lessons.

Many years ago, I read Wendell Berry's novel, Hannah Coulter. There was a lot to the story and a lot I don't remember. I do remember the title character reflecting on some lesson that someone in her life had taught her. And from there on, I began to note what lessons there were in my life, who was teaching them to me and whether or not I was hanging on to them.

Write about that.

Someone who loves me has been saying those words to me, and often. I have resisted them. I have resisted. I mean, I'm resisting them right now. I can't tell you why, or maybe I can. There are a lot of things that can make you freeze. Fear and doubt are two things.

And what is there to be afraid of? Someone asks me. And I answer, but the answer said out loud is much less believable. So maybe there is nothing at all. Nothing to be afraid of. No reason to resist. No more excuses. No more.

leaps.

This is what it's like to be an independent lady.

I got to work this morning, wearing one of my four hipster-cool professional outfits. I wore a belt over my shirt in another attempt to make it look like I have more than four hipster-cool professional outfits. Got to work, looked in the mirror, belt looked dumb, took it off. And then I realized my shirt had a hole in it. Not a hole in the armpit or the seam or a tiny hole no one will see. It's a big ass hole right on my stomach where a tiny patch of stomach skin is shining through. It's the kind of hole you get when you wear a shirt over and over and over because you're an independent lady who is out in the world making not-much-money.

The beautiful thing about this day is that I don't care.

Some people love to plan life out. They imagine a big picture and the various twists and turns they hope their lives will take. While I'm a planner to my very core, I hate the big plans. Hate isn't even exactly the right word - I am incapable of planning my life in this way. I have no desire.

You want me to plan a vacation? A grocery list? An independent ladies' dinner? Done.
You want me to plan my life? Not gonna happen.

there is still this.

In January, instead of averaging three posts a week, I barely averaged one. I don't have a particularly good excuse for this. I've been around, mostly. I have time. I have been writing, although rather loosely. Actually, I've even written several posts that just never made their way out here. I certainly have plenty of good emotion to work with, which is oftentimes the only spark I need to get moving.

Well, whatever it is, it happened and that's that. I am inclined to hate myself for my failure and to be paralyzed by what I perceive as lack of talent, ability, commitment, and the like. If you do this sort of thing, you know exactly what I mean. If you don't...well, you lucky bastard. You're probably much more at peace with yourself than I am.

It's happened often in the past, especially in my journals and notebooks. One week without writing will stretch into two weeks, then a month, then suddenly I'm looking at writing that is months ago and I don't even know where to begin.

I hate this fear, this feeling of being frozen in some mess of personal standards and emotions I don't understand. So listen, I'll try to be better, as I always do. But this time I'm not going to berate myself for mistakes made and failing to live up to my own expectations. I will just start again.

about hope.

I wrote today. I cranked out 2,000 words in a sitting. Just the start of something. I thought about things I haven't thought about in a long time. And there's no escaping that feeling of having sunk deep inside of yourself. You try to come back out, but the dim light streaks hot in your path and it's too hard to open your eyes wide again.

Now seems to be the time to write about resolutions. New Year, new life, right? I make casual resolutions every year, mostly a dialogue with myself. I don't always write them down. I just say it to myself: I will be better in this way or that. For several years, my only serious resolution was to quit smoking, which I failed at more times than I care to remember. This is the first time in five years that I'm not making that resolution. Seven months smoke free, which is quite surreal.

I know a lot of people think resolutions are stupid, mostly because we don't often keep them. You know, we're all going to go to the gym and drink lots of water and eat only vegetables....but then.

push along.

It is a true thing: sometimes it doesn't really get easier. There are things that tug and pull at you, your emotions, your thoughts, and they just aren't going to go away. Do you know what I mean?

For me, it's smoking. I am slowly and calmly (sort of) trying to accept the fact that I will always want to smoke. Just over six months in the clear, but I still get the jealous, violent pang each time I see someone smoking. I will get better at ignoring the voices in my head, the ones that scream, It's raining, I'm tired, I have a headache, I feel emotional and I need to smoke.

And I will get better at pushing myself along. Towards goals, towards creative growth, towards greater empathy and love. One of the amazing and accidental purposes that this blog now has is this: on the days like today, when I'd rather gnaw off my own fingers than write, I can still say to myself, Just write something for the blog. As soon as I get that out, the spark is alive again and I can keep going. Thank you, internet gods, for that.

the notebook, continued.

