Steps to a New You

Since it isn’t the season or the weather to be riding my motorcycle, I am back to doing the house chores that build up when weekend after weekend, I choose the ride over the work.  I hung a door up and fitted a closet in a downstairs bedroom in preparation for a new roommate.  Upstairs, I painted a room I’m making into an office.  I also painted the upstairs hallway floor.  Some projects seem to take forever. Like the stairway project.  In this case, I waited months to pull up the hall carpeting that had been damaged by my cats.   Small rolls of pad and carpet sat piled in my driveway for weeks before I finally hauled them off to the dump.  For another month, I walked down the steps with shoes to protect my feet from the nails and staples.  Finally, I started the next phase of repairing the steps- pulling small staples and bits of blue foam from the stairs.   Still ahead: filling the holes and sanding the steps to paint them.  I dreaded this project so much I kept breaking it down into manageable pieces.  Pulling the staples and nails up seemed especially monumental for some reason.  I did it three steps at a time- the first 3 while watching a Netflix movie on my computer, the second 3 while talking with a friend late last night and then this morning while listening to NPR podcasts.   Throughout the project I continued to look up at the completed stairs so I could measure my progress and take some pride in it.  I reminded myself how long I had been meaning to do this.  Told myself it would feel like it had taken no time at all once it was done.  How, once again, I would come to know my house in a new way for having cared for it with time and attention and detail.

Owning a home and owning a motorcycle are similar commitments for me; I’m dedicated to caring for them, dedicated to keeping them in good repair so they will support me.  It requires commitment to see a project through.  It requires discipline and dedication.  Beginning a large project is daunting.  It often requires doing things about which I have little knowledge so I must begin with research- asking friends, consulting books and reading internet instruction guides.  Getting myself started can be the hardest step but then it is also hard to walk by the evidence of a project still in process and wonder how much longer it will take.  How much energy it will require.  I find it draining to bring myself back to the same project day after day, week after week when I don’t see an end in sight, when I can only look at the work that has been completed as proof that I’m on the right track.  

   

I find myself reviewing the diligence it takes to complete long range projects not only because of my house, but because of other projects in the works.  I am working with RIDE Motorcycle Club to build a website, am helping to plan a family reunion scheduled for July and am working on several writing projects. 

In my writing life, the writing itself is easy enough.  Sometimes I have to push myself to sit down to write, but the writing, once begun, flows through me without continual reminder for “just one more sentence.”  Not so, with the staples and not so with finding places to submit my writing.  I hate the part where I try to find someplace that will appreciate what I have to say and how I say it.  I am not entirely sure why this part seems so difficult for me.  One thing I know is that I do not write like what I see around me.  There are no “7 steps to a healthier you” on my writing horizon.  I’m not writing things like, “3 ways to please your man every time” or “10 things you can do to stay on track in the new year.”  I have no interest in giving advice.  I just want to keep learning how to listen to my own inner voice and follow it.  So in the absence of clear examples of writing “like mine” I find myself writing, more than looking for places to send my writing.  For this reason, among many others, I am glad for my fellow writers who help me find places to publish and who also are dedicated to writing their own way, in their own time.

This facet of writing shows up in motorcycling when I just get on the bike to ride with no plan in sight- with just the purpose of freeing myself up from my thoughts so I can find my way again in life.  I love this kind of ride - the one where I hop on the bike for no purpose - I ride because I need to, because it frees up my mind and my thinking self and allows me to be in the experience I am having.

One of my other projects, the RIDE website, has taken a detour recently.  We built several websites with the intent of launching them in the next month, when it became clear that these sites and the host were not the right fit for our needs.  Initially, it felt like 8 months of work was wasted.  Within a few days though, it became clear that the work was not fruitless.  It has given our group some valuable information about what we need and what’s possible with the new host for our site.  I had to look back at what we’d done together, just like I did with those hallway steps, to see that we are on the right path.

I’m planning the family reunion with several cousins on my dad’s side of the family.  We’ve been having them every 5 years since 1976.  This is the fourth one I’ve been involved with.  I had thought the last one in 2006 would be my last.  Within hours of my dad’s death, though, I knew I’d help organize this one, too.  I want to connect with my family, with his family.  My grandfather was one of 13 - the family that gathers are their descendents.  We meet in Grand Blanc, Michigan for three days of activities- a dinner party on Friday, a picnic with "olypmic games" the following day, and on Sunday, church, brunch and a round of golf.  It’s a big weekend with lots of events to coordinate.  It is best if I think of it in terms of small steps, otherwise the details become overwhelming.  So far, we have a date and a place for the Saturday events.  The rest will come. 

This week I plan to finish the hall steps.  The biggest hurdle is over- pulling out all those staples.  The rest seems easy from here, though still time consuming.  I may continue to do it just as I did with the last part of the project- 3 steps at a time.  However it gets done, I know the biggest part of it is done and the rest seems manageable.  I’m past the half-way point.  Past the point where I have to force myself to do it.  I like it when I get to this phase in a project.  And from now on, I’ll be able to look to these steps for inspiration on completing all the other projects I’ve got for the year- the writing, the RIDE website and the reunion.  It will all get done, one step at a time.  And at the end of it, I’ll have new information - about myself, my family, riding, and my writing.