. It was the one I wrote when I was in Iraq. I had a lot of good writing in there, but it was all painful. One night (or was it morning?) I ran into the kitchen, turned on the gas burner of the stove, and lit the pages on fire. I thought it would cleanse me, but all it did was smoke up the kitchen.