Here's the deal:
Two months ago, I said I was going to finish the notebook. I only had seven pages left. More or less the moment I said those words, it became impossible for me to do it. I still wrote, finished two pieces, blogged, wrote in other notebooks. But something in me resisted finishing this notebook. I don't understand it so I can't explain it. I kind of lied a little, mostly to myself, and said it was done. Well, it wasn't.

I know this might seem insignificant - maybe it is insignificant. But it matters to me.

So today, holed up in Starbucks on my lunch break with an Earl Gray tea, I wrote the last seven pages. There, it's done. I want to throw it away something fierce, but I will not.

The notebook ended on this:

And now I'm staring at these last pages gripped with fear, fear of the beautiful words and the ugly words and myself. Just another face in another Starbucks scribbling things that seem so important. Well what is it? I will not throw it away. Keep on keep on. Stand in the long line and creep forward with each moment and word, stare out the window, look back and blink. 

***

funerals & clasped hands.

I walk by a funeral home every day. At least twice a week, there's a crowd outside, gathered after a funeral. I stare those people down. I can feel loss and death on that corner, underneath my fingernails, creaking in my elbows and knees. I dwell on those people, perhaps too much. The loss of another human being, a life, someone who was loved. I don't want to see, but I can't turn away.

In return, I also devote myself to beautiful things,

Such as this wonderful wire sculpture by Gavin Worth,

different kinds.

I read some beautiful writing today. The kind that makes your palms tingly. The kind that makes you unconsciously hold your breath. I live for those moments. I can't tell you why, exactly, other than this: in those moments there's a wholeness in the universe and myself that is complete. It is the closest thing I can imagine to the absolute. And I know it's real when I read something and say to myself, Someday I'll write like that.

There are different kinds of writing in my life.

There's journal writing, which I have done on and off since I was 13 or 14. It's self-absorbed fear and heartbreak and mad love.

There's notebook writing, writing practice. I've really only been doing it for the past 3 or 4 years. And even then, I've really only been dedicated to it for a year or less. This is usually where I plug in freewriting, make lists and let ideas gather some energy.

truth and tweets.

I am easily obsessed with thoughts and topics and ideas.  I'm a thinking person, maybe to a fault.  I'm good at being alone and being quiet.

I'm currently obsessed with truth.  I've been asking people, not so subtly, what they think of truth. Good friends, casual acquaintances. How do you define truth? What do you think it is? Do you think it's important? I am reading too much philosophy, the kind that twists your brain in a knot until your left eye twitches and your stomach drops out. I am hounding truth or it is hounding me. I am beating my head against the table, against the wall, against the questions, one after another.  I am forming some thoughts.  You know what truth is?  Please tell me what you think.

Listen, it comes down to this: I made the choice to write here and write often because I wanted to write about difficult things. I want to take all of the notebooks that I have torn apart and thrown away, take those crackling words, and spill them out all over the place and let people run around in them. I want to split myself wide open and lift up my eyes and make awkward eye contact that lasts too long before I say Hi.

flash fiction and another list.

I've been reading the literary journal Brevity since college.  I've always been attracted to saying things sparsely, fewer words, less telling and more feeling. Spurred on by my love for brief nonfiction, I've lately been reading flash fiction. It's cool. Obviously some things need to be said in a longer form, but there are some things that are really said best in the so-called flash.

I wrote this in my head last night, dreamed about it, wrote it in the notebook this morning, and typed it here now. It is fiction, which I've already explained is something I don't do. Go easy on me - I'm trying to be brave.

Every morning at 10:00am, Susan climbed the 13 rungs of an aluminum extension ladder to the roof of her house. Her husband sat in his office; her three children were numb at their desks in school. She cautiously lifted one foot over the gutter before scrambling onto the rough shingles and plastering her body face down against the roof. After a few seconds, she flattened herself and rolled over towards the sky.

Some things are true and some things aren’t. When you’re lying on a roof it’s hard to see the difference. It’s hard to see anything but the big sky full of weather and sun and clouds and rain and birds and stars. Every morning at 10:00am, Susan took it all in and then pushed it back out. You can’t live an everyday life when you’re filled up with light and space inside.

Every morning sometime after 10:00am, Susan began to shimmy her weight towards the edge of the roof, bending her knees until she was more or less crouched on the gutter at a 45 degree angle. Always in one single motion, with breath held in, she let her feet drop over the edge and dangle before swinging them around to catch the ladder’s rung. It wasn’t that high – a fall would only mean tumbling in the bushes with a sprained ankle or wrist, maybe a broken leg if the angle was wrong. But with her eyes closed and her back pressed tight against the gritty roof, the distance was infinite.

