Open Doors

Going in to the water: not a good life choice

I have two dogs. The Corgi (Lewis) is the in-control, self-confident, cocky little guy who makes good decisions and has never met a dog that was bigger than him.

The Beagle (Chaucer) is sweet, but quite insecure and out of his element living in the city.

When we're at home, I sometimes want the dogs inside and sometimes want them outside. Frequently, it doesn't matter and they can do whichever they prefer.

When the weather is good, I just leave the back door open to let the sun and air in.

Lewis likes that. He can monitor the situation inside and outside. He comes in and goes out as it suits his needs.


Chaucer, who is bold and brave when he's doing his job (hunting), is completely befuddled by the "door wide open" problem. Every time he passes the door, whether he is inside or out, he stops and cries. Why? Because every time he sees it, he's forced to make a decision. Does he enjoy the sun outside? Does he go in and have a nap? What does his owner want? What does his corgi brother think? Is he missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

He just can't wrap his mind around the fact that an open door is just that. He can go through it. He can not. In the grand scheme of things, I love him either way and it doesn't matter.

As CS Lewis the author says, "You will serve God whether you want to or not. It matters to you whether you do it like Judas or like John."

Ownership

I read an article some months ago about allowing children to have autonomy over their bodies from a very young age. It sounds so basic when I say it like that, but the article talked about how forcing a child to touch/hug/kiss someone they didn't want to just reinforced that the child wasn't master of their body and left them easy prey to would-be molesters as well as harming their sense of identity.

I don't have a child, but I thought it was a great point. I didn't think much more about it until recently when I realized there was a corollary to that.

Just as a child should have authority over their body, so they shouldn't expect to have it over others. This obviously applies differently to parents vs everyone else in the world (tm), but children should not assume that someone wants to tough them/hold their hand/whatever.

It sounds like I'm over reacting until you try crossing out "children" and inserting something else.

Men should not assume that women want to be physically intimate with them.

>.<

It's the same concept. No human being should just assume that they can impose their body on another, whether they are 6 or 16 or 60.

Writing On

In something of a spur-of-the-moment decision, I ended up doing NaNoWriMo again this year. Last year, I started writing on November first and wrote 100k words in four months. I have a somewhat-polished 4th draft out with an editor now from that experience.

I quit writing over the spring and summer. My life was out of control. Work was beyond stressful, haunting me awake and asleep. My beloved horse had health problems that forced him into retirement and I quit my job. I thought about writing again, but I don't always write well from a place of turmoil and angst.

I'd been kicking around a plot idea and playing with some characters, but I was missing some critical elements and I didn't want to start something without those in place.

And then I had a dream. It tied all the pieces together. I started writing on November 2nd this year and I'm on track to finish the 50k a solid week early. I write 2-3 thousand words a day, sometimes more on the weekends. Last year was hard--by the time I hit my daily word count, I felt like I had no words left.

Not so this round. My pacing is much more solid, my plot more developed. I'm writing a thousand words an hour on average and I'm just hitting my stride. I find that the more I write, the more I want to write. I'm not just writing a story. Now I'm writing blogs, emails, and anything else I can think of. The words are flowing and the well hasn't run dry. Not yet.

I'll finish NaNo, but that's not the goal this year. I want to have another 70-80k second draft done by 12/31/13. Just watch me.

Friends

I've been working through the nature of friendship lately. I know that I'm a very loyal person who tends to hold on to friends for a very long time. That said, I have high expectations of them and do not keep around those I don't think are worth the time.

I have a lot of friends in my horse life. It's easy to be friends there--our common experience is so great that very little incentive is needed to call someone a friend. My circle is populated with people with an understanding of the difficulties we face, the creatures we care for, and that crazy passion that drives us. It's easy to be friends because our lives are so similar.

But what about the rest of them? Although I find it harder and harder to make friends with people in the "normal world", I still have some. I do treasure them. I've come to realize that the hallmark of friendship, whether horsey or not, is caring for one another. Laughing together and crying together. Caring even when you don't always understand the nuances of what they're going through. Being willing to set aside yourself and listen and care about another soul flitting through the same moment in time.

An emphasis on the last. A friend shares their life with you and open yours to them. We care, even when we don't understand.

Abandon that, and the friendship is gone.