21 posts tagged “self”
I reference one of my favorite 37 Days essays in that poem. It's hard to believe that Patti Digh wrote that one two years ago--I think of it often. It's going to be one of my touchstones for 2008--that desire lines essay. I don't know how others use touchstones, but for me they're the things (tangible or not) that center me when I can feel myself straying...(away from my desire lines).
Although Jennifer Lee designed this project as a business plan, I love her Right-Brain Business Plan idea because it can be used to storyboard your dreams whether they're business, personal, creative, relationship, financial, health...any-kind-of dreams! I encourage you to subscribe to the feed for her Right-Brain Business Plan blog because I just know she's going to deliver some fabulous stuff there this year!
Christine Kane invites us to choose a touchstone word for 2008 in her "Resolution Revolution" post. I chose LEAP! (And, yes, I plan to write it in CAPS with an exclamation point all year!) :) And look what Christine commented back after I left my comment:
marilyn - a coach I know chose “leap” one year - and she made so much extra income that she wrote to me and told me she wanted to bill me because it was my fault that she had to pay so many taxes!
it’s a good one to generate movement.YES! ;)
If you haven't signed on to participate in Creative Every Day, I urge you to do so. It doesn't matter if all you do today is tie your shoelaces with a flowery flourish. Make space in your life for the creative each day. We often keep ourselves so busy with surface activities and then wonder why we're not feeling inspired. We must create a window for inspiration. Better yet, create a door! Schedule breathing room in your life to make space for creativity to enter.
I told Leah in her comments that two creative pursuits I want to continue to explore in 2008 are photography and poetry. And I can't begin to tell you how scary it was to say that out loud (so to speak). (See hiding one's light under a bushel above.) To that end, I've been adding goals to my long-neglected 43 Things list. I'm choosing to keep that goals list private for now--I think the privacy will enhance my bravery. ;)
Although I thanked her in the previous post, huge thanks to Darlene for creating December Views. It reignited my love of photography. And as I said below, that's in spite of never having owned anything more than a point-and-shoot camera. Truthfully though, I've never really believed that it's about equipment anyway--I believe it's about what and how we see. And in 2008 I want to give myself permission to shoot what I see. I often feel very self-conscious shooting in public places and that's a hurdle I want to LEAP! over this year. ;) I've been on Flickr for years, but really only fell madly in love with it this year. If you're a Flickr user and I haven't added you as a contact yet, please let me know. My Flickr profile is here. I get a lot of joy from viewing the images my contacts create there.
I wanted to close this post with a poem I wrote last year, but because I seldom revisit my poems, I couldn't remember when I'd written it or what it was called. I only remembered the essence of it. I just found it in the archives on my poetry blog and I'm smiling to myself...because it's about heart lines and touchstones and right timing and rhythms of life. It's about home, which I suppose is what we're all ultimately seeking in any moment. It's called "benediction" and I wrote it 5/31/07:
if i could wish for you to be
blessed with a shimmering grace
you'd see if you looked closely that
a river runs through it
bisects your heart and traverses
your veins carrying with it
the solace of benediction of
a life well-lived a gentleness
of spirit that could calm you in
disquieted times giving you
a peaceful balm to soothe your
tormented brow in times of battle
when you momentarily forget
that the fight is not what matters
but the surrender
it would carry you swiftly yet gently
by the touchstones of your
life and you'd know no sweeter
touch than the grace blessing
your fingertips as they brushed against
your best heart moments as
you passed them by on the banks
of your soul's stream
feeling no fear in the rhythm
of the current knowing full well
in the chalice of your heart
that right time carries you
as it sees fit and that it doesn't matter
which direction you're headed
because all directions
carry you home
This year, let me choose home.
Happy New Year, friends! Much love and peace to you all in 2008. xoxo
List five reasons (at least) why you are awesome.
Submitted by goobers18.
