Taking a Lifeline

Today’s prompt from Think Kit wasn’t doing it for me, so I decided to peruse the prompts from previous years. This one is from 2013:

A Little Bit of Learning

Did you get any good advice or learn a valuable lesson this year? What was it?

The most valuable lesson I have learned in recent years has been this: Relationships have a lifespan, and the key to surviving the hurt and pain that come from an ended relationship---whether that of friends, lovers, or even mentor and student, is to focus with gratitude on what was good, what you gained, and the lessons you learned and can carry with you into the future.

This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox.

Hear, Hear!

Today’s prompt:

Do you hear what I hear? Tell us about a sound. What do you hear in your house or at work?

Right now, I am attempting to ignore my four year old as she scolds our two kittens for antagonizing the cokatiel. One of my sons is listening to a lesson for school on his brother’s Kindle Fire. I can hear our four zebra finches beeping and chattering away in their little voices, sounding like feathered clown cars and creaky gears.

One of the other kids is practicing the piano—the same eight measures over and over again, perfecting the intricate fingering. He broke his arm eight weeks ago, making him unable to play, and he’s been stressing about his upcoming music festival—he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to participate, but the cast came off two days ago, and he’s making up for lost time, determined to master the music in time to compete.

One of the kittens just streaked past the dog, making him jump and bark his head off, pawing at his crate door. Guess I’ll go put the kittens away before I let him out. Our Border Collie has a strong prey drive, and I worry one of these days he’ll catch one of them.

E-mail notifications are pinging as I sit at the computer, tick-ticking away at this post.  I can hear the big rigs carrying fill dirt or sugar beets rumbling down the rural highway behind my house and the not-so-distant train announcing it’s crossing the road on the tracks less than a mile away.  When we moved out here, to Nowhere’sville, we didn’t know about the trains—and they kept us up at nights—their horns and whistles shrieking on the hour at 1:00, 2:00, and at 3:30.  Now, we don’t even notice them---but visiting guests always do.

Finally, the boy on the piano is getting those measures right—sounds like he’s satisfied, as he’s now stumbling through a different piece.  He’s persistent. He’ll get it.

This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox.

Scratch & Sniff

Today’s prompt:

Scratch & Sniff

Scents have the power to take us all kinds of places. What smell takes you somewhere else? Where'd you go?

I thought about this prompt all day, but the only thing I could think of was the smell of my junior high—with it’s funky smell of industrial glue, aerosol hair spray, and Exhiliration! perfume.  Ugh. I so don’t want to be “taken back” to that particular place, or to those gawky, angsty years, especially via smells.  So, instead, here’s a list of smells I appreciate:

Newborn babies—one of my favorite things about having teeny babies was cuddling with them and sniffing the tops of their heads or backs of their necks, taking in that distinct new baby smell. That’s heaven, right here.

Rain—I love rain and overcast days. While most of the people around me pine for sun and warmth, I feel so alive and energized in cloudy weather.  Also, it really brings out the red in my hair.  But, back to the smell of rain—it’s the smell of promise and growth to me, whether it’s wet earth or wet pavement.

Parrots—I love the subtle, sweet, dusty-grain smell particular to psittascines. I kept budgies as pets growing up and would spend hours in my room playing with and talking to them, or watching them play on top of their cage and fly around the room.  I don’t own budgies now, but I do have a cockatiel.

Used bookstores—that mix of old paper, ink, binding glue, leather, and old building is just magical. I am lucky enough to experience that smell in my own home, since we converted a bedroom to a “library” to house a good portion of the books and homeschool curricula we own.  Every time I walk into our home library, I feel like I’ve stepped into a sacred place.

Clean laundry—I suppose, like rain and newborn babies, this smell is kind of a cliche to like—but whatever. I do a LOT of laundry with seven people in my household.  Also, I workout a lot, as does my husband---so there is plenty of dirty laundry to deal with.  I like doing laundry because it’s a chore that is easy and offers immediate satisfaction—wash, fold, put away, and DONE. Unlike the kitchen, which is so much in use all the time that the cleaning NEVER feels done.

Endust and Pine-Sol—my mom was quite a neat freak and we “white gloved” the house twice a week.  My responsibilities included dusting and vacuuming, and cleaning the bathrooms. Even today, my house just doesn’t FEEL clean without those products.

Ground beef and onion being fried—it just smells like the promise of a hearty meal, and it usually is---it’s the base of a lot of what I cook at home—chili, tacos, enchiladas, spaghetti sauce…great, now I’m hungry!

This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox.

 

 

 

 

In My Eyes

Today’s prompt:

In Your Eyes

Share a photo or paint us a picture with words. Show us something from your year through your eyes. Did you see something that took your breath away? Or maybe you just couldn't look away?

