freewriting on friday, #2.

For the last two days I have been thinking and writing about the year I turned twelve.  It's strange to write your way into memories - things you have forgotten that keep rising up from the well.  There's a lot to say: understanding of self-awareness, social hierarchies, perceptions of the world.  And there is more writing before it can be anything.

I realized today that I was trying too hard.  I was trying to find a theme in what I had written, some underlying message, maybe even a loose moral lesson.  I have killed a great many things by over thinking them, so as soon as I realized what I was doing, I stopped.

To make a break in my mind and catch my creativity again, I did some freewriting on other topics.  The piece of freewriting that I am going to copy here is the real thing.  I just let it go.  When I freewrite with a computer, I have a hard time keeping up with my thoughts by typing.  Hence the (many, many) typos.  I have to work hard to get to the place where I can just let words come out of me without any rules.  Every bone in my body wants to correct the mistakes and delete the things that are uncomfortable to say or to read.  But I'm just going to lay it out there and let it be.

The prompt: Write about a time you felt spiritual.

I felt spiritual during the church choir in Brewster. I can't remember what the song was or when the choir sang it, but it was beautiful and big inside and I fell right into it and felt something of god all around me. I had goosebumps across my arms and tears in the corner of my eyes. I was playing the organ and I felt so full inside, like something was flowing in me, like the waterfall that is so big and loud you can't hear the person speaking right next to you and I didn't have the power to even listen, just to take it in through my ears (almost wrote eyes, music in through the eyes, I like it). I think it's so interesting to reflect on the spiritual experiences I have had in church and what that means for me, someone who is struggling very hard to figure out where I land. I don't believe in god, but...? The question is big and hard. I have had spiritual experiences in church, moments were I felt surrounded by something larger than myself. I have felt it in the familiar hymns during Christmas eve. I have felt it in familiar Bible verses being read, hearing united voices reciting a creed or prayer. And I felt it in the song that the choir sang. I don't understand spiritual or what it means. I know what it used to mean to me and it was actually something to be fought I think. I was raised to elieve we aren't supposed to feel things about our faith, it's just given to us and just shut up and take it. It's so weird: Luther rejects logic and reason (as the Devil's whore) but demands this cold, emotionless faith from us. Well he understood (I guess) and so do I that emotions and feelings are fickle and sometimes perplexing - not always available to guide us to the truth. I understand that. I have feelings that I don't understand every single day. Spiritual in church spiritual in church I completely lost my train of thought can't rememb erwhere I was going Ok right I remember thinking about what SPIRITUAL means I guess I always think ofit as being something very large or something that makes me feel very small. I get the exact same feeling from a susnet and the ocean. Especialy the ocean. Looking out onto something so big so much bigger than myself I look out and I'm in it and I cant type fast enough to connect workds to my thoughts I am making typos left and right and even backspacing a lot still so the ocean and bigness and I'm swallowed up and somehow that makes us feel safe and maybe that's a place every human being is longing for and hoping to understand. we get the same thing from love, love of people, love of family, we get that feeling from what what else? maybe people who seek adventure, mountain climbing, rock climbing, sea kayaking, skydiving, all of those things make us feel small and somehow that feels good. Or maybe it isn't at all to do with bigness and smallness but being surrounded. You are surrounded by the sky at the top of a mountain. You are surrounded by the light in a sunset and the w aves catch your feet again again again. And in church, you are surrounded by people who are supposed to be your people. But more and more I realize that church and faith, well that's a gathering place for people looking for the thing we want and need as human beings. i don't know what that thing is but the church It's a place for looking, you can't find anything there. It's just a lot of people who are all desperately looking looking looking. It's ag ethering place for the the looking people. They have to amek things for themselves to find.  I have too much baggage and too much to sort through in my mind, too much influence from those around me. I just need people to talk to me about it, I need to talk about it. I need to sit down with every person I know and say, Tell me what you think about god. even people i don't know, every person I see I just want to ask them, TELL me how you do this how do you figure out god and life tell me how you do it we're all people in this together and i need to know how everyone else is doing it I need to understand how we as human beings make these choices (10 minutes).

Finally, a thought for this weekend.

Love me when I least deserve it because that is when I really need it. - Swedish Proverb

that barbie feeling.

