Blog - Melissa Dinwiddie | Create the Impossible™ | Innovation Keynote Speaker & Consultant

October 24, 2010

Weekly Review #30: Big accomplishments

So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?

The Big Accomplishment

Scheduling surgery, it turns out, is a lot like scheduling a vacation, but without the fun parts.

Either way, you’re scheduling in time away from work and “normal life,” but of course you want to make sure your plans don’t conflict with any pre-existing commitments, such as gigs on the calendar.

If you’re doing something fun, like going overseas, this means allowing time to get over jet-lag.

If you’re going into surgery, it means allowing time to recuperate afterwards, a somewhat less predictable variable. (Not to mention less fun. Though I must confess I’m looking forward to catching up on my sleep and reading. And typical me, I’m also hoping to use the time to practice my ukulele and maybe write some new songs. I try to buck even enforced down time…)

Anxious as I am to get my knee fixed up (and more to the point, to get as much treatment as possible covered under my now-fully-paid 2010 calendar year insurance deductible), there are a couple of factors forcing me to wait to go under the knife:

First, I’ve got a Ladies of Jazz gig on November 5 (which also happens to be my birthday!)

If I’d had the surgery last week, I could have banked on being mobile enough to make the gig (though the leg brace I’ll have to wear for 6 weeks does hamper the “uke-diva” look I’m going for onstage…)

Second, I’ve got deadlines that I won’t be able to get done until the end of the month at the earliest. Since surgery the week of my gig was out of the question, it would have to wait until after the gig.

My chosen surgeon (the guy I went to for a second opinion, as a matter of fact – go for that second opinion, people!) does surgeries on Wednesday and Friday, and Wednesday was a harder day for my support team, so Friday, November 12 it is.

I’ll have my birthday and the week after to enjoy my freedom.

So, big accomplishment of the week: I got the surgeon and date nailed down.

The elusive quest for balance

Since the crappy week from hell, I’ve had the darnedest time getting myself back on my Ideal Daily Template.

The time-panic black hole sucked me back in. You know the one: “I don’t have time to make art today! I have way too much to do!”

Then, Wednesday, I revisited an old epiphany while driving someplace or other.

Here’s the truth: I can certainly afford to spend 15 minutes making art! And more important, as I figured out in a life coaching session, when I do spend a little time making art, it makes my whole day go better.

If I can get back to my Ideal Daily Template, in which I’m making art regularly, I’ll be happier and more productive at everything else I do!

Great! Yay!

Except that the rest of the week I was out of my studio from morning til night for a conference, so there went my aspirations for getting back to my Ideal Daily Template this week.

Aw, well. As I heard some brilliant person say once, times of imbalance are part and parcel of a life of overall balance.

So there I was on Thursday, driving through rush hour traffic to get to the opening concert of the FAR-West conference for folk artists, presenters and radio programmers, sputtering curses at myself for signing up for this thing.

What the hell had I been thinking?

I knew nothing about FAR-West when I registered, except that it was supposed to be a great networking opportunity.

But with only a single set worth of original material to solo with (I’ve got hours of jazz standards I can sing with a band, but soloing is a different animal), I’m not even in a position to start soliciting headliner gigs. I was beginning to have doubts. Would this conference even be worth the time for me?

Here I am, slammed with loose ends to get tied up before my surgery, and I’m taking three days away from work??

And..?

It’s late, and I’m committed to getting back to my, well, commitment to getting to bed at a reasonable hour (an experiment I’ll have to write about later), so I’m not going to go into detail tonight, but suffice it to say that FAR-West turned out to be a fantastic investment in time and money, and I am so glad I went!

Off the top of my head:

I heard incredible music all weekend
I learned a ton in the panels and workshops
I met amazing people
I found new artists to interview for the Thriving Artists Project
I made connections with concert series and house concert presenters that may someday turn into gigging opportunities
I met other artists I may be able to perform with, share gigs with or collaborate with in other ways
I found new contributors to 365 Days of Genius
I was inspired to focus more consistently on my songwriting (yet one more item to add to my Ideal Daily Template)
I got to jam a bit on my ukulele
I got a great sense of what happens at FAR-West, so I’ll be prepared to leap into the deep end next year

And perhaps most important, I got a peek into the world of folk music, a world I was only somewhat aware of before, and which I think might be a new home. (Could it be that I’m actually a folk singer? It seems that umbrella is larger than I’d thought.)

But I’ll have to write more about that later, because, look at me, I’m shutting down!

Perhaps the biggest accomplishment of all.

October 22, 2010

Your turn (but only if you’re a TAP insider…)

Just a quick little note to let you know that if you’re at all interested in the Thriving Artists Project, I want to hear from you.

(Don’t know about the Thriving Artists Project? In short, it’s a cool course I’m creating, the heart of which is interviews with a bunch of successful artists and creatives in a variety of different fields, all of whom are making a living from their creative thing. Want more info? Just click on the Thriving Artists Project link for a full explanation.)

I’ve been working hard on this course, and want to make it the best it can be, but I need your help. In order to make the Thriving Artists Project a course that will help inspire and motivate you to live your dreams, I need to hear directly from you what speaks to you, and what would help you most.

So here’s the deal: sign up on the ground floor inner circle advance notification list (if you haven’t already), and in the next few days I’ll send all ground floor inner circle peeps a link to a short questionnaire.

Not only will your answers help me create the best course possible, but everyone who fills out the questionnaire will automatically be entered in a drawing to win the full version of the Thriving Artists Project when it’s done!

Sound cool?

If you haven’t signed up yet, do it right now so you don’t forget. Then watch your mailbox for the link to the questionnaire.

~Melissa

PS – All ground floor insiders also get a free bonus interview, just for signing up on the advance notification list.

October 17, 2010

Weekly Review #29: In which the Universe apparently decided I needed a break

So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?

In case you were wondering, it turns out that dislocating your knee and losing your sweet Louis-kitty all in one week kinda prevents a person from getting stuff done.

Apparently (as it says above) the Universe decided I needed a break.

Will she ever learn that resistance is futile?

Typical me, though, I did my damnedest not to take one.

But though I’m pretty darned headstrong, it turns out the Universe is a bit more headstrong than I am. (As I should already know, having felt more than once the tap of its 2×4 upside my head!)

All of this is to say, I spent much of the week figuring out how to maneuver up and down my stairs with crutches, racing to the vet, crying over Louis-of-blessed-memory, dealing with a clogged print head on my Epson 7600 (on crutches – did I mention that?), crying some more, calling to see if the broken MRI machine had been fixed yet (so that I could get my damned MRI and make it in time to my follow-up visit, which wouldn’t really do a whole lotta good if there wasn’t an MRI to follow-up on), crying some more, and waiting around in doctor’s offices.

So.

The week that was supposed to be one of record-breaking productivity for my e-course in progress, the Living A Creative Life Guide to Happiness, and website-in-progress, 365 Days of Genius… wasn’t.

Ah, well.

I still learned (and re-learned) some valuable things.

What I learned this week

In no particular order:

Who is really there for me when I need help
More people comment on a blog post about the loss of a pet than just about anything else
Anything can happen at any time
Shower stools are very, very useful
As long as you can put some weight on your foot (or if you have a handrail that can support your weight), getting up and down a stairway feels much more stable with one crutch than with two
When the Universe declares it’s time for you to take a rest, there’s really no sense in resisting

Plus, despite it all, I had a fantastic gig last night with the Ladies of Jazz (come to our show on November 5!), in which I learned that a crutch can be a surprisingly useful prop for a comedic performer.

And then there was the Kojak/Columbo/Quincy/CSI Moment:

The Curious Incident of the Cat in the Morning

Although you’d never know it from my demeanor in the (rough shot) concert video, I’ve been pretty busted up about Louis.

The loss of my sweet familiar leaves a hole in my heart, and not knowing what happened to the poor little guy was eating me up inside.

Then, the perceptive discovery by a friend of mine that there were tooth marks on an extension cord near his body suddenly made it all clear: the loud bang and thump; the position of his body; the unexplained death of a young, healthy cat… who had a very doglike propensity for gnawing on things.

The damn cat electrocuted himself!

Finding comedy within tragedy

Okay, people, this is not funny. It’s tragic. I miss Louis terribly, my heart aches for him, and I feel like a horrible kitty-mommy for not eliminating all electrical cables from my entire house and just living like the Amish. I’m sure I will be condemned by the PETA people for my negligence.

But you gotta admit, at least he went quickly, and the little fellow died doing something he loved.

(Which led to a rambling journal entry this morning questioning whether it’s better to live a long life not doing the things you love, or to kick the bucket at a young age following your bliss. As if the Universe ever really sets up such either-or deals, but hell, these are the kinds of questions philosophers have asked for eons. All I can say is, I guess I’m kinda glad that my passions don’t tend to be things that normally cause bodily harm – I’m a notorious wuss in this way. ‘Cause when I think about it, if instead of painting and writing and singing, etc, I were passionate about, say, skydiving or speed skiing or race car driving, I’m pretty sure I know what my answer would be. And no, it wouldn’t be the safe route.)

And before you condemn me for my callousness, think about this: if you can’t keep your sense of humor during times of trial, you might as well just kill yourself. (Did I mention I was cracking jokes between gasps when the EMTs were splinting up my dislocated-knee leg and looking for a vein to start the morphine drip?)

