Weekend review: My need for mindfulness

I was thinking this morning about habit and schedule, and how these two things affect life in general. For the past several days, my schedule has been thrown for a loop. I've had a lot to do, some of it under deadline pressure, and I've handled it all relatively well -- but not as well as I would like.

It all began last week, when I started working on three projects simultaneously. These were: 1) an interview with Chance Shirley, director of the film "Interplanetary" which showed Sunday at the Sidewalk film festival; 2) the layout and design of the October issue of Magic City Blues News; and 3) the latest episode of my ongoing online serial story, Committed. I wanted to get both Chance's interview and the episode posted on my website by Friday, which would give me the weekend to work on the newsletter, which could then be at the printer on Monday.

The first part of the week went great; I stuck to my schedule, I made good progress on the episode, and I was able to get a lot of the grunt work done for the newsletter. But it started going downhill on Wednesday, when I stayed up until 2 a.m. working on the interview. There were pages and pages of notes that I transcribed from my conversations with Chance, and I was having a hard time pulling it together into a story that made sense. I woke up early on Thursday and kept at it, blowing off any kind of scheduling in favor of working on the one thing that demanded all of my attention. I ended up finishing the piece around 3 a.m. on Friday morning. I got about three hours of sleep, then got up and went to work posting the piece on my website.

Historically, I've never done well when I don't sleep, and Friday was no exception. I was a zombie most of the day (especially when I went into the Pork Palace that morning to make a delivery), and finishing the episode was out of the question. I ended up zoning out in front of the computer for most of the afternoon, and sleepwalked through my shift that night.

The weekend was no more restful. On Saturday, Jean, Juliana and I got up and headed to Georgia for a mini-family reunion. A good time (and an excellent dinner) was had by all. We got back to Homewood sometime between 9 and 10 o'clock after a three-hour drive. Dry weather on Sunday gave me an opportunity to mow the yard, and after that my friend Shawn and I went downtown to check out "Interplanetary" at Sidewalk.

(Quick aside on Sidewalk and "Interplanetary": Sunday was my first time to visit the Carver Theater, and I really enjoyed it. I was impressed with the crowd and even more impressed with how Chance's movie looked on the big screen. It would be a shame if he didn't get a good distribution deal for this movie; I think "Interplanetary" could be a serious cult classic if it gets just the right push.)

Jean and I relaxed for a bit Sunday evening, and then I got up early on Monday morning to finish up the newsletter for the Blues Society. I spent all day on it, and after a day of revisions, finally got everything uploaded to the printer last night.

Sure, a lot went on, and I busted my butt. However, the results weren't particularly stellar by my reckoning. Yes, I was pleased I got Chance's interview posted on Friday, but the piece was definitely not my best work. The newsletter didn't get to the printer as soon as I wanted, and we're still waiting for Episode 34 to make it onto arkirby.com.

I've always felt I was a seat-of-the-pants, spontaneous, fun-loving kind of fellow. And in many ways, I am. But I felt a little lost, panicked, and stressed out during the past several days, and it showed. Everything that has happened over the weekend got me... well, how to explain it... out of sorts. Ginched up a bit, as it were. Crabby, but not horribly so. Just a little bit off. I didn't really get up on the wrong side of the bed, but I set my foot down before I got up on the other side, know what I mean? Nothing particularly wrong, but I just didn't feel right.

I think I can attribute much of my unease to obvious factors: lack of sleep, deadline pressures, travel, etc., but I am almost absolutely certain that my un-right-ness comes from somewhere else; a place of mindfulness. I worked very, very hard, but without much thought or direction. I got worked up over details and lost sight of the big picture. I didn't breathe. I wasn't "in the now" in any sense. I wasn't living and working mindfully, and it put me out of sorts.

The cool thing about all this is that I can see it happening -- and I now know how to handle it. When I would encounter situations like this in the past, I'd just keep on trucking down that road, oblivious to whatever it was that I needed to do. I would work and work and do and do, with the result that nothing ever seemed to get done... until at some point, I would finally say, "Enough!" and get back to paying attention. As time passes, these instances are getting shorter and shorter, and it's easier than ever to get back into the swing of things.

So, today I am paying attention. I'm being mindful of what I do and I what I want. It feels good to be back on track.