Do you remember the pure excitement of playing? For me, it was the Barbies. I can still vividly remember that feeling: waking up on a rainy Saturday and knowing I could play with my Barbies all day. Maybe it was Legos, maybe it was a treehouse in the backyard, whatever. You know what I mean. It was a simple and consuming love for what you were doing. That feeling is hard to hold onto.

I have been thinking too much lately; about love, loss, relationships, family, faith, hope. I am forever baffled by the craziness of this life. We are these individual creatures, all alone inside our own brains. And everything, it seems, is about forging connections. Crossing the distances that separate us as human beings.

That balance is elusive. Cultivate and discover yourself; meanwhile, let others in and connect yourself to them. It's hard to get it right. I have been talking with someone lately about times in the past when we have allowed ourselves to be defined by other people. It's so hard to see someone else do it, but so easy to do it yourself. And one day, when that person is gone, suddenly you can't remember what life means without them.

I'm ready to crack the whip and just write. I have spent the past two days thinking about writing something substantial. I don't want to spend the rest of my days freewriting and collecting my mundane thoughts on life (as great as that is). I'm ready to actually lay the bricks down one by one and write something that you can really read.

I am afraid to do it. Whenever I try, I'm strangely evasive. (So I have a collection of posts here on writing about writing about writing...I think). But yesterday, I stared at the notebook on my desk for 10 solid minutes. I just stared at the blank page. I finally wrote in block letters: I KNOW I SHOULD DO IT. There's my answer.

I am always giving advice to people on making life decisions and it usually comes down to this: Do what you want. We all make our own choices. So do what you want.

I am very much lost in my own head these days. It's hard for me to bring people in and to shed light on my own reflection. There's a lot going on, very quietly.

I can't stop thinking about the Barbie feeling. This past weekend, I remarked that I wished we could have that feeling as adults. What a ridiculous thing to say. I know what gives me that feeling. Looking at a wall stacked high with books. Turning pages late into the night. A new pen. Writing nonsense and more nonsense and then suddenly -- there's something real and hard and electrifying. Losing myself in these thoughts and then slowly figuring out how to capture them on the page. I've got the Barbie feeling. So take your own advice and do it.

Every now and then, I am hooked on a thought or an idea. Just after I write it down, I stumble on a writer, a friend, someone who is having the same thought. At the end of the day, that's the best reason I know of to write. Connection.

Yesterday, I wrote:

A good relationship (of any kind) makes you a better version of yourself. It opens you, it gives witness to your passion and life. It lights up who you already are. But it doesn't replace any of that. Life is never, never, never just one thing. It is everything fitting together. I have had to learn this lesson the hard way, over and over. I didn't realize until today, just now, right now, that I think I actually have.

Today, I read on this blog:

It's important to understand that independence is key in preserving the relationships that matter most. [...] People are like puzzles, and there are a multitude of pieces that make us complete.

So I continue: love, write, connect, grow, learn, understand.

fall is here.





strangers.

I read this book once about quitting smoking. The only thing I remember is the chapter about how we talk about quitting. You should never say, I’m trying to quit or I’m quitting smoking. You should say, I quit. The idea is that language has the power to create something in us. Say it like it’s true. I think this applies to other things in life, not least of all writing. At least it’s something I’ve been practicing on myself, to what end I’m not sure. I write every day and I feel it someplace deep inside of me, so I don’t say, I want to write. Simply, I am a writer. Whether it’s garbage or not, whatever role it plays, it’s something I do and it is part of who I am. So I just say it quietly, in my own head.

A list of good things to do:
-observe
-note details
-remember

I have always been overwhelmed by cities for one reason: the people. There are so many people, people you don’t know, strangers. I take strangers into myself and digest them. I observe. I stare. I drown in the details - a shirt corner untucked, chipped toe nail polish, sad eyes. I imagine stories about people. They live lives in my own head, they go to work, they come home at the end of the day. I can’t help it. I can’t turn it off. I am obsessed with the lives of strangers.

Living in a city now, I find myself getting friendly with strangers in my mind. I see the same people on the streets each day. I’ve woven elaborate lives for them and they’ve become like characters in some novel that I walk back and forth through. The sweaty man with the labored run. The old woman wearing the fanny pack. The girl with long legs and bad posture. They’ve become part of the fabric of my day.