1. I'm an organizational whiz.
2. I'm a devoted Auntie.
3. I've maintained my sobriety for 17 years, 7 months and 26 days...(but who's counting?)
4. I have no shame over the fact that I'm female and suck at the so-called domestic arts.
5. I'm a loyal friend.
Watch the trailer for the film...go on, it's not long...I'll wait...you can watch it here...
As predictable as it might seem, doesn't it give you pause for just a moment about what would be on your bucket list?
The blogosphere is rife with 101 Things to Do in 1,001 Days projects. (Some prefer to use 43 Things. I haven't logged into my account there in probably two years.) I always admire anyone who can be brave enough to post one of those lists on their blog--let alone start doing the stuff on them. Just making the list feels like too much commitment to me! :) But then, fear of commitment is a recurring theme in my life. I like to keep things fluid--I like to be open to spontaneity. What matters to me in this moment might not seem remotely important to me tomorrow. Does that make me flaky? Maybe. All I know is: I love beginnings. I like the rush I get from the initial essence of something and I tend to lose steam as time goes on. It's why I get bored so quickly in jobs, and why I know that I'm a project person. It's why I liked freelancing in short-term positions where I worked on a project and then was done and could move on. Doing the same repetitive tasks ad infinitum bores me to tears. No wonder I never pursued a college degree. Can you imagine? Declaring a major and staying with it long enough to actually get a degree in it? I'm just not wired that way. To paraphrase William Hurt's character in The Big Chill, "I'm not into that completion thing..." (I've always joked that the ambition gene is absent from my DNA...I think the completion one is, too.)
I don't even allow myself to create a bucket list. In fact, I have an innate fear of writing down goals...period. There, I've said it. Those kinds of lists give me palpitations. Decades ago I went to a therapist to work on my fear of commitment. In our first session, he asked me to commit to 10 sessions to give ourselves a time frame to work with...but I couldn't commit to it. :) So if you're someone who has a 101 in 1,001 list on your blog, you can be pretty sure that I steer clear of your list and most of the posts related to it. Or did I not mention that even reading your lists of goals gives me palpitations? Just like I spent decades equating a marriage license with the sound of a cell door slamming (with me on the inside, not outside), I can't stop thinking that writing down goals means that I'm carving them in stone. I don't want to be held accountable for something that matters to me today but might not matter to me tomorrow.
Yet even if I could get past the fear of 'carving it in stone,' there's something bigger at work for me when I think about a bucket list, and that's this: I'm not burning with desire to accomplish things. (I see you all making L's out of your fingers and holding them to your foreheads...LOSER!) :) I'm very smart and very capable and do a lot of things well. People get frustrated with me when they ask me what I really want to do, because I always say I have no idea. That's because when I hear the question, the underlying meaning I usually hear is: what do you want to accomplish? And doing and accomplishing are two separate animals in my book.
In creative outlets, I start losing steam when it starts feeling like a trek toward accomplishment. Because then--for me--it starts feeling like a competition and like a thirst for validation from others. And then I panic. I was vociferously competitive when I was younger, but now I run for the hills when I feel competition nipping at my heels. It's been my experience that competition brings out some ugliness in people, and that's the kind of hurtful ugliness I like to stay away from these days.
So you see, I've got two big issues that come up when I think about making a bucket list: fear of commitment and fear of accomplishment. The latter brings up all my stuff about how much time and energy I've spent in my life thus far making myself small for other people's comfort and to satisfy their insecurities (mostly in the 'real' world). Even though I sometimes see blog posts about people feeling jealous of others' success, for the most part I find the blogosphere to be an accepting and loving and supportive place. Yet sometimes we seem to operate as if there's a limit on dream fulfillment--that if someone gets to have one of their dreams fulfilled that we'll be robbed of one of ours. My bucket list has nothing to do with yours and vice versa.
I sometimes get paralyzed by the thought of acquiring education or training to gain expertise in doing something. I've always loved the cliche: Fake it 'til you make it. I didn't study how to write poetry (and have no intention of doing so)--I just one day started writing what felt to me like poems.