One down, two to go!

One project in the can, two more to finish... and brother, am I tired.

There is absolutely nothing like a self-imposed deadline to get the creative juices flowing. I guess that's why I was up until 3:30 this morning, trying to knock out my interview with Birmingham filmmaker Chance Shirley. His new movie "Interplanetary" has its Alabama premiere on Sunday as part of the Sidewalk Moving Picture festival, and I'll be damned if I wasn't going to get the interview finished and up on the website by this morning. As such, a late night (and early morning, as I was up before 7:00) ensued. I like the end result, I hope Chance liked it as well, and maybe -- just maybe -- it will get a little more publicity for a great guy who makes smart and funny B-movies.

Now that the interview is in the can, I'll be turning my attention back to Episode 34 of Committed and the trials and travails of Tal and Liv Hooper. With some luck (and a lot of caffeine), I'll have that up later on this afternoon.

Once that's done, Jean and I will be finishing up the layout for the October issue of Magic City Blues News. It looks like it will be a good issue.

So enough with the blogging. I've got work to do!

Blues News, Committed, and Chance Shirley

I'm looking forward to today with a "let's get things done" eye. I'm feeling productive, creative even, and that's a good thing. I'm under a pretty tight deadline for this week, needing to work on three major projects:

• Episode 34 of Committed -- the conclusion to what I'm now calling "The Vulcan Park Incident" is coming along nicely. I'm hoping it will be as entertaining as I think it will be -- and it also features Birmingham's own Eric McGinty in a cameo role! Look for it sometime Friday on my site and on Scribd.
  
• Magic City Blues News -- Slowly but surely the October issue is coming together. It features a nice article about Gravy, which will reunite for this year's Blues Ball. Magic City Blues Society members can look for it early during the first week of October.
• Interview with Chance Shirley -- The Birmingham filmmaker expounds on how to make an epic science fiction film on no budget (hint: include a really cute woman wearing nothing but a space helmet). Look for it Friday on my site, arkirby.com.

Now, if I can just stay away from facebook and Twitter, I might get all this done!

Headed for the hills -- part V

It is funny how different people react to different situations. Take Jean, for example. Despite the rain and lack of anything similar to air in the air mattress, see was completely unaffected and slept like a rock for the rest of the night. On the other hand, I tossed, turned and grunted throughout the darkness, unable to sleep for more than half an hour at a time. When dawn finally made its watery appearance, I was tired (obviously) and achy (the result of lying on wrinkled vinyl all night).

I awoke first and found two things: 1) it was still raining, and hard from the sound of it; and 2) a good deal of water had found its way into the tent. Our midnight efforts at dam building in the dark were obviously not up to snuff.

I woke Jean, and we began to clean up the mess, with the rain pattering steadily on the top of the tent. But something happened that morning, something completely and utterly cool: We shrugged it off without a second thought. Where it would have been oh-so easy to start to bitchin' and moanin' about the wet and the mess and so forth, we didn't. We smiled and got to work. This was our vacation, and a little bit of rain wasn't going to spoil our fun! We made the best of it, cleaning out the tent as well as we could before we thought about doing something about breakfast.

Our stomachs were growling, Jean and I both needed coffee in the worst way, and we had a 10-mile paddle ahead of us later in the morning. A good breakfast would be invaluable. We had plenty of food, but it was all designed to be eaten cooked (I've never been one much for raw eggs). My plan all along had been to do all our cooking over an open fire, so we did not bring a camp stove. Even though from inside the tent it sounded like it was raining much harder than it actually was, it was still a very soggy morning. Building a fire in such weather would be difficult; not having any firewood made it impossible. I made a quick trek to the camp store to see about getting one of the handy bundles of wood they sold, but I found it closed, not to open for another two hours.

When I got back to camp, we made the only decision available: We would go into the town of Independence to see what awaited us there.

We got into the car and headed back toward civilization. This was our first good glimpse of the landscape, and both Jean and I were suitably impressed. We were surrounded by steep green hills, many topped with row after row of fir trees, others home to rolling meadows and cattle. Although the morning was gray and overcast, it was a beautiful sight. We passed a few barns but very few vehicles on our ten-minute drive into town.

