Tag: goals

Side-tracked

On By Jennie Lee CastrogiovanniIn Uncategorized10 Comments

Greetings from the Arctic Circle, actually Pennsylvania, where I am struggling to get a running start on 2024. I had all my good intentions, and I am chasing them, but there are too many trails off to the side, and I have to go down each one to the point that if I had to say what I’ve accomplished so far this year, I would have to respond, “Er….um….” Yeah.

For example, the one thing that I am going to accomplish this year, as long as I am alive and breathing, is to finish my Storyworth Memoir, the subscription of which my daughter bought for me either in 2021 or 2022. It’s a bit fuzzy how long that I’ve been working on this tome. In fact, the good people at Storyworth stopped asking me questions about my life a long time ago. “Who was your hero growing up?” and many other questions have gone unanswered. Several months ago, well maybe it was last year, come to think, I sent the Storyworth people an email inquiry as to whether they would still publish my book once I finished, since it’s been a long time since I started. “Yes,” they responded, so I might have promised them that I’d get it done by a self-imposed dead-line, a dead-line which has passed me by, I assure you.

The problem is that I get sidetracked very easily. For instance, this afternoon I was going to write about my life in the 80’s and specifically about my foreign-studies abroad experience in Strasbourg, France. I kept an extensive journal about the experience, so I wanted to refresh my memory by reading my journal before I started writing about that period of my life.  First, I had to find the journal. That’s the problem. I went up to my attic, a place which I have written about before. Alas, the attic is no more organized, reamed out, tote-a-fied than it was the last time I wrote about it. I did not find my French journal there, but I did find the ivory high heels that I wore for my wedding thirty-five years ago. Possibly I might bring myself to donate them to the Salvation Army. They are still pretty…only worn once. My feet have somewhat flattened out since that bright day, and maybe someone else might want them. Actually, I just found one shoe, so I will have to find the other one up there in that hellscape before I can give them to anyone. My attic=ugh.

But for today the attic was not my objective. So, I reminded myself of my objective and started looking for my journal in the back of my clothes closet, where I have stashed some other journals. (I have kept a journal pretty faithfully since I was a child, sometimes writing every day, sometimes once a month, and I have assorted journals here-there-and-everywhere around the house.) I did not find my journal from France in the back of my closet, but guess what else I found? 

I found the Christmas candy that I had stashed there, planning to put it on the dining room table on Christmas morning. I had forgotten it. There it all was hiding out in the back of my closet, and the buttercrunch chocolates were calling my name. I ignored them for a minute because another goal for 2024 that was inspired by a book I just finished, Fat Mom on a Mountain, is to be almost as fit as the author, Kriste O’Brien, was when she reached her goal of summiting Half Dome in Yosemite National Park after months of preparation.    

By this point of my own quest, I was feeling weak in body and spirit. Recently I’ve also been listening to Jason Seib’s podcasts about how you should embrace your discomfort and ignore the comfort zone of procrastination and eating chocolates in order to become one of the very few (5%) of the self-disciplined souls who conquer the bullies in their head and take freezing ice baths, run ultramarathons and write their Storyworth memoirs in the allotted timeframe. After about a minute of weakly mind-wrestling the bully within, the chocolates(s) won out, I’m afraid. I had one (ok several) and they were delicious.

Here is what I would like to tell you now: that as I’ve been writing this essay, I glanced up at my bookshelves across the room and discovered my French journal there, sandwiched between an old Methodist Hymnal (I did not steal it; they were giving them away) and The Official U.S. Army Survival Handbook. I did walk over to the bookshelves, but unfortunately, I did not discover the journal that I kept while I was a student in France.  What I did find was a little, old, brown, 5-year diary with a clasp but no key. Thankfully it was unlocked. My very first diary. Of course, I had to start reading it.  “Jan 1, 1972- Today Daddy suddenly had a spurt of energy and before I knew it, I was helping clean out Mommy and Daddy’s room.”  

And now the afternoon has disappeared like a startled chickadee, and I have things to do before I sleep, so I will leave you, dear reader, until the next time when I hope that I will be able to tell you that I found my journal that I wrote as a Penn State student when I was far, far from home, that I  captured some insights into my young-adult mind and finished writing about the decade of the 80’s, and that I have pushed onward towards my goal of finishing my memoir during this year, 2024.

