Icy Exhale

Back in November I had an idea for an article.  It was going to go to Yoga Journal (because that’s where all aspiring yoga writers want to shoot articles to, isn’t it?) and maybe Yoga International (because they, too, are way cool).  But things don’t always work out the way we plan, do they?

Of course, the first problem was that there was going to be a co-author.  I have never worked with someone else on a project, and to date I still have not, as far as initial content is concerned.  Of course, writing is a community venture to be sure.  A community somewhere must read it, right?  But all I’ve written, I’ve written alone.  But not really.  Someone is always here for me.  That’s why I have a little candle here while I write, like the Bat Signal reminding me help is on the way.

I decide to go rogue with the article when I realize I’m on my own.  That’s really all there is to it, isn’t there?  Besides, I think I wanted to meander down a philosophical path for which I’m not suited where this article and its embryonic version is concerned.  I do not have a degree in philosophy and I haven’t been at this yoga stuff long enough to speak with any credibility on deeper meanings and pulsations of the Universe.  I only know what I feel. I only write what I know.  Fortunate for my readers, I’m very in touch with my feelings.

In a moment of almost spiteful frustration I decide I’m going to write the article and put it here on my blog.  This is ultimately what my blog does for me; it allows me to feel like I’m doing something.  Those readers who follow my posts know “Love and Laundry” combined both my love and my favorite legend and is the article about which I speak.

While I was crafting that post, however, there was a nagging little voice in my head.  I mean, it wouldn’t shut up!  The kind of shrill thought impairing voice that bothers us in moments of solitude, forces us to action and sometimes gives us great ideas.  This voice kept saying, “Pay the twelve dollars to become a contributor and send this thing to elephant journal (always spelled with a lower case “e” for those of you wondering).  You see, the twelve dollars contributes to the running of this juggernaut of authentic and spiritual, if not sometimes envelope pushing, writing of which I’ve been a devoted reader for over a year.

All the staff pays twelve bucks a year.

I want to be “staff”.

I pay.

I overdraft my checking account by three dollars due to my poor math skills.  Go on and laugh, I know I did.  Lucky savings swapped funds and I wasn’t penalized.  Then I send the article off.

Then I hear something back.

This is not like the time I was published in a college literary journal and invited to the release party at a jailhouse bookstore in Brownsville.  No, I hear something back, “Change it enough from the original post on your blog and we’ll publish it.”

I immediately get to work and the product is crafted to my high standard of excellence and also a wee more raw than things I usually post on Icy Exhale. 

This morning I wake up with a scant hour before I need to leave the house.  I check my email while the coffee sputters and sparks itself into darkly brewed bliss so I can sputter and spark to life.  I see an email from elephant asking for a bio with the promise that my article will go live today.

Today!

Oh, god, a bio!

I hate writing those things.

And then I realize that I’m gonna have to do this before I leave the house.  I hear the coffee cooking as my hands, claw-like and desperate, perch over the computer.

No, no, wait.  Drink some coffee first.

Then, with hot coffee at my side, I write the bio, send it off and magically when I get home tonight I am on elephant journal.  My bio is even there, all shiny and new and no one would know I wrote it under duress.

Then, a few hours later, there is a message that someone (you angel) from elephant journal put my article on the front page of their spirituality site.

Please visit elephant journal and share this experience of listening to that voice that sometimes knows what it’s talking about, and it being good.  http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/03/whats-your-poison–nickie-medici/