Cheese Clouds

I seem to be in that vacuum of space between the feast and the famine––that weird phenomenon of time that seems to happen when there's this building cloud of assignments that you just know is coming, waiting...looming...growing. And yet, the actual time you'll be given to deal with the cloudburst is unmoving. While the knowledge of upcoming work (and the resulting reflection in the greenery of my bank account, of course) is always nice to have, there's that downside of stressiness that happens. Maybe it's just me, maybe it's not. I'll be the first to admit that I'm sometimes too easily launched into that black hole of anxiety, even though the reality is that I can truly handle the workload, if I attack it methodically and with a clear head. I.E., trading in stressy-me for rational-me. Stressy-me seems to be my default setting, and that's something I definitely would like to change.

I've never personally read Who Moved My Cheese, but if I wrote it, I'm sure the dialogue would go something like this: 
My. Cheese. Has. Moved.
Where?
Why? 
Who touched it?
What if they had germs?
What if it's not the exact same cheese?
Can I move it back?
When?

As you can guess, change is not something I embrace easily. And neither is lack of details. Both of which occur with maddening frequency in life as well as in work. Especially in the ever uncertain world of a freelance writer. Which begs the question: why do I do this? And how do I not have a bleeding ulcer? Who knows, maybe it has something to do with my very contradictory love of the adrenaline rush that comes from knowing I met the tightest deadline, that my clients were impressed. That I proved I could do it.

The cheese moves. The thundercloud builds. Life can't be planned. But I'm trying to learn again how to cope with all of those things. To not worry about who or why or when the cheese was moved. To be thankful that the cheese is, in fact, still out there and available. It's still cheese. To not worry about when the rain will come. Just to be glad that it's coming and realize that it's needed to water this thirsty ground. And to embrace the unplanned moments of life––since sometimes those turn out to be the best ones. 

I'm just going to have to see if I can keep the cheese from getting soggy in the meantime.  

More Than Words

Call it a hazard of being a writer, but I'm always amazed that people can put so little stock in the importance of words. Words are amazing, yet so many people treat them with such flippancy. Really, though, if you think about it, words can change everything. 

They have the power to persuade, the power to hurt, the power to heal. The power to kill, and the power to give life. Whether spoken or written, words are essential to how we relate to one another, to how we connect. Maybe that's why I love them so much. They are truly a powerful thing, and I'm reminded of that on a daily basis as I boot up my computer to start my work day or crack the spine on a book.

What would life be like without words?

As one who makes a living from my ability to spin them together, I shudder to think. But even as a simple human being, I've often reflected on a world suddenly robbed of words–-one where they could not be spoken, heard, read, or written. It would be a lonely thing, I think. We would never really know someone else, would we? How could we fall in love or really feel anything about anyone or anything?Death of words would, I think, literally mean death. They're required for technology, for entertainment, for relationship. 

And still, they are so undervalued. Think about it, though, next time you're about to say something or write something. What do those words mean, and what will they cost you? How will they be received? Hold them in your mind's eye and measure them. 

Words are a powerful thing, a gift or a curse. 

Words are never just words. Be wordly wise.