Eat Dirt and Write

The Blog Has Moved!...

2009-06-07T15:16:00.000-07:00

All the fun is new and improved over at my new store front.

Pleaes join me at my new blog and web site home, at: www.tatyanamishel.com.

Home of Write Now! Siren Song Coaching.

Thanks and see you there.

Tatyana

A To Do List for Visual People

2009-06-03T16:57:00.001-07:00

Today I made a discovery.

While working on a coaching tool called a Life Wheel, I saw a way to unlock my recent state of overwhelmation — aka, being pummeled with wordy to-do-lists.

Not that I am so much busier than anyone on the planet. But, like many people, there are so many different things to attend to, I am sure important things will drop through phantom cracks. And with 10 million word docs and zillions of pieces of papers and a bajillion notebooks, I am almost up to here with words that represent a reminder to do anything.

So I put my Major To Dos in a Wheel and added color. Something about the roundness softened it too.

It’s simple:

Get a piece of paper.
Draw a big circle.
Divide it into eight sections (pieces of pie).
Name your eight areas of To Dos.
Colored them in with pastel crayons, if you’d like.
Itemize each section with some of the most immediate To Dos (or Get-to-dos).
Make some of them fun. (I had no household chores on mine, and added Creativity to remind myself I’m in creation mode and to feed that part of me).

Put it somehwere you can see it.
Throw out old list of to-dos that have been up on fridge for past month.

Have you noticed? The wheel also looks like a compass. I find I can look at this Visual To Do list as: forward motion or a directional. Both, very comforting and encouraging.

My To Do list doubles as a guide that says: do some of these and you’ll get there.

No longer an admonishing finger telling me what I again didn’t do.

So, how’s your To Do List working for you?

And if you have something to add on the subject of To Do lists, let ‘er rip.

Learning about Self Love from Taya, 8 years old.

2009-06-01T12:23:00.001-07:00

I’ve been talking about my niece, Taya and one extraordinary page from her story, Arizona.

Here’s the page, titled “Me.” Click on it to see it in full view.

The last line has been my mentor and muse for the last couple weeks.

Here’s a fruitful question for the week:

If you embraced this very simplistic unwavering “I love myself” belief, what kind of decisions would you make in the next week?

If you didn’t question how kick-ass you were, who would you be moving through your life?

How to write a last-minute blog posting

2009-05-29T20:38:00.001-07:00

It’s Friday night. You didn’t write your Friday blog post yet. And you made a contract with yourself that this was a Blog Day.

How do you do something quick and easy and stick with it?

Start with a photo. I found one in my photo files.

And then pose a question, like:

What makes you feel like the hungry animal in the photo?

Hmmm, now what. Follow up with a second question:

And when you feel like that, what is the perfect way to quiet the call for your choice of “food?”

For me, it’s often a good feeding of the arts. And the other night, I realized how this beast has been roaring inside me for a while.

Two nights ago went to see a director's cut of dances at PNB. These are usually a sampling of contemporary dances but this program was more classical. It included George Balanchine. Personally, I never have to see a piece by George Balanchine for as long as I live.

So what did I do watching the traditional G.B. dance?
Cried a little. Yup, I was moved to tears.

Because I was so hungry my body reacted with tears that represent a state of relief and appreciation. Ahhh, beauty, movement, music, I can breathe again, life’s worth living. Much, much better now.

I was so hungry I was moved by this:

When I’m really more into something like this:

So that’s what I am often asking for in a state of Feed-Me hunger: art.

And so goes my last-minute Friday evening blog posting. I (re)learned something, too.

So what can you do when you want to make a post and the day’s almost done and there’s hardly any time—or desire left?

Let’s review:

Find a photo that grabs you.

Post it. Then start writing to it. Without knowing what you’re going to write. I told myself if I just wanted to write “crackers” underneath, that would be fine. But it never is, I always find something else to say.

There’s magic in getting started, like your internal creative muse wakes up and comes running downstairs to play. More!, it says.

See? done. Lesson learned I may get my mom and I some tickets to the symphony.

Feed me!

And now, good night.

How to Deal with Information Overload While Staying the New Biz Path

2009-05-27T14:09:00.001-07:00

Good news! There’s a ton of information and resources at our fingertips in 2009.

Oh no! There’s such an annoying ton of information and resources attacking us in 2009.

I remember feeling this way when the Web first came on the popular scene in the mid-90s.

There was so much information and stuff out there on the Web. Yay! But again, there was so much information and stuff on the Web. Overload Waaah!

So here some of us are again. Maybe out of a job or thinking of doing that business we’ve always thought about since the working world is sucky right now. Which means, trying to learn about social networking and chasing down the scent of new opportunities that suit our talents.

Enter: Twitter, Facebook, blogging, WordPress, LinkedIn, widgets, and so forth.

People who are mastering these content and networking projects and folding them into their consulting/coaching/writing businesses are doing really well, too.

So, to enter this world as a relative outsider and learn about it all and jump in and do a little tweet here, a little profile-updating there, status report here, re-tweeting there. There may be a euphoric jump and getting it, and then—

A friend sends me an email with the subject line: “This should help.” It’s an article that takes some new spin on what social networking, especially Twitter, will do for me. I’m already having a hard enough time keeping my song going in the Twitter tree. But the thing is, I’m staying in the tree, singing my occasional song or duet.

And then something, like the “This should help” email is just one piece of information too much and I want to run under the covers. Or call the Waaambulance.

Information overload. It descends, or hits you from all sides or falls out of the sky like a scattering of rain and hail and shoes and buttons and gold coins falling all around you in a bunch of tangled heaps.

Great. What on earth are you supposed to do with that? Or, maybe it’s:

Now, how do I apply my information and learnings and all this new stuff?

Let’s consider how some people may fare in this new media world:

Some people just won’t go there. They don’t really need to, they’re not curious and they don’t want the floodgates unleashing the roaring messy river.

Others will tip toe in and then hit a What-the-F wall and fall out of the learning and involvement of the new social media Web 2.0 world. Which is what I am tempted to do, and often.

How about a success strategy: Tell yourself you’re in brainstorming and information-gathering mode. It’s the playing phase. And if you are trying to take action and write definitive business and marketing plans before you know exactly what your products, services and perfect customers all are—before you’ve adequately completed your info-gathering, creative brainstorming phase—your mind-body-soul is likely to go into a very uncomfortable state.*

So today’s best question might be: Why do I feel this info overload state of overwhelm that makes me crave dark rooms and thick bed covers?

Possible best answer: I could be pushing myself to the next state of action-taking that I—and my budding biz idea—are not quite ready for. So, consider staying in the discovery playfield while typing up parts of a biz plan here and there or keeping a document called Great Ideas.

So for any of us who are wading into the social media and new biz waters and feel like it’s all TOO MUCH, consider this:

1. It is a lot. All this information and changing our ways of communicating and all the expert opinions. Take a deep breath. Stick with what you’re doing, you’ll learn what you need to know and implement in good time, as it fits your pace and needs.

2. As you continue on with the research and dipping yourself in new knowledge and discoveries—as you move closer to creating something new and wonderful for yourself, your commitment will waver. This is the time when No’s and inner Gollums and nasty voices come in. That’s their job and they yell louder and get nastier the closer you get to the juicy good stuff. (One of my recent ones was “You’ll never make it.” It was mean and chilling and seductive. Shudders. It made me cry! And then I gave it the finger, called it a liar and moved on.)

Trudge past the gremlin voices. Be the strong and creative and curious person who stays on your path. Get your fans and cheerleaders around you.

In time, you can be one of the clever minxes offering services to others who will need to pay you good money for your expertise. You will be offering your talent, gift, amazing knowledge base and working with others in a way that might even fall under Dream Job I Never Dared Make Happen. And working with a dream list of clients because you spent time shrieking through all that information and research and overloading that made it possible for you to find your distinct message and business offering.

If you stay the course while others fall off course and maybe get back on again, while you stayed the course--you will be ahead of the game.

Trust your path, your pace and your curiosities. Indulge them.

And now, let’s end with a quote:

“Trust yourself. Then you will know how to list.” -- Goethe

*This post was inspired by a group coaching call from Pamela Slim at Escape From Cubicle Nation. I recommend her Coaching gym. Thanks Pam!

New business, information overload, social media, web 2.0, Pamela Slim, Gollums, creativity, sticking with it.

"I love me"

2009-05-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

My niece, Taya wrote a very shot memoir in third grade. It was made into a book and I had the pleasure of reading it yesterday.

It's called "Arizona" and tells the story of a family vacation at my parents' house in Scottsdale, AZ.

My favorite line from her story is on the page titled "Me."

She tells us she has brown hair and blue eyes and two best friends and ice skates at level 4.

Then she ends it with this:

"I love me."

Of course it made me laugh and it still does but I found it so hopeful and comforting. I wonder if all of us felt this way about ourselves at some time -- that we really loved ourselves and who we were. Not in a secret private way that we'd never admit out loud, but in a matter-of-fact them's-the-facts, "My name is Tatyana, I have brown hair and I like ice cream, I am a writer and I love me." The end.

Not to get all new-agey about "self love," but really. Don't you hope Taya, and all the other kids we adore, feel this way about themsevles forever? I find myself wondering, What could my niece's life be like if she held on to this "I-love-me" quality for the rest of her years and through teenage-hood and into her 20's, 30's, 40's...?

Since reading "Arizona" by Taya Mishel I've been breaking out into choruses of "I love me" during the day. I do it because it's like a new favorite song by someone I love. And the more I say it, the more it giddy-fies me.

Plus, it's a really ostentatious thing to say--out loud or to yourself.

Most of the time I say this to myself, but today I said it out loud while in the company of my friend Liz.

"I love me," I said out loud in the locker room after swimming. "I love me," I said while we did some work at her office. "I love me," I declared at the beach among the gays and teenagers talking at such a thrill pitch they can't hear an inch from their social circle.

Go ahead, say it. I dare you.

It feels damn delicious. At least you'll get a good giggle out of it, and who doesn't need that?

Photo: Self-love swami Taya Mishel

What would you be like if?….

2009-05-22T19:15:00.001-07:00

I want to tell you there is a light on inside you and you can turn it on.

What would you be like if the light was turned on? What is the light? When did you last feel it?

There is desire inside you.

What if you dared yourself to find it? What if you then followed it? What if you made choices as if you couldn’t fail?

Why do we all pretend so hard to be this thing called grown up and professional and respectable when nobody really truly is—or wants to be—this person?

Don’t you believe it is more in our nature to get up and run down the street or sit in a park with bare feet and find a group of like-minded people to talk to and create something new and then laugh and tell stories and adventure off to meet some more people and then find time to do that thing that makes you sane like move or meditate or pray or cook or play a game or paint or write or read or walk and look at the shapes of tree limbs?

Why are so many people doing the sports thing – marathons and triathlons and yoga and biking – is it a movement against sitting 60-plus hours a week?

What if you set small goals for yourself, like: to smile at least 5 times a day?

What if you had a goal to laugh at least once a day a real belly laugh—even writing this I wanted to say, Um, well belly laugh at least once a week but really, why not every day?

What would you seek out to make one good belly laugh a day happen?

Technorati Tags: Small goals,better life,fun,meaning,beauty,why oh why? Live already! Fitness craze.

How to write a bio that isn’t boring and hateful but has YOU YOU YOU written all over it.

2009-05-20T18:02:00.001-07:00

So how terribly boring are some people’s professional client-seeking bios?

I’m having a day where I really hate bios, especially writer’s bios that show up in lit journals like the one I edit. (Next issue creative bios only.)

So today I was updating my Web site and felt a stick-up-my-arse at the bio page. Enough with this trying-to-impress bio b.s. Today was the day to try something totally new.

So here it is. I don’t know if it works but I’m trying it on!

And keep in mind, this is a bio written for a particular kind of audience and client base; people who might appreciate this style and work really well with me, and vv. Call it my siren song. And let it be known, I’m jumping off the very wise principle Havi Brooks writes about at The Fluent Self. She advocates finding your “Right People,” and letting them find you. This means you get to create conversations just for the group you want to hang with and help and work with and get along with, and you and everyone, world included, is happier.

Ok, read on. Right from Web page.

A bio, three ways. (Part 1 only here)

1. A story
I grew up as a happy bright active kid in the states and in Rome. I played well with others and spent a lot of time in my bedroom daydreaming and performing "Hair" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" into my mirror. I had a two tone crimson shag carpet. I did every sport I could get my hands on and was secretly shy with foreign parents and one younger brother and a giant orange cat named Tom.

I left home and traveled to Europe alone on a one-way ticket (I got a free ticket home, too). Next came the move to a big beautiful noisy art-filled city where I did big-city things like working at a women's magazine and writing and loving and partying and thinking and talking and laughing and screaming and then ...

Heartbreak. Getting fired. Watching some of my dreams fall away like coat buttons after a rough night. Next, I lost the perky confidence of my youthy-youth and started to mope around thinking, "Hey! I'm just a sham everyone's smarter." Until the wiser and slightly jaded part of me realized we were all faking it, and the people feigning confidence best were winning, and so I figured, "Hell, I'm smart enough too." And then ...

I left the big city and returned to my birth city and as I moved down my path I was stuck, suddenly there was this OUCH OOH, what's prickling me and I was lost in Dante's thick woods but I was just 29-years-old. And I came out of it when I let myself do what I really, really, really wanted to do. Then I went into the woods again at 33 and out again and in there at 40 again and so on, meaning: I have been on my path and off my path. I have had my ass kicked and heart broken and lost people I love. I have found myself, lost myself, deconstructed myself, build myself back up, and spent a few years getting lost riding the Waaaambulance.

Eventually I learned that life is a multi-colored series of transitions and thresholds. Like, a non-stop set of waves. Life is not, as I once thought, about finding your high note and holding it for ever. You are never "squared away" like my mother wishes, nor do you ever "have it all together" and "being on top of your game" is just bullshit. OK, so we hold these amazing moments for five minutes and then WHACK, it starts over. But in a good way, really!

Then I arrived at a place where I looked at my own little story and took responsibility for all of it ALL OF IT and boy. [Tears] I learned something. The imagination has a lot of good creative power that you can hone and flex and it will get you through anything. You have to make friends with it first, and learn to use it, like a powerful magic sword.

So many times I arrived at the chapter that's titled: How the hell did I get myself into these dark prickly woods?

But I have also arrived at the chapter with the open sunny meadow and wildflowers, with my eyes blinking and my jaw dropped, wondering: How the hell did I ever get to this beautiful and cool and mysterious god-forsaken place? Wow ... cool... shivers, thank you.

And the moral, or gift of this story, has left me with a big-heart desire to help other people find their way through and out of the woods. I want to help people live a life that is fulfilling and creative and happifying. Filled with imagination.

Keats said it so well: "I am certain of nothing but the Holiness of the Heart's affections and the Truth of the Imagination." I agree. With one addition: Imagination + Action = Freedom. I am a do-er. Amen. The end.

******

So, what kind of bio would you write if you really dug deep and sung your siren song to your Right People?

