"Tis a Puzzlement

For my recent birthday, my daughter gave me a 1,000 piece puzzle featuring a photo of thousands of colorful jelly beans. She knows I love puzzles and I love jelly beans and she managed to combine them both in one brilliant stroke, so I spent most of this past week engaging in an activity that I love but haven't done in many, many years. If you have ever done a jigsaw puzzle, you know how challenging they can be. Imagine trying to sort out one thousand multi-colored jelly beans pieces. This was a daunting task, one that required lots of patience, observation and concentration to complete.

Funny thing about puzzles. If you are really determined to assemble one, you have to give yourself over to it, stay focused, and follow a deliberate series of steps in order to make sense of the jumble of pieces. First you turn all the pieces face up so you can see them all, then you separate the edge pieces because they are (usually) the most recognizable and you assemble the outside border. Then the work really begins. If you're smart, you start categorizing the pieces by color and slowly begin piecing the puzzle together, all the while referring to the picture on the box, until eventually your puzzle is complete.

If you're like most people, you admire your puzzle for a while then disassemble it and put it back in the box until the next time you want to challenge yourself. At least that's what I used to do. But this time my process was a little different. For starters, I did most of my puzzling at night, after the family was asleep, and would work well into the wee hours in near total silence. I find that when I work quietly in a very focused manner, my mind opens up to remarkable insights. As I assembled the puzzle, it suddenly dawned on me that puzzles are a very accurate metaphor for life. Life, like a jigsaw puzzle, can sometimes seem like a disjointed jumble of events that seem to make no sense. If you try to sort it out without a plan, you'll get nowhere fast. Sometimes all it takes is stepping back, looking at all the pieces laid before you and slowly putting it all together.

As I neared completion of the puzzle, I noticed that the pieces began to fall into place faster and faster. At times, as if by magic, I would look at an empty place in the puzzle, then look at the loose pieces and my hand would immediately fall on the piece needed to fill the space. I also noticed that sometimes the piece that fit into a particular place was not at all the one I expected it to be. Life is like that, too. When things start falling into place, everything starts coming together faster and faster, and sometimes the thing you need to accomplish your goal comes from the unlikeliest of places.

There's one more thing I learned...that when you look at something from a distance you can't appreciate the beauty of the details but if you focus only on the details, you lose the the beauty of the whole. Focusing in on the details of those little beans...the colors, the speckles, the highlights...were critical in my being able to complete the puzzle. Without those details, the grand picture would not have been nearly as rich and beautiful. They go hand in hand, the grand and the minute, and create balance.

The more energy you put into accomplishing your goal, the more energy you draw to yourself and things will almost magically present themselves before you. All you have to do is stay focused on the image you are trying to complete and work towards it one little piece at a time. Life, unlike a jigsaw puzzle, doesn't come in a box with a picture on it. You have to create that picture yourself and keep your eyes on the prize.

I'm not going to disassemble this puzzle. I'm going to glue it down and place it where I can see it often. I want to remember the lessons I learned assembling it. And I'll be eating jelly beans when I do.

Ballo ergo sum,
Always and All Ways,
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

A New Blog

As if I haven't got enough things to do, I've created a new blog. This one is dedicated to the pleasure and inspiration I get from my gardening. When my flowers start blooming and I'm eyebrow deep in loam and earthworms, that is where I'll be posting my pictures and my musings. I hope you will join me there. It is called Nature's Conversations and you can access it by using the link in the right column under More About Me. Thanks for your support.

Ballo ergo sum,
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

25 Random Things About Me

I was recently tagged by another Facebook user in a round-robin type of activity. Each person had to write a list of 25 random things about themselves and send it on to (tagging) 25 of their Facebook friends. Reading other's lists and writing one of my own was an interesting exercise so I decided to post my list here.

1. In the Western zodiac I am a water sign, but in the Eastern zodiac I am a wood sign.
2. I love to sing show tunes and patriotic songs in the shower (anyone for a round of "America the Beautiful?)
3. I wrote, casted, directed, choreographed, and played a leading role in a children's play at the age of 21.