My husband took this picture on a two week trip to the Oregon coast this summer. The folks in the photo are our kids.  We love the ocean and even though this day was cold and windy and it was getting dark, my wistful tribe didn’t want to leave the beach. I love how the kids are silhouetted here.  They are adventurous and love to travel, to experience new things. They like being together, and are generally kind and get along well.  Looking at this picture reminds me how much I love my family and how much I love exploring the world with them.

This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Today’s prompt:

Get Analog

No screens, no technology – what did you do with your hands this year?



What did I do with my hands this year? I did a whole lot of Krav Maga. For the uninitiated, Krav Maga is the official Israeli military hand-to-hand combat fighting system. It is contact combat, and is not considered a martial art---because it’s not an art at all—it is a set of techniques to neutralize an imminent physical threat at the hands of one or more attackers. The techniques are designed to follow instinctive body movements and training involves working under intense physical and mental stress, and from a position of disadvantage, such as being pinned down, choked, grabbed from behind, or having multiple attackers. Practitioners are taught how to defend themselves while simultaneously counterattacking.



Unlike MMA, there are no rules or time limits in Krav Maga. You do WHATEVER you need to do to get safe.  Krav Maga is not a sport, it is a self-defense system. Training through realistic scenarios, It teaches practical self defense techniques, situational awareness, and how to turn disadvantages in to advantages to protect and defend oneself and others. 

In the studio where I train, we not only learn how to punch, kick, and strike with knees and elbows, but we also learn to disarm gunmen and knife or stick wielding attackers.  We are taught to make use of weapons of opportunity—if not your own body, then a rock, a book, a handbag, even an attacker himself—to ward off and neutralize a threat.  Recently I have been training in resisting and escaping from kidnapping scenarios—they have involved one attacker throwing a pillowcase over my head, while another attacks me with a stick.

Below: A typical Krav class—my instructor and a student (center) demonstrating a defense against a headlock.


I LOVE Krav Maga. I am absolutely addicted to it and am now training to become an instructor.  In the five-ish yeas I’ve been training, I have become a different person.  When I started, I was timid, cringing, constantly apologizing for taking up space. I was afraid to really live for fear I’d anger someone or get hurt. I was passive and reactionary. The Krav Maga training I do for dangerous and deadly scenarios has changed all that. It’s the best therapy in the world. Who knew that the confidence and skills gained from training in hand-to-hand combat would carry over into regular life? I’m comfortable and confident in who I am. I’ve learned to be aware, humble, to look at every situation as a learning experience, and I’m not afraid to get into things and go after them—be they bad guys or life goals.

This sign is not at all ironic in Krav:


This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox.

Selfie

Today's prompt: 

Your 2015, Reviewed

Give us the 30,000 foot view. Or, hone in on a few highlights. Let's bring last year to life before moving on to what's ahead.

I love this picture of myself and think it sums me up in 2015 perfectly.  Half concealed, half disclosed. At ease in both the dark and light spaces in my life.  This year, rather than battling my demons, I shook hands and accepted them. We’ve come to the understanding that they will always be with me, but I'm the boss.


“I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bed/Get along with the voices inside of my head/You're trying to save me/Stop holding your breath/But you think I’m crazy/Yeah you think I’m crazy…” –The Monster by Eminem, featuring Rihanna

This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox.

Happy New Year and some writing stuff

Starting anything new makes my stomach twist like wringing out a wet rag.  It’s an uncomfortable sensation, but also oddly satisfying.  I feel this way with any new endeavor, and the stronger the wringing sensation, the more I know I’m getting into something good.
I committed to posting on my blog at least once a week for the entirety of 2016, but I felt like I needed a boot camp of sorts, so I joined Think Kit—a group of bloggers that wanted to flex their blogging muscles. Each day this January, Think Kit will provide a writing prompt for the group to use to get the creative juices flowing.  I will post each day here using the prompt (or one of the “lifeline” alternative prompts.) This is exciting and a little scary—so I must be doing something right!  Geronimo!
Today’s prompt is:

First Line

Pretend you're writing your autobiography. Give us your first line, a first chapter, or even just an image. What's the story of you?
Socks.  I think about them quite a bit, because I absolutely must change my socks three or four times a day. I carry clean socks in my gym bag (naturally) but also in my purse, in the console of my car, and even in my coat pockets. I don’t consider myself an obsessive-compulsive personality. In fact, I’m pretty fast and loose with housecleaning and hairstyles and noise and just about everything else, but in order to feel right with the world, I must be wearing clean, dry, comfortable socks.

This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox.