Change

I was supposed to take yesterday off. I have been feeling the need for a "Mental Health Day." A day to recharge my drained creative batteries. The plan was to drive to Ohio's Amish Country for lunch with our cousins. Do some shopping. Enjoy a quiet day off-grid. 

Then I saw the weather forecast. Ninety-plus degrees combined with high humidity is not a pleasant setting for walking from shop to shop. We postponed our lunch date to a yet-to-be-determined point on the summer calendar.

Besides, we have dense smoke from the Canadian wildfires and are under a stage red air quality alert, which occasionally wanders into code purple. It's bad, but I won't complain. How horrible must it be in Canada??? Stay safe, my northern friends.

All of this goes to illustrate how plans change. Sometimes the change is sudden and unexpected as when Kensi Kitty became deathly ill just prior to the Pennwriters Conference. My husband was also sick, but less so. I made a quick decision to cancel my plans to attend. It was a good decision. Kensi improved, but had another rough spell right when I would've been away. My husband wouldn't have known what to do.

Sometimes, though, change develops over time and is given much thought and consideration. Back when I was teaching yoga, I went through that kind of transformation. I was burnt out. First, I stopped teaching in the studio setting but kept a few private students. After several years, life changed again, both for me and for my students. I gave up teaching altogether to focus on my own practice. Also, by then, I was writing and getting close to being published.

Lately, I've been mulling over another change sparked partly by my husband's retirement. NO, I am not retiring from writing. But I have decided to "retire" from teaching writing classes and workshops. Several times in recent years, I have spent hours (that I could/should have been working on a book) preparing a workshop presentation, only to have too few registrants to make it feasible. I took it as Life telling me what I was offering wasn't needed or wanted.

And frankly, I'd much rather be writing. 

I'm still fulfilling a couple of teaching commitments I've already made for this year, but then I'm stepping back.

I also retain the right to change my mind and come out of retirement under certain circumstances. 

I will also continue to occasionally mentor one-on-one. I enjoy the personal engagement of dealing with one student at a time and focusing on what they specifically need. 

I have other changes coming, which I will share in the coming months. Again, let me stress, I AM NOT RETIRING FROM WRITING. 

If anything, I'm rearranging my life and my strategies to make more time for it. 

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