Pains of birth - no, not a baby, but an article

The writing process is often likened to the pain and suffering that accompanies popping out a baby. I have never had a child (and never will- see my other postings) but I'll venture to say that writing is even more painful. I've never heard of a delivery that can take weeks, even months. And yet this is the reality for most of us writers. From the time the seed of an idea is planted to the researching, drafting, writing, editing, re-editing and interpreting of the final product, weeks, months or years elapse. And throughout that process we suffer, oh do we suffer, from the painful, agonizing pangs of
birth.

Surely, some ideas are easier to research and write than others. Issues related to holistic healing come to me easier now than articles of a political nature. Year 2007 was my political writing era, but I've grown increasingly bored with the subject matter, and even downright hostile to it. I presume the hostility parallels with my over all disillusionment with politics in general. I don't see the point anymore of crafting articles on the dangers our politicians are driving us into. Who listens to writers anyways? So I'd rather stick my neck in the sand, and write on more uplifting, rosy topics. Trust me, this approach has helped me retain whatever sanity I had left; otherwise I'd be all damaged goods.

To be continued...on a mere 3 hours of sleep today. Until next time.

So now what?

After a grueling 9 months of having changed 3 different countries, I am back home. Not home, as in Colorado, since I've already been here a little over a month. But back home as in, in my own house..basement n' all. That's right. I am finally home. Now I can undertake all the projects I wanted to complete, I can even adopt a dog, convert one of the rooms into a studio. The possibilities are infinite..or so it seems at the time of this writing. I have a monkey, fickle brain, and all of this optimism about the bright, shiny future that lays dormant ahead of me could vanish as fast as a box of chocolates.

But I don't think I will ever be ungrateful for what I have been graced with, in terms of this home. When I think of the many months I spent in Belgium in captivity under the watchful eyes of a borderline personality disordered lover, almost in the manner a caged bunny, I can't help but feel grateful that I am free, and at home. I will never forget the way he looked so amused and empowered with his new pet (me), locked up in a home, in a country that was anything but cozy for her, as day after day he grew sicker and sicker. In the end, I started to doubt my own sanity. Had I really moved across the ocean to be with a boy I'd met online? Had I really bought into all of this 23 year old's promises of eternal, undying love? Had I really sold all my furniture, rented my home, and left behind my cat who had been the only consistent thing in my life? Had I? Had I? Yes, I had. Perhaps it was I who was so insane.

Then I think of the transition to Turkey. The values, the customs, the worldviews, the faces all different. A vast world apart from my own. I couldn't stand it. I wanted nothing to do with this alien world.

I am happy to be home.

Conform, conform or die..

It seems to be another dreary day of fatigue and lukewarm boredom. I have been productive to the extent that I have read more than 70 pages of a new book entitled "Loose Girl." The genre is not one that I would take into easily, but I thought I wouldn't mind reading a book that in some ways echoed my life of 'love promiscuity'. In this book, I attempt to find answers to my lifelong 'love addiction.' Believe me, it is no lesser of an addiction than drug addiction. I know deep down inside
the many lovers that drifted in and out of my life, were all attempts to find a home, a security base where I am loved and accepted under all conditions. Forty plus lovers (most of whom were not even physical/sexual, but merely platonic) later, I remain as homeless as ever. No, don't take pity on me. I am a hopeless, incurable, sentimental romantic, not in the sense of flowers and teddy bears, but more in the sense that a soul mate is out there, that there are indeed possibilities.

Speaking of love, I stumbled into my ex-husband's site which proudly declared him to be the new father of a boy. My jaw dropped instantaneously. I felt immobilized by the sheer weight of the news. Then the words 'What on earth?' whizzed through my mind like a Hawaiian hurricane. Is this self-proclaimed, venom spewing misanthrope who had in his days vowed to be childfree really, truly, deeply a father of a newborn boy (who I might add looks more like a wrinkled washcloth than a human)? So was the vasectomy he had undergone in our 3rd year of the relationship just a ploy to marry me? A die-hard environmentalist and lover of my freedom, I had put forth vasectomy as one of the prerequisites for marriage. It seems so. Oh yes, it seems so.
I couldn't help but wonder if he had just succumbed to conformity; you know the ubiquitous social pressure to be part of the herd, especially given the country he comes from. I will not name the country, but suffice to say that it is part of the Islamic Middle East.

I don't know, perhaps I don't want to know. But my mind has been a whirlwind of thoughts, and memories, as I interpret and re-interpret my past, not just with him, but all the lovers that have come and gone, come and gone, like the leaves of a tree. Were they also pretending to be someone else? How does one ever know?

Dribblings

Almost two years have passed by since I last visited this blog. Two of the longest years of my life, though they should have passed faster given my move at least three different times to three different countries. It is not as though I am a restless soul, really. I am just looking for a place to call "home" - and with that comes absolute peace and quiet. An endangered quality, I will tell you.

I am yet to find that spot that is not pierced by the shrills of technology. What have we made of this world? We are all swimming in the turbulent, noisy sea of technology. And yet only a few amongst us questions the insanity that bombards us daily.

So where am I today? Belgium. You know that country that has been dubbed an "accident of history." It is really not famous for anything but chocolate and beer. Oh and some good cheese!
Perhaps the royalty too? Though I have no idea what their names are. I am stuck here in my own little bubble with my lover. Save the work, neither of us has any care for the world. Speaking of which, it makes it hard for me to be a freelance writer. How can I come up with any ideas if I don't have a care for anything in the world (well, I am exaggerating, I do love nature and animals)? See why I have been outa work for awhile?