I say "town" because Independence is one, albeit one with but a single traffic light. My first impression was that it was little more than a slightly wider spot in a very narrow road. An old courthouse sat in the small square along the main drag, and it was here that we turned to see what we could find in the way of vittles. We drove past the local high school just beginning to hum with Friday morning activity, then past a small shopping center with a grocery and a Mexican restaurant. A block or two further, and we were back into the countryside. We turned back around, and eventually pulled into a small restaurant across the street from the high school.
The sign outside proclaimed Aunt Bea's Express, and when we walked in the door, we found the place a good two-thirds full. We checked the menu; it consisted of short-order grill items, much like a diner, with a fairly extensive listing for breakfast items. A procession of locals walked to the counter and placed their orders, including a cheerleader in uniform who got a biscuit before walking out the door to school. We guessed it was pep rally day. A posse of old men sat and talked in one corner of the restaurant; like in small towns across America, the town's elders were holding morning court over coffee and scrambled eggs.

Jean and I got in line and placed our orders, and it wasn't long before we both had piping hot plates in front of us, with steaming black coffee in styrofoam cups on the side. I tore open two small packets of sugar and dumped them into my cup, then grinned at Jean as I stirred the coffee. It was going to be a good day.

To be continued...

Post-weekend update

Musings on a waterlogged Monday morning:

First things first: The rain has got to stop. This is not the Pacific Northwest, we are not in a temperate rainforest, and there is no reason for the rain to continue as it has for the past couple of weeks.

Yet still it comes down.

I'm starting to see some serious issues as a result of all the precipitation. My skin is starting to prune outside the bath, the humidity is giving me Sideshow Bob-like hair, and our lawn is turning into an urban jungle (a big no-no here in Homewood, but the yard has been too wet to cut when I've had the opportunity to mow it).

Perhaps Mother Nature is trying to make up for the drought of 2007, and do so in a single month. Or maybe Larry Langford teamed up with Kevin Costner to turn the metro area into a "Waterworld" theme park, and he just forgot to tell anybody. Or maybe Al Gore was right, and this is but one consequence of global warming; the rain won't stop, and by the end of the month Montgomery will be a coastal city.

Whatever the reason, the rain needs to stop before I go nuts. I need to ride my bike, I need to cut the grass, and I need to wring myself out before I get all Seattle-depressed and pull a Cobain.
Here are your other bits and pieces from the weekend:

• Friday was good with the posting of the latest episode of Committed. I am eager to get Episode 34 underway and up this week.
• Friday night at the Pork Palace was busy, even with Homewood playing at home (which usually means we are dead). The last hour or so was slow, so I got out early.
• Enjoyed visiting with my sister-in-law Teresa while she was here for the "Aquatic Dreams" show at Dream Mecca Studios. She, our friend Lauren, Jean and I all hung out at the house Friday night after the show. Saturday morning, Teresa, Jean and I took a trip to Pepper Place and the Jones Valley Urban Farm. I didn't know they had chickens on-site!
• Saturday evening brought a rain-delayed Auburn versus West Virginia football game. I listened on the radio, as Jean and I didn't much feel like getting out and we don't have cable. It sounded like an exciting game, for sure, with my Tigers coming out on top 41-30. War Eagle, baby!
• Sunday was lazy, for me at least. Jean worked on her yoga class, and then taught. I picked up around the house and chilled -- until dinnertime, that is. We had a veritable veggie feast, with green beans and fried okra (both organic, local, and fresh from Saturday's market trip), black beans (leftover from Friday night), basmati rice, and a green salad. Thought I was going to pop!

All in all, a great weekend and a good foundation for a new week. Here's what's on tap:

• This is the week for designing the monthly newsletter for the Magic City Blues Society. I'll be working on it a lot.
• Episode 34 of Committed should be up sometime Friday or Saturday.
• I'm also working on a profile of local filmmaker Chance Shirley, which will be up before "Interplanetary" shows on Sunday at the Carver Theatre as part of the Sidewalk fest.
• Saturday will bring a one-day trip to Georgia to visit family. Should be fun!

Headed for the hills -- part IV

It wasn't long until the kabobs were grilled to perfection, with the tilapia flaking off in steaming hunks. The grilled onions, green peppers and squash provided a crunchy accompaniment, and sweet potatoes (cooked scout style, wrapped in foil and shoved deep into the coals to bake) rounded out the meal.

