Hi. How are ya? It's been a while. I've been busy with all sorts of living and learning and growing to arrive back here to try to summarize. I plan on trying to post more here in the future, especially since there's a bit more excitement going on in my life lately, and a lot more creative endeavors. Here's a short list of what comes to mind to relate about the past months:
I'm coming up on my first wedding anniversary. This year in love has zipped right on by.
Over the summer, we moved back to Asheville. I was withering over there in Greensboro. Everything makes a lot more sense again now. Life is no longer on hold.
I am now teaching at the local community college, which is very satisfying and fulfilling for me. Thanks to my mother-in-law, I had a shoe in for that job, making me a very lucky girl in this economic climate. At least, lucky in one way.
Unfortunately, it's looking like one of the facts of my life is to be in a large amount of debt from the scholarship I went to college on. They don't care what the reason is for me not teaching in a K-12 public school, and they're coming to collect. Nevertheless, I have thought about this a lot and realized that I will just have to accept it for what it is: the result of a choice that I can't regret. I was so unhappy being away from Asheville, but now I love my life, we have an adorable little house that allows D and I both to do everything we want to do--i.e. he's setting up a recording studio downstairs, and I am setting up a martial arts training space--and I am near most of the people I care about. We are quickly building a life here, and it turns out that I really prefer teaching at the post-secondary level. There's no going back, so there's no use thinking too much anymore about what life without debt would be like. ...So, that's a rather personal situational detail. I'll spare you any more.
One other very, very important thing that has happened is that I have become passionately involved in the study of Tae Kwon Do. I suppose it has been in the works for quite some time for me to find some activity that can completely absorb me, and that combines physical, spiritual, and psychological benefits. Well, I've found it. Boy have I. It's almost frightening how much of my mental space it occupies each day. Since I found it, I've been treating it rather like my life raft, my link to fulfillment. I know, I know: danger, Will Robinson. I know. It may have a touch of pathology in it, but what doesn't? Especially when it comes to things that constitute our personal means of self-expression, the compulsive urge to obsessively learn learn learn practice practice practice create create create rarely comes from a completely quiet and sane mind. Thus, I am somewhat insanely involved in martial arts right now.
On a related topic, I'm currently writing a grant (on a volunteer basis) to create scholarships for underprivileged and at-risk kids to come to our Tae Kwon Do school. I know nothing about grant writing, but I'm determined to make it happen. Our school,
Asheville Sun Soo, is truly an exceptionally good one, with a strong, intelligent leader whose integrity I wholly believe in. A scholarship program is long overdue for such an amazing program.
Another little project I'm working on is the
the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project. This is such a neat idea, and it's given me an excuse to start making art again. I hardly remembered what it was like to have an inspired idea for a composition and then carry it out on paper. It's a shame that it took this long because for my entire childhood and adolescence, making art was a daily part of life and a very familiar friend. I should just be glad that art and I are again on speaking terms, I suppose. It feels great.
Life is not all rainbows and puppies, but it's certainly a hell of a lot better than it was a few months ago, and always getting better. I hope to be posting a lot more of the fruits of my labor here. That is, if I can stand to be distracted from doing it for long enough to report about it. Ciao!