I also empathize with strangers, mostly people I imagine to be sad or alone. Sometimes the feelings in me are so powerful I have to hold myself back from acting out. I want to stop that man on the street, the one with the big headphones, close-trimmed beard, thin wire glasses, legs too short for his body - I want to stop him and say, Are you alright? Are you lonely? Are you walking back to an empty house tonight? Maybe we’ll drink a cup of coffee together and I’ll ask him what he believes about god, what he thinks about human nature. And he’ll go home that night and maybe, maybe he’s felt bitterly isolated and disconnected from humanity and I can remind him what it feels like to have a witness to your life and to your thoughts.

Maybe he isn’t lonely. Maybe I am projecting my own fears and emotional dysfunction onto him (it’s possible).

I want to remember the man at the street market in New Orleans. This is what I mean: people get into my brain, right into the folds of it, and they’re burned in there. The eyes, the expressions, the way the shoulders droop. It was June in New Orleans and the humidity made it impossible to walk quickly, to breathe deeply. I walked through a large, tented street market - cheap clothes, jewelry, New Orleans souvenirs. I only went in because I wanted to be in the shade. I walked through each aisle, glancing over tiny plastic alligators and Mardi Gras beads. And then I saw a man hunched over, seated behind a table. He was turned away from market perusers while eating his lunch. I caught sight of him through the back curtain of his booth. His eyes were low and he was slowly, deliberately cutting a hard boiled egg into slices with a plastic spoon. I stared hard while he thought he was alone. All day I couldn't stop asking, Who boiled that egg?

We’ve got to wonder at people’s lives. I hope someone, somewhere is wondering at mine. It is the most honest witness to life.  Not living, just pure human life.

tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll turn twenty-six.  What do I want to do with my next year on this planet?  Live hard.

1-knit a sweater
2-make cheese
3-go camping
4-conquer the F-chord on my guitar
5-run a 5K
6-be more honest
7-love
8-start cooking dried beans
9-make one new friend
10-write more letters
11-drink more loose leaf tea
12-open up to people
13-read one new author from the list of nobel laureates
14-visit Canada
15-start making my own bread again
16-less dairy
17-buy clothes with color
18-write often
19-tell jokes
20-make pizza in my cast iron skillet
21-apologize less
22-sew curtains
23-ride my bike in the city
24-bake a layer cake
25-paint the big canvas
26-yoga

be inspired.

Let me tell you how I wrote today. It wasn't pretty. I did some freewriting this morning about nothing really. Writing all over the surface, writing crap.  Later I tried to make some lists (which usually calms me down and orders my mind). Later this afternoon and evening, I did some more freewriting that got wild and dark in a major way. Untimed, chaotic, unsettling.

All day, I have been circling around something and haven't been able to hit it. Finally, I said to myself, Girl stop what you are doing. Just write what you have to say. Just say it. And that's how I arrived at this:

For the entire day, I have been trying to say something. It's unsettling. I have stared out the window and let my mind wander. Everything I write is abstract.

So I'm just going to nail it down, right now, right here. What I want to say is this: I am overwhelmed by a major change in my life, one that is fundamentally altering my relationship with my family. I feel lost, scared, alone. I am disappointed in myself and what feels like a lack of ambition and direction in life. But in the midst of these feelings, I am struck by the goodness of life. I am inspired by the things I am hearing, reading, seeing. I am inspired in a way I haven't felt in a long time. All I want is to capture this sharp tug of emotion and my own battle to let goodness and inspiration win out at the end of the day.

There are things that help. People who listen to me with open hearts and minds. Remembering to laugh. Taking the time to sit quietly and reflect. Eating peanut butter brownies.

So I am writing to inspire, and to inspire myself. The world is very big with possibility, full of hurt but also full of love. I hope the people I love know it; I hope I say it often enough.

I was reminded today of the importance of noting things, appreciating them, marking how they inspire you. Keeping a light heart in the heavy moments. I make lists of these things (in disturbingly organized Gmail drafts - am I the only one who uses email drafts as a personal filing system?) Here are some to share for today.