Part 1 of 3, bio, from: http://www.tatyanamishel.com/bio.htm

Technorati Tags: Bios,coaching,Havi Brooks,Right People,siren song,midlife,getting lost,Dante,Keats

“Is It Just Me?” When Things Don’t Work

2009-05-18T15:32:00.001-07:00

It seems that every time something goes wrong with technology or something mechanical I take it personally.

As though I am the only person whose email doesn’t work, or whose barbecue starter blows out or whose iPod (which I still call my “Walkman”) gets stuck.

And everyone else is having a perfectly easy time figuring out how to integrate their ISP with their Hosing SPQ whatever-the-hell, or that their cell phone gets perfect connection all the time or their vacuum cleaner never fails to pick up every speck of dirt.

At the risk of sounding ~~totally ego-centric~~ paranoid, I’d like to say I’ve discovered it’s ~~just me~~ not just me.

Recently, I was on a teleconference and I heard buzzing. So I figured it was my phone generating the fuzz and stayed quiet. Finally a brave voice peeped up and said, “Is it just me or does anyone else hear that buzz?” Of course it was every single stinkin’ person on the call.

And then I remember back to when technology entered our lives and we all got computers and ISPs and Web connection and we couldn’t hook up our connection or our email went down or some ISP server went on the fritz and there rang throughout the land a chorus of “Maybe it’s just me but …”

Basically we’re agreeing to think: How could it not be my fault since I don’t understand the inner miracle wirings of these whatchamacallits.

And it wasn’t just us. It was the technology working miracles and breaking down on us. And it’s not any of our responsibility to understand the how’s and why’s any more than it is for us to understand why the telephone or electricity works.

At this point, if technology doesn’t work right (I’m including cars and bbqs and dishwashers here) and I don’t get it, I take the onus off myself for understanding why or how. I’m not a programmer or scientist or auto-maker or bbq assembler. So there.

If I can’t migrate WordPress onto my domain name (for normal people, the instructions are like Greek inside out) it’s time to delegate and find someone who can.

But I still have this vacuum cleaner paranoia. And I was reminded of it after I was reunited with the little devil—after I gave my cleaning ladies a sabbatical when I became one of the salary-challenged.

The day I vacuumed my place, I realized of all the years I’ve had vacuums, I always have this feeling that my vacuum is not properly picking up all the dirt on the floor or carpet. And it is purposefully letting me down while every one else’s vacuum is doing a perfectly great job.

And once I realized this silly thinking, the vacuum started gobbling up every speck in sight.

Then I put away said vacuum and called my lovely cleaning ladies and they came the next week.

The (happy) ending.

How to Write a Beautiful To Do List: With Meaning This Time!

2009-05-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

Most of us keep a To Do list, whether it's on paper, taped to the fridge, beeping from a digital device or swirling around in your head.

The two invisible but implied orders attached to most of the items are probably "Don't forget" and "Very very important, more important than the others."

Some may have an unwritten, "I really should do this, and I probably won't so let's see what happens." Sounds familiar? Sometimes To Do lists show us what really matters. Or simply how we're inspired and motivated. (Hint: some To Do's just need to be delegated).

I used to keep a rolling To Do list that I emailed to myself everyday. OK, that's a lie. I'd update it and email it to myself several times throughout the day. I spent time on my To Do list.

This list always had two parts. The first part is the really really must-do important daily-life stuff that included bills and oil changes and laundry. The second part is the like-to-have sorta important to-dos that stayed on my revolving list until I eventually deleted them. (Which is different than the thrill of crossing off, a thrill that seemed to stop some years ago when items rolled onto the list faster than I could cross them off.)

So. I've played with some new To Do lists lately that don't include grocery shopping or deadlines or calling anyone or paying bills or errands (god how I hate errands).

Which brings us to the title of this post.

What would be your ultimte To Do list for today or the coming weeks?

What kind of list would give you something beautiful and meaningful to strive for, one that transcends tasks and deadlines and picking up kids? What would be the most kick-ass fun To Do list you could write?

The first time I tried this I came up with my first visual art project of my adult life, a Heart-Shaped Forget-me-not list.

Here are a couple others, if you're looking for ideas:

May 14 To Do's:

1. Let down the armor.

2. Be at peace with yourself in the world.

3. Lighten the fuck up! Don't take yourself so seriously.

I added "Two Women Running" by Picasso as a visual supporter of my list (no ironic pun intended). This image supports the liberated feeling I'm going for, and it catches how I'd like to feel all the time -- but without the boobs flapping.

Here's a second To Do I did courtesty of Wordle.

December 15 To Do's:

There's a story in our To Do list. Which one shows who you really are, or what you'd like to be?

So here's my suggestion: Write your own Beautiful, Meaningful, Fun(ny), Transcendent, Errand-free To Do list.

You might find out what really, really, really matters to you.

You’re closer to “being there” than you think

2009-05-13T09:08:00.001-07:00

This is my theory but I’m sticking with it. For today at least.

To all of you out there who are either A) scratching your heads wondering ‘What do I do now?” or B) you’ve been making steps toward something new and great for your life but you may feel like you’re dancing in place (or banging v. sore head), consider this:

You already have most of what you need to be that person or get to that place or create that dream career.

It’s just perspective. And making tiny action steps or teeny shifts to start moving along the path.

Try this as an exercise.

Get a piece of paper and draw a scale from 1 – 10. Then think of something you want. It may be a new job or a happier attitude or starting your dream biz after getting laid off.

So take your scale, and assess where you feel you are today on a scale from 1 to 10.

1 _______________________________________ 10

Then think about where you’d like to be on this scale at the end of a given amount of time that works for you – 3 months, 6 months, a year. Your call. Change can take years but you may be willing to break down parts of it over time. Again, make this yours.

Now, start imagining yourself being one very small step up the scale. So if you start at a 3, imagine it’s a month from now and you’ve moved up to a 4. Close your eyes or stare out the window or whatever gets you relaxed and creative and just imagine, pretend, envision what you might be doing one month from now that got you one tiny step closer to your desire and what you might have done to get there (i.e., joined a social networking platform, wrote two blog entries, fluffed up your resume, started a practice of forgiveness toward everyone who’s ever pissed you off).

And keep repeating. Just keep working your way up the scale until you’re where you’d like to be in a given amount of time.

What you have is a time frame and a to-do list built inside a framework and imagination that came from you, and not someone else.

(Time for an aside here and THIS IS IMPORTANT: When listening to how others got there, or reading books, or being open to taking advice from people remember that when people put their way of doing it onto you, this isn’t always very valuable in making important life changes. Change comes from within. Just know that, so if someone else’s way doesn’t work for you, you are not a loser, you just work better with another system.)

Don’t forget that these tiny actions and shifts can be fun.

Change often means reaching out to new people and putting yourself in new streams of people. So think of ways you can make these action items steps appealing: more dinners, social gatherings, starting up a group around an activity you love.

Really watch out for “shoulds.” Everytime you hear yourself say “I really should…” think twice, and see how you can change that into “I really want …”

Think about what you can do to put yourself around Your People, the kind of folks who inspire you, motivate you and are on a similar path. Loneliness sucks!

This is about exploring but it’s also about making a commitment to yourself and your life.

And you will often, in your discoveries, keep returning home to yourself.

You may discover that getting what you want takes a combination of courage, risk, support and also realizing the gifts and resources and experience you already have.

Enjoy the adventure. Make the commitment. Commitment is freedom.

Relish in discovering you have everything you need to get to where you want to go. Wherever that is. If you really, really, really want it, it’s possible.

And if you get scared along the way, make sure you let Your People cheer you on when your gremlin starts hissing or you hit those walls of doubt.

If you stick with it and have the right support structures and people in place you’ll get there.

Then you can help others do the same.

I don’t want to give the impression this is easy work. This is the work of courage, persistence and imagination. But as we all know by now, nothing really great comes without a trail of good effort and dedication behind us.

Happy travels and enjoy what you discover as you get there.

Technorati Tags: Life change,coaching,career,self discovery,having fun,transitions,finding your people

You, Your Voice and the Blogging Adventure

2009-05-11T13:58:00.001-07:00

I gave my first blog-shop this past Friday. The seven clever and creative indie biz folks who showed up had questions about finding or developing their blogging voice.

Here’s my take on Voice:

You already have a voice.

Now, the best way to find it and develop it and solidify it—as a writer and blogger—is to write. Once you start writing and flexing and honing and toning, you’re on your way. Of course, it also helps to know what values and purpose are going to stand behind your blog. But even if you brainstorm a good raison d’etre list, the focus may shift and flex a bit as the life of your blog takes off.

Can it be scary and breath-stopping and oh-shit-ifying? Absolutely. But that’s part of the excitement!

And all of this scary excitement is the fantastic fall-out from the discoveries and surprises you make along the way as you write. Many people write without being able to see past the fog lights, i.e., without knowing exactly what is going to unfold. SURPRISE!

The benefit of starting out and being open to where you may end up, is that you allow the writer to go on an exploration with you. When a reader gets let in on experiencing the discoveries with the writers, well that is juice, juice and more juice. I.E., reader like!

Freeform writing isn’t everyone’s thing. Some people like an outline structure. Others know where they’ll end the moment they start writing. I can’t relate to this, because I work at a different frequency.

I’m the explorer writer. And I do really want to encourage the exploration and discovery side here, because blogs are logs of experience which allows a writer to put out a statement and then enjoy the trip of exploring that idea.

And if the ego side of you—think of a stern judge who doesn’t like change—starts whispering messages like “you can’t do it; this SUCKS,” just smile at the judge and keep writing. I use a little speed writing to help me scurry pass this monkey mind.

If you feel really stuck and pissy, write into the pissy-ness, e.g.: write about how horrible or boring or ungraceful you feel and I promise, you’ll pop out of it. Give yourself free reign to do and say anything when you’re writing your “shitty first draft,” as Anne Lamont calls it.

For example, I have a line in a poem that came from writing into my judgment and it goes something like: “And when your poem starts to sound like German instructional copy,”—and I kept it in there.

And if—or should I say when you start asking yourself, Why would anyone want to read what I have to say when millions of people may be writing and talking about this very topic?

Answer: Because you are the only person on earth with your distinct voice.

With this in mind, blogs are a great place to unleash an idiosyncrasy, an eccentric viewpoint or whatever you have kept in the closet that only comes out at party times or with your closest friends. (I’m assuming we all understand appropriateness and context here). How much you reveal is up to you. But think about the qualities that are super unique to you and your POV and work it, baby.

What else helps with voice? Reading!

Find other blogs and read and read and rip off the elements you like. Not word-for-for of course, but find someone you can learn from, a blog that is written in a style supportive to what you’d like to do. And use that as your model or mentor. It could be the way the writer uses everyday language, or writes in short paragraphs, or is funny or casual. Trust me, everyone else is doing copy-catting. How else do we learn?

You’ll know you’ve found a mentor blog when you come upon one that rings true to you at a deep level, like when you meet a friend that speaks you language. Blog mentors will probably change and rotate over time. And, they may go from mentors to colleagues, also.

And don’t worry: You will not lose your voice and sound like someone else. It is impossible to lose your voice, especially if you anchor yourself by writing about topics you really care about. Especially if the topics support your blog’s goal-at-large (which may be how you and your business can help your chosen people).

Then there’s Just Doing It. Write, explore, play—try this topic on, a new way of writing a blog (in the voice of a character, or as a Q&A), take some risks, experiment, have some laughs.

You probably won’t have hundreds of readers at the beginning so it’s the perfect time to relax and play. If you feel really super tentative, you can keep your blog on the low-down (even anonymous, or just tell a few friends) while you steady your writing hand. There aren’t that many rules!

Your blog, like your writing, is going to be a work in progress. Enjoy the process—savor it, roll around in it and share what you’re discovering with others.

Also, your writing and blogging is going to be influenced by the ongoing art and craft of just writing, along with the people you meet, current events, trends that matter to you, new discoveries, technology twists and turns, what you had for dinner or lunch, how much sleep you had, how fast you ran, hard you worked out—in short, a little bit of everything. Honor this and indulge in it.

Most importantly: have fun in your discoveries.

Eat dirt and write

Technorati Tags: Writing,coaching,blogging,learning,voice,writing tips,Anne Lamont,monkey mind,speed writing

The Pandemic of Monkey Mind and Its Cures

2009-05-08T16:49:00.000-07:00

The Great Swine Flu Scare of 2009 came up today in a blog-shop I gave for some really fantastic, brilliant people.

We were laughing and rolling our eyes at this false epidemic and how the whistle blowers were now probably blushing and hiding in their rabbit holes while promising a return of the Real Killer Flu next year.

All this brings me to monkey mind.

Monkey mind--like I have to tell any of you--is the language your mind makes that puts you into the state of f*#cked-upness. Think: Freaked out, scared, hyperventilating, running through the streets still wet from the shower you fled because the boogie-men were chasing you ... until you find yourself in the middle of a quiet street on a May afternoon and ... nothing. Just the sounds of birds chirping.

The monkeys sure are laughing. And hard, too.

Blush. Followed by days of self-flagellation, the hair shirt, embarrassment, etc etc.

Getting to the point of this monkey business

We, the public, can really let the daily media inflame this massive national-global monkey mind.

Start with the economy and the recession. Sure things suck. I know it first hand. I lost my job, too. (I have to ask: Why do we use the word "lost" when it's so far from the truth? It was taken from us. When I explained the idea of job loss to my nine-year-old nephew, he innocently asked, "But what if the people don't want to go?").

And so. We have our scary-ass Depression thing going on and the Swine flu uproar which reminds me of the alarm instigated by the terrorist color panel alerts that came in the wake of the horrible Twin Towers bombing.

What on earth is a citizen to do when the people on the news and our elected government officials tell us we're at a very high red-alert five-star danger state for a terrorist attack?

But back to the present, where the economy still stinks, gas prices are rising but a few news wisps suggest the recession just may be bottoming out and on the way out, despite some recent big-company layoffs. And the Killer Flu Pandemic is on hold until Winter 2010.

You know what I wish? I wish we Americans allowed for and supported the kind of leader who could respond to Flu news and other hysteria without covering his ass and instead just say "Ok, everyone just pipe down. Wash your hands, be careful but let's not make a mountain out of a molehill." It seems we, the voting public, can support the idea of visionary leadership in a campaign but when the person is elected, the state of affairs returns to ass-coverage. Work has a lot of this too.

Back to the point of monkey mind--and there is a point

Don't be part of the monkey mind!

Even if things are really really hard. Don't walk around paralyzed and wired and uncreative and depressed; don't seek out downer conversation and if you do want to talk about the state of affairs, throw some creative solutions and opportunity thoughts in there. And everytime a bank gets stressed tested or the market falls, don't keep your family home for dinner or forego buying a new book at your local bookstore--keep one more small business in business.

And everytime you get a stuffy nose and sore throat do not re-write your will. Drink water and go to bed early.

The more we are talked into--no, scared into--believing that our future is on a really horrible and despairing and frightening path, the more we make it so. All of us, together, in our oozing monkey mind of doom.