Maybe it was because we were ravenous following the day's drive and the work we did to set up camp, or maybe it was because of the pastoral setting with the river gurgling behind us and the clouds parting to show more stars than I've seen in years, but for whatever the reason, dinner was indescribably delicious.

I leaned back in my chair, took a long pull off my beer, and smiled at Jean. "It really doesn't get better than this, does it?"

It was a shame that it didn't last.

The first hint that the situation was going awry came when we went to make our bed in the tent. We were putting sheets on the air mattress when looked at me with a touch of concern.

"Can you hear that?" she asked, her ear pressed to vinyl near the foot of the mattress.
I moved to where she sat and placed my ear where hers had most recently been. There was no doubt about it -- the hiss that reached my ears could mean nothing else but a leak.

We searched and searched, but could never find the source of the hissing, and despite unplugging and re-plugging the valve for the mattress, as well as using the automatic pump to put some more air into it, the leak remained.

Fortunately, it seemed that the leak was minor. Even after fifteen minutes of futile detective work on our part, it seemed that the leak wasn't so bad that we couldn't sleep on the mattress. We shrugged at each other and continued making the bed, then got in for a good night's sleep.
It turned out to be no such thing.

Sometime in the night, I awoke to find Jean leaning over me, shoving wadded clothing into small piles alongside the outer edge of the tent. I was damp, my back hurt, and it didn't take long for me to figure out what had happened. The rains, which had gratefully stopped while we set up camp and ate dinner, returned after we fell asleep. Unfortunately, the ground cover I put beneath the tent was too small to encompass the entire footprint of our shelter -- and as such, could not keep water from seeping into the tent around the edges.

Jean woke after she put her hand in a large puddle during the night. In an attempt to keep the center of the tent -- and out now-completely-deflated air mattress -- dry, she used our clothes and whatever else was in the tent to create as a makeshift dam. I gave her a hand, and once we were satisfied that we wouldn't be washed into the river as we slept, we snuggled back down and went back to a fitful, restless and uncomfortable sleep.

To be continued...

Headed for the hills -- part III

The rain (which turned to a heavy, intermittent mist by then) and the dark made it difficult to see, especially since I wasn't exactly sure where I was supposed to be going. I knew this much, however: Our destination was just beyond the bridge over the New River -- or so showed the satellite view from Google maps that I checked before we left Birmingham. Sure enough, we found the bridge, and were over it before we knew it.

I peered out the windshield, searching for a sign or some other indication that we actually were where we wanted to be... and then, glory! The headlights caught a neatly-lettered sign off to the left of the road: New River Campground. I slowed, turned in, and pulled down a steep drive to the riverside. The office was closed, but we were fortunate to find a woman -- I assumed she was an employee -- who told us where we to go. We drove slowly down the one-lane road of hard-packed dirt, past a few scattered tents and a couple of large RVs humming in the darkness until we found campsite number 25, the one to which we were assigned. At last, we reached our destination.

I felt we were quite lucky because the rain had pretty much stopped for the moment, but I was still quite eager to get camp established -- there was no telling when the bottom might fall out. We got out of the station wagon and quickly surveyed the site. It was bordered on the front by the camp road and on the rear by some trees and the steep bank of the New River which gurgled happily below. A large oak tree stood at the front of the site. A picnic table, lantern stand, and fire pit completed the scene. We had no immediate neighbors for the night.

We opened the hatch of the station wagon and began pulling out our equipment. Lighting was the first issue to address: Jean grabbed the industrial-size flashlight while I set the two Coleman lanterns to blazing. Next, we both worked on putting up the canopy over the picnic table so we could have at least some shelter should the rains start again. It's a brand-new piece of equipment, so there was a bit of a learning curve involved (directions are not always easy to decipher, especially by lantern light), but after a few minutes we prevailed.

At that point, the knowledge that we had at least a little bit of shelter lessened our sense of urgency enough so that we could actually start the vacation part of the trip -- which, naturally, involved alcohol. We pulled out the cooler and I opened a bottle of chardonnay for Jean before cracking the top of an ice-cold High Life for myself. We clinked our beverages together and then leisurely got back to work.

