Dreamhope's Annual Review (Incomplete)
I found this lovely set of questions at dreamhope’s place. She wrote:
I have been feeling uninspired by most of the annual review memes I've seen this year, but I've been wanting to do something to honour the flip of the calendar. So I wrote my own annual review quiz, inspired by the poem "The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
(The poem can be found on her website: http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/)
Dreamhope’s Annual Review
as answered by moderately_mad in 2005
What did you ache for this year? What heart's longing did you dare to dream about?
Writing more than anything else I suppose. I started blogging after all. Doing so encouraged me to write more often and more carefully than I had in years. When I first started, demonhaunted advised me to be careful about writing in livejournal instead of in real life. The truth is that I wouldn’t have been writing much of anything without my blog. I know that some folks use lj like a diary or a circle-letter and, as such, they write more impromptu, stream-of-consciousness stuff. I do that to some extent but I’m now planning, editing and rewriting - even when I’m just babbling about my chores and lists. That’s a huge step for me.
More specifically, livejournal has inspired me to dream about publishing what I really write. For years I thought I’d have to go with fiction in order to sell anything. I’m beginning to believe that markets exist for that which I do compulsively. This year I’ve been dreaming about getting paid for all the self-examination and self-improvement I’ve done in my lifetime. What a kick that would be.
On the non-writing front, I’ve been longing for financial peace of mind. For several months, after R-‘s last bonus, we maintained one thousand dollars in a slush fund. In that brief period I was able to pay bills on time instead of waiting for payday. I did not fear bounced check fees.
When were you foolish? What inspired you to act the fool?
We spent more of R-‘s bonus than we should have. It seemed utterly reasonable to “blow” 20% of it on fun stuff even though we hadn’t completely wiped out our debt. Before Gmom’s stroke, before our own medical bills skyrocketed, after we’d dealt with a dozen nagging little bills, the remnants of debt seemed manageable so we splurged. I love my laptop and R- loves his IPOD but we could have done much smarter things with that money.
On a more poetic front, I’ve acted the fool in order to make myself and others feel attractive and interesting. I’ve taken up a new attitude when it comes to strangers, acquaintances and friends. I read a scandalous little book called Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts and it has brought a great deal of enjoyment to my life. When I leave the house these days, I usually take the time to wear something a little daring, put on a bit o’ makeup and adopt a flirtatious demeanor. That doesn’t mean that I’m cruising for a hook-up … and no one has yet acted as though I am. I’m finding that men and women of all ages seem to bloom when a confident, dressed up woman pays attention to them. The whole thing was an experiment but I’m going with it now that I see how well it works.
It’s a hell of a lot more fun than going out looking bedraggled and hoping the world will be kind just because my life appears difficult. Mostly, it turns out, depressed-looking people are treated as though they are invisible.
What pain filled you and what did you do with it? What pain did you witness and what comfort did you provide?
Pain. Something I don’t like to think about once I’ve written my way through an injury. I feel it so intensely in the moment that I fear to examine it in hindsight. It’s something to be survived and forgotten.
My mother’s failing health has caused, and is still causing, a great deal of pain. It has been horrible seeing what it has done to Sister D-. I’m not sure I’d ever seen her cry before and I’m certain I never saw her sob like a lost child until she fell apart -- from relief I think -- on the deck of Gmom’s apartment. That was early on, when our mother was cleared of an incorrect diagnosis of lung cancer. Days later the stroke came and Sister D-‘s relief evaporated. I think the rest of us daughters maintain more distance from Gmom so we suffered less.
I’ve been trying to perceive my mother’s ever more difficult nature as a reaction to the pain she must feel after losing her against-all-odds youthfulness. I want to be patient and kind but I seem only to manage being useful. I don’t know who is comforting Gmom. For a while, she seemed to enjoy having Ch- around her but she’s gotten pretty snappish even with him.
My own pain in relation to my mother’s infirmity is selfish of course. I lost it completely when that first doctor said she had a mass in her lung. That was really about my cancer-chondria and my fear of having to care for my mother through such a terrifying disease. Recently, since the stroke has taken so much of her personality, I’ve found myself actively grieving on two occasions.
Gmom’s other PCA made some snide comments about me and the fact that I don’t have a job even though my children are in school. (I only know this because my mother told me about the conversation.) In the old days, Gmom would have put that PCA in her place so fast that she’d have suffered whiplash. The mother I remember would have said that I run a hobby farm and write books and raise two gifted children with great success. (She never used to hesitate to exaggerate to prove her point.) Then she would have pointed out that the PCA’s children seem to be struggling due to lack of attention. (One of them set his bedroom on fire just a month ago.) None of that would have been nice I know, but it accurately describes the likely reaction of my former-mother upon hearing criticism of one of her own. This new mother, though, she was struck speechless … she couldn’t think fast enough to do anything but bluster. In the old days the very retelling of the conversation would have been pointed. It would have been about shaming me or creating a divide between me and another care-taker. In this case, I think she told me about it accidentally. She was so dismayed by her inability to think straight that she unintentionally shared a situation in which she felt weak. I didn’t say much but I noticed. And that hurt.