And part of this vicious cycle may be part of a story-telling principle: TROUBLE MAKES A GOOD STORY. This is creative writing 101. And because the media is a business that needs stories that sell, the more trouble and rife and drama--the better. Especially when the media has to get our challenged attention spans and sell news and stay in business. And I knew it's cool to disdain the media but that is just so unimaginative. The media are people too, so.

What if we agreed to just read and listened ot the news media, and when things get hysterical we can nod our heads at it the way parents do when young children scream--because that's what children do--and move on?

Here are some suggestions to relieve monkey mind:

Art: Whatever it is that does it for you, put yourself in front of your favorite artforms as often as possible. Even if it's bringing up some artwork on the Web and staring at it for a few minutes and reading about what the artist went through to do the work (talk about good troubling stories!).

Nature: I find when I am out walking or running and I see this amazingly graceful tree trunk with a flurry of pink blossoms on top like it just walked out of the hair-tree salon, there I am--MIRACULOUSLY--in a state of awe. No problems in the world for a few moments. Nature doesn't know about recessions and wars and heartbreak. It is there for the beautiful taking and a relief from ourselves.

Community: Put yourself in the good company of people you love who remind you why this life is worth every single solitary beautiful horrible struggling challenging step. Hang out with people who can laugh at themselves and know how to give really good deep hugs.

Ask some fruitful questions: Recessions are quiet times. Like sabbaticals. These are opportune times to get to know yourself anew, and assess how you might like going forward in your life on this planet within your community.

And ask yourself: What are the things that makes life worth living?

Art: Pablo Picasso's "Spain" (top) and Marc Chagall's "Woman and the Roses", bottom. Both men had their own beautiful creative ways to deal with monkey mind.

What would you do if you could not fail?

2009-05-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Liz for sending me an email with this fruitful question:

What would you do if you could not fail?

These days I finding myself coaching people who are wondering about their Careers. And at the root of their career questions there is often one commonality: How can I make the leap to do the type of work I really, really, really want?

Last night I was coaching someone who realized not only is she wired and gifted to do the work she really, really wants--but she's done it and been successful.

Another thing people are discovering (and I'm lucky enough to witness it) is: They succeed at doing what is fulfilling to them when they do what they like.

Because, and this is my opinion, that which we like we like because we are gifted in doing that.

Otherwise, it's swimming upstream.

This morning I met some Masters swim group pals for coffee and we talked. One thing we talked about was how sometimes in looking for What We Want to Do, we discover we're already doing it--at least a part of it, or if we aren't quite there we're really close.

So the questions to get to a more fulfilling yummy place could be:
What do I need to do to move further up the scale of achieving my Great Life?
Let's say, if the scale goes from 1 to 10 and you're at, say, a 7 or an 8 and you want to be at a 9 or 10. What is one teeny-tiny action or shift you can make that can lead to getting closer to who you want to be?

What tiny teeny action or conversation shift or internal attitude change might happen if you believed you could not fail in anything in the next week?

Especially if you were doing things you liked (and you were not hurting people, etc etc)?

Who do we become if we aren't weighed down--or motivated by--fear? I see wings growing from our backs and crowds of smiling peaceful faces.

Have fun succeeding in getting closer to doing what you really, really WANT to do!

What's the deal with Mondays?

2009-05-04T10:04:00.001-07:00

As I was swimming this morning, in a lane all by myself, I was wondering about the pre-Monday blues.

Why do so many of us get this Sunday evening surge of anxiety?

I get it and I don't even have a j-j-Job to go to. Which could be part of the reason. Who knows! But I've had it in a j-j-Job, working as my own boss, or being a vacationing slacker. The Monday Thing appears to have no favorites.

And in preparation for Monday, I always have to get my wits about me, as in: have a super mellow Sunday afternoon-eve to prepare for my week ahead. In some ways it feels like my emotional core is saying "Don't move. Stay very still, almost comotose and don't go anywhere, don't speak to anyone new because I have to get very, very mellow in order to deal with the week ahead. Oy. Shhhh!"

And then there's a far-away cry from some other inner being that has her eyes closed and fists pressed closely to her chest and is screaming bloody murder: "Oh no another Monday. Oh noooo!"

(I just thought of "Mr. Bill" from old SNLs)

In short, I wonder what kind of message I'm sending myself when I go: "Oh shit we gotta hunker down Sunday! Another week incoming. Get out the bath salts and hard hat."

I mean jeepers, Monday is just another day. Right? Yeah, I didn't buy it either.

So. Why does Monday have to be that tense first day of another week in which we count down the hours until Friday, at which point we hurdle ourselves into two frenzied days of socializing and family time and a little sleeping in and sports and naps and chores and yard work and errands and then...

.... It's 4pm Sunday. Do you know where your serenity is?

I have nothing new to say here except: Four day work weeks, for one. However, staying on topic...

Let's do some accepting here. Part of this Monday windup might be the reality of time--and our cycles. Our lives happen to be made up of a cycle of weeks. The common question is: "What are you up to this week?" We plan around our weeks, and yes, sometimes months when we're super busy which most of us are. But we start first with weeks.

So what if weeks rule as the predominant daily-life cycle of time. Are we getting closer to explaining this phenom?

Let's say we pace ourselves around a cycle of weeks, and it's a form of calendrical breathing. Innnnn (Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursdsay) Ouuuuut (Friday Saturday Sunday).

And the fact that anyone wants to be quiet and mellow and store up for the week ahead makes sense.

But this morning, for whatever reason, I was asking myself about the way I sometime sleep restlessly on Sunday nights. Could I spin Sunday anticipation as the excitement and adrenaline spiking over the surprises that could come out of the next cycle of seven days? Mhmm.

Of course, sometimes Monday is a simple return to a challenging period of time, and that's that. And challenges do pass with a series of weeks and Sundays and Mondays. And all we can do in the meantime is be super gentle and compassionate towards ourselves and whisper a lot of sweet nothings in our ears. And eat something delicious Sunday night with our favorite people.

And go for a walk. Or watch a favorite old comfort-food movie. With said food.

Sunday evening walks with someone you really, really like will really, really help.

Quick Monday lessons: Once I had a job where I just attacked Mondays. Got up hungry, pumping my arms all the way to work, going Grrrr, I'll show that Monday who's boss. I was practically salivating in a swirl of papers and running down the hallways to meetings.

I showed that Monday! I stayed at work late, got so much done I could almost take it easy the rest of the week.

But then: I was toast the rest of the week. I started out too fast (if you've ever done that in a sports event or race you know how sucky and even embarrassing it is). I finally learned to ease into the week. Pace myself.

Now, I make Monday an "easy" day. No heroics. Just show up and gently do my best. No big accomplishments allowed. If I wake up and get out of bed and show up somewhere for something, that's enough.

And on Sunday I'll do something like go for a trail run with friends and try to find someone to have dinner with and go for a walk and be super gentle and easy with myself--reminding myself over and over: Monday is an easy day. Easy, you just have to breathe. Easy.

And now, to honor the gentle beauty of Mondays, read this beautiful story. With pictures. And meaning and humor.

TGIM!

My niece, Taya, and her dad, on a family vacation in Scottsdale. It must have been a Monday!

Thinking BIG and Staring Down your Gollum

2009-05-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

How do you stay on track with Big Thinking? For starters, it means staring down your inner gollum or gremlin. At least that's what went down with me this past week.

Gollum, gremlin, boogie-man, nay-sayer--any of these names can represent that voice or persona inside you that keeps you from being or doing what you dream of when you dare to think big.

I, for one, have a gollum girl. I met her one night in a dream. In this dream I was given an unreal fantastic opportunity to do something. But before I went off with the initiator of this opportunity, my Gollum Girl was crouched down in the corner showing me her fangs and hissing out a "Don't Even Think About It."

My G.G. gets her name from the second Lord of the Rings movie. My favorite part of the movie is when gollum and his better self Sméagol have a little back-and-forth interior battle that goes something like this: "Master goooood, master goooood; no master baaaaad, master baaaAAAd!" Do I even need to explain how just right-on this is, in capturing that inner nay-saying boogie-man?

So, this past week I got to face my gollum*! Hooray for opportunities. (That's the voice of my Stupid, Positive Self--and that negative adjective was the voice of my gollum self.) See how sneaky?

*Truth is, my gollum shows up every day at some point. Pest.

So. I had a lot of Gollum Girl visitations this week--a settling in of that rhapsodic voice whispering many seductive versions of "no."

Versions of No sound like this: "Uh-oh, what have you got yourself into?" "I'll never make a living again." "It's too late, I'm doomed to failure!" "You'll never Make It." "Give that dream up, it's unrealistic." "Here you are again, out of work, a student, all aloooone in the world."

In the Gollum vs. Smeagol face-off Voices of No went like this: "Master's our friend." "You don't have any friends, nobody likes you." Here's a little scene of how the good Smeagol fights off his Gollum.*

*I have to say straight up I am not a big Lord of Rings fan but a big fan of this aspect of the story. And the fact I have to note this shows my gollum is present whispering, you better cover your ass girl!

So, it's been a week with all that gollum bullshit.

So what do you do when your gollum or gremlin shows up overtime?

"Master bad," your gollum may whispering--to you, about you.

And you may fight back with a mild, "No, Master gooooood. Has lots of friendses."

Stop it right now. Don't feed the gollum beast. Don't engage, don't enter conversation and if you do keep it short. As short as possible.

Next, just see how unwise this creature looks. If you were to conjure up a face or a physical identity for your gollum/gremlin voice what would it look like? I bet it's not the kind of person or thing you'd approach in the grocery store to ask about picking out the perfectly ripe mellon. No, you'd probably just notice it and move on.

Thinking big could be moving past the gollum/gremlin voices by facing them down. Shine a light of recognition on a gollum when it shows up that says, "You are so busted. Now go to your room!" Then move on. Quickly, the same way you'd move past the crazy lady talking to herself in the grocery store.

And start putting your whole attention on what you really really really want as crazy as you may think it is. And if you find yourself thinking it's "crazy" that may be a bit of "master bad" creeping in there.

What else is a gremlin/gollum-busting version of THINKING BIG?

Here's something that tells us just how uncool it is to be self-deprecating and small-acting. Much wiser than anything I can offer. It's my Marianne Williamson.

Read on and enjoy living in your Big Thinking today:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory that is within us. As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Written by Marianne Williamson, and read by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 Inaugural Speech.

For a fun read on Gremlins, and taming them check out this book.

When you're tired of trying so hard and still trying to Make It

2009-04-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

Something occurred to me the other night as I caught myself in a little existential tangle.

I'm still trying to make something of myself. And it's getting pretty exhausting.

And then something else occurred to me: Here I am, squat in midlife and still trying to make something of my life--as though I'm 21 years old and leaping into the jungles of New York City to ... make something of my life.

And in that moment of catching myself here--still struggling, struggling, struggling to Make It, something in me caved in, like a lousy roof under a bunch of mud. But then there was a bit of light and clarity.

I realized I was tired and full of self doubt when I held this framework of trying really hard to make the most of everything in this Second Half of life.

I mean, groooan, no wonder the roof caved in, right?

And then I started asking myself some good fruitful questions:

Let's say I already had made something of my life and myself.

Then how would I live? What would it feel like going through my days having already made something of myself, with nothing else to prove to anyone or myself but to live in a way that supports my highest values like Freedom, Creativity, Love, Physical Activity, Nature, Playfulness and a few others I'm forgetting.

Maybe I wouldn't feel so "ate up," as my brother, Michael would put it. I shouldn't have to explain that saying because it is what it sounds like. Just "ate up" -- sick and freakin' tired.

But "ate up" can lead to being bitter and resentful and nasty and chip-on-shouldery and that is not an option here. None of these makes my values list although some days I want to soak myself in a nasty-ass sulk marinade for hours on end.

So the last couple days I've been wondering how it would be to retire from trying to make something of myself and replace that with just trying to live my values and pretend I'm retired from "Making It."

Now don't get me wrong, I like hard work. But there is good hard fruitful inspired work and there is trudging hard laborious proving-to-the-world-you're-earning-your-keep work. We know the difference too, anyone can feel it in his heart, but sometimes it's hard to get off that treadmill. I have to admit to a deep down mysterious fear that if I let down my guard for five minutes and don't throw a lot of what looks like good hard work/effort/trudgery at something, the slits in my couch will suck me up for eternity. Poof! Gone just like that.

So. Don't work it so hard. Live like you've already Made It. Remember the values and make those your Life-Work goals to hit. Them's my learnings.

Oh, PS: I just got an email message from "The Biggest Loser" as I was writing this. There's a kismet-y connection here, there is.

But I'm not going to figure it out, I have some relaxin' to do.

The Strangest Souvenir Ever and What I learned on a Wenatchee Bike Trip

2009-04-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

I hate recycling.

Ok, that's a bit rough and not entirely true. But I do find it to be a pain in the ass, especially when the rules change and at work you recycle one way and at home it's another and now we have to add a new compost container and listen to radio shows about how couples are fighting over new recycling rules and waa waa waa.

So here's the funny thing. Last week I was wondering what could possibly get me thinking more positively about recycling. Because it is for a very good cause, even if I'm occasionally suspicious about where everything ends up. The end-goal is to save Mother Earth and all that fine stuff.

So on this note of wondering how I can have a better recyling frame-of-mind: Whamo! I run right into my answer.

Tonya Berg! This weekend Tonya and I went to Wenatchee to ride our bikes with a group of fun bike crazies. And there's no one else I can have as much fun riding and complaining and laughing about it with than Tonya.

OK, a quick run-down on Ms. Berg: She's a healthcare professional, a Masters swimmer and mean breaststroker; she loves to watch TV a lot and does so guiltlessly. She drinks buttermilk before bed, is a huge Cougs fan and shops the sales racks like a champ. And she drinks a few Diet Cokes during the day ("as good as water!" she likes to say).

But here's a quintessential Tonya experience: If you're out and about walking with her and there's a little bit of trash here and there, she'll daintily bend over and pick it up and walk it to the closest trash bin--without saying a word. There is no "What's wrong with people" or "Jesus Christ goddamm SOBs...." She just quiety picks up whatever is in her way and puts it in the garbage and nothing changes about her body language or movement or dialogue, not a trace of resentment. As simple as that.

So on that note, there's this. It's Sunday morning and Tonya and I are packing up our things, while our third roomie, Jan is preparing for another day of intense cycling. I see Tonya rustling through the trash and pulling out the few cans and bottles in there. She says a few words to tell us casually she'll take them home and recycle them. !!!???

I must've said something because she then told us about the souvenirs she brought back from her trip to Tahiti a year or so back. She brought back all the plastic Coke bottles she drank while there--to recycle. In a giant suitcase.

"I smooshed them all down really well," she explained--as though that would make any difference. "Well, they don't really recycle there, they have to ship it all out," she added, as if that would explain things. And anyone who knows Tonya knows she likes to down a few bottles of Diet Coke per day. She brought home more than a few, that's for sure.

So, with that news downloaded I watch her pack about five bottles and cans into a plastic bag and haul it out to the car with her 17 other overnight bags. Just like that. There's no righteousness, no prostletyzing, nuthin'. It's a very remarkable attitude. She's a remarkable and strange and funny and unique person, our Tonya. But she also lives her life by example, and never once have I see her force her beliefs or ways upon someone else.

