Spring.

"Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart."

-Victor Hugo

Do you ever have those days when things just feel different somehow? More hopeful, like you're on the cusp of something big?

I walked out to my car this morning, running my obligatory 5 - 10 minutes late and still needing to stop to get coffee, only to discover it was iced over. As I reached for my ice scraper, I realized that I had recently stepped on it as it resided on my driver's side floor board and snapped the scraper from its handle. Instead of causing my grief and unleashing a string of Sunday morning expletives, I calmly picked it up from the floor and scraped my car off with my bare hand and the small piece of plastic.

After debating my diet for the day, I splurged on a delicious caramel macchiato for breakfast and actually got to work on time. I noticed the birds chirping outside and, although the temperature outside read 26 degrees on my car's dashboard, I could almost feel a hint of spring in the air.

It has been a weird winter. We've had very little snow, very few cold days, and my body feels out of whack somehow. It almost feels like winter never really came and now we're almost into spring. But, suddenly, I'm ready for it.

All those projects I've been dying to finish, like cleaning the basement, I want to take on. Weight loss is going great (lost 6# so far!) and I'm motivated to continue on that path. My family is going in a positive direction - we're this beautiful, well-greased unit of awesome. I'm finally standing up for myself in ways I should have a long time ago.

Spring is in the air and in my heart.

Knock knock knock...

Sometimes, when you least expect it, the universe has a way of pointing lessons out to you. If you're lucky, you notice as it gently taps you on the shoulder. If you're not, it knocks harder and harder until you are unable to ignore it.

Yesterday, a patient looked directly at me during an intake exam and told me that I shouldn't let money decide my happiness. When I got home, I talked to one of my boss's who informed me that there were no hours left for me until at least May. Today, a coworker's daughter was involved in a horrible car accident.

Ok. I get it. Money is less important than family and happiness! I would prefer not to have any more of these lessons.

Take it from me, lovely readers, and go home and hug your family. Look at those bills, pay them, and put them out of your mind. Enjoy the weather and your life and what you love to do while you can.

Trust me. The universe WILL knock harder.

Writing.

“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”

- Anne Lamott

If forced to describe myself categorically, I would use all the usual labels... mother, daughter, partner, etc. But, sometimes above all that, I am a writer.

Writing muscles are similar to the muscles I've developed in roller derby. The muscle memory remains the same but, without practice, they atrophy.

But I don't set aside time like I used to, don't jot random, scattered notes on shreds of receipts with ideas for future short stories or blog posts. I sometimes worry that my gift is being squandered. I don't want to waste my talent but I also have an almost paralyzing fear of writer's block. It's cyclical - I stress about writer's block and don't write which makes me worry that I have writer's block even more.

But I've always felt there was so much good inside me, so many things waiting to come out and change the world. That may sound conceited but writing is the one talent I'm sure of, the one thing that I know I'm good at.

So why the fear? Why the self-judgement?

If I let you know I'll figure it out. Maybe that's just something that comes with being a crazy writer, the type of person who always has weird, random thoughts bouncing around in her brain.

They say all writers are a little crazy.

Women.

What a whirlwind of a finale to January! I promised to write about Miss Representation and ended up just abandoning most social networking entirely to make it through the rest of the month!

Now, as I wipe the sweat off my brow, I decided to take a moment, pause, and reflect on the events of the last week or so.

Miss Representation, for one, was mind boggling. Caitlin and I arrived a little late (due to my ADD thinking the tickets said 7:30p and not 7:00p!), but were immediately immersed and entranced as soon as we sat down. It really made me think, a lot, about feminism and women's rights and role in the culture.

I used to be a pretty militant feminist. While I don't regard myself quite that seriously anymore, the majority of my beliefs are still the same. After this documentary, though, I think they've amped back up to a level that I had forgotten they could exist at.

The world we live in, the world my daughter is growing up in, hasn't really changed that much. For the most part, women are still looked upon as lesser somehow, as a creature entirely created for baby making, cooking and men's pleasure. I've gotten used to this world, although I absolutely hate it, but thinking of my daughter growing up to be seen as an object makes me nauseated.

So, what do we do? Really! I want to know. I find it so disconcerting sometimes to even thinking of taking on the system, the "man," that I get flustered and lost before I even start?

What I do know is that all of the popular culture, the media - television, radio, movies, books, etc. - are, if not anti-woman, then certainly not pro-women. Just pay attention the next time a commercial is on. A rap song. A movie. Women are in the home, women are "hos," women are being fought for. We're never the protagonist, we're never the hero.

Just think about it. Is that the world you would want your daughter growing up in?

I know my answer.