The Experiment: Day 362 ~ In The Final Days Of This Experiment…

One month ago I was looking with excitement to the end of this experiment, to the knowledge that I would have blogged for 365 consecutive days without missing a day, and oh what a journey it had been. I was already planning the next year’s experiment, a year of drawing and painting Anna, my alter-ego, and writing an illustrated book, chronicling the journey of doing it all here over the next 365 day period, but, as is said, life is what happens when you are making other plans. Hurricane Florence swept in, the power went out for a week, the blogging journey came to an abrupt halt as the hurricane hit and, in the dark days after the hurricane I realized that I could not spend the next year creating a delightful, fun, artful experiment. Too much had happened. The hurricane ravaged this town, people died and lost their homes, most of us have scary messes to deal with that we will be dealing with for some time, all of a sudden the fun project with Anna was no longer relevant nor did I care about it. There were deeper issues at hand.

In the days after the hurricane I read by flashlight and lantern a book that moved me deeply. It was Julia Cameron’s memoir Floor Sample. It was positively riveting. People know her for her seminal work with “morning pages” in The Artist’s Way, but have no idea how and why that work originated. It came out of clinging to writing 3 pages a day as she was trying to get sober after a devastating 20 years of alcoholism and drug abuse and many breakdowns and bouts of mental illness. I could not put it down and read for hours as torrential rains hit the house after the devastation of the hurricane. What I saw was not the delightful author of The Artist’s Way but an incredible survivor. A woman who many times over could have died from acute alcoholism, terrifying breakdowns where she had completely lost touch with reality and had to be taken by police into custody to the safety of a mental hospital, and more. What I saw was a woman who survived, and is surviving, and continues to deal with mental health issues but carries on. What I knew, as I sat in the darkness scribbling in my own notebook was that what I needed to write about was survival. Surviving … hurricanes, mental illness, aging, and more. Just plain surviving. Each and every one of us surviving what we must and do each and every day.

In the aftermath of this hurricane with a tree on the house and trees down everywhere and trees through my fence and my big double gate going into the back yard that provided safety for my dogs broken and unusable and a whole host of other things that needed to be done was that I myself was broken too. I have written about this in the past days. Mental illness does not disappear. It abates or goes into remission with treatment and medication and constant self-care and vigilance but coming out of this hurricane all of my mental health issues were waving red flags and I was terrified. I don’t begin to know how long it will take before I am right again, or as right, as okay, as I will ever be able to be. There is no magic pill or treatment that will remove this suffering from me completely. I have to survive, moment by moment, day by day, as best I can. Many of us, perhaps most of us, are surviving our own set of circumstances, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial and more. Right now trying to survive every one of those things has left me on shaky ground.

And yes, as I wrote about yesterday there are little miracles, there are angels, there has been help, but there is still so much to do, to fix, to cope with, to survive. None of this will be an easy fix for us here.

In the last days, however, something has shifted in me, something that hasn’t wanted to spend a year writing about surviving. It has seemed too harsh, too, well, something that could create an atmosphere of always writing about the hard things in life, and surely, though things are very hard right now, they surely aren’t all hard. Yes, there were those angels yesterday, yes, there is love and joy and beauty in the world. The end of this week my son and his family will be here for a visit and I will hold my 2 1/2 year old grandbaby in my arms. I don’t want to spend the next 365 days writing about surviving, so, then, what do I write about? This has left me stumped and I’m running out of time to figure it out. This Thursday is Day 365 of this 365 day experiment and Friday I will begin the next one. It is how I have planned this, to carry right on into the next project, and I both want to do it, need to do it, and have other dear souls whom I invited to do their own 365 day project and work right along with me on their own blogs who have waited to start with me until I could get there since I had the delay with the hurricane and power outage.

I am not sure yet what Friday will bring on this blog. It feels like it wants to be gentler, and more open. I have learned that I meant well with naming this current 365 day experiment a search for happiness but much of the time that’s not what I wrote about at all, and it is surely not where I am ending. I am living in a post hurricane world as I write these last 4 blog posts and I am sad and scared and lost. Much of what I will be writing about will be about surviving because this is simply where I am, but how to be more inclusive of all of life? I jotted a note down yesterday… “365 Days Of Surviving and Thriving With Grace, Faith, and Determination.” That feels closer, but it’s a mouthful! I’m still thinking.