All day today I've wanted to pick up the phone and call Jan and say "Can you believe what Tonya did with those plastic Coke bottles?" Then I want to call and email all our mutual friends and say, "Did you know Tonya brought back many many plastic bottles of Diet Coke from Tahiti?"

Instead, I'll just write it here and proclaim Ms. Tonya Berg the Patron Saint of Recycling and other good deeds.

And maybe a few recycling cranks like me won't bitch so much while making way for more bins and containers.

Patron Saint Tonya poses at a gas station break for Coke and beef jerkey. The number on her bike hemlet is from Ironman Canada 2005. Her training regime is also what makes Tonya unique. It goes something like this: "Ah, once around the lake is enough riding." "Oh, a few times around Greenlake is enough running." "Man I could use a red beer!"

Modest Proposal: A fun(ny) "I don't like" club of sorts

2009-04-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the French movie Diva that made a bit of a cult splash in the early '80s? It was an atmospheric thriller that featured a French kid motoring around on his scooter chasing after an older-woman crush and there are thugs and a magical man in a white suit and a singer who does this operatic solo at the end of the film that blows everyone away.

Anyway, one of the thugs is a short bald guy in sunglasses. He doesn't say much but when he does it's usually a one-liner that goes: "Je n'aim pas [quelque chose]. In other words, "I don't like [something]."

He said it in a nasal monotone. Some activity would be going around and when he was on the screen there was a bit of tension because he was up to no good and there would be a space of silence in the movie and then the bald thug would say: "Je n'aime pas _______."

And for some reason all these years later I still think about this guy. I think about him when I am hit with a sudden wave of not liking something or someone or a situation and I have a sudden urge to declare: "Je n'aime pas l'ascenseur."

"L'ascenseur" is french for elevator. This particular line comes from a scene when thug and partner were going up in an industrial elevator and it's silent until the nay-sayer delares "Je n'aime pas l'ascenseur." Just deadpan like that and at this point the viewer comes to expect it. It's the tiniest bit of comic relief (French style).

I don't know why this is the one line I remember of all his "Je n'aime pas's" because I have one hell of a time pronouncing "l'ascenseur." And lately I've really been wanting to say it.

For example the other day I was somewhere with a friend and something happened that was distasteful to me and I wanted to turn to my friend and say "Je n'aime pas l'ascenseur." And you know, this friend may even have gotten it too. I don't know -- am I too in my own world to think someone would have picked up on my reference? Would you have?

So what's the point exactly?

I sorta like this line as a trope or a language play or metaphor thingy -- a stand-in for saying "I don't like him/her/that/me/the weather/this particular moment." It makes the downerism funny and it lets me have my "no" moment with a good laugh and move on.

And if someone else would get it, wouldn't it be great?

Could you imagine being somewhere, a meeting or a party and just not digging something and declaring: "Je n'aime pas l'ascenseur" -- and having ONE person who got it?

If someone reading this would like to be part of the "l'ascenseur" club please let me know. I may just start practicing my pronounciation and start throwing it out there and see who gets it.

Yes! I mean, what's the worst that can happen? Someone will think I'm strange? Oh, like that's never happened.

"Je n'aime pas l'ascenseur!"

When you stop saying Hello and other Friendship Over moments

2009-04-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

So here's the set-up:

There's a man I see at Starbucks. Some years ago we had conversations, we said hello, we talked about writing. We were friendly. Now, some years later I noticed something. We don't say hello anymore. We don't even acknowledge each other, really.

And I have to say, I'm totally okay with it. Maybe I even initiated it. But it makes me wonder:

When do you stop acknowledging someone -- when do you stop saying hello?

With this particular gentleman I have to confess there was a turning point for me. And it's based in some judgment. One day, in the years when we were talking, I was in graduate school and writing a lot and happy to talk to anyone who would A) distract me from said work and B) would just talk to me. Ok, it was a bit of a lonely phase.

So he finds out I'm a writer and I coach writers and give workshops and he tells me (all together now) "I've always wanted to write a book."

I have to say something here. Whenever people proclaim a desire to write a book -- and I really do love writing -- my reaction is: Well if you can help it, why would you want to? In other words, if you're cruising along in life perfectly content not writing, why force the issue?

But when I hear anyone share a dream to write I get right in there and step into this advice-giving "helpful" stance. But then he said something that made me never want to talk to him again.

What he said was that he wanted to write his novel in a month. He just wanted to get it over with.

That was like the scratch on the record, one of those moments -- admit it, you have them too! -- when it's game over.

To explain: I am not interested in conversations that are focused on the end-product. I am a process junky. I like delving into the juicy process, the curiosity and mystery of what is found there, sharing the struggles of commiting to the artistry of creating something really delicious and generous and good. That's what I like.

Once I grasped that all this writer wanted was an end-prouduct my desire to talk to him pretty much vanished.

It's rather conditional isn't it? Oh well. Maybe it's just a value separation.

But seriously. Admit it. It' shappened to you, too. You meet someone and everything's cooking along just fine and then they tell you something that rests on an aesthetic principle or value level that you just can't deal with. For example, they voted along a party line you detest or they absolutely do not like the artist/writer/musician that makes life worth living for you. Or they think the fruit you find the most delicious and perfect and sensual (say, a mango) is disgusting. Do you ever visualize pulling a lever that opens a trap door that they fall down and out of sight, forever?

Nick Hornby wrote about this in "High Fidelity." His narrator, who was looking for the perfect mate, said something along the lines of, "It's not who you are, it's what you like." My cousin Jane read this years ago and said to me, This is the male version of you. She was right, but that was the male version of me. I've lightened up a lot, really! But it's still there.

I have to admit, if someone were to tell me, "I think the second movement of Beethoven's 5th piano concerto is total shit," Oh man. Would the relationship be tested.

So what am I trying to say?

I'm not saying as much as I'm noticing--and copping to--a couple of things.

I notice that there are neighborhood folks who at some point I--we, together, in a silent pact--slowly stopped acknowledging each other with a Hello or even a head tip. What's happening there?

Then there's this related situation: In which you recognize someone and you notice them recognizing you and neither of you is sure whether to acknowledge each other's recognition or ignore it. So you may enter this silent agreement of simultaneous ignoring/avoidance. I find that so interesting and funny.

Maybe next time I will try stepping out of myself and say a nice big juicy Hello to one of these maybe-acquaintances. Even to the lame writer guy because really, maybe he wrote the book and maybe he's got a reading at Barnes & Noble next week and that's more than I can say.

As for judging people on their music tastes and other things like that. That's another posting. But somehow it sneaked in here. Because that one guy I stopped saying hello to didn't share my aesthetic values, or work ethic, or art apprecation, I dunno what you cal lit. And sometimes when people don't share my aesthetic it's hard for me to accept them into my world.

Isn't that close-minded? Oh well. And what if I just said, So what. You can't be friends with everyone!

One last story-lette: Years ago I told my Dad that a man I was dating wouldn't go to the opera with me (which I don't go to much anymore and can't blame him). My dad's immediate reaction was, "Dump him." See where I come from? But when I think back on it now it makes me laugh and I feel so incredibly fond of my Dad for that.

But moving forward, I'm going to play with the idea of making better eye contacting and stepping into recognizing people and saying Hello to as many people as I can. And even the "lame writer guy."

Because, what's the worst thing that can happen?

What kick-ass quality do you want MORE of?

2009-04-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

Since Monday is almost over and I have yet to post anything, how about three fruitful-juicy questions?

OK, so they're three categories of questions that can get you in a state of being where you want to be. Ready?

1) What quality would you like to have more of in your life?
(Write this down--this could include courage, peace, curiosity, fun, creativity, wisdom, patience... you get the drill.)

2) Think of a time in your life, even if it was just a sliver of a second sometime in your past where you experienced this state in a way you'd like to embody it now.
What does it feel like, how do you look, who are you being? Take a bit of time to really get into it and tap into the feeling.

Or, try: What vibration do you feel in your body? This one really worked on me earlier. I was working with the quality of unconditional love which, well, I only sort of believe in and it was a rather strange overwhelming buzz. Not bad, it just showed me that there was something possible here that I am ordinarily not open to.

3) Now shift scenes. You are fully living in this quality (totally peaceful, courageous, patient, whatever). And you are walking down a street -- a neutral street, any street. How do you walk, how does your body move? What do you notice about your gait, youR hand movements, your eyes, your mouth, your smile? Concentrate on yourself, not your environment.

See if you can really lock into witnessing yourself embodying this desired quality as you walk down a street.

Now, are you willing to play around a bit? (Quickly run out and hug a tree if it gets you into the mood or do a cartwheel or something).

Ok, so how about taking it one little step further?

Call up this image of you walking in this fully embodied quality -- at its full potential -- for 21 days in a row. Make sure you view yourself at a distance -- an out of body POV.

Guess what? I haven't done it before either but I'm going to give it a try. I've heard that some people put up 21 stickies someplace with the quality written on it and take one down every day. I may just try to imagine/visualize my scene in those first few waking minutes in bed since I've been arriving into the day feeling full of "no" lately.

What have I got to lose? Maybe a layer of defensiveness, or a bit of the grouch -- and oh man could I live with that.

Happy, playful week ahead.

To Have New Experiences You Have to Say "Yes"

2009-04-17T13:07:00.001-07:00

God I hate saying yes sometimes.

No comes much easier. And it's often the first step to get to a yes.

Sometimes it's: Ok, yes! Well, no actually. Maybe. Okay (groan) ... yes already!

And I'm really a very positive person! Look at the exclamation marks here!

So here's the story in a nutshell and I hope it helps someone because last night was a process of opening up and realizing how a small cascade of Yeses will give me opportunity to start to achieve a 2009 goal: To have new experiences.

The Yeses

For starters I accepted my friend Carrie's inviation to go to Elliot Bay Books to hear author Franz Wisner talk about his book, "How the World Makes Love." There's a subtitle I didn't include but in a nutshell, Wisner has profited by being abandoned at the alter some years ago -- I say "profited" because it led to a couple of successful books that jumped off the experience. Which is great.

This particular book is a memoir based on his travels around the world with his brother, and looking at how different countries love, court and have sex. Cool huh?

Anyway, so there I was, having said one "Yes" to Carrie's invitation when normally I like to stay home at night. I really thought that was my last "yes" of the day, too. I really just wanted to get home and go to bed. I was tired. (Poor me!)

I have to share an ongoing dialogue string that is constantly with me these days as I'm on a swimming rampage. It goes like this: "Will I get to bed early enough to get up in the morning for swimming?"

Yes, it's true. My internal beddie-bye compass is my morning swimming. I don't know why but I am willing to go through my day a bit weary and fuzzy because I get up at 5:30 am to go and kick ass with my posse of fast swimmers because for some reason right now I want to be a fast and graceful and artistic swimmer. I know, my eyes roll a bit too.

Back to the reading. As I sat there this eiphany came to me:

I decided that I am always going to buy a book at any author reading I wind up at -- I want to support writers and the indie bookstores they read at. Now, that's not so big a shift except for, I don't always buy the book. I usually hightail it out of there right after the applause so I can get in bed for .... swimming! And also, I just like to get into bed early. I just like bed.

And, I might add, when I'm salary-challenged as I am now, I can turn into a real cheapskate.

But sitting in that reading and looking at all the books on the walls and watching the reader work so hard to share his story with us and thinking What if someday that could be me I had this shift. I will always, no matter how "broke" buy the book of an author and stand in the line to have have him/her sign it at the end.

So I shelled out $27 for a hardback that I already had at home from the library and here's what happened.

I engaged in a conversation with the writer! It was fun! We laughed! He told me I should be a writer! My friend and I laughed even more! We talked about writing and being vulnerable and letting it all hang out there (which this writer does in his book big-time). My energy rose. I was not thinking about swimming or how tired I had been and getting to bed.

And then I was invited to join author and posse down the street for drinks. I smiled and said Cool, sure, thanks. Then I said, Well, no actually but you can email me for any further virtual socializing.

Right.

This is what I'm used to doing. Going home. My body is in the habit of standing up and walking to the car and driving home. And so that's what my body wanted to do. But something else in me was open to .... not going home. My two friends had to get home but they encouraged me to go, and then they said, "You can write about it in your blog." That was a good ploy.

And a little voice said, If you want new experiences, you have to start saying "Yes" to things like this. What's going to be new and different in the stinkin' pool tomorrow? Enough already!

So I went and part of me felt knock-kneed and nerdy and another part said, Hey, we're cool. What's the worst that can happen? Other than missing swimming I couldn't think of anything.

I sat in a corner with some very nice women and in about ten minutes we were talking about literay erotica, porn, "Juggs," the Amsterdam Sex Museum and what the showgirls in Thailand can do with a ping-pong ball. Then the writer Franz came to sit with us and we talked about love, relationships, writing and what Oprah is really like off-camera and then I went home. And I felt energetic and happy and fulfilled.

I have to confess throughout the night there was my gollum voice whispering, "Master Bad, she will not have enough sleeping hours to swim. master bad."
And there was that "Master good" voice saying, Let go of it, swimming is not going anywhere. Have fun being here, somewhere new.

Oof! I broke through a tiny habitual threshold of a certain kind of no, with a series of Yeses. To count 'em up again:

There was 1) Saying Yes to a reading that I knew nothing about (thanks Carrie!). 2) Saying Yes to supporting writers and bookstores and always buying the book and getting it signed even if it's about kitty litter boxes. 3) And then saying Yes to the invitation I like least -- meeting up at a fancy hotel bar where I feel so out of place I thought the maitre d' was going to show me the way out. And having conversations with new people I had never before met.

And you know what? If felt good to show up and support a kind, funny writer who is writing about love in a vulnerable way and promoting Americans to get out and travel the world. It felt good to get out of my own cocoon of Tatyana-ness and swimming. Jeez.

Today I slept in until 8am. I woke up thinking about Yeses. In that spaces of Yeses I was able to show up and provide a fantastic coaching session to an amazing person who is also writer.

And I have something to write about for my blog.

Lesson learned: When you want new experiences, you have to say Yes, even when it feels uncomfortable.

Especially when it feels uncomfortable.

Go ahead, say Yes to somehting new (a safe thing--not the stranger with a pitchfork jumping out of the bushes and asking if the Little Girl likes candy). See what happens.

Can 15 Minutes Save a Gym Membership?

2009-04-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

Everyone who hates their gym raise their hands.

Everyone who has a membership but doesn't go "enough" raise their hands.

Mine went up 1.5 times. I don't hate my gym but wouldn't life be great without the pressure of going to the gym?

Although I can't give it up. This I learned over the fall and winter months.

Here's why I need my gym

To keep my body strong -- especially my hamstrings, quad and core -- so I can run and swim and (believe it or not) sit without feeling large amounts of pain.

To stave off injuries.

And to have moments of pumping iron and feeling bad-ass. (Just don't look at the small weight amounts).

To keep my small living space my sanctuary and not a dumbell holder and mini weight room.