What would I like to do before I kick the bucket? What would I like to be? I'm going to start giving that some thought. Maybe a bucket list will be a project for 2008. Maybe we could form a bucket list group. Just don't ask me to commit to it... ;)
John Mayer wrote a song for the film and released it on his blog on Friday. Check out the 11/16 post entitled "Say." There's good advice in those lyrics, because it seems to me that the first step in creating a bucket list would be to..."Say what you mean to say..."
I'd love to hear your thoughts about your bucket lists.
Friday night we went by my brother's place in Dixon to borrow his pickup (he's out of town). Jeffrey wanted to pick up some more sod for the front lawn on Saturday morning. Sitting at the sod place early Saturday morning, waiting in the truck while Jeffrey went inside to make our purchase, I suddenly realized looking at the inside of my brother's truck how utterly different we are in our lifestyles. His is a life filled with hunting gear and sports and all things macho...as evidenced by this tableau...
We kept the truck overnight on Saturday. Jeffrey would be splitting early Sunday morning for the first of two gigs and I could just drive my brother's truck back to their house for Ciara's party (instead of Chelle having to drive over to Davis to pick me up). I'd never driven it before, even though we've borrowed it several times to move or haul things, so when I drove to their house on Sunday afternoon, I took the country backroads. (And how cool is it that I can drive to my brother's house in the next town without ever having to get on a freeway or highway?) It was while driving through the fields, windows down on a gorgeous sunny day, that I heard the first few lines of a poem:
i am a vibrant being of light
i'm taking back my power
taking back my might
I said them out loud. Then more lines came. I recited them as I thought of them and liked what I was getting. But I didn't stop to write them down because I was on my way to the party and wasn't sure I even had a piece of paper in my bag to capture them. Then I wondered if sitting up high in the cab of my brother's macho pickup was influencing what I was writing. :) It wasn't an angry poem in the least, but it felt like someone reclaiming some power.
When I got to the party I forgot all about the poem I'd 'written' without ever writing a word down. Fast forward to yesterday... I was up at 3 am...back asleep by 8...and slept till almost 1. I haven't done that in ages. It felt so good after being so sleep-deprived the past few weeks. J had worked a few hours in the morning and left to play golf right after I woke up. We had coffee at home, but I felt like getting out. So I walked to the Peet's around the corner, tucking a journal in my bag. I grabbed a gingerbread latte and some chocolate/cherry bread, took a seat at the counter in front of the windows and pulled out the journal. I wrote down those first few lines I remembered and then...nothing. I couldn't remember the lines I'd come up with in the truck! At first I was pissed...but then I thought, okay, that was a poem for yesterday...I'll just write one for today. And here's what came out...
Lest you read too much into it, I wasn't angry when I wrote it and I'm not even sure I was talking about just myself. I was thinking how when women are strong and assertive and ask for what they want, they often get labeled negatively.
Here's a clip of two of my favorite chick singer/songwriters, Sheryl Crow and Shelby Lynne, singing one of my fave Sheryl songs, "The Difficult Kind." I've been the difficult kind many times. Yet I believe it's true what Sheryl wrote--"...what love has done to me..." The right kind of love can morph so-called difficult into strong...and that starts with self-love. But I hope I always keep my inner bitch fire burning. I wish we could strip the word of its negativity. I'd like to adopt it as a word that means powerful and strong and righteous. I'd like to be a righteous bitch.
Rather than write an actual post for Sacred Life Sunday today, I'm going to offer up a sacred buffet for you to sample from...little morsels from here and there...
Today's prompt at Sunday Scribblings is "left and right." Here's my take...inspired by a couple of posts I read early this morning at Jennifer Lee's Life Unfolds blog that reminded me of a Myers-Briggs test I'd once taken. I surfed through months and months of Jennifer's blog this morning. (I hope she doesn't think I'm a stalker!) :) I was directed there by a link at Jamie's Starshyne Productions blog--another great blog I've been reading regularly for quite awhile, but haven't often commented on. I've vowed to correct that. Jamie also has a great blog called Wishcasting. Have a wish and want a safe place to 'put it out there' and have others affirm it with you? Then check out Wishcasting.
