Finding MY Way Back
Two things happened last week that smacked me down and left me wallowing in a murky pit of miserable. . .
Trinidad Mud Volcano kind of murky
- Flew back to Trinidad after a California Easter and a stop-over in New York with my family.
- Opened a letter from Candlewick Press saying my heart-project DAD AND POP was going out of print.
Then, email brought news of a third, tragic event that dwarfed any issues I might have: A friend’s husband died suddenly—no warning at all. One day he was here, all be it, feeling peckish; the next gone.
Knowledge of my friend’s loss made me recount my largess But, instead of snapping me out of it in that what-the-heck-are-you-moping-about-for-be-grateful-and-get-on-with-it way, the realization of how tenuous it was, how in an instant—any instant—I could lose all I hold dear, sank me.
A TED TALK saved me.
Completely unmotivated to even try to “Get over it, and get on with it,” as my friend Beverly always says, by doing something productive (say unpacking, cooking, or going for a walk), I’d pulled on my fuddiest wallowing clothes, plopped down in front of the computer, and gone Facebook surfing—which depressed me even more as every post seemed entirely too jolly, successful, oozing with cheer—so had moved onto email. As I subscribe to TED TALKS, new lecture notices are delivered to my email. I don’t always listen to each talk, but I think about it. Having reached the end of the new mail, I had a choice to make: sift through junk mail & spam or listen.
I've heard other TED TALKS by Elizabeth Gilbert and found them engaging
The TED TALK was by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and recently The Signature of All Things. (As it happens, I’d recently finished the latter, which was pleasantly, surprisingly, nothing like the former—probably the reason I clicked “play” rather than “delete”.)
Gilbert’s talk was titled "Success, Failure, and the Drive to Keep Creating."
In the midst of her talk, Gilbert threw out the fully inflated life preserver I needed.
She described how extreme success and extreme failure feel the same to our sub-conscious. Although polar opposites, in terms of the havoc they wreck on us physiologically—both elicit extreme emotional responses—success and failure feel the same to our sub-conscious. They both have the ability to unbalance us, much the way one lemon too many on either side tips the scales.
Via my interpretation of Gilbert (Listen yourself for more) When we are dangling helplessly, from one end or the other of our balance poles there are two choices:
#1 Quit and just hang there until we fall
or
#2 Head down, eyes open, set a course for HOME and start walking/working our way back.
Simple really, right?
Sure. If you’ve got the ruby slippers, know how to use them, and where you want them to take you. . .
But, before we can fight our way back HOME, we must discover/uncover/recognize:
What is HOME?
For Dorothy, it took a tornado; for me a TED TALK.
“Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself.”
That’s why I was so miserable. My Home, that to which I as Gilbert defines it “Can dedicate [my] energies with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential" is comprised of two things: my family and my work. In the past week, I’ve registered both success and failure. And my friend’s loss was a threat reminder of how easy it is to lose one’s HOME.
All I wanna do is find my way back. . . Way Back into Love from Music & Lyrics
One wrong wind is all it take. . .
For me finding my way back HOME, meant scheduling time with my family. And, even though I didn't have the energy for it--getting back to writing.
Dang in Elizabeth-baby wasn’t right! It didn’t take long before I began feeling more centered. I knew it for sure when, part way into this blog, a song popped into my head. I'm not in tune--yet--but at least I’m singing again.
Where’s your HOME? Could you find your way back?
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Wind Wishes for Earth Day
It's Earth Day! Let's Celebrate with Wind Wishes!
When our friend, Joy, moved away, the gals in our creativity group, wrote hopes for her and tied them to a tree to wish her well.
How To Make Wind Wishes:
Cut the paper into strips at least 1 inch wide and between 6 and 24 inches long. Vary the length and width of the paper strips. Try not to cut the strips too narrow or they will tear.
Write one wish for the earth on each strip of paper. These wishes might be hopes you have for our earth’s future or for the earth’s creatures.
Punch a whole in one end of each paper strip.
Lace string or yarn through the whole in the paper strip and tie a knot.
Tie the wishes to the branches of a tree, or onto a fence and watch them flutter in the wind.
Wind Wishes on a School Fence blowing in the breeze
“Supplies:
Strips of paper (used bags, construction, wrapping)
String or yarn
Something to write with (pens, crayons, water-based markers or paint)
*Please don’t use plastic, foil, beads, glitter, or other materials that will not decompose and might be harmful to animals and birds.”
These Earth Day wind wishes will fade, and the paper will decompose. Birds and squirrels will use the bits of string and paper to build nests.
Prayer flags in Kathmandu,
By our deeds throughout the coming year, let's strive to make these wishes come true!
Thanks for reading!
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CURSED with Call It What You Will!
“What is the daydreaming equivalent to flaneur?”
I asked my know-it-all friend Google.
“Flâneur (pronounced: [flɑnœʁ]), from the French noun flâneur, means “stroller”, “lounger”, “saunterer”, or “loafer”.Flânerie refers to the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations.”
—Or should I have written equivalent of flaneur instead of to flaneur—Halt! Scratch that! (Grammarian-digressions are not “writerly." They are more excuses to drift away. Write now, fix later . . . )
I guess the idea is to imagine listening while daydreaming about strolling into the blur.
Good old Google directed me first to Flaneur Audio. A fuzzy woodlands image and a playlist of “0 minutes; 0 titles.”
Why do I ask? You ask:
Because “daydreaming” is too passive, to harmless-sounding for this affliction.
The next Google link took me to page 133 of a treatise entitled “A Short Phenomenology of Flanerie” which was, I assure you even as I hyperlink, is no treat to read.
(And no, “Flanerie” it is not a misspelling of “Flannery.”) However, Flannery O’Connor’s Slow, deep, Suthun' drawling style is sort of what I mean in asking the question.
Maybe Flannery's prose read slowly because she didn't have A/C. Was the summer air was so dense it weighed heavily on her hand so she couldn't write fast? Did she go out to the porch to cool off before writing fast-paced scenes?
Why do I ask?
Because “daydreaming” is too passive, too harmless-sounding for this WHAT-DO-YOU-CALL-IT? Affliction . . . nay. CURSE!
A CURSE which most recently led to me being stranded in JFK airport at 6:02 am. It struck like this:
Right on time—albeit night time: 4:00 am—I revved up the Long Island Express Way toward JFK airport. Happy the forecast-ed snow hadn’t hit, I hit the almost empty highway with my mind tuned to nothing.
Then, I started thinking about that snow and like snow, my mind drifted . . .
ZOOMMMMMMMMMing along, thinking fluffy, puffy, snowy ideas . . . ZOOMMMMM . . . Past the exit—
Congratulating myself for coming to in time to catch my mistake, I flipped a U-turn, and circled back to the entrance. No worries.
The radio station was replaying the same set it has been playing for the past week. I knew all the words, so I sang along as I drove. Until somehow, I wasn’t singing, I was thinking. Thinking through my stories…about Vampire Baby . . .
Her poor brother. . . and where his unsuspecting parents would make him take Tootie next . . . and what’s she could bite—
WHAAAA WHOP WHOP WHIRRRRRRRRR Sirens! Flashing lights!
I clutched the wheel, scanned traffic, focused as I rolled passed the 1 ambulance-3 squad car-2-car smash-crash
Which got me thinking about boys . . . how they are born with car noises BUBBBBBBBBBB. . . . Max had been . . . Then I got to thinking about Baby no-teefers-yet Ben, and how pretty quickly he’d have teeth. Will he be a Vampire Baby? Then I got to thinking what Ben might bite. . . . what kind of stories will Ben make up and will I imagine stories for him . . . lah lah lah . . .
Monsters….and trucks….Mickie Knudsen’s brilliant, funny, don't-I-wish-I'd-thought of it Big Mean Mike.
About how it reminded me of Visitor for Bear
And why? Because Mike and Bear are grouches?
I'm a grouch! Could I write about a grouch? What kind of grouch?—
--WIZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I glimpsed a sign for the Mid-town Tunnel as I zoomed past . . .
I hit the pause button. I didn’t remember signs for the Mid-Town Tunnel on my way to the airport? I didn’t think so, anyway—
I took the next off ramp, which also happened to lead to a gas station, which made me feel more smart than stupid as I was going to have to fill up the rental car anyway, so really, this was a fortuitous overshot (overshoot?) as I could now double-checked the route on Google Maps while fueling--I couldn’t have gone tooooo far past the airport turn off--good thing I’d left so early. . .
Determined not to make any more mistakes, I flipped a U-Turn. This time, paying strict attention to each Google Map lady instruction, I drove straight back to the airport, to the rental car return where a robot recording told me to go inside. So I did, and waited for the attendant to stop kvetching with her colleague and pay attention to me, which she eventually did, and after a quick comfort stop clomped purposefully to the Air Train station where I responsibily checked the directory, found Jet Blue’s location and boarded the next train .
Maybe it was the chug-chugging that got to thinking about trains, and train books, and what if my story—the story I didn’t know how to fix—what if I put a train in it—lah-lah-lah . . .
. . . I came to in front of the Caribbean Airlines desks with nary a Jet Blue desk in sight. Why? Because I was in Terminal 4, not 5—
I wasn't phases. (OK, I was, but just a little bit.) The swirling ideas had infused me with wonderment and possibility even this detour couldn’t dispel.
All the way on walk back to the Air Train and the ride back to Terminal 5 and the longer walk to the check-in counters I held tight to the feeling and the ideas--a mind stuffed with BRILLIANT MUST-DO ideas!
In hearing this account, some—not my family—might applaud this . . . this. . . Imaginitis. A gift! They might call it. This kind of dream thinking is vital! Imperative! It’s what makes writers WRITERS. It’s the path to going deeper to our best stories!
That's certainly what I was thinking: “What a gift!” as I waited in the correct queue at the correct terminal, “What a gift!” as I made my way to the check-in desk, “What a gift!” even as upon hearing my destination the airline rep checked her watch. If she had smiled and said “welcome” I might still be thinking "What a gift!"
But she didn’t.
Now, instead of a head-full of insights, solutions to my story problems, brilliant ideas, what I have to show for this latest bout of whatever the correct term for this daydreaming equivalent to flaneur is is a bill for another flight, a day-long wait in the airport, another flight to Miami followed by another wait, and a sore tailbone.
This is NO gift . . . .
So I ask again, WHAT IS IT?
Is it OCD/ADD? Is it a writer-itis? Is it that hormonal stuff? Or that aging thing that can be cured with heavy doses of Sudoku and crossword puzzles?
Whatever it is, help! Help! Cure me from this daydreaming equivilent-call-it-what-you . . .
. . . Wait!
I just thought of something . . .
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LESSONS from YOGA BABY ...CAN WE can CAN'T ?
Yoga Baby doesn't even have teeth yet.
No Teefers inside that happy grin. No swollen gums. No white ridges. Just buckets of drool
Danger Will Robinson! Ben's mobile . . .
Yoga Baby's father didn't try pulling himself up to standing until he was 11 months. It wasn't a matter of "can" or "can't" . . . He didn't even want to try.
He just recently--at 7 months-- learned to crawl.
Now, not 3 weeks later YOGA BABY pulled himself up to standing all by himself.
Look Ma!
At 8 months, Yoga Baby's Aunt Lexi could stand, holding on. But she needed help to get up there.
Then, why Yoga Baby? HOW?
One day last week, when no one was watching, so no one was there to tell him "be careful" "no no Baby" "You might fall, Yoga Baby grabbed hold of the laundry basket and pulled himself up to standing.
The Laundry Basket is there. I'm here. The folks aren't here to tell me "no", so I say 'YES!"
"Come on, Legs! Don't fail me now. Straighten up! Be strong! Give me some lift off!
Tah Dah! The View from Up Here is soooo much nicer!
Now--"No Prob, Bob!"--YOGA BABY pulls himself up all the time.
“But, how did you know you could do it, Yoga Baby?”
That's the thing. It's not about knowing you CAN. . . . It's about not thinking "I CAN'T"
It's about starting from a place of "CAN!" Then asking yourself "HOW?"
But . . . but: Are we born with that niggling voice that tells us "Can't." "No." "Don't Even Try?" "You're Gonna Fail"?
What do you think? Is that "Can't" there, talking to Yoga Baby even while he's pulling himself up? But because he can't talk yet, he doesn't understand what it's saying? Is that why Yoga Baby dares the impossible? Or does "can't" have to be taught?
Is "Can" in our nature and "Can't" from our nurture?
If "Can't" is learned, can it be unlearned?
“Can we fire Can’t? —Can we Can it? ”
We Can!
Start with Can! Then, take a lesson from Yoga Baby, and ask yourself: How?
HOW? STARTS NOW!
For a Paper Moon on April Fool's Day
“Words words words I’m so sick of words . . . Is that all you blighters can do?”
These may like odd words , especially coming from a writer. But it's what's stuck in my head just now. Frankly, I am sick of the of pages and piles of unwanted printed material--catalogs, magazines, outdated text books, playbills, obsolete manuals--heaped and mounded, fanned, basketed, lined-up and otherwise cluttering up my spaces...words, words, words. Do I toss them into the recycles? Donate them to the nearest library bin so they can try to sell them and or toss them into the recycles? Burn them on the balcony? Or . . .
My friend Alicia, a former bookseller now happily ensconced in the children's section of Conroe Central Library, reminded me that one art form can feed another by bringing my attention to exhibit, Rebound, at The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, "featuring five contemporary artists: Guy Laramee, Long Bin Chen, Francesca Pastine, Doug Beube, and Brian Dettmer, who create sculptures and installations using various books and printed materials." Here's info about the exhibit and museum: Rebound.
Rebound-9
Which reminded me of the Mysterious Paper Sculptures created and deposited anonymously in stores, book festivals,etc. that captured my fancy a while back. I wrote about them in my blog posting: Word Sculptors Inspire Paper Sculptures.
Here's the link to more: Mysterious Paper Sculptures link:
Which brought to mind the charming "word nests" my writer, friend, fellow UN, Sharry Wright, co-blogger on Kissing the Earth, created and wrote about in a spring post titled "Building a Nest"
Sharry Wright's Word Nests
Dealing with outdated reading material is a "Third-World" issue, and historically-speaking, a recent one. Prior to the invention of toilet paper any unwanted paper was put to good use. (Aww come on, surely you've heard stories of olden-day outhouses stocked with Sears Catalogs?)
In less developed places there's no such thing as "unwanted paper." When we moved to Jakarta in 2005, my housekeeper, Rusnati, painstakingly smoothed out packing paper and used it to line all the cupboards and closets in our house.
Back in the day, outdated phonebooks, Sears Catalogues, and the big thick Yellow Pages was a problem my mom turned into an annual Christmas tradition, and "how to keep the kids busy over the long holiday" solution. Her friends and our friends gathered around the table making Christmas tree table decorations from telephone books. Clump by clump we'd fold back the pages while the grown-ups chattered and Dean, Bob, Johnny, Mitch Miller's Singers, Elvis, and Don Ho "Live from Honolulu" seranaded us. Being a Multi-tasking Queen, Mom usually had us cookie baking at the same time. A little peanut butter cookie grease never hurt anything. Maybe even made the page creases neater . . . Anyway, when the folding was over, gold spray paint and enough glitter and sequins made every tree merry and bright.
Martha Stewart's mom or friend's mom must have done the same thing. Her updated version uses outdated magazines--even her own! Telephone Book Christmas Trees.
Martha showed how to make them on her show. Here's the video
All of which reminded me that I have scissors and glue and imagination that I could use to refashion those unwanted volumes of words words words . . .
. . . Which would make room for so many more . . .
"Show Me" from the musical, My Fair Lady, lyrics by Jay Lerner.) Have a listen on U-Tube