Almost-spring cleaning.

In between a friend’s emergency and making soup I managed to finish my environmental history article last night – weighing in at 3350 words. Not that those 3350 words cover *everything* but I think I did manage the capture the highlights and am so very glad that’s done and sent in (thanks Brian for editing this morning)! I’ll let you all know when the mag is out (sometime in April) and hopefully be able to link to the article online.

I’m feeling pretty pleased about finishing on deadline, and having another small publishing credit to my portfolio. Now if only I could get publication in one of the literary mags locally! I’m working on a piece right now combining an earlier blog post and a poem I wrote in the same timeframe, and I suspect that with some polishing that piece might have the power behind it to get accepted somewhere. Plus, I have a few other pieces that I am going to get sent off this next month for consideration.

All sorts of things going on – I’m feeling the push of spring cleaning, both inside and out even as we seem to be plunged back into winter temporarily (though not like eastern canada which has mountains of snow right now). Of course this is the weekend I finally divest my house on the Sunshine Coast, and it really feels like closing off a chapter of my past in doing so. Not that my time there was terrible, but it was a very solitary period of my life and a time in which I had many personal and political struggles that have lifted from me since, and I’m not sorry to let go of the last physical remainder of that period. Not to mention being relieved of the headache of owning a place I don’t live in! That’s something I haven’t particularly enjoyed in the last couple of years (I get too stressy about such things).

On the fun (or terribly weird) front… Brian and I have signed up for dance lessons that start next week at a studio in Burnaby. Yes, I know – dance lessons! But we actually really enjoy dancing with each other when we get the opportunity and thought it might be even more fun if we had a little more idea what to do besides wiggling our hips in sync. I suspect that even if we aren’t great at it, we’ll have some fun at least trying….

And on the less fun front, I’ve decided to embark on some counseling/bodywork again to deal with some ongoing issues of stress and mild depression that seems to be the ongoing plague of my life no matter how good everything is! I’m looking for someone who comes from a somatic approach, hopefully in East Van/Burnaby, and am pursuing a couple of recommendations that I hope pan out. As much as I hate to be all “I need help” with my life, there is no doubt that little spates of therapy really can be useful to my overall coping skills.

I feel good though, like as much as I have little ups and downs to contend with right now, I also have a path to move forward on that I’m surefooted about. Some more planning around family activity, some special fun with my partner, a little more self-work – seems like a good combination for creating more positivity and resilience for all of us. It’s ongoing, this work to stay afloat isn’t it? But at least I’ve got good support in order to do so.