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© Catherine Haslag

Prime

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Me on my birthday in City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico.

Primetime, prime numbers, Amazon Prime, prime meridian, prime rib, Prime Directive, primadonna, primeval, Optimus Prime, primordial, prime cut, prima ballerina, prime of your life.

Prime can be used as an adjective or a noun. As an adjective, it means of first importance, main, of the best possible quality, excellent. As a noun, it is a state or time of greatest strength, vigor, or success in a person’s life. The word originates from Old English prim and from Latin prima.

Needless to say, I have been thinking about prime lately.

There are a total of 25 prime numbers between 1 and 100 – 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97.

Me on my birthday in City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico.

I had no idea until I made this list that I had already celebrated 12 prime years of my life. If I live to 100, I will celebrate 12 more. This puts me squarely in mid-life.

I just celebrated prime birthday number 13, a prime number itself. This prime birthday by extension makes this a prime year for me. This is how I am framing this next trip around the sun for me – a prime year.

A prime year to learn, to grow, the develop relationships with those I love, to get stronger, to explore, to read more, and to continue enjoying this thing we call life.

I am truly in my prime.

I look forward to where this prime year will lead me.

 

Thanks to Fred Bogott for pointing out that 41 is a prime number.  You inspired this post and my outlook on this coming year.

© Catherine Haslag

One Year

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One year ago this month, I posted my first blog. I created this space to help me develop my voice and become a better writer. Over the course of the past year, I have learned a lot about myself, how I want to live my life, what I want to say with my voice, and how I want to say it. I will let you debate on the improvement of my writing skills.

Biking the Root River Trail, Summer 2021

The blogs I have shared here have come to me while riding my bike, driving to Missouri to visit my family, and tearfully at 3 am when I couldn’t sleep. I have writing ideas jotted in my various journals, in my notes app on my phone, and on my computer. Some of these ideas will become blogs posted here. Others will never get beyond those few jotted notes.

I have also drafted a few pieces that will not be shared on this blog or anywhere else. They are still too raw and do not communicate a message that I think is worth sharing with the general public. While I have a first amendment right to freedom of speech, that doesn’t mean that all of my speech needs to be shared. I strongly believe in freedom of speech, but I also feel we have the responsibility to self-censure when that speech won’t contribute to creating a productive discourse or a more perfect union.

I have learned so much over the past year while writing for this blog. I learned that I am not good at writing book reviews. While I love to read books, writing reviews is not my jam. It puts too much pressure on me and takes away some of the pleasure I get from reading.

I learned that a good piece doesn’t have to be long. One of my favorite poems is only 4 words long.

I have learned that some ideas/thoughts are not things I want to spend my time writing about, so I let them go back into the invisible universe of ideas. Someone else can use their time to explore it.

I learned that stillness, reflection, and time are key to developing a good blog post. I don’t have to shoot for the moon. The simplest of ideas tend to lend themselves to better writing. (I assume that if you are reading this that you think my blogs are at least marginally good. If you disagree that my blogs are any good, then I wonder why you are reading this and not something else.)

I learned blogging provides space for me to examine, process, and rethink my life, values, ideas, the world around me. I learned that facts are guideposts for me to locate truth, which is incredibly valuable to me. I learned that I have a hard time relating to people who don’t value facts as I do.

This space has also allowed me to take a trip down memory lane. The nostalgia has been a welcome respite during the pandemic. It has also helped me to appreciate some things in my life I had never given deep thought to previously.

I have also learned that I want to keep doing this work. Even if no one else ever reads this, I find value in writing it…and that’s all that really matters to me.

As I state on the front page of this blog, “…this blog is for my growth and learning…” I still don’t know where this work is leading me, but I am enjoying the journey.

I look forward to seeing where it takes me over the next year.

 

A Very Special Thanks…

Thanks to all of you who have read and continue to read my blogs and sent me feedback over the past year. I really appreciate your time and insights.

I want to give a big thanks to Sue Grove, who has proofed some of my blogs and helped me learn how to write using active voice. I am by no means perfect in this, but I am improving with every sentence I write.

Thank you also to my wonderful partner, Jason, who manages all the website details so I can just think, write, and post. Thank you for being a cheerleader for my vision. I love you.

© Catherine Haslag

Crucible as Myself

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Crucible is from the Medieval Latin Crucibulum for “melting pot for metals” and “night lamp.” The first part of the word, crus, could also originate from the Middle High German kruse meaning “earthen pot” or from the Latin crux in reference to a cross.

The word crucible has two meanings:

  1. As a noun, a crucible is a ceramic, graphite, or metal container that is used for the melting of metals or conducting of chemical reactions at high temperatures.
  2. As a verb, a crucible is a severe trial in which things interact and something new is created from it. This meaning of the word began sometime around the 1640s.

Example of a crucible used in a chemistry lab.

A classic chemistry lab uses a crucible to react with magnesium metal with oxygen gas at high temperatures to produce magnesium oxide. Crucibles are also used to melt bronze and other metals for casting bells and statues. If a crucible is ceramic, it can be brittle despite its ability to withstand extreme temperatures.

Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible told a fictional account of the Salem Witch Trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692 and 1693. It was an allegory for McCarthyism, a time in the 1950s when people were being accused and persecuted for being a communist. Much like the Salem Witch Trials, most of the accusations were false and were very dangerous to the lives of those accused.

A crucible is also a container, a place for work to be done. Its job is to hold, to be a space. Based on this definition, anything can serve as a crucible: an office, journal, classroom, tennis court, website.

The book Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life, One Conversation at a Time by Susan Scott spoke of the role of the crucible in the work she does with her coaching clients. She pondered if she could become the crucible for her clients, her family and friends, or herself.

The title of this blog comes from this idea. I have created a space for me to bring my writing, thoughts, and ideas to the world, but I am my own crucible in this process. I contain the reaction or heated metal in me and eventually present that work to the world on this site. This is page is my voice, my practice is finding, developing, and crafting it into something that is authentic to me. What I say here may not be popular, but it is authentic to me and hopefully will resonate with others.

We all have different crucibles that present themselves in life, some of them we choose for ourselves, some are chosen for us. This is a combination of the two. I have felt for awhile that I have something of value and meaning to share. This feeling grew so strong that I felt it was being chosen for me and I had no other option than to choose it back. I don’t know yet if the words you read here is that something or if this is just practice for that something. Only time will determine that.

References

Online Etymology Dictionary. (2020) Crucible. https://www.etymonline.com/word/crucible

Scott, S. (2002). Fierce Conversations (Second Edition). The Berkley Publishing Company.

Sparknotes. (2020). The Crucible. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crucible/