Inspired List, 21sep2011.
-anything from this shop, but especially this mason jar chandelier.
-this post about being happy.
-this pinterest board and my food-loving friends.
-these knitted cowls -- first fall project?
-these words: What about giving more. Flexing more. Letting more go. Leaving a comment instead of reading and clicking away. Saying hi. Sending unexpected mail. Not worrying about the fact that other people are also doing amazing work (some of which might even, by unfortunate design or kind of cool coincidence, resemble yours). What about making time to ask how someone is. What about making space for someone whose work you don’t think gets enough attention. What about being a little braver, just a little. What about integrity. What about not joining in if you don’t like something, or speaking your piece if you do. What about that. I’m not saying you have to do these things. Just asking what might happen if you did.


Be inspired.  Trust people.  Share love.  Live deeply.

prison dreams.

I have a problem writing anything with teeth in it. I tend to be abstract, loose, warm. There isn't a lot you can hold on to: concrete images, descriptions, words that have an edge to them. I think this is a reflection of the way my brain works. I am very easily lost in my own mind and find meaning in ideas more than physical things. But you can only read that sort of writing for so long.

So that is the way I write. I'm aware of it and I'm always telling myself to reign it in, to bring more details and images and specifics into what I'm saying. But when I let it rip, without any censoring, it comes out introspective and mushy. This is frustrating; I know there is more to what I'm saying, but I can't capture it.

Over the past few months, I've had several episodes of what I've been told are anxiety dreams. Several nights in a row I'll have dreams that leave me unsettled. They aren't nightmares exactly, but they're close. Who knows what combination of life factors induce these anxiety dreams (I can take a guess) but this week, I've had another stretch of them. My dream two nights ago: I dreamt that I was wrongly convicted of a crime and was sent to prison.

I've always had a strange fascination with dream symbols. I think it's so interesting that there are dream symbols that are universal, across cultures, across time. For example: dreaming that your teeth fall out. There's no reason for me to have that concept in my consciousness, but one very specific time, when I felt overwhelmed by life, I dreamt that all my teeth fell out. I know other people who have had the same dream under similar circumstances. What causes humans to have universally understood dreams?

So I looked up prison dreams.

Imprisonment To dream that you are imprisoned suggests that you are feeling trapped or unable to move beyond a certain point.

Prison To dream that you are in prison indicates that you are being censored in some area of your life. You feel that your creativity is being limited and that you are not allowed to express yourself.

Take it or leave it.

Lately I've been trying to make use of a few writing exercises to help me stay open to stronger images and details. One of my favorites right now comes from Natalie Goldberg (Wild Mind, pp167-168).

Bite into a piece of celery. Write down a strong word. Not like tasty, salty, good. Sit still and wait for a concrete word to come: tiger, muscle, glass. The strong word does not have to be logical. It should not be an ordinary, conditioned response. [...] Be patient. You don't immediately or always hit home with terrific, strong concrete words. Often it takes a little warm-up time to feel you blasted through to something alive and on the mark. Jump in.

Here's how I do it: I take a look around and make a list of words. For each word, I write down several strong word associations. When something hits the mark, I write a sentence using that comparison.

Words: notebook, peanut butter, brick wall, fan.

notebook - concrete
notebook - sand
notebook - elephant
notebook - rubber spatula
peanut butter - lava
peanut butter - ocean
peanut butter - bowling ball
peanut butter - razor
brick wall - raincoat
brick wall - bullet
brick wall - tissue
brick wall - cedar
fan - cloud
fan - silk
fan - crunch
fan - antelope

My pen sunk into the notebook's wet concrete.
The brick wall was worn with age like a crumpled tissue.
The fan's silky blades whirred through the thick heat.

You get the idea. It's ok if it's weird or doesn't make sense. Even if you write something cliche or some of your strong words aren't all that strong. The point (for me) is to practice opening my mind to new images and details. It's hard to look at an object, think about it, taste it, and then find an association that isn't a conditioned response. That's good. Test your limits.

crazybrain.

I have been turning my brain over and again, trying to sort things out, trying to make some sense. I have things to say, but when I start to type, my eyes glaze over a bit, maybe I black out for awhile - then I look up and see nonsense all over the screen. Probably because today I have crazybrain. Do you know the feeling?

My mind is full, but almost violently, like thoughts are ricocheting against the inside of my skull too fast and hard for me to hold onto them. It happens. Sometimes life overwhelms us, sometimes for no apparent reason. It happens.