I just hope I don’t keep getting side-tracked.  

Thank you for reading this, and Peace to you in 2024!

My Mount Kilimanjaro

On By Jennie Lee CastrogiovanniIn personal essay13 Comments

The thing about writing a blog is that you, you meaning I, I write for myself mostly. I write because it’s what I have to do sometimes. Sometimes I write to amuse myself, sometimes to make sense of things, sometimes to challenge myself, sometimes to conquer my sadness. The last essay I wrote was to do all of those things.

            Sometimes (this afternoon), I’ll have a thought while I’m raking the leaves, and it won’t let me go. Then I’ll fling down the rake and I’ll tear into the house and wring out my mind without even stopping to take off my coat. Other times I have to force myself to sit down at the computer. Still other times I say the heck with it and continue raking the leaves while talking out loud to myself. Good thing I live in the country.

            Having explained my egocentric reason for writing my haphazard blog, I also admit that I am thrilled when I see that people have read my words.

            There is a darker, shaded green, side to me that thinks, damn, why can’t I get 100,000,000 viewers like Taylor Swift or Stephen King probably does? LOL! Laughing through my tears of envy. Why can’t I be like those cute little kids on Instagram who say something funny or cliff -dive or something and suddenly they are an overnight sensation?

            I try to walk away from this petty self, but you try to walk away from your uglier self, and eventually you run into the barrier that is your own skin every time. And then you turn back and take a peek at your daily WordPress stats. No views today, rats!

            Or, like today, four views! Hooray! And they are from the United Kingdom. Hmm! Who in the United Kingdom is looking at my humble blog? Could it be…? Prince, no, KING CHARLES? Or Camilla? Or maybe Elton John? Adele? Who knows?  I don’t. I’ll just assume.

            Anyway, when I retired a year and a half ago, another teacher asked me what was I going to do next. Any big plans?  He told me that his brother’s first goal upon retiring was to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Holy smokes, I thought. I have no desire to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. For one thing, I am afraid of heights, and from all accounts, it’s pretty tall. My next thought was, well, I do have a climb to make, the treacherous climb up the stairs to my attic where a hellscape of old school projects, discarded clothes, and many, many wicker baskets await rediscovery. I will make that climb, I will purge that attic of all the detritus of the decades, and then I will breathe the rarified air in triumph.

            A year and a half later, and it hasn’t happened yet. It’s still all there, waiting to be conquered. Did I mention my daughter’s ten-year-old wedding bouquet that is hanging from the rafters? Still there, all dried up.  I’ll probably get to it.

            So far, I haven’t really started training my border collie to be a therapy dog yet either. She can sit though. And shake.

            Nor have I gotten in the best shape of my life. I’m still a little bit of a fatty. But I’m now a bit of a fatty who does Yoga. Don’t try to picture that.

            I have come to a realization, though, that I do have a personal Mount Kilimanjaro. My Mount Kilimanjaro is my writing.

             I have made some progress on that path. I’ve kept writing this haphazard blog, I’ve written a eulogy, I’ve written a little children’s tale about a hound dog. I’m writing my Storyworth Memoir, but, alas, I’m slightly behind–by 20 chapters or so. Do you know what Storyworth is?  It’s an on-line enterprise where the mysterious Storyworth people send you a prompt every week, and you answer it or write a chapter of your choosing. When you are done, at the end of a year (plus three extra months if needed, thank God!), they send you a hard copy of your memoir.  You have written a book! This is something a thoughtful loved-one might order for you for Christmas, thank you, Mariah. You know I mean that! I’m doing it in my own procrastinating, easily-distracted-by-a-snowflake way.

             I’m on my way through the foothills; I’m writing!

            Anyway, on this week before Thanksgiving, I am very grateful to you, yes you, whoever you are, who has taken the time to read this little ditty.  A million thanks. You probably didn’t even realize that you made my day just by reading my words.  And if you actually happen to be King Charles, Cheerio, Sir!