I relish a GREAT night of sleep but resist going to bed…..always think I’ll miss something. There I sit late, late into the night writing, or thinking, or watching some movie which is giving me ideas or just keeping me company, (usually with the sound off), reading perhaps though not a lot lately. I do a lot of ‘day’ dreaming, though sometimes it’s at night. I’m forever creating shows in my head, performances of one thing or another….I’m not sure why, but I always have.
When I was little I’d act out commercials from television, the Jiff peanut butter commercials being my favorite. I have three younger boy cousins, (yes, men now), who would be my actors or stage hands, (I was delighted to get to be the boss….as the youngest with two older brothers this was not something which happened at home).
I grew up around ALL boys, no girl cousins, all brothers. Thank goodness for my friend Ann….though we were both a bit rough and tumble….adventure scouts who enjoyed days hanging out riding bikes, building forts, (always decorated with flowers), hanging out at the nearby covered bridge, playing in the creek.
We did also enjoy time in my mother’s closet and adored her fur kalinskys, (no idea how to spell that and google and spellcheck are no help)….(they’d been my grandma’s, a milliner who I unfortunately never met), a scrawny marmet of sorts, hooked together to create a fur with little rat like heads and feet. I thought they were ultra cool!
Ann and I would play ‘house’ and dress up and smear make-up all over our faces. Then in a wink we’d be out climbing a tree or playing kick the can, rich with blush and blue eye shadow, (sometimes warrior make-up). Ann was cool….still is no doubt.
(I’ll share sometime the birthday party we put on for her poddle Gigi where we invited all the neighbor animals. I’ve been organizing events since I was 6 years old).
Anyhow…my little cousins would get assigned this role or that in my short dramas. I of course was the Executive Producer, star of the show and spokesperson. This is when I first learned that I enjoyed being in charge. I could command a crowd when I was seven. Just could.
So I wonder…what makes us who we are. Why are some of us good at math, others obsessed with cleanliness, then some intent on playing the role of victim determined to making everyone elses life hell and then another person may be absolutely over the top delighted maintaining a ‘status quo’ existence, while someone else is prone to obesity or another hard core athletics. How mysterious it all is to me. This is some of the stuff I stay up at night pondering, feeling how it all feels inside me and then I toss around ideas on how I might create a drama or comedy to express what I’m feeling or thinking. It’s just how I’m wired.
That being said, while walking outside around my home the other evening, barking with the dogs I passed, (I know them all), nodding and chatting with a few horse friends, issuing out Granny Smith apples, I was thinking how some people have to measure everything in life, coffee, recipes, their money, their friends, their love. I’m not a measurer. I can’t follow recipes. I try, then I just make stuff up toward the end. I like that my recipes come out differently each time. It keeps things fresh for me.
Last weekend I made some chicken and threw an onion into the baking dish, garlic of course, I had some green olives, a yam and green apples and for good measure threw in some capers, olive oil and cajun salt. A funny mixture though absolutely delicioso. I just like creating new stuff.
I don’t like repeating things either. If I’ve done something once, I’m not interested really in doing it again, at least not the same way. And coffee, good Lord, why would I measure coffee, to assure it’s ‘just so’ every morning.
How then could I relish that ‘perfect’ cup that happens now and again when I’ve mixed the right amount dark roast with the exactemente amount of water and brewed it, heating the milk just so and voila….oh my heavens….an illustrious cup of ‘joe’. If I had a perfect cup everyday I might not appreciate it. And how sad would THAT be??
I have a sense of money in the bank and how much I need for this and that but the details or exactness of it all limit me. (ooooh, I can feel my delightful financial advisor smiling….she knows I’m smarter than that). When I was buying all the furniture for Carl House, I collected all kinds of things that felt right, had a sense of where they might go and when it came time to put it all together, I had exactly everything I needed which fit perfectly on three floors and 10,000 square feet. I don’t know how it all worked out. Really! It was actually quite magical.
I remember in contrast how when my Aunt Sue was moving from the large farm house that she and my Uncle had lived in for 30 years, she measured each piece and how it would fit in their new home. I’d go stark raving mad doing that. Funny.
Back to the money thing…I’m all for abundance, let’s just keep expanding rather than calculating each dollar. Somehow that allows the magical to happen for me, and it does. Most of the time, I refuse to let limiting thoughts get to me. That might sound rather ‘Pollyanna’ but I don’t care; I need a level of freedom, it helps me. And yet to someone else, they need more limits to feel safe and actually free.
So…this is why I could never work for anyone. I’m really unemployable. I’ll work like a banshee when I’m empassioned and on fire about something…tirelessly….when it makes sense to who I am. I’ll rise early and go to bed after 20 hours of toil, but it’s the toil I choose. And I’ve not been inspired by many a leader. And I like to make my own decisions.
My sister-in-law, Gloria, came with my brother Jeffrey to visit me when I first opened Carl House.
Carl House in the spring!
They were watching me with my team, shuffling people here and there, managing the service staff, dealing with a conflict between two servers. I comforted one worker who was upset and crying and needed to reprimand another who was totally out of line. At the end of the evening my sister-in-law said to me, with a big smile….’You’ve found your place. At last you can tell OTHER people what to do instead of being bossed about by your big brothers.’
Ha!! I guess she was kind of right. Though far from perfect at ANY of it, I like having a vision, imagining a show, a performance, an event, directing the actors and inspiring a great performance, congratulating the efforts of all involved. And when it’s done, onto the next creation. There’s the rub or the beauty of it all….I like the newness.
I suppose this is why any routine never works for long for me. (I’d be sooo miserable in the army). I may workout religiously for a time, then just can’t keep the same routine…it’s feels restrictive. I’m disciplined but selectively or intermittently so. This creates great angst in my life and something I hope to find a better balance for before I pass away from this particular existence. I respect the ebbs and flows of my own desire though ‘want it ALL now, now, now, now.’ as I once wrote in a rock and roll song. (Childish perhaps)!
Ahhhhhh, the mystery of it all….to quote John Donne, ‘oh miserable condition of mankind.’ The mysterious conflicts (and passions) that keep us up at night. It can’t be just me feeling this way! I’m not THAT arrogant.
So yeah, I love sleep, but there are so many unrealized ideas that just don’t want to rest.
I suppose they’ll have to wait until tomorrow, or incubate while I slumber.
Sweet dreams.
BB Webb