I used to feel the desperate urge to write at these times, but I was completely paralyzed by the chaos, by my inability to organize the thoughts and make sense of them. I have begun to understand that I can let myself ramble sometimes. There doesn't have to be an order, there doesn't have to be an end-product. So it's weird and you sound crazy in the head - so what? The process of writing, even if it's a bit wild and frantic, can be it's own sort of therapy. I read this book about a year ago. The lesson I took from it: be kind to yourself and let the act of writing your story be a way to heal.

It also has taken me some growing and learning to understand that exploring the depth of human feeling means sometimes you are afraid. Sometimes you don't understand where your thoughts come from, sometimes the brain doesn't make sense for a day. Just let it be. There's nothing wrong with you. If you're a thinking person, you'll have questions you can't answer and feelings you don't understand. Just let it be. Keep thinking; plumb the depths. A human being is a piece of work that doesn't always make sense. Just let it be.

I won't share all of my wild and frantic freewriting, but here's a piece from today. No prompt, untimed.

I have crazybrain today. Why am I scared of losing people? It takes over my head some days. I don't like it. I hope I'm not the only one out there who gets crazybrain and who calls it crazybrain. I mean, I started crying at my office. At my office. Do people really do that? I know that if I want to go anywhere with my writing I have to take the leap and cut the veins open and just put it all out there but I am afraid to do it, being so vulnerable, afraid people won't love me and yes, I'll admit it, sometimes I want to write because I want people to love me and acknowledge me and acknowledge my experience. That is something to say. Get it together. Get it together. There are hard things in life. We all know this - some dwell on it more than others. I am obsessed with loss, in particular the loss of people. I know it's weird. I'm especially obsessed with thinking about how people deal with the loss of other people. The feelings that they have. What are those feelings like? What do those feelings look like when you close your eyes? What do those feelings taste like? What color are they? I feel like a zombie my eyes are glazed over don't know how to get the words out days so long days long days long blankblankblankblankblank. Ok, here's what I really need to say. It's fear. It hurts to lose the people you love. You'll survive because people do, but it would hurt. But the more you let yourself love someone, the more it will hurt when one day they're gone. That is a terribly morbid and depressing way to think and I don't believe I'm doing it consciously. But it's there. I'm living for what-comes-next instead of now and I don't mean to and I don't like it. Ah man, I am crazy in the head today. What the hell. Loss loss loss. That woman's blog, the one who lost her husband suddenly. The woman at church who's husband died in a sudden accident. The sign on the door of the hair salon, "Closed: death in the family." Seeing the face of a woman who has just lost her husband. Those feelings must be the most acute form of loneliness. To be known by others is a very deep human desire and to have it fulfilled and then destroyed, to know that everything you shared with a person is now only known to you, man that is human suffering. And here's where I get hung up: it happens all the time, everywhere, every day. People lose spouses, fiances, girlfriends, boyfriends, parents, grandparents, children, friends. It happens and people pick themselves up and carry on. They get out of bed in the morning, they walk the dog, they go to work, they come home and make dinner. And yes, some people have that great holy thing in the dark that they can reach out to in fear, and maybe that helps and maybe that's the point and maybe that's why we have it. It happens all the time. What the hell. Write it out.

Yes, I am scared to show the crazy thoughts. But it's good to know we aren't alone. It's good to talk and to talk about hard things. It's good to be with other people and to let them inspire you.

There are bad things in the world. There are also good people. It's important to be reminded of this often.

for now.

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That's why we wake
and look out -- no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
- William Stafford, Yes

freewriting on friday.

Freewriting is like a slap in the face. No matter how often I do it, I am still surprised by the feelings it evokes. And it's sort of like running. I think to myself, I don't want to run. I want to get into bed and eat ice cream. But then I run and I feel good and happy.* Same thing with freewriting. I think to myself, I don't want to write. I want to read a book and check the weather and go to sleep. But then I write and I feel cracked open inside. Which is good, even if it isn't always happy.

And it doesn't matter how often you do it. You will be surprised by the words you write down. Freewriting takes you to "first thoughts" (as Natalie Goldberg calls them), uncensored and somehow almost separate from yourself. I promise, there are things in your brain that you don't even know about.

I have been in love with the idea of freewriting for a long time; only recently have I actually experienced the real thing. First, let me tell you how I do it.