When R- and I went shopping for special treats for our trim-the-tree dinner, we found ourselves in the ethnic aisle at Cub Foods. As I searched for kipper snacks my gaze fell on a bottle of pickled gooseberries. Suddenly I couldn’t see because my eyes flooded with hot tears. The last time I took Gmom shopping before the stroke, Cub was just finishing a remodeling. (She still enjoyed cooking and eating then and my most important job was to help her shop.) Lost and confused by all the changes, we’d ended up in the new ethnic section. We explored all the options, talking and laughing and exclaiming over the outrageous prices of imported food. She talked about all the pickled food her family had survived on during the depression. When we found the gooseberries in among the other Scandinavian foods, she was thrilled. She insisted on buying a jar. We must have wandered that aisle for twenty minutes. It was the last time I enjoyed my mother.
I can think of one other extremely painful period but I’m not sure it happened in 2005. Sister D- had a terrible fight with me after I called her on giving my daughter advice that offended me. I felt that she was over-stepping boundaries and undermining my goals for my children. The first difficult conversation about the matter went reasonably well but she must have spent some time dwelling on the whole thing. By the time I saw her again, she was spoiling for a fight. She said, in essence, that I was a dependant, ungrateful and incompetent. She swore she would never again help me with anything and that she would insist her children abandon me too. She screamed. She turned crimson. I would not have been surprised had she hit me. I’ve never seen her so angry … and this was not our first fight. We didn’t speak for months. In fact, things were still very cool between us when Gmom had her stroke.
What joy filled you this year? What made you feel the most ecstatic, the most wild? What kept you from feeling that way more often?
How were you true to yourself? Did you have to hurt or disappoint anyone to do it?
What beauty did you see? What beauty did you create? How did beauty impact you?
When did you fail this year? What helped you try again?
What did you need to do to feed yourself this year? When was this hardest to do?
What transformed you this year? Which transformations did you embrace, and which did you shrink away from?
What sustained you this year? What kept you going when all else fell away?
My husband was my rock this year. For the first time in a long time, we spent more time being in love than being roommates. He seems to have opened up and filled out emotionally. He worked with his medication and added a stabilizer.
Do you like who you were this year?
I have been feeling uninspired by most of the annual review memes I've seen this year, but I've been wanting to do something to honour the flip of the calendar. So I wrote my own annual review quiz, inspired by the poem "The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
(The poem can be found on her website: http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/)
Dreamhope’s Annual Review
as answered by moderately_mad in 2005
What did you ache for this year? What heart's longing did you dare to dream about?
Writing more than anything else I suppose. I started blogging after all. Doing so encouraged me to write more often and more carefully than I had in years. When I first started, demonhaunted advised me to be careful about writing in livejournal instead of in real life. The truth is that I wouldn’t have been writing much of anything without my blog. I know that some folks use lj like a diary or a circle-letter and, as such, they write more impromptu, stream-of-consciousness stuff. I do that to some extent but I’m now planning, editing and rewriting - even when I’m just babbling about my chores and lists. That’s a huge step for me.
More specifically, livejournal has inspired me to dream about publishing what I really write. For years I thought I’d have to go with fiction in order to sell anything. I’m beginning to believe that markets exist for that which I do compulsively. This year I’ve been dreaming about getting paid for all the self-examination and self-improvement I’ve done in my lifetime. What a kick that would be.
On the non-writing front, I’ve been longing for financial peace of mind. For several months, after R-‘s last bonus, we maintained one thousand dollars in a slush fund. In that brief period I was able to pay bills on time instead of waiting for payday. I did not fear bounced check fees.
When were you foolish? What inspired you to act the fool?
We spent more of R-‘s bonus than we should have. It seemed utterly reasonable to “blow” 20% of it on fun stuff even though we hadn’t completely wiped out our debt. Before Gmom’s stroke, before our own medical bills skyrocketed, after we’d dealt with a dozen nagging little bills, the remnants of debt seemed manageable so we splurged. I love my laptop and R- loves his IPOD but we could have done much smarter things with that money.
On a more poetic front, I’ve acted the fool in order to make myself and others feel attractive and interesting. I’ve taken up a new attitude when it comes to strangers, acquaintances and friends. I read a scandalous little book called Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts and it has brought a great deal of enjoyment to my life. When I leave the house these days, I usually take the time to wear something a little daring, put on a bit o’ makeup and adopt a flirtatious demeanor. That doesn’t mean that I’m cruising for a hook-up … and no one has yet acted as though I am. I’m finding that men and women of all ages seem to bloom when a confident, dressed up woman pays attention to them. The whole thing was an experiment but I’m going with it now that I see how well it works.