And she knew it would happen one day, when she was dizzy from climbing and the sun was shining bright. The world would turn itself on its head and she would fall into the sky.

***

I'm down to the last two pages of my notebook. To celebrate, here are 15 sentences from the notebook, selected at random, representing (in no linear order) words I've written over the last 10 months of my life.

1. The buzzing of the baggage carousel is matching time to the eerie Christmas music playing over the loudspeaker.
2. I listened to that song for hours in my lonely attic bedroom in the house in South Mankato.
3. She would always be worse, every time I came home.
4. I flew to Boston and bought a pack of cigarettes.
5. There was a crazy lady at the end of the bar who was talking to herself.
6. I have decided to move on from this place, whatever that might mean.
7. I want to call you back, again and again and again, until I feel safe - an old feeling from another time.
8. So let's bring it back to here.
9. I could write about the blue of the tables and the afternoon I varnished them, but I really want to write about sitting at the blue tables and listening to the song, crying so hard the tears ran off my chin and fell onto the floor.
10. I could show you the fields stretching far and how life can be so sad and slow sometimes.
11. I had a dream you moved to Alaska and wore a comb over and I was never surprised.
12. His long hair hasn't been brushed and I think that's good and his face is ugly.
13. Maybe she works nights somewhere and she spends her mornings buying coffees at Starbucks.
14. He wrote back that things were pretty bad and it was my fault.
15. I am looking up every few minutes to be blinded by the drifted snow and sunlight outside the big front window and as soon as the spots in my eyes fade I look up again.

big things.

I long to create something big.  I don't mean momentous or earth-shattering - I mean physically big.  For some reason, I love things that make me feel small.  I want to stand in the shadows of giant trees and mountains, wade knee-deep into an ocean that stretches for eternity beyond me, scream into a canyon while I'm toeing the line before the fall.

I want to make sculptures like these:

Patrick Dougherty

Or these:

Theo Jansen

I made a to do list in my notebook today:
-freewriting, one hour
-expand the essay, one hour
-think about a novel, one hour

Instead, I thought about a novel (or fiction in general) for three hours. I have always resisted it. I have always told myself that I can't do fiction and, honestly, I haven't really tried. I focused on nonfiction in college, so there was never a need. I vaguely remember writing a flash experimental play during a final exam for a creative writing class, but I don't think it was good. I'd remember if it was.

I've just been mulling it over lately -- the idea of fiction as a way to tell some hard truths without having to say, This is the truth of my life. Some of what I've been reading lately has spurred me on. And November is National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo).  I signed up with the website awhile ago, but I didn't try it last year. I still don't know if I'll try it this year, but I'm thinking about it. Thinking it might be a way to dive hard into fiction and try it out. No pressure to be good, only to produce something. I do well with a goal to work towards.

I have one particular idea that I've been thinking and thinking over, researching, reading. Slowly, very slowly, it's turning into a character (maybe). I struggle with character development and I don't know why. But it would be good for me to practice. I have the time. I am particularly lucky there. I don't know when I will ever be able to say that again. So maybe. I might start an outline (just in case). I might do some freewriting on this character. Who knows where it will lead? Maybe it's just more essay material. But maybe writing some fiction will eventually give me the material for a better essay.

We'll see.

hurricane dreams.

I have been writing. I have not been posting. Sometimes it just gets too wild to share, or too wild for me to share. Or something.

I dreamt last night of a hurricane, but I was in the house I lived in when I was 13 years old in Elmore, Minn. I was herding people into the basement, we were packing up food, I stole a sandwich and wrapped it in foil and tucked it into my shirt. And suddenly I realized: we're overreacting. It won't be that bad. Then I lost my sandwich and went out into the rain.

Dreaming of a hurricane: This dream is considered to be a warning, because it alludes to an impending crisis when all old opinions, ideals, values and beliefs are being shaken. The dream suggests that you need to start shaping something new within yourself to cope with this personal crisis.  (http://www.dream-land.info/)

I wrote for 5 hours on Friday, mostly straight through, with breaks for tea. At the end of it, 10 pages of Microsoft Word single-spaced madness, I felt like something other than human. Here is one piece:

I am very deep now. It is a dream and I am being chased, I am in danger, and I can’t cry out. I open my mouth and strain with every muscle in my chest and neck, but still no sound. I am pursued and still no sound. I keep pushing until *pop* I am awake and tangled in sweaty sheets and screaming in an empty black room, screaming alone, screaming for someone to save me.

