The Diary Experiment

I am conducting a writing experiment on myself.  On Thursday I began to keep a diary which I will constantly update throughout the day. The length of the experiment is one week. Every thought deep or shallow, every event big or small will be documented in full. This is a departure for me as I keep notes in tattered copybooks and ideas on scraps of card but never a diary.

It may seem a bit unusual for someone who writes (a bit) not to keep one, but I haven’t kept a diary since I was 16 and then after a few months I had to burn it one day when no one was home. I was rather worried  because as someone who has always been a bit on the scatty side it was likely I would leave in where it could be found and read. Then I would be in more trouble than I could ever imagine!

 

Looking back now the diary was harmless enough, pages packed with teenage angst and tales of being misunderstood. I have always been a free spirit even if at that age most of the free spiritedness had to stay in my own head. There were a few incidents of experimenting with alcohol which were actually quite funny now and a few tales of mine and my friend’s experiments with boys. Not forgetting one about criminal damage.

Well it wasn’t exactly criminal damage. It was one Sunday when a gang of us got together and my friend Jim and I decided that it would be a laugh to dress Jim up as Prince. So as he was already wearing a black coat, I got two tassel scarves and tied one around his head and the other around his neck and played whatever Prince track was in the charts then on my portable stereo. I thought to complete the look he needed a mock guitar so I pulled up a no dumping sign from the road side and he used that to perfect his look and moves. I wish camera phones were around then.

Anyway the diary experience put me off writing one again. I thought that the safest place to keep any thoughts or memories or ramblings was in my own head. But I thought as I wasn’t getting the time I would like to write as much as I was before aunty B took ill and when I did write it was coming from somewhere rather rushed and stressed. I thought if I record every thought and deed for a week and see what is actually spinning in my head it might actually be a very useful exercise in more ways than one. It could relieve the little bit of stress I can feel from time to time so it would be a therapeutic exercise, it could help me look at stuff differently, and also perhaps bring a new angle to my writing.

As it stands I have my project which is fiction, I have this friendly blog and the frequent use of the communicator messaging in work where we send instant smart and cheeky messages directly to each other trying to outwit each other’s wit. A complete diary is hitting a completely different spot.

I am going with the free association theory, whatever comes up goes down. I have even managed to argue out a few things with myself so it is certainly bringing something new to the table as they say. Next Thursday I will read it back and see do I recognise myself.

I am not doing any read back at all. No checking the page I just turned for continuation I just go. I am not, as far as I can, holding anything in short term memory so I can get a real view of the inside of my head in four days time. This is helping resist the temptation as I know I will get a kick out of the full picture on Thursday.

I am quite interested as to what I might say about work when I am totally unbridled inside this turquoise notebook. Especially with some of what has been going on lately. It been a great time to observe certain human behaviours shall I say. I will have to be careful I don’t leave the thing on my desk at lunchtime or go home without it.

 I could even end up having to burn this one too. If anything interesting comes up I will let you know but I may end up editing just in case I come across as a serious nutter and you never visit me here again. Or indeed my friends, if I haven’t scared them off send for the white coats to drag me away from this keyboard. All shall be revealed! (Maybe)

I don’t feel I can end this one as I usually do what with the sad events in Norway this weekend so I will send  a thought of sympathy and compassion to all who are grieving and a prayer for their loss.

S.

Meditating and me

I’ve been feeling a bit wired today. There’s nothing terribly unusual in that what with Auntie B still in hospital and going down with an infection after her surgery. Then I’ve been settling the dog into his new routine, aging hippie style. Veggie food is growing on him. (A bit) Mum is not having a great week pain wise and now her brother is in hospital in the U.S so she is worrying about him. Dad is a bit tired which is understandable and one of my friends is going through a strange phase and I don’t know should I slap him or hug him. (Slapping him is in the lead right now by a mile)

What I have been doing lately when I have been a bit under the weather is go to my blog list and read a few of the blogs there and lo and behold I always manage to find something there to help me feel better.

Tonight I found on Superior health awaits you, (superiorhealthawaitsyou.blogspot.com) three lovely relaxing video clips. Then I found my answer.

Scorpiomoonrose, you are not meditating enough!!!

I’ve been quick fixing you see. I have been getting by on short meditations or meditating at times that are really worse than useless.

I must be practising meditation for over twenty years now. For about the last eight I have taken it a lot more seriously. I have learned some Qi Gong and have found the mediation in standing poses have brought me on leaps and bounds. I was always a tiny bit mercurial I suppose and I found that working with Qi Gong has calmed me down considerably. It hasn’t taken the edge off my tongue though; I still can be quite direct.

I do a Qi Gong routine first thing every morning called the eight pieces of brocade followed by my mediation poses. At first the standing meditations were difficult. I found my mind wandering off but then I read somewhere that in order to calm and empty the mind when it wanders off, bring it back by simply counting to ten. Surprisingly enough it works. It does centre you. Also there is six poses in the series so having to change your stance helps to keep in the right zone.
Where I have been falling back is on the longer meditations I use a few times a week in the evenings. I have some apps on my iPhone and I have some great C.D’s that I use.
Most of the meditations are around half an hour long but they must be the shortest half hours in the week.

What I have found with meditation practice is how in tune you become with the world around you. I found I noticed birds singing all the time. I would see maybe a leaf dancing in the breeze and I felt in that moment that I am part of everything in this world.  The most noticeable was how much happier I am.  Off the back of this I found the good relationships improved and the unhealthy ones were re evaluated. Some came to their natural end and others reached an understanding and shifted to a better place. The most important thing for me was a feeling that I am a free spirit, free to be myself and also free to change whenever I need to. I don’t need to accept anything as my lot. I can acknowledge that I have learned something new; I can take this new lesson on board and do what feels right with it.

I started writing again as part of this process and I think it has helped so much with how I write and how I see as a writer. I also find that I can go to a deeper place to find what I need emotionally to build the character or the scene I am working on. In some ways I meditate on what I am trying to create and I have a more effective creative process than I had before.  Sometimes I thought I didn’t know what I was going to write and by just centring I had a head full of words in no time at all.

In this crazy world of ours and in times when the card game of life has dealt you a hand that could be better at least by meditating and having this time to yourself you can embrace the reassurance that when the cards are dealt again as they are throughout the days and weeks and seasons of this life the next hand is going to be a royal flush!

And I may not have to slap my friend after all.

Keep smiling.