Now What?

The typical question to hear when finishing a step in life is What are you going to do NOW?

Thankfully, as I'm completing my MFA, I'm transitioning to a full schedule out of an impossible one. This means I will still have plenty of hours occupied by teaching, writing/creating and preparing for a staged reading performance early next month. I'm not dropping off to depressing absolute inactivity, but will have time to accomplish my tasks ahead in a manageable way, and wondering less how am I going to get through this? 

So, a lot of my life will look the same. However, there will be changes. 

Here are some new (or renewed) things I'm going to do now that I'm at the finishing point in my degree requirements for my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts at California Institute of Integral Studies:

Go on more walks.
Ride my bike more than drive.
Make use of Boise public transit systems.
Treat my car as a luxury.
Do my taxes.
Clean my room.
Play with a little kitten named Elliot.
Help my partner and his neighbor garden in their backyard.
Read things that draw my attention, not necessarily for a specific project or assignment.
Spend time with my mom.
Visit my dad's grave.
Write friends letters.
Watch the sky.
Catch up on sleep.
Write a lot of thank you notes.
Plan a vacation.
Pay attention to how my skin lays over my bones.
Organize the files and papers accumulated over the last two years.
Go through items that I've let pile up over the last 32 years -- What to keep? What to go?
Eat more vegetables than peanut butter, banana and honey sandwiches.
Move items out of my mom's house, stored there in boxes since my last breakup.
Laugh at jokes.
Get back into yoga. 
Make new discoveries.
Bring old projects back to life.
Begin new endeavors.
Bit by bit break out of my ascetic hermit cave.
Remember how to drink a beer and enjoy it -- or even a cup of coffee.
Let the desert sand tension that's accumulated into a rhino's tough skin dissolve.
Decide what animal I am now and what that skin looks like -- is it a feathery texture?
Dream more. Daydream. Nightdream. 
Practice looking people in the eye when I talk to them, especially about difficult things. 
Practice listening with my whole body, without fidgeting my eyes elsewhere on a note.
There is a time for planning. There is a time to be present. Learn the difference.
Plan a trip to New York. 
Think about what I want next. 
Where do I want to be? Where am I now? What's holding me back? What is my next step?
Write and continue writing every day. That's my air. But I have to breathe before and after, too.
Move my body.
Make theater that's the gymnasium for the soul, starting with my own spirit/body.

Enjoy the work.

​Be well, take your time, and make something beautiful today.

This little lady is less of a kitten every day. Quality time with her matters.