Any writing, anything real, even anything shallow, means you must confront the blackest parts of humanity. This is art: even the most beautiful work has the deepest evil of the world in it. They exist together, as one. All it is the lighting. See: look behind the bushes in the sparkling sunlight and there a spider is consuming its prey alive, slowly, deliberately. Listen: ten bars after the song ends, there is war and death. You know they’re coming. Don’t look away. I know you want to and so do I – but there is nowhere else to look.

The feeling is this: much writing and suddenly I am in a very dark state. I am thinking too much, too hard about evil in the world and evil in myself. I am swimming in circles, swimming in the thoughts and as I type I feel my face scrunch up in fear and disgust, my nose wrinkles, my eyes shut. And so I pause for a moment, take a breath, make some tea. When I sit back down and raise my fingers to the keys, the feeling is pure revulsion. I don’t want to go back in it, I don’t want to go deeper and I don’t want to find more. It is too heavy and hot and dark inside – I want to stay out in the clean air. I wonder sometimes if this is me or if this is the writing.

At the end of 10 pages and 5 hours, I wrote the following:

I don’t want to write anymore. Only 30 more minutes. I hate it. I hate writing. I hate these words and my fingers that are typing them. I hate this brain that thinks writing is good and I hate the dull fluorescent lights and the computer humming and the hot sunlight blasting in through my window.  30 minutes. I can do it I can do it I can do it blankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankb

But there is still this: "Every day, I give myself the same encouragement, and every day, I need it again."

***

I read back through some of last week's writing today.  Yes, some of it is dark.  Ok, a lot of it.  Yes, I need to get it out of my brain and onto the page.  But I also need to come back out of it and remember the beautiful moments that make up my days.

For example, today:

-I walked briskly to work this morning and was not too hot, not too cold.  Amazing fall, I love you.

-At work I made an individual cup of coffee with my brand-new, bright-red, individual-coffee-cup-maker.  Awesome and happy.

-I sat at my desk in the afternoon and thought in my brain, Man-oh-man I wish I had a snack.  Not 30 seconds later, my co-worker walked in with a bag of cheesy-popcorn she didn't want.  Do you want the popcorn?  Yes.

-Still hungry this afternoon, I thought about pie and realized that my life's purpose might honestly be: Make pie.  Or: Eat butter.  It's a tough one.  I resolved to make more pies and eat more butter.

-I finally have money (so to speak) to go grocery shopping.  So I made a grocery list tonight that included more than: peanut butter, can of beans.  It included: expensive olives, expensive cheese.  Cool.

-After a leisurely walk home, I enjoyed a hot boozy apple cider and a roasted tomato, caramelized onion, balsamic quinoa salad for dinner alone in my quiet apartment.

-Then I watched the moonrise in Medford through some haze and low clouds. Over the scary wires and oversized spotlit American flag and above the din of cats fighting. But it was beautiful.

The point is just that life is good.  There is always good love, good people, good food -- and for that I am grateful.

snacking.

I have been deep in my own head a lot these days. It feels full and alive, but also disconnected from my body, from my hands, from my feet walking back and forth. In awareness, I'm trying to make an effort to keep myself connected to the physical things of life. Here's a list of ways to keep myself grounded and awake to the world:

-go for a run/walk to work without my iPod
-cook/bake for 30 minutes or more
-eat a meal and focus on the food
-write letters
-sit on the deck
-practice physical creation (painting, drawing, sewing, knitting)
-laugh out loud at funny things

Those things that connect us to the present moment and to the world around us, the world in our hands - those things make the writing and our minds better. They give depth to the world that exists inside the walls of my brain.

I went through some sort of Buddhist phase about a year ago. I spent a lot of time thinking about presence, mindfulness, connection to the moment. I have been reminded lately how difficult it is to stay grounded in the present moment. So much is defined by looking forward to the next thing, but you get there and......what? It is so difficult to just appreciate the richness of the time and space I am in now. The gifts that are here. There will always be absence of some sort or another. There will always be something to look forward to, more to hope for. It is hard to stay here. But it's good to practice.

It's also good to snack, especially when you write.

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.

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.