“Independence - is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes” - Mark Twain


I remember I was in 8th grade, or maybe even High School, before the message actually sunk in that the 4th of July (in the United States anyway) wasn't the day the colonies won their independence from England, but rather the day they declared it.

I've been thinking a lot about that over the past few days, how we have to have the intention first that we want independence from something that's holding us down (financial worry, heartache, etc.), then we need to declare our intention (though perhaps only to ourselves), and then finally we can gain that independence if we have enough determination and focus and in many cases, sheer grit.

But we face a lot of monsters on such a journey, and the monsters within us can be just as powerful, or more powerful, than the ones we face on the outside world. I know this has certainly been the case for myself. I spent much of my life assuming I just didn't have the energy to go for my heart's desire in any sort of passionate way, that first I had to focus on what my parent's and the media and the world was telling me was important (having status in the business world, looking great, and things of that ilk).

And so I did. At 21 I became a very diligent workaholic in an uncreative industry I really disliked but I moved forward with as it allowed me to speak Italian every day (which I had gone to school for) and because my mom's boss got me the interview. I got the job, and desperate to have my parents proud of me, and desperate to feel legit (as I'm sure many young people feel, heck many of us feel) I hung in there and wracked up the years.

Choosing a different path, a more independent, creative one for me has been a long process. The first step I made was to keep writing. I have kept a journal very diligently for over 25 years. The second step I made was to marry a creative man because I simply didn't think I deserved, or could afford, just to be a creative person on my own. What I know now, which I didn't know then, is that if you earn your way into a relationship you'll never stop paying. Romantic relationships aren't earned, they just are, but at the time it was the only way I knew how to be, and his talent and my ideas seemed like a huge lifeboat of possibilities. And for many years they were.

It's easy to regret a marriage that went wrong, especially one that in hindsight you can see the cracks in the foundation of from the very beginning, but I've decided not to regret my marriage because we did the best we knew how to do at the time, and we created a company and pieces of art that I'm very proud of. Yes, I truly do wish I could have relaxed more then, and owned with some grace what we were making happen rather than being frantic and still wanting desperately to feel important and right in my choices. I couldn't see any shades of gray back then. There was constant tension between my ex-husband and myself over the fact that I was the one who recognized his talent and came up with the idea for his company (though while married it was supposedly "our" company, but that was a bone of contention as well) and supported and cajoled and challenged him to live up to what I knew in my gut he could do.

Now I'm learning to support and cajole and challenge myself to live up to the talent I feel I hold within. It's not easy to do, it's scary, it feels arrogant at times on a whole different level, but still the siren calls from within...do your own thing, declare your independence.

What a strange strange energy week! I've been up and down and backwards and forwards and then blocked with no words or ideas that came out with any sort of grace or interest of thought for two days, and then suddenly released with three perfect words all with "s" popping into my head while I chewed on my breakfast at a local restaurant this morning completely minding my own business and enjoying perfectly done eggs over easy on buttered toast.

Inspiration does indeed work in strange ways. I bow down before it.

But boy it put me through the ringer this week!

One of the hardest things about being a creative writer and marketing and p.r. person is that it's a lot of responsibility . That whole identity of being a "rainmaker," the idea person who brings creativity to the table to focus and hone a client's products and company into an understandable and engaging vision, someone who puts it all together with a flourish and snap so that customers say happily, "oh I get it" and hopefully, "let's go there!" and "let's go there again!" On some days, this is a job that feels very heavy indeed.

On Monday I was up early, out to the local news-rack to pick up the paper to see if what I'd been advised was true - and it was, my client was on the front page of our local daily paper's business section, with a lovely mention at the top of the front page. Walking back to my apartment I cried. No, it's not The L.A. Times (which I'm focusing on next), but it was big and bold and in video as well as print and I made it happen. I cried with happiness and relief that it actually came through, and then in my total strange humanity I cried with a sense of grief and anticlimax.

I am, you see, a recovering "waiting for the party but forever disappointed with its arrival" type of girl. The sort of person who's always looking forward to some sort of event, in the throws of the creating of it, and then when it arrives, I have thought so many times, "oh that's it?" and "That's all!"

I'm getting better, I am, I focus so much more on the process now than any set moment or date because now I realize there really is nothing more than the process anyway, we never actually arrive anywhere.

But none the less, certain activities take more out of us than others, and making sure this particular process with this particular piece of media came about sort of took it out of me. By Thursday I had to face the fact that I couldn't string two interesting thoughts together, figure out how to organize new website pages, or interact with new media in an engaging manner. I was just worn out. I had no good ideas.

So I gave in and went to the book store where I proceeded to find not the Garth Nix book with the last short story on the Abhorsen trilogy I was looking for but "City of Bones" by Cassandra Clare, with a sequel waiting if I enjoyed the first.

I have found that when I'm tired and out of sorts nothing refreshes me more than a rousing tale of well written young adult science fiction fantasy. Apparently my angst and the teen's angst mesh well. Oh, and they're cheaper than adult fiction books both in paperback and hardcover. Sweet. A couple of months ago I discovered Holly Black and now all I have to do is discover some other new writers (okay many many) while I wait patiently for these two ladies (friends too) to complete their sequels.

Two days of minimal work and tons of reading later I awoke happy and refreshed, ran my errands and in the middle of breakfast the way to approach an upcoming business mixer and a new article popped into my head. I breathed such a sigh of relief and reminded myself yet again that it isn't my job to be a rainmaker 24/7. My job is instead to be open to the inspiration as it comes. My job is to be here now.