It’s after four in the morning on the first day of 2022, a brand-new year. As I sit here, sipping generic tangerine flavored water from Wegmans, repeatedly removing my eight-pound fur-daughter from her favorite place (my lap) so I can type, it has occurred to me that there is a tremendous cache of things lined up in my brain that fall under the general category of “To Do.” Now, if you know me at all outside of this blog, you already know this about me. I am a list maker. A prioritizer. An organizer. I always work out of no less than three planners. Yup. Three. All up to date. One is my meal planner. The other two are versions of the same planner, only one is for the house and one is a smaller planner for carrying in my bag. Yes, I do know they have made it so you can have these things online in the 21st century. But I have an online planner, too, weirdos. I just like to write things down so I can see them. Remember them. Cross them off. You get the gist. Anyway. Back to the To Dos.
This accumulation of things includes a lot of very heavy material such as scheduling past due doctor’s appointments, gearing up for my surgery, and filing paperwork to defer my student loan payments, but there’s also another section dedicated to things I very much want to do. A wish list, for lack of a better term. Or maybe we should call it a “Work Toward.” Regardless of what I name it, it’s an ever-growing catalogue of things I want to do for the first time, or was able to do in the past, and would like to do again once I have the physical ability. This morning seems like the perfect time to document bits and pieces to get my blood pumping and my soul excited for the dawn of an infant year. A year I have ZERO plans of wasting! In absolutely no particular order, here are some of the things on my “Work Toward!”
Traveling. In my heart, I’m a pure world-traveler. A glorious partaker of wanderlust. In my teens and early twenties, I conquered a good chunk of the British Isles, Ireland, and mainland Europe. Then I started getting wider in the body and air-travel became a phobic experience. Literally trauma-inducing. The last cool place I visited on an airplane was Montreal several years ago. I’d like to see more places. Maybe get a world map. Stick some pins in it. And not worry that my body is taking up the space someone else paid for on the plane.
Roller Coasters. Or Amusement Parks in general. The last time I was able to ride a roller coaster without feeling like I might need to go to a hospital from trying to squeeze into the seat was when I was maybe 17? And that sucks because I LOVE roller coasters. I love rides. The only ones I can get on now are the type you can step down into. If I have to fit in a seat or climb into a seat? No dice.
Write an original full-length play. I’ve done several (very bad) one act plays and a full-length adaptation, but I’ve never written a full two act-er. I’m ready for that challenge and have already started a storyboard, research, and several sample monologues for a project that has the working title “Book of Hours.” After reading an article on the student who discovered new information about the circle of women who kept Anne Boleyn’s book of hours for Elizabeth I (a treasonable offense in Tudor England), I was struck with an idea for a play. The piece is an abstract story centering on Elizabeth I and her struggle to make the political decision to execute her cousin Mary Stuart. She turns to her mother’s Book of Hours for comfort and guidance, and suddenly Anne is there to guide her, along with the help of a Greek Chorus of women who helped protect and raise Elizabeth in a world patriarchal to the extreme. Nary is there a mention of ANY MAN. Not even the ones calling the shots. They might be referenced, but they’re never the “subject.” I’m out to pass the Bechdel Test with a Perfect. Fucking. Score. I also unashamedly love the women of English history between 1420 and 1603. She-Wolves. Mold-breakers.
Plan an entire Strand Season of new work by women. Did you know that playwrights rarely see the monetary equivalent of the full value of their art once they allow a publisher or play service to distribute rights to their work? It’s honestly disgraceful. That one hundred bucks a show you pay for your small theater to do a show for a few weekends? By the time the house takes their cut and pays their people, the sliver the playwright is entitled to is tiny. Because of this, I want us to be able to support new playwrights directly. Help to foster new writers in a world where the need for art is great. Don’t be fooled when people say the arts are a luxury. What did you do when we were all locked down? Read a book? Someone wrote that. It’s their art. Watch a show? Someone acted in that and directed it. Someone designed the costumes. Someone did the set design. That’s their art. Listen to a playlist to calm down when all you wanted was to have lunch with your mom and couldn’t? The person singing/playing that song? That’s their art. Now tell me again that art is a luxury. I’m going to hire playwrights you’ve never heard of. Who live down the street from us. Who deserve a chance to shoot their shot. And produce the hell out of their stories.
Swimming Pools. Growing up, we had a swimming pool in my backyard. From the time I was about 9 all the way through adulthood, my parents’ backyard was a favorite destination of friends and family. And I LOVE to swim. But once my compressed sciatic nerve started causing neuropathy in both of my feet and foot drop joined the party, my ability to climb steps without having to hold a railing became non-existent. And if you’ve ever seen the height of the top step of just about any swimming pool, you understand why it’s almost impossible for me to get into a pool. You’d think they’d design more pools with a ramp system. Cause, you know, the ability to exercise weightlessly is ideal for differently abled people like me – BUT WE HAVE TO BE ABLE TO GET IN THE DAMNED WATER (and preferably without the three-ring circus that is “using the handicap chair.” That. Is a story for another time.) I want to be able to swim. And water walk. And Zumba in a place where I don’t have to worry about falling.
Foray into Herbalism. I’ve always been interested in the medicinal and practical properties of plants. I remember being about 11 years old the first time I looked up plants in books. Desperately awkward, yet advanced, I was starting to love history and had my first introduction to “the old ways.” I would sit in my parents’ back garden, where I had fashioned myself a mortar and pestle out of a sawed-off broom handle and half a hollow cinderblock, and crush plants, lay them out to dry, see what they smelled like. Sometimes what they tasted like. What colors they made. As a woman in middle age, I’m rediscovering this love for learning about the bounty of the natural world and wanting to know more about how to get back to basics of using plants in medicine, cooking, etc. I have a pretty cool book – “The Green Witch” by Arin Murphy-Hiscock. Looking forward to getting into that.
Convince someone to let me use their kitchen to work through the Outlander cookbook. I got the Outlander cookbook a few years back as a Christmas gift. The recipes look amazing and are very traditional to what would have really been eaten during that time. While I know I won’t be able to eat all the things for surgical reasons, a lot of the satisfaction I get from cooking is trying new techniques. Also, there’s the bonus of that “Food is Love thing” I talked about in my last post. Preparing food is an art all its own. And really, the Cock-a-Leekie Stew sounds too good not to try. So, if you’re reading this and you want to volunteer as tribute, this is your chance.
This isn’t the end. In fact, it’s just the beginning! I’m going to re-name this blog (which currently has a working title of “Lest You Should Think It’s All the Blues” – lol) “Work Toward.” From time to time, I’ll add more of the 2347612398471293847 things in the cache as it strikes my fancy. Make sure you look for Part 2, coming in 2022!
Also. Tell me about your Work Toward in the comments. I’m listening!
Life of Riley 