And now ... the gym problem

My gym is super convenient and still I don't go. It doesn't help I have an active swimming and running and, er, resting schedule but still ....

Didn't I say I learned my lesson (for the second meaningful time I might add) that strength training does my body good?

And even though I asked myself if I wanted to quit my gym, I said no.

And even though I had a tiny goal of going to the gym only 2x a week, I didn't go.

So here's the new gym relationship shift

My gym is no longer a place to go for intense hour-long workouts of heave-ho'ing and sweating and then enjoying the soreness a day or two after. This is why I hardly go in the first place because I want my legs fresh enough for a good run and my arms strong enough for a hard swim.

Instead, my gym is now the place for 15 - 20 minute drop-ins: even if it's a set of core work. Or, today I stopped in after a run for about 25 minutes and did some squats (miracle workers), some shoulder work and core work and high tailed it out.

My gym is now the tune-up place for quick drop-ins. If that means going in in jeans and a t-shirt (and dress code allows it) then so be it.

Goal? I wanted to start with 3x a week. But since today was my first time in two weeks I'm going to take a day number off the table. That just doesn't work.

New goal: Just 15 - 20 minute micro tune-up drop-ins. No big-ass powerful sessions that keep me from running the next day. Just maintenance and playing around.

This is me shifting my gym relationship and fitting in with swimming, running.

This is me trying to support my body to be strong and healthy and injury free.

Long live the gym! Long live strength training! Long live quickies!

Let's see how it goes .... and if I can sustain this through the warmer months. If they ever come.

Long live the gym!

Photo: My niece Taya and me a couple years ago, at the Arnold Schwarzenegger Thanksgiving Ladies' Invitational.

How Fuzzy Brain Is Good for Writing

2009-04-10T10:48:00.001-07:00

(Note, even though the date says April 10, the date posted is April 13)

Who says funcitoning on half a brain doesn't have merit?

That's the talk of the day. Read on, please. I'm pulling an Instant Message transcript straight from a conversation I had with my friend I'll call "Pam."

Topic: Thinking and writing from the fuzzy space in your brain.

The Deal: "Pam" had just returned from vacation and had post-holiday fuzzy-brain and wanted to snap out of it to be productive, especially for a writing session we were going to have later on.

I was trying to convince her that a case of fuzzy brain could be a good thing for generating ideas and doing the actual writing work.

PAM: My brain feels a little more engaged today. I've had such fuzzy brain.

ME: Well, there is value in that fuzzy brain you know.

PAM: Now I'm curious ... what's your thinking?

ME: Well, I think when we don't put a lot of focus on our very sharp and ready brain, there's a lot of movement going on in that foggy space. Sort of like chilling out and trusting what comes to the top. Or another example: like how we take a shower and get a good idea--could that happen because in the shower we put no pressure on ourselves to come up with any idea in the first place? And showers are hubs of fuzzy brain.

PAM: OK ... that makes sense ... relaxing your brain so stuff will bubble up on its own.

ME: I like that ... have you ever noticed that sometimes when you write and you aren't "into it" you do a better job because you're detached from it?

I have a story about this -- I'll tell you during our writing session today.*

PAM: I need a forcing habit, seriously, which seems to run counter to what you said above.

ME: OK. Today we can also set up a structure by which you can crank out the stuff you want to.

PAM: It's that journalist on a deadline mentality.

ME: I think ALL structures have their place. What might hold people back is when they define themselves by saying, "Well, I'm in THIS PLACE [fuzzy brain] so I can't work very well" ... and what if THIS PLACE offers just a different POV ...

[some time passes with no typing]

ME: I love the cow on your IM picture.

*The story. Some of the best, most lasting writing advice came from a Poli-Sci prof when I was an undergrad at the U of Washington in the Paleolithic era. He was preparing us to write a paper, and said. "Listen, don't fret it! Write the paper when you're really tired." And he left it at that. I didn't get it--I thought maybe he was some kind of stoner-teacher. But that weekend I went on a trip to the East coast and wrote the paper falling asleep from jet lag and waiting in offices for interviews. I hardly even remember writing the damn thing -- and I didn't have time to fret or do much re-reading. While I was a good writer, I wasn't adept at writing about Poli-Sci stuff (I forgot what the paper was about in less than a week after writing it). But using his technique of being super tired, I got an A along with comments on how well-thought out the paper was. Huh?

Ok, the point isn't to endorse writing onlky when you're narcoleptically tired. But how about from a frame of mind that is relaxed and at ease and chilled and even a bit fuzzy and in no mood for life?

Try it! Detachment can be a wonderful thing. Have fun.

How wasting time led to two c-c-c-commitments. I think.

2009-04-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wake up in the morning blushing about the sexy dream you had about a friend?

Me neither.

Anyway, I'm here to report on the Wasting Time project which will lead me to the moderlode theme of the year: Commitment.

I had a productive week. Oh Jeezus, there I go again.

Can we strike that word, productive? It's just the kind of language that messes me up in the first place. I see the Mean Accountant Me standing over the Creative Free Spirit Me with a whip demanding that I do something, anything that resembles productive behavior. Ich.

So, here's another word. Fruitful. I had a fruitful week. Did I waste time? I'm sure I did -- I watched a little TV. However, here's what's different: there is no image of someone chasing her tail. I don't feel like flogging myself for, well, wasting time. And maybe it was just a lucky week where stuff happeend, who knows.

Quick but important aside. Where does the fear of wasting time come from? Here's my personal issue with time: I spent a lot of my 20s and early 30s sitting on a barstool, drunk or hungover. There were other important, meaningful and growing experiences in there too. But when I hung up my partying hat I was so overwhelmed with my Wasted Life and what could have been. And so, that's the foundation of lots of my Time Issues.

(Have you ever noticed how much we Americans seem to value being busy? I read in a book once that Americans value money more than time, so go figure.)

So moving on .... Here's what came out of the week dedicated to Wasting Time:

Two commitments! Yes, I got off the stinkin' fence and put two stakes in the sand. Let me say I don't find living in indecision, even when it feels like you have chocies open to you, a very peaceful way to live. Especially when many life elements are dancing with uncertainty.

Commitment things: One was this Ironman I had signed up for. The other had to do with my coach training program.

The coaching thing was a simple commitment to take two of the five courses in four-day intensive bursts up in Vancouver. I'll miss Fat Salmon (which breaks my heart a little) but I'll get through the program more quickly. And the idea of forward motion makes me happy.

Now for the Ironman. Oh, have my friends heard me belabor the incoming Ironman training season. "I just don't know if I have enough bike love." "I don't know if I really can do all that pavement running." "Blah complain whine blah blah blah."

Even when I signed up for this pretty cool event last August, with a group of lovely friends, I wondered why, exactly I was doing this.

Why, exactly: Well, I like to train/play with my pals during the summer; I like the pilgrimage of training for a big event, as in: What kind of experiences and people will I encounter along the way? And probably most significant in the why category is that training has become a big part of what I do with my summers. What would I do without it? And facing this question was really quite surprising. Am I this unimaginative?

I do often call training "playing" -- and in part it absolutely is, but who am I kidding.

Playing as defined today, might be better described as going to Hermosa Beach and body surfing with my niece and nephew.

Training is spending a sunny Saturday doing a beautiful 70 mile ride with a good friend and then going for an 8 mile run afterwards and then wandering happily comotose (drunk-like even) for the rest of the remaining hours in the day.

Both are great. But I find myself being drawn to the body surfing image more than the bike-run image this year.

So yesterday I bit the bullet, got off the fence and committed to NOT doing the Ironman. I withdrew.

And here's a vision that came in for me as I went through the process (warning: woo-woo-ness incoming):

I checked in with my heart to see how she was feeling about doing the Ironman. I heard a wimper and saw a picture of a heart in a cage. I felt this thing--my heart--as something I've thrown a lot of activities at in order to keep her quiet and distracted (it doesn't totally work, either). Then something occurred to me: Maybe she wants to be listened to; maybe it's time for me to really deeply attend to the desires of my heart. Maybe she has something to show me, somewhere to take me. Maybe maybe maybe. But I was intrigued.

After withdrawing from IM I saw this: A picture of a heart flying out of this cage. Yes, she had little wings and she was off to scout out new and cool territory. I think first she went off to smell the cherry blossoms.

So. It looks like my heart will be my adventure guide for the summer and I'm here to follow and see what happens.

I realize this is a bit of an odd story. Especially when the theme is "wasting time." And commitment. The commitment is pretty obvious though, don't you think? Committing to the heart's desire: "No Ironman!" "No hours of bike training!" "Coaching!" "Having wave-surfing fun!" "Reading at the beach!"

How does wasting time fit in here? Maybe it was giving myself the framework of "wasting time" that allowed a shift to wander into my thinking and processing space. Who really knows. I don't. Do you?

That's my story for the week. Does anyone else have something cool to say about their relationship with Time. Or how they came to make a surprising commitment to themselves?

Wasting Time, Day 3

2009-04-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

An update on this week's goal to Waste Time:

Honestly, I don't feel friendly toward the term "waste time." But I keep reminding myself to Do It.

Last night while chilling in the bath I realized how nearly impossible it is for me to achieve a restful mind space at home. Still, I chanted to myself like a hypnotist, Waaasssste Tiiimmmmeeee. My mind catches that kind of directional with a lot of confusion.

First, the huh-ified mind floated over to the couch and TV area because that seems the best way to Waste Time. But once given permission, or commanded to waste time, the mind (or is that desire?) meandered over to the work space and laptop area like a curious dog sniffing out something interesting. Like food.

I actually wanted to, well, do something. I didn't know what but being directed to the couch made me want to go in the opposite direction. Hmmm. Child psychology?

So far this week, wasting time has been ... fun. Fulfilling. And fruitful. Including a run with a friend to see the cherry blossoms at the U.W. quad. They're raging right now -- absolute heaven. I've met some new people, did some coaching work, had some good swims, done some writing and been in an almost eerie unstressed state. Which is unsettling for this closet worrier.

Here's something odd I notice -- a bit of a zen freak out let's call it:

As I move through the week I am aware of this old voice far in the background. I can hear it and read its lips and arm waves as it jumps up and down screaming Prepare to be very afraid! We're goin' down...!, while a calmer, wiser voice is turning away like a calm zen-ish parent does with a whiney kid. This trusting wiser voice is in charge and is feeding my normally worrying mind this information: Don't worry about it. Everything's fine. Just keep doing what you're doing.

Holy [swearwords]!

So the stuff I normally worry about: finances, work, WHAT TO DO NEXT WITH MY TIME, are just not present. I haven't felt overwhelmed once. It is only Wednesdsay and none of this may be connected to wasting time. Who knows.

It's all strange and blissful. And something else:

While lying on the warm massage table at the office of my wonderful chiropracter, a cool image came to visit. I saw "wasting time" as an vision of a swimmer moving through water, breast stroking inside a dark green lake. I was breast stroking through these waters without knowing where I was going or even where I was and just seeing wisps of my hair moving back and forth. It felt suspended and relaxing.

Or maybe breast stroking through the cool deep green is just a good visual for sensual time management.

Sensual time management?

Maybe that's a new way to package time wasting. I dunno. I'm going to swim off into the mystic now.

This Week, I Will Waste Time. Lots of It!

2009-04-06T17:34:00.000-07:00

So it's Monday, I'm back from a short sunny holiday, and returning to a week that has a lot of cool different stuff going on.

But there's still the time-management struggle of facing time outside the construct of a J-J-Job.

So in an effort to be about as productive as someone who does magic with lists and tick marks and who's also probably of a different ethnic and brain-dominant background than me, I dared to ask:

How can I be as productive as possible this week?

After checking in with myself and my subconscious and whatever wiser higher being I could find, what came to me was this: throw the question out. Throw it out!

In order to avoid being an agnst-ridden doggie chasing her tail--what to do next? what to do next?--I'm going to try something else for shits and giggles.

I am going to try to waste as much time as I can this week.

A bit of background: I had a bit of a meltdown last week. I lost my sense of fun. I got grumpy and overwhelmed and self-doubty and my sense of play lay wimpering at my feet. So, it seems that my higher wiser self came in and put the nix on anything like "Making the most out of my week."

Instead, this week is an experiment at putting away the lists and to stop chasing my tail and just see what happens if my goal is to waste time. Burn a hole in it, just beat it down. Waste it away!
Maybe I'll just have to trust that the stuff that needs to get done will. The book projects and cool ideas and stuff like that.

Yes, I do have a calendar and make appointments that I write down and I actually do keep to. But there are margins of time around those appointments. And that's when I can fall prey to doing a lot of this:

So I'm going to see what this brings me this week, and I'll report back.

Let me put a few things in context. While I may be what some are calling a "recessionista," I am also someone who has, like most people, a diverse set of interests. I guess I just don't want anyone to think I'm a slacker.

So let me cover my ass for a second here. I am currently a student in a coach training program; I'm a writer of various genres and book possibility projects; I have some business ideas that are being researched; I have paying work to look for; friends to see; sports to do; books to read; projects to NOT forget about; people to coach, and so on.

So lots to do. It's not HOW to fill time but in what order. Where, when, how.

And the trick is to spend as little time caught in the WHAT DO I DO NEXT space.

A related aside: I've really noticed something the last few weeks. It seems most of us have these dueling selves. It comes out in conversations like, "I really want to write but there's a part of me that just doesn't believe I can." My dueling selves happen to be (1) the creative free spirit and (2), the mean accountant. They exist to work together and serve me; it's best when the nay-saying admin gets out of the way but still, there's a reason for both of these selves to exist. I guess.

And when they don't get along I feel a bit like this:

Skimpy psychoanalyzing aside, let's move on to Wasting Time.

So far, since making that proclamation, 5 hours have passed and I have:

Gone for a swim.
Made a new artist friend I may collaborate with.
Started reading a book that will be good brain food.
Read said book at beach.
Made dinner.
Organized course work. (Did someone say organized?)
Wrote this blog.
Answered emails.
Kept focusing on, Waste time, just waste it.
And found myself really excited to do all of this stuff.

Of course I don't like the word "waste." Maybe it will change into something else like "play"--but why future trip already.

But for some of us that reverse psychology just works.

And my relationship with time could probably use a bit of a standing on its head.

What if you tell yourself to Waste as much time as you can? What happens?

I'm here to find out.

How to write a poem in 5 minutes without thinking about it

2009-04-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday.

Today is a tiny writing lesson--no, let's call it an example. I'm going to use a poem written by my almost-10-year-old nephew, Campbell.

How it worked: I fed him a prompt for every line and he wrote the following short poem. Ok, I admit I took his dictation. But he was sporty enough to respond to me sitting down next to him, opening up a notebook and saying, basically, go.

Here's the poem:

The Wonderful Life of a Trophy Winner
By Campbell Mishel

Someone won a trophy
The orange grapefruit is tasty
The smell of cactus flowers blooming—
They smell like the remote!
The TV sits in the flower field
Grandpa and the honking horns of Paris
And I sit in this chair with my cup of coffee.

You could say this poem employs stacked images. For example, the individual lines seem unrelated but by stacking images and creating a collage of senses, the reader is left with a feeling of something. For me, it feels like someone reminiscing.