1. I find a spot. At a table in a coffee shop, in my bedroom with the door shut, at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, on a bench in the park.
2. I set a timer. I'm a fan of 10-minute intervals. Usually I'll do a whole string of 10-minute intervals, but I haven't reached the point where I feel ready to set the timer for longer. 20 minutes? 30 minutes? Scarytime.
3. I start the timer and go. I just write, sometimes starting with a prompt or some idea that's been floating through my brain. Very often I get stuck and I write the word "blank" over and over.
4. When the timer rings, I stop. I immediately write (10 minutes) even mid-sentence and then decide if I want to go for another 10.

That's it. It's really not hard. The only rule is keep going. Don't stop and think, don't check for grammar and spelling, don't erase or delete - just go.  For a long time I thought it was hard and didn't really try. I'd freewrite here and there without a lot of commitment and didn't produce much of anything. But when you set the timer and stick to it, you'd be surprised. You get over the first blank hump and then something breaks loose a little bit. And you keep going. I always know when I've really broken through because my handwriting gets crazy and loopy and not at all like myself. In controlled situations my writing is very elegant and tidy. When I get into the freewriting groove, it gets wild.

So let me tell you about my first, real, honest freewriting experience. I tried it in college and afterwards, but never lost control (which is the whole point). This past holiday season, I lost control and ohmygod it was something else. My flight was cancelled (as often happens when you're trying to fly in or out of Minnesota in December). A friend offered to pick me up and let me stay with her for the few days in St. Paul (yes days) until the next flight. Unfortunately, this meant sitting at the airport and waiting for 6 hours. And then sitting at the apartment for 2 quiet days while she was at work. Obviously, I could have entertained myself with TV and trashy magazines, but instead I told myself I would write. It started at the airport. I just said, Ok girl - write for 10 minutes. I started to write about the man outside waiting for a ride, writing about who he might be waiting for.  I did it and the words just came and so I did another 10 minutes. And another and another. All said and done, I filled 40 pages of a notebook in less than 3 days. A lot of it was garbage, but the floodgates just opened.

Since that experience, I have become a firm believer in the timed freewriting practice. I have been awakened to my own ability to create and surprised by the words I have to say.

Try it.

And now for some freewriting. The prompt I started with, Write about being cold.

It was the first day of fall today the first real fall day. I've been looking forward to it the whole summer. I can't understand why, but lately I hate the heat more than anything. So I was walking to work this morning and it was chilly and I had been so happy that it wasn't hot and then my toes got cold. I was walking in flip-flops and my toes were cold. And I got to the office and had to sit cross-legged in my chair to warm up my feet. And so I was thinking about discontent. You know, how I can spend an entire summer complaining about being hot, and then the very first day I'm not hot, there I am complaining about cold toes. My lord, that is discontent if I ever saw it. Blank blank blank blank I was also thinking about cold faces. I'm just having one of those days where I feel a little out of it, who knows why. Maybe I didn't sleep too well, maybe I shouldn't have had cheese and beer right before bed, but I feel tired and groggy and headachy and wishing I was wearing my glasses and not my contacts. So I was staring at my computer this morning just staring at a spreadsheet and I realized I was making the lemon face. The lemon face. I can explain the lemon face. It's when your resting face looks angry and your mouth gets all twisted up and you don't even realize it. Your resting face isn't peaceful and happy it's sour. I used to say that to my mom all the time. Mom, you're making the lemon face. I guess maybe it runs in the family. I just read something not too long ago, a list of good things you should do and one of the things on the list was "work on your resting face." The face where you're just reading a book, walking to work, staring at a spreadsheet. Make it peaceful and happy. It makes me think of blank-face disease, which I have. Also a family trait. I often think that I look happy and smiley when my face is really looking blank. No one's mentioned it lately, but I had a friend once who would make a face at me every time I was making blankface - just to let me know that I had absolutely no expression. So I had cold toes this morning and I had a lemon face and it's true, it's true: all I'm thinking about is laying out in the warm sun. I'm looking out the window and thinking about a Cape Cod summer day at Newcomb Hollow and laying out in the sun, drifting in and out of sleep, reading a book, splashing in the ocean. Man I miss the Cape and I've only been gone for a month. Well it's time to embrace fall because it's here. I'll get in the groove - I'll bust out my scarf and my mittens and some knitting needles and I won't wear flip-flops to work again and I do love fall. Eating squash and apples and drinking hot drinks and being chilly and sleeping under a big comforter. I do love all of those things. Blankblankblankblank this makes me think of how, by accident, I've stopped drinking coffee. Lately I cannot seem to get up early enough to make it, can't walk to work carrying it, can't afford to buy it and so I've just stopped drinking it. It's surprising but I feel (10 minutes).