I have 4 days. Do you have any thoughts? When you read my blog what is it that you come for? What is it that I write about that helps you? Is there something you would like to see me write about? I am open to suggestions, I will consider what you have to say.

Today is yet another day of post hurricane recovery and I have a list of things to tend to here. I will keep thinking. And like everyone else in this storm damaged town I will carry on.

The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda

Comments

  1. My dear Maitri,
    Thank you so much for your never ending honesty, openess, and gentle spirit. Those are the things that bring me back. I know you are dealing with what comes to you the best you can. It inspires me to go forth with all my flaws, my emotional baggage and hurts. It makes me want to continue and learn and be driven to continue my writing.
    Thank you for being you.
    Gentle hugs,
    Lauren

    • Thank you for your kind words dear Lauren and I am so glad that you will be blogging along too. So nice to have companions on the journey. We can do this honey, whatever comes up, we can do it all. And I am hugging you right back, always…

  2. katya taylor says

    A Year in the Life of Maitri seems all-inclusive! your on-going journey, your dreams, hopes, fears, struggles, joys, writing, painting, therapy, keto, pugs, unexpected gifts, precious moments, wrestling with demons, it’s all part of your ongoing pilgrimage!!!

    does it have to have an overarching theme? if so, perhaps it will come to you, as you begin and continue… trust that it will

    xo
    ka

    • Thank you Katya honey, and for me it feels like it wants to have an overarching theme I think because this time I wanted to collect the blog posts as I go along, after I post them here each day putting them in a MS Word document toward making a book of the year’s journey so a theme would be helpful. That was my thought anyway. But everything has been so topsy turvy since the hurricane hit it has been hard to see my way clear. I suppose all will be revealed in time…

      M. xoxox

  3. Perhaps the key is that your previous 365 journey didn’t “follow” the theme, but that it’s been remarkable both for you and those of us (at least me), who would read your blog before, but with a daily feed, read it everyday.

    I like the “surviving and thriving with grace” theme — that’s the spirit that I find so encouraging in your posts. Yes, you get down in the valleys, but you’re able to somehow find a way back up — that’s inspiring to me.

    • Thank you so much dear Lisa and I am delighted that as I carry on blogging so do you. What journeys we are both on. Yes, I think Surviving and Thriving is what my life is all about. I have to survive and I intend to thrive in as much as I am able with grace and grit as the saying goes. And so must we all. And thank you for your kind words, as always they mean so much to me…

  4. Whatever theme you choose I will read because I like reading what you write- good times and bad. You are real. You never claim to “know” how things should be; you reflect, you dream, you let your emotions show. I relate to that. Thank you.
    I hope to join you on the new 365 (it’s an adventure!) but will be away from internet access for most of the month- so I will be a little late. I’m looking forward to what you will decide!

    • Thank you so much dear Lorraine, I appreciate your kind words and am so honored that you come here to read my posts and I am delighted for you to undertake your own 365 day journey. I promise you it is life-changing, it has surely helped and saved me so many days and given me something to hold onto during the darkest most difficult days. I think I will indeed be writing about surviving and thriving, in the end it seems to best describe what I try to do in my life as well as on this blog. I think it will hold the year’s blog posts well…

  5. You are an honest and transparent person. Your writing is well done and your topics very interesting. You encourage others and you’re a spiritual person. I love that. That’s mostly why I come everyday. Muchos hugs, Memarge

    • Thank you so much dear Marge, I always love seeing you here and appreciate so much that you come as you do. And I am sending you hugs too, always…

  6. Paula Brown says

    I come back because these posts seems like a personal visit with you. I see your world. I see your compassion, your strength. Yes, you know you are strong, you are a survivor. Having suffered a debilitating depression I know the struggle to just go on with the daily activities of life in the hard times. I admire your persistence. I adore your humor, your stories about the pugs and the rest of your family and circle of friends, which, thanks to the hurricane has grown. You are a blessing.

    • Oh my dear dear friend Paula, we have journeyed on in our parallel lives for some time now haven’t we. I adore you and your friendship means so much. And I know you have known depression too. Thank you for being here with me as I am with you in spirit. I wish gentle days for both of us in the year ahead and always. And I am sending you a gentle, warm hug…

Leave a Comment

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.