Want to know how this poem was written?

In brackets I'm going to write each prompt I fed to Campbell. And you'll see how easy it can be to play with writing--even p-p-p-poetry. The best part of it, is you can write with someone else--a friend, child or young person, even yourself.

Ok, here we go. First, off, I used a trick written of in an earlier post about Looking Up. The poem line is in itals.

[First, I told Campbell to look around, find an object, put it in a line. We're sitting at a kitchen table with the TV nearby. As his attention wandered I said, Don't think about it, just give me a line.]
Someone won a trophy

[repeat above instructions and add a taste]
The orange grapefruit is tasty

[now insert a smell]
The smell of cactus flowers blooming—

[What exactly does it smell like; he took his cue from an object in the room]
They smell like the remote!

[Insert an image from nature; and he still keeps bringing in surrounding objects]
The TV sits in the flower field

[Now mention a place, or a person]
Grandpa and the honking horns of Paris

[I told him this was the last line--bring it home, boy!]
And I sit in this chair with my cup of coffee.

Then I asked Campbell to think about a title -- and that there wasn't a better or worse/right or wrong title, just to play around with it. Look how he instrinctively took the feel of the poem and titled it: "The Wonderful Life of a Trophy Winner."

Pretty cool huh? Young minds have amazing creative resources. We can learn from them.

Happy Friday and writing and playing. Don't forget to make it fun.

Campbell taking a celebratory photo of writer and auntie, post poem.

Dear Fun Factory: When you lose your sense of fun

2009-04-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Fun Factory,

Of late I notice there seems to be a hiccup in your engine. Are you experiencing a bit of ennui? I thought it was just my pals B and P (who really know how to fun it up) who were experiencing some malfunction in their Fun-producing selves and now I see I need a check up.

A few things I'm noticing in case you feel like listening:

Don't forget to stop thinking so much. The mind is a terrible thing to overuse.

Enjoy playing with your niece and nephew and imagine you had as much potential in your life that they have ahead of them.

Risk. Chance. Daring. You have forgotten about the laughter and excitement that comes from going down an unknown road and where it might take you.

Don't take yourself so seriously.

Don't take yourself so seriously.

Go out, live from your heart, and risk falling down and getting up--you'll have a good story to tell.

Now, on a semi-related note here's a quote Heidi sends us on the topic of Commitment & Freedom. It's Starbucks Coffee Cup Wisdom:

The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating -- in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. -- Anne Morriss

Now go out and forget about goals and achievement and making anything great of yourself during this second act of your life. Just keep doing and playing and having fun already!

Photo: My niece, Taya, showing me how to drive a golf cart and let go of my fears. Fun!

What if you freed yourself from bad working spaces?

2009-03-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

I recently talked to a couple friends who are not enjoying their jobs.

I know how they feel. I know what it's like to feel "grateful to have any job" during a rough economy. And on the other hand, it sucks to be in a work environment that's rooted in fear and insecurity and chaos.

It sucks to admit you're grateful for a disfunctional job. And yet, making a paycheck is not something to turn your back on. Especially now.

When you're spinning in the problem and unable to find creative solutions it's like being in prison. The fun machine has stopped working; you stop hearing yourself laugh. Your face feels tighter, your teeth clenchier. No fun!

I once had a job at a start-up where no one really knew what we were doing. And I just couldn't get myself outside of my fabulously constructed box-of-stress--even though I knew there was a thriving world outside of myself and this job. Even though we were not saving babies or furthering world peace... but still ... investors.

Recently I've started thinking about the opportunities that exist to everyone on so many levels--levels we don't even begin to tap into. They're simple; they are not saviors, but they are small steps in the right (calming, peaceful, fun-ifying) direction.

Ok, example: you're not happy at work. Boss is a wee bit crazy, insecure, has ass to the fire and so everyone is a big f'd up at work. And now these bad feelings are oozing over into every part of your life. You take said bad feelings home with you, they might as well have their own chair at the dinner table and then they snuggle into bed with you.

How on earth do you find some peace?

Really, let's face it: most of us don't have save-the-world jobs. But it's the emotional fever that gets spread through a group that makes things hell.

Some peacenik questions to get the ball rolling:

Where can you go to create a sliver of inner sanctuary in the course of your day?

How can you remind yourself of a greater more peaceful and wonderful world outside the office park or office politics of your working life?

Can you put a quote or a photograph of kids or a luscious piece of art somewhere in your working space?

How can you remind yourself that this particular uncomfortable space is not the only space available to you?

Is it possible, even in the tiniest way, to have some compassion for the very difficult time your boss is having? If the answer is no, then PRETEND you're someone who does have compassion and imagine how that might feel. Freeing? Liberating? Like someone actually able to laugh during the day?

Let's pretend that one morning, out of your latte machine, a genie appeared and gave you three wishes toward your bestest dreamiest life. What would you ask for? What parts of that dreamiest life could you take action on today? Hint: If its to travel across the world and you can't do that today, could you, say, take a Saturday road trip to the next town over for fun? Think big, and then take actions on a realistic level and go from there.

If you could wave a magic wand and wake up tomorrow freed from the tyrany of the job-anxiety-prison, how might your day go?

Some people I know swim with friends, others go for a run, some meditate or do arts & crafts and others just sit in it and talk about it with anyone who will listen. Sometimes it's a waiting game for the storm to pass.

Sometimes I need comic relief. I had this photo somewhere handy when I needed to imagine coming to work and confronting my colleagues looking like this:

My niece, Taya, totally freed from all image-centric concerns.

What if you believed you could be happy even in the most hellish Stalin-esque working environment because there is a piece of you that nobody -- I mean nothing -- can touch?

What if it was 75 degrees today in Seattle and everyone ran out of their homes and offices and coffee shops and headed right to the beaches and spent the next week there?

What if? What if?

How to Stay in the Room of your Great Idea, aka No More Brick Walls!

2009-03-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

Great idea + Brick Wall = Waaaaaa!

So here's my thinking behind the Great-Idea brick wall. You get a Great Idea: a writing idea, a new biz venture or a breakout thought that will solve some age-old problem. Hooray for creative bright ideas! Hooray for resourceful you!

And then the brick wall goes up. Or the air goes out of your sail. To mix even more metaphors--you want to run screaming from the room of your great idea.

For example:

The other day I was excited about something--it could have been research that relates to a business venture or a writing project. There were action-items, I could see the end-result, I felt committed, knowing I could take action on them soon... and then ... WHAM.

The brick wall again. I love getting all juiced up on a Great Idea as long as I am in no place to have to actually do anything. Like, in a car or an airplane, in bed or weeks away from a deadline.

This seems to be the formula: Great Idea comes in. Celebrate! For days--exhalting in said Great Idea. Then find self standing in front of the Great Wall of Idea Deaths and run dejectedly home. Then, after dust settles, come up with a new Great Idea. Celebrate, hit wall, abandon, repeat.

Here's a story with an imbedded solution:

I like to think about what the writer Ron Carlson once said at an AWP conference. So, he starts a novel. He writes the first paragraph of the first page. It's magnificent. He's so happy. He's on his way! Good job writer, high fives all around, etc. So what does the writer do next?

Well, he wants to leave the room and go out and celebrate for the next decade. But instead, he does something that separates the writers from the non-writers.

He stays in the room.

I think about this when I'm filled with ambition at the idea of a new project or I write the first lines of a poem of a formidable business plan and then close the document to do a jig right out of the room.

So here's today's suggestion: Stay in the room. Even when your idea feels like too much work, impossible, crazy and you want to abandon the entire world as you know because it's too uncomfortable. Stay in the room.

Many of us hear about writers who simply show up for an hour or two to write. Some days words come, some days they are simply filling the space. But it's a really important act, their showing up. Their not leaving the room.

Sometimes showing up is the most important part of the day.

Recently I've had the privilege to speak with many people who are embarking on new projects, adventures, businesses, dreams. These new great ideas are ones they're excited about but also overwhelmed by. And staying in the room without fleeing into the streets of oncoming traffic can be challenging.

So, how can you stay in the room with your great idea, your project, your self?

Today I'm going to sit at my computer and pick away at my action items, one brick at a time. I have a motto I'm test-driving: Doing is freeing. So, I am going to sit in the room with my ideas and dreams and To Do list (oops, recently renamed Forget-me-not list) and see if the wall comes down a bit. And if I can just hang out in this room for a while.

How about you? What happens when you stay in the room of your Great Idea and dismantle the wall so you can forge ahead?

Tangent flash: I just remembered a dream last night that involved a delinquent road trip with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck!

Heads up! A simple writing tip for everyone

2009-03-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

I have found this one simple way of making writing come easier: the act of raising the chin and looking up.

Here’s what I’m talking about. Let’s say you’re writing. Can we safely say that you’re sitting in a position where you’re hovering over a keyboard or notebook with shoulders rounded and head tipped down?

The point is: The physical act of writing is usually introverted, poised inward. One person sitting alone (even among a group or a café crowd) is inhabiting her personal experiences, dreams, feelings, hopes--all of which dictates the words, images and feelings that tumble into a story or a poem or a very important email or white paper business project.

And if you’re daydreaming out the window while creating your writing, you’ve probably separated yourself from your environment.

Makes sense, right? But wait—

Is this how writing has to be? ... An interior process that requires we block out the world around us? Or is there another way of writing that is more fun, more outward-reaching, social, surprising, playful, pursuasive—artful?

What I am proposing is that we spend more time looking up when we write. Starting with a simple chin lift.

Yes, just tip it up and look at what’s around you. See the objects in the room, on the window sill, on the table you’re writing on – the floor, the walls. What's an engaging phrase looking up from the paper or a word on a poster you could swipe? I’m not one to judge where or how you write—I’m writing this in bed so I don’t even have to tip my chin to look up.

And this just in: When you’re physically LOOKING UP, you’re using the cerebral cortex which automatically puts you in a more resourceful mode. Something I learned in coaching class today.

So, here are a few things to keep in mind when writing:

1. Look up to use the things around you in your writing. You'll be pleasantly surprised, promise!
2. Look up to be a thief. Steal your heart out. Take everything that's around you and stuff it in the pockets of your lines and scenes and marketing copy (c'mon just try it for a first draft). Consider this a more subversive way to do #1.
3. Look up to be a language scavenger. Eavesdrop, use words and phrases you overhear at the table next to you (I once wrote a break-up poem filled with language spoken by a table of cops having coffee).
4. Steal, steal, thievery and more thievery.

For example: Your poem about childhood may benefit by that salt shaker, an image of a dirty carpet, a too-short skirt or a weiner dog. Your Web copy may benefit from using images and things that show the picture of what you can do for your clients instead of getting lost in conceptual marketing-speak. Let a prospect SEE what it is you do and respond with: "Yes, that's just what I need!"

Remember the power of show-don't-tell. The universality of "things" helps a reader step into your writing work with a deeper association and therefore commitment. I might not have a visceral reaction to "grainy anxiety" but I sure will if you show me someone taking the pointy head of a porcelain seahorse and scratching it into into a glass table (no idea where that came from; I have no porcelain seahorses but I do have a glass table).

Imagine if you wanted to capture sadness or joy or lust and did it by describing the contents of someone’s refrigerator. Or: how about if you started out writing a story filled wtih objects in your fridge, and then stepped back to see what kind of emotional landscape you created? Cool, eh?

LET WRITING SURPRISE YOU. Let your poem or story or essay or business plan take you somewhere new. The first draft doesn't have to be perfect. Instead, aim for fun.

And business writers or anyone who says "I'm not a creative writer so leave me alone"—you may not need the salt shaker or dirty carpet morsels in your business plan but remember that the act of looking up and connecting with the world around puts even you in a more resourceful state. It makes you feel less alone in your endeavors (sometimes writing hurts, I know) and engaging with the world around you stimulates your brain.

So, heads up writers! And that means most of us who find some reason to write/blog/email/text/Twitter every single day. It still all counts as w.r.i.t.i.n.g.

Have fun and share discoveries.

Getting ARGanized: A Tale

2009-03-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

This is a story about how Mademoiselle Mishel learned the value of being "Organized," a word that once made her shudder, laugh and tell really lousy jokes.

So: Mademoiselle Mishel lives in a small one-bedroom condo where piles of paper collect on her kitchen counter and the "office" is a dining room table that has more piles of notebooks and binders and where the chair backs are used to hang drying towels, swimsuits, caps and goggles.

In this space she would sit for her weekly Monday coach-training tele-class. Everything was going fine--well, fine-ish. Until one day she sat among her rubble and felt anxious and fidgety and couldn't concentrate. On this day Mlle Mishel conducted a terrible practice coach session on a fellow student, her mind rambling all over the place and she felt generaly out-of-wack the whole time. See? She can't even spell "generally." Poor fellow student.

That's when M.M. felt them: little beings pushing against the walls of her stomach and ribs and kidneys and other innards. These riled-up beings were crowded and pissy; instead of being able to play and create and be productive in all sorts of important ways they were too claustrophobic to move let alone do anything of any meaning. Hence, their owner's propensity for chasing her own tail.

Finally Mlle. Mishel listened to the interior clanging. She saw the piles of messy papers and binders spread over the kitchen counter and her dining room table calling to her for some ORDER in the court.

It was time.

Where did she start--having not a touch of German heritage or any Type-A afflictions? In small places. Instead of cleaning the whole place at once, like her cleaning ladies once lovingly did before this Recessionista era (zoot alors!), she took on small little bits. Like, Windexing everything that is Windex-able (coffee table, mirrors). Next, she got out a hole-puncher collected her class notes and put them in their alloted binders, and put said binders in a place they now belong.

Next, she committed herself to making a working space, aka office.

Office, in a one-bedroom teeny-tiny condo?

Sometimes you just gotta work with what you have. So, she cleared off her dining table, opened it up to its full size, put a frivolous table lamp on a lemon-lime place mat and added a pottery cup filled with pens and markers--and crowned this the official new "bureau."

Already she felt lighter and freer and was ready to commit to a new doable system of being organized so the little crowd of creative brainpower would have space to do their good, fun work. Everyone went to bed that night with a smile on their face (wait, is that another tale?) Anyway--

The moral of the story is: Organizing gave Mlle Mishel something she lives for, really--an anchor from which she can swing and play and create, as she does in this Chagall painting, "Promenade." Ahhh....

So Mlle. Mishel knows this is going to be an ongoing process to build systems that will provide new resources of creativity and productivity.

Did someone just say systems? (Way too advanced for M. Mishel)

However, and here's something tres chic and cool for all of your ARGanizational-challenged types: A two-hour Office Day Spa -- to learn how to be freer and freer; more creative and creative. Happier and happier. Check it out.

PS: On the evil TV in background, Rick Steves keeps saying "stinky cheese!" to a young Prague fellow who exclaims "It's good for you as a man!" -- so Mlle Mishel has to go now).

Au bientot!

To-Do List or Forget-me-not?