Of course, I want to delete not 10 seconds after I finish. Believe me, I know it's just rambling. It is nothing special. You probably don't care. But it's just some proof that I'm working the muscle. I can also tell you that this is nothing compared to my real freewriting - the stuff no one sees. My real freewriting is weird and nonsensical and scarycrazy. I'm still not brave enough to put it out there, even if only friendly eyes will see it. So we've got some self-censored unimportant rambling on our hands here, but per our agreement, I will not delete.

Remember: to be brave, sometimes you have to start small.

*Ok, one time I went running and I didn't feel happy.  There were some unwise lunch decisions before the run and I'll say no more.  Except: think twice before eating a plate of stuffed quahogs right before you run.

on porches and idea hoarding.

I wrote a bit today about porches. It's not very serious and not very deep. I was thinking of hoarding it away into the writing land-of-no-return. The place where things I've written will wait until they're ready (never). I imagine that I'll tweak them now and again and someday I'll find the right place for them. Just gotta wait for the time to come.

This idea hoarding is something I do often. Maybe you do it too? I'm not much of a physical hoarder (actually, I get a strange satisfaction out of throwing things away, which is another story). But I hoard special things and ideas. Do you know what I mean?

The beautiful handmade paper I got as a birthday present? Still carefully wrapped and stored. The canvas I picked up a year ago? Still blank. The hand spun yarn a friend passed on to me? Still bundled. It's not that I'm unmotivated or incapable of being creative. Give me some cheap yarn and I'll knit you a mile of scarves. But I hoard special things for the right occasion or perfect moment. Well, I do the same thing with ideas. I get it started and then think, This idea could be really great, but it's not ready yet. I'll save it for later.

Wrong. I am only just beginning to understand that if you want to write, there is no saving it. The writing and the ideas are for now. You just have to put them out there, put them on the paper, use them up. Why? More will come. I have this on fairly good authority

One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. - Annie Dillard

but I still have a hard time making myself believe it. I guess there's only one way to find out.

Lately I've been having fits of intense gratefulness.  In these fits, I say things (to myself) like, Holy moly girl look at your life. It is good. And I find myself thinking: What is the point of life if all we do is save the good things for later? I don't just mean handmade stationery and writing whims. I mean the good things that make life good. I mean not taking yourself too seriously, I mean spending a lazy Sunday with someone you love, I mean eating butter (and lots of it). Let yourself enjoy the good things now - maybe now is as much later as you'll get.

I don't mean to be gloomy and morbid, only to encourage living now rather than later. Also to encourage writing now rather than later. But mostly to get my own butt in gear so that I can put some words on the page with a little faith that more words will come along next time.

***

I want to tell you about the glory of a porch. I can't tell you why exactly, but a porch is good. Honestly, I'm a little obsessed. A porch is the sole feature of my dream house. I don't even need a house really, just a porch. Ok, I guess I might also need a bedroom/bathroom/kitchen. But I mostly dream of sitting on a porch and doing porchy things.

A porch is the perfect place to be alone but not quite. You're still home, but you're outside enough to smile and nod at folks on the sidewalk or across the fence, to hear the sounds of traffic, to watch the world go by (as a friend once put it). I also know it's the perfect place to sit on a swing, to read and write, to drink some coffee, to hold hands, to be content. It's the perfect place to be quiet with other people, to sit still, to be alone but not lonely.

Right now I have a deck which overlooks a fluorescent lit street. And bunch of scary wires. And a disturbingly large American flag in the neighbor's backyard. Seating includes a broken beach chair and a musty stool. So if you are somewhere with a couple trees, a handful of rocking chairs and (obviously) a porch - sit on it for me tonight.

some rules & other things.

I knew it, lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, fan blowing in my face. I knew that I would wake up this morning, read last night's words, and I would hate them (every last one). And I knew I'd get the itch to hit delete, to edit, my god do I really say the word "thing" so often, etc.

Yes, good writing is more often than not the product of editing and more editing. But my purpose here is just to write, to get that muscle cranking again, and to worry about editing some other day. So let me just tell you now that I wanted to delete, oh how I wanted to. But I've got some little devil in my head telling me to keep on.

