A good first day of the month, and a change to the 12 Things

 

Today was a good first day of the month. I have been struggling with a poem I needed to write for one of my poetry books, and this morning I finally wrote a draft of it which I felt was satisfactory. Enough to stick in the book, anyway!

 

I also started writing another poetry book. I’ll share more details about it later!

 

I got all of my workouts done today. And I figured that since I was tracking my yoga on my Apple Watch, why not track the Tae Kwon Do as well? So I tried that out today and the results were … interesting. Not sure if I will keep using it.

 

My 12 Things for this year did not go well. In August, I had hoped to learn how to swim. I never really learned how to swim because every time I go underwater, I go into immediate panic mode. Seriously, I get scared, flail my arms and everything. One of my friends told me that some people have that problem. I always wondered if it was because I almost drowned in the ocean when I was a little kid. (My family took a day out at the beach and I had wandered too far out into the water and a wave swept me out into the ocean but, fortunately, I eventually ended up right back on shore – as if the waves of the ocean brought me back!) Anyway, because of the delta variant hitting and cases of COVID-19 going back up in my county, things were shut down again. I couldn’t figure out how to get someone to teach me how to swim, let alone not freak out every time I go underwater. So that didn’t work out. Then I tried to learn how to grow a vegetable garden (another goal), but despite constantly being assured I’d be connected with someone who would teach me, that never happened.

 

The same thing happened in September. I was trying to get help to learn how to turn song lyrics into a song but one person never got back to me about it and another person got too busy, I guess.

 

So I guess I am back to just relying on books to learn stuff!

 

Which brings me to the book I started reading today. I had read a book about songwriting, but it was too technical and hard for me to understand. It also gave me the impression that I had to be able to hear to be a songwriter. I don’t want to believe that. I want to believe that a deaf person can absolutely be a songwriter. I was NOT born deaf! I lost my hearing when I was 13. By then, I KNEW music. Heck, I even sang it sometimes! I wanted to start a band with my sister and friends! I listened to music every day. Lots of different kinds of music, too. So I was familiar with music before I lost my hearing. Well, I started reading another book today. This one is called Songwriting: Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure by Pat Pattison. I have read some of it today and so far, so good. It is not hard to understand. It seems to teach the fundamentals of writing lyrics and I think that is super important for every songwriter to understand.

 

It's a start, anyway.

 

The other things I wanted to learn – swimming, archery, rock climbing, etc. – will all have to wait until it’s safe to go out into the Big Outside again. When everything is open again (WITHOUT the threat of shutting down AGAIN) and when we can all start patronizing businesses again.

 

So I had to change my 12 Things project. Now it’s just writing stuff.

 

So, the writing things I will focus on for the rest of the year are things I hope to earn an income from, at some point. I don’t think I will pursue copywriting after all. There’s just too much about it that someone like me, an introvert with social anxiety and poor people skills (ask any of my former coworkers!), would be very good at. There are two other things I have in mind, though. I need to think on them some more first.

 

As to the celebrations, I might do them again every once in a while. But not every day, and not today. Today was all about “first day of the month” stuff, and it was a good first day of the month.