We watched Canadian actress Sarah Polley's most excellent Away from Her with the extraordinary Julie Christie last night. It's a beautiful and thought-provoking film, and we were both touched and moved by it. Jeffrey said this morning as we were lying in bed that he was still thinking about it. Here's a short clip of Sarah talking about her film...
Lori-Lyn continues on her YouTube-documented 100 Days Challenge. I've greatly enjoyed watching her videos--so many great tips and insights there.
I really related to Solbeam's "Collapsed Cairns" post: "...I get the opportunity to wake up (again and again) in the same bed, to the same set of realizations, wondering, “…didn’t I already come to these conclusions?” and if so, where did they go?" Indeed.
I just opened Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit at random (a book sent to me by the abundantly creative Leah) and saw this:
The golfer Davis Love III was taught by his father to think of practice as a large circle, like a clock. You work on a skill until you master it, and then you move on to the next one. When you've mastered that, you move on to the next, and the next, and the next, and eventually you'll come full circle to the task that you began with, which will now need remedial work because of all the time you've spent on other things.
Those of you who've known me for awhile know that I live with a golf nut. The man would watch the Golf Channel 24 hours a day. Well, he doesn't so much watch it all the time as just like having it on in the background. (In his defense, he doesn't typically do that while I'm in the room...at least not most of the time.) And I come from a family of golfers (so Jeffrey fits right in).
One would think golf doesn't typically have much in common with the things I feel passionately about, but that Davis Love reference made a lot of sense to me...and not just about creative skills.
What I've learned in my 5+ decades on the planet is that life is like clockwork. As I commented on a blog this morning, I find that at this stage of my life I seem to spend less time mourning the loss of people and things and more time mourning the loss of self-identities--of pieces of myself I gave up on along the way.
As I grow older, it seems to me that one's life journey is less a long, straight line as it a grand, sweeping arc. And one of the great pleasures of my life these last several years has been the process of revisiting some of my past and picking up some of the pieces I'd abandoned along the way. It's like I was speeding down the freeway the first time I went through...and now I'm traveling back along the frontage road and making stops along the way to add treasures to my soul-keeping. (Some people like to be bookkeepers or beekeepers or shopkeepers...I think I'd like to be a soulkeeper.)
And I don't mean to make this sound as if I'm only traveling backwards. I'm all about forward movement...I just like to set aside time occasionally for a little drive in the country. ;)
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Following up on my tag clouds post--in a similar vein--I love Jennifer's woman-ifesto! Let's all make one! :)
Michelle created a wonderful idea on her post a couple of days ago. Have a post that you felt you put your heart into but not many people saw or heard it? Let her know in the comments there and she'll link to it. Ironically, the post I shared there was about self-identity.
See, like clockwork.
There's a moment from the documentary about the Sam Shephard play (see "more Sam" post below) that's been haunting me...in a good way. There are short interviews with various cast members interspersed throughout the film. In one such moment with Nick Nolte, he tells about what was happening in his life right before he began rehearsals for the play. I can't remember all of the exact details--and I certainly can't quote it verbatim--but I'll give you enough to serve my purposes here.
He'd flown home to Phoenix to be with his mother during her final days, he'd torn up his leg somehow, he'd become ill himself. Long story, short: he's probably in no condition to start rehearsing Sam's play. It's a Friday and he's lying in a Phoenix hospital. He thinks he'd better call Sam because rehearsals start that Monday in San Francisco. He calls Sam and relays his entire litany of woe: he's just lost his mother, his leg's all torn up and he doesn't even know if he can walk, he's sick and in the hospital. Sam asks, "Why are you telling me this?" Nick replies, "Well, I thought you should know." To which Sam says, "Why don't we pretend none of it ever happened?"