2009-03-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

For over ten years I've wanted to learn to paint. And I haven't. This past August, while struggling through the bike portion of the Troika half ironman, my happiest moment came to me when I was going to finally learn to paint. Really. In the fall I bought a painting kit, asked artist friends about how to start, talked about it, talked about it, and here's what happened: nothing. Until--

I had a session with a coach as part of my ongoing coach training work. Subject: My sense of, um, overwhelmation at all the projects and things I want to do. Result: me spending a greater portion of the day chasing my tail. This panic is that I'll forget about the Very Important Life Projects due to my weak organizing skills. For example, I "organize" piles of paper by throwing them away without going through them.

So: I came to an idea that I would make an artsy to-do list that I could put somewhere for a constant visual reminder of what I WANT to do right now. Instead of it being a finger-wagging Do-This-Or-Else type of list--written on a piece of paper in my messy handwriting--I'd paint it or color it or do something that would get my ass doing some visual arts and help consider which cool-ass things were calling for attention in the present day -- see, a shift and focus already.

I have this spiffy little painting kit, but I've never painted and didn't feel like reading anything about how to mix colors, use water etc etc. Instead of feeling too frustrated, though, I decided to watch the process of what was going on inside -- I was discovering a way of jumping into something totally new that I'd never done before and at the same time working through what was important enough to get on that To Do list right now.

The first draft was a To-Do list written on regular printer paper in bright multi-colored pastel crayons. A super easy start. I felt about five years old but why not embrace the Beginner? Then I bought some spiral drafting paper that was big enough to play on but not TOO big for a novice who gets easily overwhelmed. I turned to my fave artist Marc Chagall for help and ended up printing out a bunch of his paintings and making a collage and then printing out To Dos and New Learnings/mantras I've started keeping on my personal blog. (e.g., one is "Writing is freedom." I'm all about freedom.)

I made the shape a heart because it's round and sexy and lovely and also reminds me that the Things on my To Do list can all be done from love--activities I've chosen and that are heart-felt. So I put on the TV and got out my scissors and glue and did this collage that resulted in THREE simple To Dos--or Get-to-do's. Don't Forgets.

Hey! Maybe that's what I can call a To Do list; A Forget-Me-Not.

Did I love my piece of art? Not really. It felt childish and silly. But I like the effort behind my heart-list-project, and what it might tell me about my desires and aspirations from its position on my fridge.

What did I get out of it all? When starting something totally new begin with what's comfortable and what you know. Don't judge it. Functional art rocks. I watched how my list of priorities marinated and rose to the surface as I did the project.

The three main items on my Forget-me-not heart collage are all things I really want to do.

So, what is it that you ultimately really want? What is your process to find out a way to unearth three cool forget-me-nots that are not DUTIES, but fun meaningful activities that are tied to your core values?

Have fun, Explorers! What do you come up with?

After midnight

2009-03-18T16:08:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago I turned my lights off at 12:30am. I was so pissed off -- up too late to swim in the morning and filled with all these negative thoughts and images, including a future vision of my mom moving in with me and ruining my entire life (which is such a pile of nonsense). Then it hit me. It was after the witching hour of midnight. No good comes from the imaginative mind -- mine, at least--when I'm awake by myself on a week night after midnight. Week night is the key factor; if it's a weekend and I've gone out to do something and I get into bed anywhere around midnight I'm proud of myself, dammit.

Here's what else I noticed: as time marched on -- 11pm (arg) and then toward 11:30 panic started to set in, as though something in me knew if I was awake still at 12am my thoughts were doomed.

So I unset my alarm and got up at 7:30 instead of 5:30 and life continued on beautifully even though I missed swimming which is the ideal way to start the day.

I had the good fortune to sit down with my writer friend Ann T and tell her about my discovery of the post-12am pumpkin-mind. Not only could she relate, Ann (who gets up at 5:45am) has a system for this:

If she's up at 10:30pm, she stops looking at the clock. She has her alarm clock radio in her bathroom and puts a piece of cloth over it so she can't cheat. That way there's nothing to get her anxiety rising as she watches the minutes creep toward crazy time.

And another friend has a similar story about being f'd in the head when she's awake too late. My Aussie cousin Jane used to tell me that if she was up past midnight she was doomed to stay up until at least 3am, and she had a big-ass scientist job to head off to in the morning.

So. The chariot turning into a pumpkin at midnight has new meaning. My mind turns into one of those pumpkins that has been split open with the seeds spilling out on the sidewalk, when I'm up in the wee a.m. hours on a weeknight. But it's a short-lived spooky place. (And maybe it's an icky association with the days of partying down well into the hobgobblin a.m. hours ... but we're so over that). So now it has me thinking about time and clock-watching (I can't wear a watch during any kind of race or my eyes will be glued to it the whole time) --and how about one's personal relationships to a particular time of day? I guess we're talking biorhythms now, but I am never able to read more than three lines about it in any article because of the graphs and squiggly lines on the page. I don't speak graphs and charts.

Last night I took my watch off and don't even know when I fell asleep. So I have the extra freedom of not knowing how tired I could possibly be.

Anyone else have a story about their relationship with time?

Artwork: "Persistence of Memory" aka "Persistencde of Time" by Salvador Dali

... do it ...

2009-03-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

Just do it already

My new mantra.

To keep the doggie from chasing her tail.

Just do it already!

Don't try so &$(& hard!

2009-03-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a great exerpt from a book I started, "The Inner Game of Work," by Timothy Gallwey (who also wrote Inner Game of Tennis and Golf):

"Two observations stand out as I reflect on my early experience with coaching performance sports. The first is that almost everyone who came to me for a lesson was trying very hard to fix some aspect of their game that they didn't like. They expected me to provide the remedy for their problem. The second is the relative effortlessness with which change for the better took place when they stopped trying so hard and trusted in their capacity to learn from their experience. There was a stark contrast between the forced mode of learning and the natural earnign seen i nthe early development of children."

What would it feel like to trust your experience and loosen your grip on the reigns?

Artwork: "The Dance" by Henri Matisse

Free

2009-03-04T11:23:00.000-08:00

Now, a message from our sponsor:

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Coaching addresses the What and How's -- I will absolutely not be going back into your histories and analyzing your childhood whatsoever ;)
The aim of my coaching work is solution-focused and prompts you to find your own inner resources to make shifts to move forward and take action toward your goals--whether they're conceptual (live life with less fear) or practical (finally write my resume and look for a new job).

Why am I doing this? I have enrolled in a Coach training program through Erickson International College (Vancouver, CA) -- and the best way to learn is to practice.If you have any further questions, please shoot them my way. And in the meantime, thanks for your support and feel free if you want to just try one session for something new, I invite you to try it out.
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Now, back to our regularly schedule programming, with a quote:

"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." -- Anais Nin

What on earth is becoming of us?

2009-02-28T19:18:00.000-08:00

(Click on image to make it larger, and read it!)

As much as I try to embrace our social networking world I still really struggle with it. Yes, it's amazingly cool to re-connect with old friends through Facebook--and turn acquaintances into friendships. Yes, there are some sightings that are confusing or unnerving (Who-are-you-why-do-you-want-to-be-my-friend-no-I-do-not-remember-you-please-go-away). But Twitter, I just don't get. I can't get past the Who-gives-a-shit/Get-a-life bias. But I'm sure it's all in the writing and if it was great I'd read it. Maybe.

But what happens to humans when they get exponential levels of communication, e.g.: Well, I could wait to see [Insert Name Here] and bave a discussion in-person but also if I drop something in Twitter about how I'm ripping out all the "G's" in my address book and then send a short email that says maybe I'll sell my belongings and move to Peru, then leave a phone message by "replying" to an old voice mail rather than putting in a fresh call--because God forbid I actually have to talk to a live person who could have a say in the conversation--and then I can post that photo on Facebook and change my status to, "[Insert Name Here] is really mad at someone right now"... that should say everything that needs to be said... right?

If I sound resentful it's more that I'm overwhelmed and a bit worried we're going to lose the art of conversation and relating in person. Have you noticed how some people who are introverts are social-network extroverts?

So here I am on my blog having it out with Facebook status reports and loving the Future Man spoof above. Sometimes I see a plane in the sky and wonder what someone like Leonardo DaVinci or George Washington would think if they were on the ground looking up at a metal carcas flying through the air. That, combined with a tour of Facebook and Twitter and they'd combust before returning to their Time Machine.

Thanks to Bill R for the Future Man cartoon.

"What to do with my life?"

2009-02-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

I LIVE MY LIFE

I live my life in growing orbits,
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

--Rainer Maria Rilke (Transl. Robert Bly)

I love how thie poem below captures the truth of how many of us go through our lives, in an undulating rhythm of finding and then losing ourselves. Maybe that's how it should be. This feels timely too, as people newly free of their jobs may have the scary opportunity of stepping into something they've always wanted to do. I'm doing it. Anyone else?

Remote control humor and a gag gift

2009-02-08T09:19:00.000-08:00

One thought leads to another and I found myself hunting down this v. funny Roz Chast cartoon--god bless the Internet. Click on the image to see the writing on the remote buttons.

On another random note, I came across an ad for a box set of this old TV series and thought: Really? (What would you do if someone gave you an entire season of this?) Good gag gift.

The good fortune of getting a cold

2009-02-05T14:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I woke up with a sore throat and I was happy. First, it explained why I had been so low energy. Secondly, by grounding myself I got my Web site updated after letting it languish for a couple of years. I seem to be super productive when I work from bed. Reclining is so much better than sitting, and when I'm somewhere I'm not expected to do much, well, you know how that goes. Productivity city.

My brother, Michael, has been texting me everytime he goes skiing in his hometown of Colorado, outside Aspen. Last year we hiked the Aspen Highlands bowl and I put up a challenge for the time we would shoot for this year. He's taken it to heart and has crushed the original goal. I've never seen him this physically inspired! I'm usually the one in better shape, but I'm going to be hurting this March. The picture here is of us at the top of the bowl last March 2008.

2009-02-04T09:56:00.001-08:00

"Hope thrives on ambition"

I read this today in a, um, horoscope someone sent me. At any rate, I like the muscle and action that gets injected into Hope.

Photo: me and my niece, nephew running barefoot on the golf course, Nov 2006. Pure, total freedom-happiness.

In response to "Untitled" work

2009-02-02T09:27:00.000-08:00

TITLED

Be mine you sweet filibuster

I have almost finished blooming--yet
skimming my pores is this dirt, it pirates my viens, and I lie about

my colors: hazel is true, blond is false and so
I fall from the roof tops the firemen come

with their biceps and duct tape
putting me together again we all pretend as

everywhere the atmosphere blows into our heads
it lifts up our bed sheets, presses into our skin the dates of

our deaths, firings, heartbreaks. Let’s thank god
we can forget how our grandmothers once sang to us--

and you. You are like everything pointing that finger against
the street obstructing the center line

as I stand here sleeveless
petting the dahlias.

Good Girl, Bad Alchemy

2008-12-14T20:33:00.000-08:00

My first chapbook of poems, a story in verse, is here. Thanks Darwin Yamamoto for the great over art. An exerpt from the first page:

GOOD GIRL

Fiery plume, you picked me up
on your bike in the shadows of a school night.
I tasted your blood line—bad alchemy,
now it’s in me, un-traceable flavor.

A burst, a bruise inside my thigh by morning,
I made my sister pop it, I made her lie;
finished my homework on the bathroom floor,
Mom yelled over the pop of burnt toast, “Cla-a-a-ire”

Mom yelled my name, I was burnt toast;
Dad strode down the hall, rapped on the door,
“Get out here, Tramp.” I should’ve been scared,
but I was love-wounded, limping, with unfinished homework.

A whoosh in my heart, the ocean backed up,
the sink overflowed, splashing my papers.
Lisa’s parrot squawked: “Bruise, a bloody bruise!”
Mom shouted “I will not play Antigone again!”

A to-do list

2008-12-11T16:24:00.000-08:00

Layout coutesy of this addictive app: http://www.wordle.net/

Happy November!

2008-11-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

"Puppy," by Jeff Koons, at Guggenheim entrance Bilbao, Spain. With Mom.

HANDS DOWN

I
I hang my arm out the window for air.
Empty of paper I am a kettle of fresh steam.
The art of darkness is in my hand like a love switch, and so.
I will never choose shoes over sex.
Like my thumb over a pencil stub
a man pets my blank words, talks to my baby language.
Only three fingers are punctured, droplets in red, so.
Why disturb the night with our undressing?

II
Lost in a crush of bodies I sit next to this evening,
blow kisses to the purses piled inside a coat rack.
We are—here on a white March—only a bit more lively than
our addresses. Conversation is bourbon and lost keys.
Everyone finds a piece of themselves in bed each morning. Not one
to be alone I slept in the coat closet, counted the buttons
like daisy petals, over and over. He loves me.

Why I Went to Spain

2008-09-18T08:06:00.001-07:00

Frank Gehry's Guggenheim museum, Bilbao Spain. There's another reason I went to Spain as well, stay tuned...

"The beauty, the beauty, I could marry it!"

2008-08-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

For those of us born with the name "Mishel," the ocean is the happiest place in the world.

Three heavenly days in Hermosa Beach, CA with the Lovely Monsters, Taya (7) and Campbell (9). It's been too long since witnessing a sunset over the Pacific.

The ocean was warm and a glittering green with funky thick waves that gave you the thrill of being at the top of a curl thinking "uh-oh, here I go" but then the weight of it kept you bouncing on top like a joy ride. Total heaven. Above, a shot of T and C digging to China and if you look hard you can see a wave forming behind the seafoarm.

When Campbell and I were in the water he kept proclaiming "The beauty, the beauty, I could marry it!" Another time we were walking on the beach and passed a clump of kelp. He pointed to it and said, "Pulp of the ocean." I immediately stole it and slipped it in a poem--with the originator's approval.

Taya, admittedly, prefers to parade around like a slave-labor model than hit the surf. I'll give her two years to get over her fear of the "green room," which in surfer's lingo is the inside curl of a wave.

When I go out with the kids, people usually assume I'm their mom. One time I couldn't get Taya to walk to the beach with me so I picked her up and slung her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. A man nearby said, "Nice going Mom!" Taya whispered to me, "He called you Mom. You're not my Mom." To which I replied, "Just give me this."

Here's a poem Campbell and I wrote together, mainly Campbell; I just transcribed it.

The treasure chest that lies in
the ocean sparkles with loneliness.
The trays at lunchtime smash
into each other in the food assembly line.
A boy in the street has no-
where to go. The rain is filled
with silver. Wishes blow through
the town. Everything can be
done in life.

Thoughts on Happiness from the Gulag

2008-08-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

Here's to the life of Russian writer and dramatist Alexander Solzhenitsyn who died this week. He won a Nobel prize for literature in 1990 for "The Gulag Archipelago", three volumes of work that outed the Soviet "gulag" system, which Sozhenitsyn personally experienced. With prestigious award in hand he was unceremoniously exiled from the Soviet Union.

Despite his struggles, he gives us these great words to live, struggle and strive by:

"A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him."

--A.Solzhenitsyn (1918 - 2008)

A River, the Falls and Wallabies!

2008-07-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

"Why did you ride 70 miles?" Liz asked me. Here's why:

There's a home a handful of miles from the falls that has a bunch of wallabies ... yes, Rats from Down Under in our back yard.