Louis is not coming back. At least I can honor the memory of my silly monkey kitty with some humor.

There’s got to be a song in this somewhere.

But I don’t know that I’ll be writing it yet, because I’ve got a slew of work to do to get ready for the enforced “vacation” I’ll have post-surgery in a few weeks. (If you can call several days on pain killers and a few weeks on crutches while my knee integrates a new [to me] cadaver ligament a vacation…)

Next time, if I have any say in the matter, let it be noted that I’d prefer a trip to Bali.

And now I’m going to do my best to continue the habit my life coach helped me start last week by making a deal with me to get to bed by 11:00pm or midnight at the latest. (A topic that deserves its own post, which perhaps someday I’ll actually get to. But now I’m going to bed.)

Over & out.

October 15, 2010

R.I.P. Louis the Cat

I’ve struggled with how to start this post. I’ve tried out at least eight or ten different openings, but nothing’s working, and I keep bursting into tears.

So. I’ll just come right out and say it. Yesterday morning, my three-year old beloved monkey of a cat, Louis, suddenly died.

[Time out to cry a bit.]

The night before, my friend Michele had brought over dinner from Whole Foods. There was girl talk. There was laughter. There was flirting with Nika, the fluffy girl kitty (aka the Evil Queen, because she’s such a %$@&ing bully to Louis. Plus the fact that she pees on the bed).

Michele asked where Louis, my other kitty was. Most certainly upstairs, I said. Shy, that one.

But when Michele went to leave, there he was, half-way down the stairs, looking out between the bars. Charmed by his handsome face, Michele stepped over to introduce herself. And much to my delight, instead of escaping to a safe distance at the top of the stairs, Louis investigated her finger, and proceeded to spend the next ten minutes flirting outrageously.

He rubbed his cheek against her finger. He plopped over on the step. He rolled onto his back and looked at her upside down while batting with soft paws at her finger. In short, he pulled out all the stops on his “Louis the monkey-cat” routine.

He had us all in the palm of his little paw.

A few minutes later Michele said goodbye, I went to bed, and although my knee is still pretty messed up, all was well in the world.

The next morning everything changed.

I had just woken up, when I heard a loud THUMP, as if something heavy had fallen from a great height. When I left my bedroom, there was my beloved Louis, lying dead on the floor, apparently from a seizure or a hidden heart condition.

Louis, oh Louis. How could you go? I was expecting you to co-star in my videoblogs for at least another decade. I planned a series of “X minutes in the life of Louis the Cat” videos. (Plus, vengeful spirit that I am, I lived each day in anticipation of a time, years hence, when you might grow some balls and the Evil Queen, old and arthritic by then, might finally get her comeuppance.)

Why do the good ones always seem to get taken much too soon?

[Time out for another crying jag.]

Louis, I miss you.

Here, then, is my little memorial to you, dear Mr. Boo, my monkey-kitty. Even though you sometimes annoyed the hell out of me, I miss you and I want you back, goddamnit. I love you, sweet kitty, and I always will.

Louis the Cat
July 15, 2007 (approx.)-October 14, 2010
In Memoriam

The beginning

Three years ago today (exactly), my neighbor, Brendan, sent around an email with a photo of a kitten he was fostering:

Hello.
If you know of anyone looking for a male orange tabby kitten, let me know, I’ve got one at my house, one picture is attached. 😉

This little guy was howling in the bushes at work last week, but a really nice guy named Ivor from a place called Fat Cat Rescue met me there on Saturday, and caught him in about 10 minutes.

…

He sat on my lap for two hours last night purring, he’s pretty tame, so I think he was dumped in our business park, seems too civilized to be feral. I haven’t heard him meow once since we caught him, which is kind of weird, and he uses the litter box too.

Cheers,
Brendan

The decision

As it happens, I was actually considering getting a second cat, and if I were to get another kitty, I knew I wanted an orange male tabby (since they tend to be such awesome guys).

Now the Universe was handing me an orange male tabby for the taking, if I wanted him. How could I turn down such an offer from the Universe?

But I was conflicted. My other cat, Nika, was hypo-allergenic (a Siberian, the result of a relationship with an allergic boyfriend), and now I was single again. Adding a “regular” cat to the menagerie would effectively defeat the purpose of having a hypo-allergenic kitty – in one fell swoop effectively eliminating all cat-allergic men from my dating pool.

What’s a girl to do?

I replied to Brendan’s email:

I don’t know if I can adopt him, but I want to meet him!!!

Ha. Famous last words.

Love at first hiss

Louis, you hissed at me from your corner in the cat carrier in Brendan’s bathroom, but within a minute or two your hisses were accompanied by a background of loud purring. And a few minutes later you were rubbing against my hand. Then out of the carrier, and it wasn’t long before you were climbing up into my lap!