Let's simply pretend that it never happened. Genius! Seriously, I had one of those major AHA! moments watching Nick recount Sam's rejoinder. I may have even heard a choir of angels singing...
Because in that moment it hit me like a ton of bricks how attached we become to our stories. To the stories of our lives. And I'm as guilty of this as everybody else, and more guilty than some. Because I learned from a young age that when I'm in the mood, I can spin a good yarn. I can throw just the right amount of sarcasm into the mix to make it funny. And I have a dark sense of humor to begin with, so it doesn't take much for me to slip into self-deprecation mode and be able to laugh at my own mishaps. And like anyone who's a closet comic, I'll do anything for a laugh. So if I make the first person laugh, I continue telling the story to as many people as will listen.
This is not new knowledge. I didn't hear Nick Nolte relating a story in a Sam Shepard documentary and suddenly think, "My god, that's never occurred to me that we do that!" No, it's that it's never occurred to me in those moments that instead of replaying the same movie over and over and over in my head and in my storytelling, I can simply choose...to pretend it never happened. It's that phrase that's never occurred to me to use as a tool in my letting go tool kit. And it took me hearing it attributed to one of our best playwrights to think: well, of course--if we can act like something did happen, then surely we can act as if something did not.
And maybe the reason that phrase strikes such a powerful chord for me is that it seems to involve a different process than simply 'letting go,' even though the end result could be the same. In the act of letting go, I often feel like I'm forcing myself to do it. I'm typically letting go of something that's deeply rooted in my resentment garden, and letting go of it requires a lot of digging and grunting and sweaty hard work. At least that's how it sometimes feels for me... ;) As aware as I try to be (sometimes anyway), the process of letting go can often feel like a tug of war. I don't want to let go of it, but I do it grudgingly because I know that ultimately it's in my best interest. (I've spent many decades cultivating that resentment garden and sadly, I'm quite proud of it.) ;)
Whereas, pretending it never happened feels like an entirely different dynamic to me. It's like being a human Etch-a-Sketch. I can simply bend over at the waist, give my head a good shake and wipe the slate clean. It (the bad experience) can't have power over me. It can't suck up my thoughts and feelings and throw them into a negative blender, because it doesn't exist. It never happened.
Now, I can hear some of you saying: but if we simply go around pretending things never happened then we're not honoring our true and authentic life experiences--we're short-changing our memory banks. But think about it: what's the worst thing that could happen (if we pretend something didn't happen)? I'm one who believes we have souls, and I believe that our hearts and souls make up the essence and core of our very being. I believe that our hearts remember things our minds can't. I'm not implying we should erase our heart and soul memories--just free up our minds a bit. Clear off some of that hard drive to make space available for new and better experiences. Because our hearts don't tell the stories most of the time--our heads do. If we get cut off in traffic and spill something on our lap and a mile later have a flat tire...well, more than likely, your heart won't be the one to tell that story by the water cooler. The phrase "clear the cache" comes to mind. Here's one definition of cache: "An area of computer memory devoted to the high-speed retrieval of frequently used or requested data." Frequently used...data. I don't know about you, but I've got stories I've been telling for decades. And who am I, anyway? Do my stories make me who I am? The experiences they're based on form the fabric of who I've become, for sure. But I have a feeling that retelling the same stories is holding me back from creating experiences for new ones.
Another great dinner last night--another three hours of conversation in a restaurant. But I didn't sleep well. I was up half the night and slept through the alarm when I fell back asleep. So all I have to offer this morning is this.
(Maybe you'd like to write about your favorite person.)
It rained all day yesterday. RAIN--like actual big, thick drops. But the sun's back today and it's about 70. (I know, I'm spoiled.)
