The Long and Winding Road

Happy New Year!  I sort of dropped off the blogosphere for a while.  I've been getting comfortable and confident in my techno endeavors and looking forward to what comes next in the business of NellsBelles.

The other day, my BFF elbowed me into violating one of my social principals.  Years ago, I swore off anything that even vaguely looks and feels like a "chain letter".  I caught on quickly to the gifts and games on FB and told all my friends I wouldn't be playing or exchanging gifts with them - ever.  When political statements come along with the proviso to "copy and post to your page", no matter if I'm with you or not, I will not follow.  So when the BFF sent me a FB note to declare my New Year's resolutions and forward to 10 friends, I winced and acted against my better judgement.  Now, this is the place where I let you know that most everyone I know has also taken a stand on the ole' pass it on and you'll get rich, happy, peaceful - whatever, thing so my well intentioned pals wished me luck, some told me I was brave to pull my panties down in public, and no one declared their ten things even for just me to read in reciprocity!  My face, she is red.

Okay.  The damage is done and I have now publicly exposed my goals for 2011.  I always do it anyway.  Every New Year's Eve, I look back on the previous year's New Year's journal entry, review my successes and failures, how things shifted and (hopefully) grew and set out an action plan for the year to come.  However, no one ever looks at my journal but me so guess how many people know what I'm up to.

I have been at war with my body for my entire life.  (This really does pertain to my business.  Bear with me.)  Therefore it follows that every New Year's Eve I make some commitment to myself to take action to change myself physically.  Some context:  in my first life, I was a dancer.   In my teen aged years, I was considered a chubby dancer at a size 7 junior.  As an adult I was always chasing 5 more LBs even as I dipped below 100 pounds.  I was put on my first diet in the third grade and I have fasted as long as two weeks.  (That was so I could bear to climb into a shiny white unitard and be seen in public performing.)  You get the picture and don't 'cha know, number one on my list this year was to stop being fat (pregnancy - 18 years ago).

Step number one for me is always to get moving.  Now I do do exercise.  After all, it was my religion as well as my profession for many years.  It's just that I don't push myself too hard and skipping a day or a week or a month just doesn't get under my skin as much as it used to.  But I have declared, in public, (damn you Kate!) that I am going to stop being fat.

I play no sports.  I used to take 1o:00 class every morning, for decades, on top of whatever other classes I took that day, classes I taught or whatever I might be rehearsing.  Not doing this was not an option.  Not taking morning class was like deciding not to show up at your job at the bank until after lunch - just because.  With this in mind please know I have a little chip on my shoulder and I get bored easily.  I hate being bored.  I have a lot of tricks I play on myself to get into motion from drawing random cards from yoga decks to switching off between 10 Minutes a Day to 8 Minutes In the Morning.  Clearly my heart isn't in it and my commitment to it all is drudgingly difficult to maintain.  But without motion and movement there is no hope for me to alter my appearance and shop for a different sized clothing.

I shall suck it up.

So.  Here's the business part.  This morning I drew some cards from the yoga deck.  One of the poses was a bendy-stretchy kind of thing on my back and when I went to reach for my leg, I couldn't get ahold of it!  I used to be a veritable circus act of limberness.  I could drop down into a full split in the blink of an eye and sit down on the floor with my legs out to the side, put my chest on the floor in front of me and take a nap.  Not being able to reach my own leg to perform a little stretching exercise did not make me happy.  Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe through your limitations and accept where you are now.

Whoa.  There I lay, with my yoga strap around my leg so I could hoist it toward my chest trying to accept my limitations.  But wait.  What if, I said to myself.  What if the distance between my knee cap and my breast is potential and not a limit?  What if I see that space as useful and productive?  What if that distance is the opportunity to travel?  Breathe and be happy you have somewhere to go! 

My husband took some left over vacation days during the holidays and I decided that we were both going to rest, sleep, nap, watch movies and probably not vacuum up all the dog hair for a week.  During this time, I decided that the next step I need to take in moving NellsBells forward is to promote myself.  Put myself out there.  Make a splash.  Be the gal whose work shows up in Lucky magazine as the next great find.  I decided to go back to all my books and reference materials and begin the process of having something like a press package, put out regular submissions to blogs and magazines and perhaps do a little advertising here and there.  Last year's goal was to get the business up and running.  This year I want to put it on the map.

I got a great new year gift yesterday.  Someone sent me an email asking if I was interested in purchasing some of her jewelry scraps.  She had seen a picture of one of my necklaces in New Jersey Monthly magazine in an article about the Craft Lounge (a shop that sells some of my work).  What?  Me in a magazine?  I ran to Borders and bought a copy and stood in the middle of the store, giggling to myself.  I couldn't stop staring at the picture of my necklace, professionally photographed and printed on the glossy page of a magazine.  Ask and ye shall receive.

So as I was trying to pull my knee to my chest and not being very happy with the results, I really, really got that we have to begin and once we begin we have someplace to go.