My internal conflict lead me to this: a few ground rules for myself.

1. I will not delete. Once I put it out there, it's out there. Yes, I am afraid that I'll sound stupid, silly or wrong. Well sometimes I am stupid, silly and wrong. I apologize now for being any of those things, but even still - I'm not going to delete it.
2. I will write often. I'm not going to give myself the "everyday" rule because I know how well that won't work on me. Anyway, stuff happens in life. So my aim is going to be at least 3 posts a week.
3. I will push a little. By that I mean that I will test my limits every now and then. Maybe a somewhat diluted version (for now) of Hemingway's, "Write hard and clear about what hurts."

For today, just a list (because lists are always good).

I appreciate...
-a seared tofu caesar salad from Blue Shirt Cafe (ask for the wrap as a salad).
-knowing that if I leave 10 minutes late for work, I will pass the old woman at Tufts in the long skirt, gray bun, big glasses and fanny pack.
-a little box of technology that lets me see the faces of people I love who are far away.
-listening to all of my backlogged podcasts of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! as I walk to and from work (and laughing out loud).
-a small farmer's market in the parking lot behind my office; lots of tomatoes.
-farmer's market tomatoes + olive oil + brie + kalmata olives + one hearty loaf.
-looking forward to things.
-settling in.

I read this post today and it felt an awful lot like fate. "Nine days remain until my 26th birthday. That is so much closer to 30 than 25. I’ve got to get busy living."

Amen sister.

on beginnings.

Just start.

Beginning is hard. I will never understand why my brain feels near bursting with inspiration but completely frozen in terror at putting the pen to the paper, or in this case, fingers to the keys. I long for freedom, but structured freedom. I long for schedules but often want to break them. I demand plans but crave spontaneity. What is this? An old friend put it once, "You are a freaking paradox."

So maybe I am.

I am always waiting for a beginning to happen to me. Couldn't it just happen? Couldn't my genius suddenly begin to flow? Couldn't life suddenly start?

So maybe it will. Or maybe it already has. In the meantime, here's my attempt to hold myself accountable and confront the demons in my own mind. I know, in the deepest part of my being, that there are things I need to write. I know what some of those things are, others I am waiting to discover. For much of my adult life, I've attempted to write around these things. There are things I have beaten to death in my writing, but these things are still very much the surface. Add to this evasion my strange and neurotic urges to destroy everything I write. I don't mean hide it - I mean destroy it. I have started a number of blogs in my day and they have all been deleted, entire contents deleted. I have known myself to tear entire pages out of my notebooks and throw them away. Ok. I actually do that a lot. Writing makes us vulnerable and it's hard to just let it be.*

Natalie Goldberg says to write through the crap. (She puts it somewhat more delicately). There is no beginning. Just write and maybe the beginning is a couple of paragraphs after you start, maybe a couple of pages, maybe a couple of chapters. It doesn't matter, you'll find it eventually. Just write your way there. I believe her, but it doesn't come easy.

There is much in this world that I love, much that inspires me, much that urges me onward. There is much that hurts, much that has changed me, much that has destroyed me and brought me back again. I have long-standing love/hate relationships with a number of things, not limited to: people, cheese and words. But I read something recently that rekindled my inspiration and made me think, Maybe I'm ok. I might have something to say still. Maybe I can make myself say it.

My goal is small.  Really, only this: I intend to hold myself accountable. I will write or I will go mad. So I will choose to write. I will write. I will write now. I will write here. After all:

"In my experience, art is not to be awaited; it is to be chased down, cornered, and beaten into submission with a stick." - Michael Perry

I find myself in a new chapter of life, with a startling number of changes, a newly distinct separation of work and life and what seems to me ungodly amounts of free time. So the topics here may vary as widely as you can imagine, from philosophy to food. I tend to be overly introspective, but frankly, some days my deepest thoughts involve new ways I can eat a can of beans. But the point, the sharp pointy point, is the words. I hope that I can at least see that through. I just want to write and I've got to find my way to do it. Here I am.

*I also have the skill of finding a dozen other satisfying things to do when writing presents itself to me. So I'll mention here that, in anticipation of sitting down to write this, I promptly took a nap, hung up some pictures and cleaned the kitchen. Two hours of productive procrastination later...