It was meant to be, Louis. You and me, redheaded soul spirits. Here are some of my memories of you:

Because Nika was such a %$*&ing bully, you spent most of your time in my studio with me, while the Evil Queen owned the downstairs. You were my studio friend, my familiar. The windowsill was your favorite perch, though you also wore me down in the battle over the drafting table, and co-starred in a number of my videoblogs either napping or bathing or roaming around on its surface.

I shrieked at you on a number of occasions when you ran across some artwork I was creating for a client, but somehow you thankfully managed never to damage anything.

I miss you coming to visit me at my computer, looking up at me with your big, loving eyes. Words cannot express how much I loved feeling your little body leaning against my calf, your tail twining up my knee.

On the other hand, you also took small chunks of flesh out of my thighs when you leaped into my lap and didn’t quite make it all the way… And you drove me crazy walking to and fro in front of my monitor when you wanted to be fed. Nutty kitty.

No longer will you climb onto the back of my computer chair and lick my hair.

No more will I worry about tripping over you on the stairs. (You never moved, you crazy beast! You’d just lie there, tail directly in the path of my foot, looking up at me. Not a day passed when I didn’t almost smoosh you on the way up or down the steps. You weren’t the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes.)

I miss you being in my way, Louis. What I would give to have you blocking my steps on the stairs again.

You made funny clicking sounds at birds in the tree outside. You had the funniest way of shaking your head that I’ve never seen in another cat. In the mornings, when I’d finally emerge to your piteous cries of “feed me,” you’d turn tail and run just like a character in a cartoon, leaving part of your body behind for a moment.

Of all the cats I’ve ever had, you also had the most expressive voice, and cracked me up on a daily basis.

I have way too few photos and videos of you, but I’m glad I’ve got this one, which captures your monkey spirit, and your one-of-a-kind voice:

In the past few weeks you were even getting some cojones, making inroads into Nika’s territory, even teasing her on occasion. Sometimes she even backed down! (I always cheered for your team.) I had hopes that maybe you’d tilt the hierarchy in your direction and give the Evil Queen a taste of her own medicine. But maybe you were too sweet for that.

I wonder if I could have saved you if I’d gotten outside my bedroom faster. I like to think you went too quickly for that, quickly and without pain. I like to think you didn’t suffer. I like to think you knew how much I loved you.

Louis, I miss you. I’ve been pretty nonfunctional for the past couple of days, and I feel like I can barely string a sentence together. Sorry if this memorial isn’t up to snuff. I know you’ll forgive me though; you never required anything of me but love, and two meals a day.

Rest in peace little buddy.

October 11, 2010

Gratitude for Good Friends, Cadaver Parts and Blood-Filled Syringes

Turns out a girl with a dislocated kneecap has a lot to be thankful for.

Blood-filled syringes, for one. The sports med doc used an enormous syringe to drain 60cc of blood out of my swollen knee today. (Apparently this is equivalent to 2 oz, though I swear it looked more like a pint from where I was sitting.)

Pretty gross, but I can’t tell you how much difference that made! Instead of a grapefruit, my knee now looks more like a large Fuji apple. Plus I can actually bear weight on it, and lift it without using my hands to help. I’m now getting up and down the stairs with one crutch, meaning I feel much less like I’m liable to topple over and add a broken neck to the dislocated knee.

This is a huge improvement.

I’m also grateful for cadaver parts.

The last time my kneecap decided to take a powder on the side of my leg for a few hours, the technology available for repairing such mishaps was pretty Dark Ages compared to now. Looks like this time around I’ll get a brand new (to me) tendon from a cadaver, giving me (after a grueling 6-month recovery period) a knee far superior than the previous model.

At least that’s what they say, and I’m choosing to believe it.

Meanwhile, the outflowing of support from friends, family and acquaintances has been nothing short of amazing. Some people in particular (you know who you are) have gone well above and beyond the call of duty to make me feel safe, comfortable, taken care of and loved.

I’m seeing the true nature of people in my circle, and I’m speechless with gratitude and appreciation.

I’m really not looking forward to the surgery and its painful aftermath or grueling recovery, but I feel fortunate indeed. Yes, in an instant everything changed, and not in a good way, but it could have been a lot worse.

I could have been struck by lightning and killed. I could have been downed by a stroke or an aneurysm. I could have had my foot and shoulder mangled by a scooter accident, like a client of my life coach’s, who was in a wheelchair with metal rods sticking out of her feet for 3 months. I could be one of the cadavers donating my good knee’s tendon to someone else.

I’m choosing to focus on what I can be grateful for, and what’s going well. I’m choosing happiness.

And you?