We knew we wouldn't have a whole lot of time for dinner (what with all the driving and setting up camp, not to mention the threat of more rain), so we prepared accordingly, bringing charcoal and lighter fluid with us on the trip. After a few minutes, I had the coals blazing and I turned my attention to setting up the tent. As I wrestled with shock cords, poles, stakes and the air mattress, Jean was preparing a fantastic dinner. It wasn't long before our tent was up, tilapia kabobs were sizzling on the grill, and Jean and I were able to sit back and relax and enjoy ourselves. In less than half an hour since our arrival, we turned an empty campsite into our home away from home.

To be continued...

Headed for the hills -- part II

As soon as we made the left out of the gas station and onto the highway leading back to the interstate, Jean leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

"Thanks for doing that," she said, leaning in close to my ear.

"Of course," I said, eyes smiling behind my sunglasses. "Why wouldn't I have?"

"We're in a hurry, for one thing," she said, settling back into the passenger seat. "We got a late start today, and it would have been easy just to go ahead and let somebody else bother with it because we needed to be back on the road. And you didn't know that woman. It's simple not to help, and sometimes with good reason."

"Well, sure... but it's the right thing to do. I'll help someone in a spot like that because there might be a time when I need someone to help me. And I've been in that spot."

"I hope it will rub off. We're nice to someone, maybe she'll do something for a stranger... who knows what can happen?"

"Who knows," I said. "Who knows."

The rest of the afternoon's drive went by quickly; our excitement regarding the trip built throughout the day, making time and the miles fly by. We talked, listened to music, heard a bit of Right Ho, Jeeves by Wodehouse on a CD, and even drove in pleasant silence for a time or two. "We're at that point in our relationship where we don't have to be talking all the time," Jean noted, and I agreed; the scenery spoke for itself and required no comment from us.

We stopped for a short picnic lunch at a rest area just south of Chattanooga, then it was into the mountains before we stopped again for a cup of coffee on the northern outskirts of Knoxville. Jean took over the driving duties for a while, until we made a final pit stop just inside the Virginia state line.

It was at this particular rest area where Muda made his appearance. Muda was the third member of our party, and an active traveler. It is probably worth mentioning here that Muda is also a small, magnetized onion-shaped knicknack souvenir from Bermuda which acts as the mascot for Jean's department at work. Whenever someone in the department goes on a trip, Muda often tags along, and members of the department bring back photos of Muda in various exotic locales. Jean figured it would be a hoot if Muda came along with us on our journey, and the great seal of the state of Virginia provided a perfect backdrop for Muda's first photo op.

Before we pulled back onto the highway, we took some time to review the map and directions we pulled from Google. Another two exits and we would be leaving the interstate near Abingdon to follow U.S. 58 through Damascus and on into Independence.

"This doesn't look so bad," I said to Jean. "According to the map, it's 50 miles or so. It's almost six o'clock. If we hurry, we might be able to get camp set and dinner on before nightfall. Let's get moving!"

And we were back on our way. There were some conversion jokes as we got onto the two-lane highway and headed toward the picturesque small town of Damascus, where we found a small path running alongside a river, quaint cabins, and half-a-dozen mountain bike rental shops.

To this point, the road had been fairly straight and well-maintained. Traffic was light, and we had been able to keep up a decent speed of sixty or so since leaving the interstate. But as we made our final turn out of Damascus, our swift driving came to a halt.

First, the rains showed up. It had been threatening rain for the majority of the trip, and it finally came down as twilight began to fall. But of more significant impact was the road itself. We were, without a doubt, in the mountains. Serious mountains. Rural, rural mountains where if you had a wreck it could be hours -- possibly even days -- before someone found you. Cell phone service was a fantasy. And this one main road snaked up, down, and through these mountains wherever and however it could. It was a series of switchbacks, hairpin turns and steep grades that limited driving -- in the rain and dark -- to a maximum of 35 miles per hour if you were lucky.

I would relate this part of the drive to a fellow camper later on during the trip. Upon hearing my tale, said camper smiled, nodded, and said, "yup, you'll see your own taillights driving down that road."

As such, it took us almost two hours to make it through the worst part of the mountains to Independence, and it was well past eight o'clock when we finally arrived, tired but thrilled, at the campsite.

To be continued