It’s a hell of a lot more fun than going out looking bedraggled and hoping the world will be kind just because my life appears difficult. Mostly, it turns out, depressed-looking people are treated as though they are invisible.
What pain filled you and what did you do with it? What pain did you witness and what comfort did you provide?
Pain. Something I don’t like to think about once I’ve written my way through an injury. I feel it so intensely in the moment that I fear to examine it in hindsight. It’s something to be survived and forgotten.
My mother’s failing health has caused, and is still causing, a great deal of pain. It has been horrible seeing what it has done to Sister D-. I’m not sure I’d ever seen her cry before and I’m certain I never saw her sob like a lost child until she fell apart -- from relief I think -- on the deck of Gmom’s apartment. That was early on, when our mother was cleared of an incorrect diagnosis of lung cancer. Days later the stroke came and Sister D-‘s relief evaporated. I think the rest of us daughters maintain more distance from Gmom so we suffered less.
I’ve been trying to perceive my mother’s ever more difficult nature as a reaction to the pain she must feel after losing her against-all-odds youthfulness. I want to be patient and kind but I seem only to manage being useful. I don’t know who is comforting Gmom. For a while, she seemed to enjoy having Ch- around her but she’s gotten pretty snappish even with him.
My own pain in relation to my mother’s infirmity is selfish of course. I lost it completely when that first doctor said she had a mass in her lung. That was really about my cancer-chondria and my fear of having to care for my mother through such a terrifying disease. Recently, since the stroke has taken so much of her personality, I’ve found myself actively grieving on two occasions.
Gmom’s other PCA made some snide comments about me and the fact that I don’t have a job even though my children are in school. (I only know this because my mother told me about the conversation.) In the old days, Gmom would have put that PCA in her place so fast that she’d have suffered whiplash. The mother I remember would have said that I run a hobby farm and write books and raise two gifted children with great success. (She never used to hesitate to exaggerate to prove her point.) Then she would have pointed out that the PCA’s children seem to be struggling due to lack of attention. (One of them set his bedroom on fire just a month ago.) None of that would have been nice I know, but it accurately describes the likely reaction of my former-mother upon hearing criticism of one of her own. This new mother, though, she was struck speechless … she couldn’t think fast enough to do anything but bluster. In the old days the very retelling of the conversation would have been pointed. It would have been about shaming me or creating a divide between me and another care-taker. In this case, I think she told me about it accidentally. She was so dismayed by her inability to think straight that she unintentionally shared a situation in which she felt weak. I didn’t say much but I noticed. And that hurt.
When R- and I went shopping for special treats for our trim-the-tree dinner, we found ourselves in the ethnic aisle at Cub Foods. As I searched for kipper snacks my gaze fell on a bottle of pickled gooseberries. Suddenly I couldn’t see because my eyes flooded with hot tears. The last time I took Gmom shopping before the stroke, Cub was just finishing a remodeling. (She still enjoyed cooking and eating then and my most important job was to help her shop.) Lost and confused by all the changes, we’d ended up in the new ethnic section. We explored all the options, talking and laughing and exclaiming over the outrageous prices of imported food. She talked about all the pickled food her family had survived on during the depression. When we found the gooseberries in among the other Scandinavian foods, she was thrilled. She insisted on buying a jar. We must have wandered that aisle for twenty minutes. It was the last time I enjoyed my mother.
I can think of one other extremely painful period but I’m not sure it happened in 2005. Sister D- had a terrible fight with me after I called her on giving my daughter advice that offended me. I felt that she was over-stepping boundaries and undermining my goals for my children. The first difficult conversation about the matter went reasonably well but she must have spent some time dwelling on the whole thing. By the time I saw her again, she was spoiling for a fight. She said, in essence, that I was a dependant, ungrateful and incompetent. She swore she would never again help me with anything and that she would insist her children abandon me too. She screamed. She turned crimson. I would not have been surprised had she hit me. I’ve never seen her so angry … and this was not our first fight. We didn’t speak for months. In fact, things were still very cool between us when Gmom had her stroke.
What joy filled you this year? What made you feel the most ecstatic, the most wild? What kept you from feeling that way more often?
How were you true to yourself? Did you have to hurt or disappoint anyone to do it?
What beauty did you see? What beauty did you create? How did beauty impact you?
When did you fail this year? What helped you try again?
What did you need to do to feed yourself this year? When was this hardest to do?
What transformed you this year? Which transformations did you embrace, and which did you shrink away from?
What sustained you this year? What kept you going when all else fell away?
My husband was my rock this year. For the first time in a long time, we spent more time being in love than being roommates. He seems to have opened up and filled out emotionally. He worked with his medication and added a stabilizer.
Do you like who you were this year?