Jeffrey whisked me on errands as soon as I got home from work on Thursday and we were up quite late that night. We set the alarm for 7 am yesterday. When we got up, I started the coffee pot and then spent the next 90 minutes ironing his clothes for his trip. IRONING! I don't even iron my OWN clothes! But he'd read something online about not being able to bring an iron on board the cruise ship. So I ironed his clothes while he putzed around doing other stuff to get ready. Then I showered and while he showered I called in and picked up breakfast burritos at the cafe on the corner. We sat in the kitchen and ate. (What a novel idea! We always eat on the coffee table in front of the TV...because we're grown-ups...and we can.) Then we packed his bag and backpack and left for the airport at 10:30. He checked his bag while I parked the car. (I love Sacramento International Airport--very easy.) We hit Starbucks and sat at a table for a bit until it was time for him to join the long security line. On the way back to Davis, I stopped at Target in Woodland to get a few things. (Lord knows when they'll finally build our Target that was voted in last November.) Then I swung by the golf course to pick up his check and went to the bank to deposit it for him. As I was leaving the outside teller window, who should be walking up but my friend Carolyn (head counselor at school). What are the odds?! I was so surprised to see her. I know she banks there but we so rarely leave campus when we're working. Then it was back home to pack up a Priority Mail box for my Dad. I was so late in sending off his birthday gifts (September 25th he turned 79) that I was able to combine them with an anniversary gift (they celebrate 29 years on Monday). It was back out in the rain to the post office to ship it and pick up the mail...where I found the Danish film Mari had recommended (see post below). So you can guess how I spent my rainy afternoon.
I was going to go to Ciara's gymnastics meet this morning, but I was up late last night finishing a novel and the meet was in San Rafael (an hour away). So Auntie passed. Instead I got up late (for me), talked to J when he called from San Diego (gig last night went well) and then took myself to breakfast at the cafe on the corner.
I'd been surprised by a phone call out of the blue yesterday from a very old friend. He's not very old--what I mean is that we've known each other since 1st grade. We hadn't heard from him in awhile. He's lived in New York so long that I actually think of him as a New Yorker, but it turns out that he's been in L.A. for three months--primarily to edit a Steve Miller DVD. It was a day for contact from the past because I'd also gotten an email from my best friend from high school. I love her to pieces, but I wasn't feeling very happy about her suggestion that a few of us get together in a few months. This morning, as I sat at the cafe, I realized why. When I got home, I wrote this.
When I left the cafe, I had the urge to visit Bogey's Books (around the corner from the cafe). I was looking for something in particular, but he didn't have it. So I just browsed around a bit. I spotted Bill Bryson's memoir which I'd never even seen. I felt like I could use a good laugh, so I bought it. I've only read the first chapter and I already love it. But then, I love anything that gives me a good dose of nostalgia for the era I grew up in.
I also spotted a tiny book called A Diary of Private Prayer. It was marked down to $3.99. And even though it was originally published in 1949 (so the language is a bit quaint) and even though I'm not a Christian, I bought it. I'm good at substituting language when necessary, and I just liked the vibe of it. It contains morning and evening devotions for each day of a month.
No sooner had I picked up that little tome than I saw Matthew Fox's Sheer Joy at half price. I've never read an entire Matthew Fox book--have only skimmed a few. But I'd been feeling a bit sad sitting in the cafe. Not because I was eating alone and not because Jeffrey is gone. I'd been nursing my coffee, staring off into space, pondering the nature of friendships. I guess I was feeling a bit sad because there seem to be so few genuine friendships anymore--at least in 'real' life. ;) Our lives have become so busy and stressful, and we've become so cautious about being overly sensitive towards people's feelings that I feel like most of the contact I have with friends these days has to be on the down low. As if I'm not entitled to have friendships independent of other people...as if it matters more to do out of obligation than out of genuine delight. And as I picked up Fox's book (having already decided to buy the little prayer book), I thought of Sam--because I was sort of laughing to myself, "What am I doing buying two Christian books? I'm not even a Christian!" And then I opened Sheer Joy at random (page 231) and saw this: "Prayer has a double effect. One is the expulsion of sadness; the other is the increase of hope." felt tears prick my eyes and I was glad I'd been too lazy to remove my prescription shades. And I realized that once again, the universe had given me just what I was looking for.