Me as Jack-in-the-Box in the original children's play I wrote called The Magic Toyshop.


4. I appeared in two amateur films, one of which used my children's play as an element of the storyline.
5. By the age of 16, I had won several first and second place trophies in city-wide sewing contests sponsored by the Police Athletic League.
6. I never have to look up at the night sky to know if the moon is full. I can feel it in my body.
7. Thunderstorms are the sexiest things ever...the more thunder, lightning and rain, the better.
8. I meditate when performing repetitive tasks such as housework, gardening, sewing, crocheting, etc.
9. In the mid to late 1970's, my dance teacher arranged for me to have a private audition with the director of a dance company that was about to go on a US tour. I passed the audition, was offered a spot and turned it down
10. In the mid 1980's, I was offered the opportunity to dance in the nightclubs of Tokyo, all expenses paid for six months. Turned that one down too.

A picture from my professional bellydancing debut in 1984.

11. I used to be very shy in front of people other than my family.
12. I like liver.
13. If I had my druthers, I'd druther live alone.
14. My mother once told me I had magic hands (because of my artistic ability). It was one of the nicest things she ever said to me and I'll always remember it.
15. The names of all my children begin with the letter "A".
16. My siblings and I were named for prominent individuals. I continued this tradition with my children.
17. I twice auditioned to be a Playboy bunny. I was turned down both times. :(
18. I am one of those maladjusted individuals who really gets into housework. I love a clean house.
19. I was once a contestant on the $25,000 Pyramid and met Dick Clark in person.
20. I used to be the kid that always got picked last to play games.
21. I used to be the girl that none of the boys would date. (That was before my Latina curves kicked in.)
22. I have more sexy lingerie than Victoria's Secret and Fredericks of Hollywood combined...but my husband doesn't like lingerie so it's wasting away in my drawer and now I'm too fat to wear it.
23. High heels and mini skirts were my uniform from the ages of sixteen to thirty-something (I'm so old now I forget).
24. Red and black are my trademark colors, with white for occasional contrast.
25. My favorite childhood singing group was the Four Seasons.

TAG...your turn!


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

Sifting Through the Rubble

I have once again embarked upon a mission to rid myself and my home of unneeded, unwanted 'things'. I'd like to say junk but much of it isn't junk...it's useful stuff that I have no use for. I have concentrated my first wave of attack on the laundry room, having been named so because that's where the laundry gets done. It is so much easier than calling it the "I-have-no-idea-where-to-put-this-so-let's-stick-it-in-the-basement" room. It's a bit on the small side but it has lots of nooks and crannies, one of the reasons so much stuff has accumulated there over the years.

Over the past couple of days I have moved boxes and installed a steel shelving unit. I have unearthed things that have literally not seen the light of day since I moved in over 18 years ago and that I had forgotten completed about. It is embarrassing to see how much dust had accumulated in those forgotten corners. I have only tackled about half the room but already there is a noticeable difference. For one thing I can actually see the floor. It was there all the time, I just couldn't see it past all the schmutz. (For those of you who are Yiddish-challenged, it's a technical term that means junk, trash, garbage, etc.) Just clearing off the floor, taking out the trash and putting the rest of the stuff up on shelves lightened the atmosphere in the room. I feel as if I can breathe easier in there. In a few more days I will have cleaned it all out. Then it's on to the opposite end of the basement where I have metal file cabinets harboring obsolete information, tons of now-useless papers and who knows what else. My goal is to have the basement reasonably cleared of detritus by spring. Once the warm weather rolls in, I'm outside in my garden where a different sort of unearthing takes place.

Yes, it's hard, heavy and dirty work. Yes, I'm dog tired and achy when I'm done. Yes, I'm doing it alone. Yes, I'm enjoying it and am finding it immensely satisfying.

Now I ask you...is this a sign of a totally maladjusted woman or what?

Any comments?

Ballo ergo sum,
- Gitana, the Creaive Diva