A Life as a Writer

As a child, I lived a fantasy life in which I figured primarily as a horse, running, bucking, and leaping with rippling black long mane and tail and a coat of sparkling gold.....I preferred to create murals of herds of horses in spectacular colors, racing across a plain. I recall that the horses seemed to be Indian pony inspirations, many pintos and Appaloosas mixed in with the buckskins and bays. All of them had a story to tell and I entertained myself for hours.
Then I discovered reading stories. I read everything from Dr. Suess to Ariel and Will Durant's History of Civilization before age 10. I could not imagine there were enough books to be found to satisfy my passion for the words and stories in them.
And then I tasted the power and exhiliration of writing down a story to enthrall someone else. Is there any greater feeling? I was 11 years old. I started with TV scripts and screenplays, lovingly putting in stage directions and scene markers as if I had always written for television. I recall writing a weekly script for Man from UNCLE and the Monkees. I wrote TV pilots without knowing that is what they were called.....for the Beatles to have a weekly TV show.
None of those remain in existence of course. But that energy flowed in me for the next 7 years without fail.
Then I encountered doubt in myself for the first time. It was introduced by a man in my life, and that is another story.
So here I am so many years later and I am going to find that thrill again and not stop until I have a story to tell that fills me with that exhiliration once again.

Welcome to a new blogger

Greetings and I hope to have stories to tell and talk about......welcome to those who will share with me as well.
My life is in rapid transition on so many fronts that I struggle to know where to start to tell this story and I suspect it will become part of many tales to tell in the next year.
Let's see...does everyone remember the old list they had of things that cause stress and that we should avoid? Been there done ALL of that.....
Move across the country away from family
Move closer to son's family with brand new baby
Be diagnosed with a serious illness
Gave up a long held self employed business
Move from friends of long standing
Worries about money and choices for life
Recurrence of illness and new doctors
Husband starts new job

OK, so what is new, right? Everyone is in that boat at one time or another and I generally pride myself on facing the cycles with some humor but do they have to cycle so much faster than it seemed they did in the past? Or did I just grab on to the suffering when I was younger instead of knowing it would swing back out of the trough of despair into wow, it's great again before wheeeeeee, it heads back down. Is it faster or is it me?

As a Buddhist, I have spent many hours contemplating that very suffering and trying to understand having compassion for oneself. It took years, but comes more easily to have compassion for others. My own weaknesses and failings are harder to embrace.....especially letting go of worrying and fatalism. Contrary to what many people think, Buddhism is not fatalistic. Karma is karma and our wheel is always turning but how we choose to live and behave is not pre-determined and every choice is part of your karma as is every living thing.

So the story begins......