And the beautiful road home ...

Moonrise swim and the Meaning of Life

2008-07-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

Two days shy of a full moon, Alexie, Gentry, Matt and I took dusk pre-dinner swim off my dock. I think we were in at approx. 8:18pm and the guys headed off toward Mt Rainier. Alexie and I followed but ended up doing sidestroke and talking about life and impasses and money and what matters until we had to take off our goggles to swim through the dusk glow (it vibrates a little, you know?). And Mt Rainier turned apricot-pink and then the stinkin' moon was full-like and right on the horizon, and we watched it go from white to egg-yolk orange. And, we basically sculled for about an hour.

Then we got together a huge carnivorous feast and ate our hearts out and my grill had her maiden bbq ride.

Here's a poem I referred to during our meaning-of-life Lake WA scull-session.

LATE FRAGMENT

And did you get what
you wanted form this life, even so?
I did.

And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

--Raymond Carver

Here's a great quote from Maya Angelou that is so full of meaning and wisdom that the font can only be printed in this teeny tiny size:

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Don't Pity the Fool, Love It

2008-07-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

This is from Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology.

"Declare amnesty for the part of you that you don’t love very well. Forgive that poor sucker. Hold its hand and take it out to dinner and a movie. Tactfully offer it a chance to make amends for the dumb things it has done. And then do a dramatic reading of this proclamation by the playwright Theodore Rubin: "I must learn to love the fool in me--the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool."

It's for Scorps but really--something for everyone here. And the Fool, in tarot according to a Web site I looked up, is about infinite possibilities and going out into the world and enjoying the experience. Just pay attention and don't get so lost in your dreams or you may fall over a cliff. Ouch.

Who Makes Life Worth Living?

2008-07-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Playing with my fairy-sister Jesse in St. Augustine.

How's this for simplicity, wisdom and beauty:

"And while I don’t expect you to save the world,
I do think it’s not asking too much
for you to love those with whom you sleep,
share the happiness of those whom you call friend,
engage those among you who are visionary,
and remove from your life
those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.”

--Nikki Giovanni, poet

How to cram for a triathlon

2008-06-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Rule no. 1: don't. But since it's in my personality type and Jesse Pace signed me up for June 22nd Oly in Ft. Lauderdale, FLA that's what I've gotta do. However, here's the resposibility card: My fitness level is pretty good for swimming and running, but biking ... groan. The biking sabattical has been loong. So, here's how I get at it: the buddy system. Without the buddy system I"d still be running 10 minutes miles at six miles max and probably still listening to my WALKMAN (which is what I still call my iPod).

So, Saturday was Get After It Day and I emailed Matt to see if he'd take me on a ride, I took him to Colman, we swam 3000 meters and then Matt took us on a 40 miler down along the Cedar River Trail. Rule no. 2: make your training as beautiful as possible. The Cedar River was extremely high, a deep silver green and I spotted herons and a quatrain of baby duckies. Rule no. 3 ALWAYS, AlWAYS, stop to say hello to animals. Make nature your heart rate monitor.

On the last ascent with about 5 miles to go I asked Matt if I should do a little one-mile run afterwards to get the feeling of a brick, like I had to ask. "Do two," he said. So I did.

When I was done I didn't stretch at all except some little lame phone-ins on my calves while boiling water for pasta. I've noticed lately, when tired, I tend to go on a stretching strike, and I have to ask myself: why do I, after putting in all this work, at the last minute stop showing up for myself when I really need to keep myself healthy? I think it's the downfall of being too tired, it's hard to care -- some people over eat when they're tired, yell at strangers and babies, and some of us eek out a training session and then come home and collapse.

Somtimes I see myself as a mother who goes to take a nap while the children run wild in the living room and she doesn't care what she wakes up to see, broken vases, torns blankets... And while a philosophy of logic class from the ages of yore outed the fact that argument by analogy is a false, I need analogies for their visuals and metaphors in order to "see it." Plus I'm a poet so there.

Today I ran and swam and not much stretching again. Ok, none. Maybe this week I"ll be a better mother to myself, or ask: What would my wisest self do? Stretch! I am not full of wisdom today, instead have sights on Las Vegas and an episode of CSI.

A poem for jocks and dirt lovers

2008-04-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

Cave Creek park, AZ, April '08

Thanks Gary, for sending this poem to the triathlete's email list.

Cartesian Meta-Analysis

I'd like to state that I

have been thinking

of Descartes and his statement:

I think, therefore I am.

These I think are the words

of a man too long at his writing-table,

and too little in his garden.

With insufficient sunburns,

and too few mosquito bites.

I am uncomfortable

with his comfortable idea

that we are real

by virtue of our minds.

That the words in our heads

make us real enough

to voice those same words.

These I think are the thoughts

of a too-sheltered mind.

I am uncomfortable

and therefore I think.

And therefore I am aware

of my body, my mind, myself.

That's my philosophy.

A good strong cramp,

near the hamstring,

would have alerted Descartes

to more than mere thought.

Better to develop a blister

than an ontological theory.

Better a long day of walking

on a rough, dusty path

than the thought

that thought is worth more

than the touch of raw earth

against your feet.

Or another's hand

held loosely in your hand.

--Rich Haydon

Freedom = Gravity + Speed + White Mountains

2008-03-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

Your Organs My Organs

2008-02-15T13:08:00.000-08:00

Your organs my organs
they know how to love
liver spoons heart spoons
a pair of brains that hide under
the covers so what we aren’t well-
dressed out in the world I don’t like
how the coyotes in your stories go for
girls in headlamps and mallards
a shut kitchen door. I believe
Do Not Enter signs are calming

Only you can come
into the ragged circle of
my deep freeze I'm thawing can you
hear the drip drip sound?

I am the corpse of a dead virgin
lying under the village of a man I don’t know
Together we feel like my ancestors running
for ports and ships to borders they had to
sell anything: songs a soft ass breasts
wedding rings everything to cross the
waters into oblivion they closed their eyes

No one warned them that
new trespasses are like fleshy territories
a new body over an old one or like yours
over mine a passage of North and East
wasp and gypsy we come together
over rocky seas and settle wildly
like orphans and seamen we fall
into a soft down bed calm for a while
oblivious of how far back we go

I am like nobody else

2008-01-23T20:04:00.000-08:00

Loneliness by Sergei Chepik

I am like nobody else sitting at a big desk fanning
a big paycheck no I am only like the stream of people

falling down rooftops or sitting at the edge of a bed
while a body lay under sheets fanning itself with sleep

I'm sitting at the edge of my head I am like all those people
whose chins pull hard at their necks while the Rolling Stones

or Strauss or 50c play from a speaker over the wall.

It may be a favorite song but we can't even pick up

the vibration our noses only smell graveyard soil
we have a pica it's to chew on ourselves like glass like ice

and rise above everything everyone. But transcendence is a lonely
business. Do you want to lose the touch of your feet trudging with

all the others that storm this young ground of the 21st century?
Stay. And start at the foot of your bed cry for your lover

who has stopped kissing you on your mouth during love making
let your toes rub into the tiny pebbles lost inside

the carpet. There are so many ways for a heart to
break. There are so many ways to repair ourselves.

I May Be a Slut But at Least ...

2008-01-16T20:26:00.000-08:00

I may be a slut but at least I'm not married you bastard
leave now and when the garbage goes out you'll be in it
the handkerchief I used to you-know-what is in the mail.

I may be a bastard but at least I'm not married you slut
all you have on me is a story a nut getting stuck up
my five-year-old nose at least I got it out before my ride came

Being married to a slut and having bastard kids
is nothing like Adam saying to Eve “You better stand back,
I don’t know how big this thing gets.”

In one of my more erotic daydreams Beethoven comes
to clean my house. He’s in ruffles and a too-small suit
shock therapy hair he bangs on the piano and says Ach! a lot
the duster sits across his lap he plays one-handed using the other
to bat the cat away. He doesn’t clean a thing just grabs
my ass on the way out I can feel his calluses.

You bastard I'm not married least I may be but a slut
so you're home in bed I'm poking a fire with my giant walrus
sitting on the couch you left me with a ticket at the
fair you left me for the zoo didn’t you know
I can keep you behind a cage it's here in my ribs
I will set up a hammock for you throw in some kids

Least married I may be, not a slut you bastard I'm after you
like a hurricane coming in for shore but like some storms
I'm off course and I hit a Canada cold front.

Goddammit I have a slut's sense of direction everyplace is home
you have a married man's gypsy heart you bastard child
we are both like a villanelle, complicated, repetitive, hard to fit

Sometimes I take it all good bad ugly and finally I sleep
Thick green leaves fall on a summer morning huge rain drops
hit a warm shoulder there’s a shiver of a woman with
brown knees carrying a beach towel to the park and walking
towards her is a man she's never met will never say more than
an absent Hi to and forget his face immediately

this man who could love her picks up a leaf
this man goes home and calls his brother who
died a week ago he could use a slut about now the un-
married bastard his kids don’t call anymore
he could use that kind of firm Beethoven hug any kind
of hug -- who wouldn’t want any kind of strong embrace
from anyone anywhere on a day like today?

Grief Is a Hoax

2008-01-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

"22" by Mark Rothko

Old man walking on your knees down Park Avenue don’t
crucify yourself there are 96 better ways to die.
Before you rise remember: all stages are calendrical and
the state of grief is a hoax—less state more village;
less grief more life. Can’t you feel that sad heart claiming
your name, beating at the paper of your skin? Can you smell
your mother’s hair, the blood in your teeth at the funeral?

The world feels far too close. Who doesn’t wake up
next to a cold window and reach out for a second body.
There are 11 ways to stop dreaming of home. Leave home and
stop dreaming of the 11 ways it could be. We are always
there, hanging from a gum tree or happily lost in the night sea;
we're at home while massacring small villages,
or falling down a white river as the family dog watches
us go by, barking and moving his stiff tail.

LUV POWEM

2007-12-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

Poem inspired by the song "Anyone Else But You," on Juno soundtrack.

You kiss me on my apple in the brain of night
my girlhood falls to pieces I'm a shiny fit of rage

you're all legs and bony parts I'm a softer plot of land
together we're a puzzle the neighbors stop and sigh

it's not the way we kiss that gets the small dogs yapping
I make you laugh in bed against the middle of the night

sometimes I remember how my mother looked in death
it's in your face at dinner when you take your final bite

once I thought I'd never have a lover in my bed again but
like the spring you cycled round and found me

by a tent at the ocean I was crying from the cold
you gave me special socks and read from Rimbaud

you took me naked down the unconcerned river and now
we live among the bookshelves and our seashell lamps

you hum yourself to sleep with a pair of Frenchy songs
I wake up to the tune of Paris growing in my belly

I watch your morning lips just moving skin to skin
we're not so bad together even though you have those scars

they come to visit each December I have mine in May
three daisies in a vase inside the window sill we make

a home OK. The cat's in bed I'm sneezing you wrap your arms
around me grab my breasts it's cold the floor against my feet

the sun is nowhere to be seen I turn to you a daisy in my teeth
now there's just a crumpled pair of shadows at the sink.

Personality: A Perfect Disorder

2007-12-23T06:46:00.000-08:00

"Joi de Vivre," Picasso

what are you willing to sacrifice
what are you willing to wish for why don't we
play in the park push me on swings
this story takes 17 blocks off my life remember
the piazzas we ate pizza bianca let watermelone juice
drip from our hands to the cobblestone street
why do you dream just of rome why don't you talk of
the ten-year-old self the first day of school admit it
you in your slacks and hard-bottom shoes so lost at sea
among kids in their USA sailor jeans gathered in circles
away from you turning their necks every few minutes till
two girls walked over and asked you
you stayed for a while it wasn't so bad you could
run fast your timing was quick you used it to leave
and return when the wind changed directions.
You understood pain like sharing your candy
let's face it who came here wanting to spread
themselves publicly open it's easy to love these closed doors.

"You think you're so popular," says my six-year-old niece when
I stand with my hands on my hips. I don't ask I know
what she means I hold in my laugh when she asks for
the meaning of "fuck" and tells me that "sexing" means
cookies in bed. This girl she's attached to
the world like glue she's a fury her shrieks are
a fierce morning prayer, she pulls her own hair
she has muscley fists and thin pounding legs.
She hurts the ground you can feel it. We envy her
hate her we want what she has. Wouldn't you hope
to come into this world devoted to feeling the air so
singularly yours on your skin and getting exactly--
not one item less--what your asked for? Nothing to dream
just this life wouldn't you hope to be the person
God listened to the voice screaming the loudest until
you were seen for exactly the person you came here to be?

Homage to Alec Baldwin

2007-12-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

Homage to Alec Baldwin

after Lynn Emanuel

It’s no longer morning.
The weight of the day pushes into
my eyes nose shoulders mouth it’s ok
I am going for a walk I am looking for
Alec Baldwin. He has come to me
and my neighborhood to hide inside our rain
no phones no lawyers no sunglasses just
this October heat wave in the city of
Seattle. My name is Tatyana Mishel and
I am searching for Alec Baldwin stowed away
somewhere in my hill-encrusted neighbor-
hood. I am a dolphin in a pod of air
swimming upstream and downstream.
Cars unroll their windows drivers make
eye contact smile like they know something

I wave at everyone hold my breath.

I am sure the sun will out
Alec like a stink bomb in a rabbit hole
he’ll explode from behind the glass of
his bloated middle age TV screen
he can’t hold the pale glare can’t keep
away from the candy dishes in the shops.
”It’s for the kids,” the pharmacist snaps
when I finger a baby Mars bar. “It’s for
Alec,” I reply and grab three pieces.
Striding low to the ground I am a mountain cat
as stealthy as Dick Cheney I am a 21st
century stalker and I feel okay hopping
from bush to bush I will not be tailed.

This Case of Alec Baldwin unfolds
between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm
three hot days before Halloween. I am
a hunter filled with kisses,
chocolate in my pocket I know Alec
has a sweet tooth. I know he’s sweating in
his giant rental all alone throwing knives
at a wall with a mural of Kim, God
I hope his kid’s not there I don’t need
that kind of trouble. “Baldwin, Alec,”
I say into my cell phone and the operator,
female stutters back, “in Seattle?”
I hang up. I have on a pink T-shirt
a cream sweater tied at my waist I am
sporty and I can live with with my original breasts
bouncing inside fibrous cotton. What I cannot
have is a nick name. My name is not Tat or Taty
or Tater. I could be Tatyana Baldwin no
Tatyana Mishel Baldwin that’s better.

I’m sick today is the story I told my boss
even though my hair is full of waves my skin is
beige I am generally a brownish tone this is
not Alec’s type but I would be good for him

I’d put him on a diet of salmon and water
get him running let some air out of his body.

Sitting on a corner I try to collect my thoughts
but all I have is a flash of James Taylor
singing Sweet Baby James and shooting
up heroine left right and center. Alec understands
vices that's something we have in common.

A bleat of sirens, a fire truck in no hurry
rolls by I run behind it yell,
“Are you going to Alec’s, is he OK?”
The beautiful shoulders riding on the back gives
me a princess wave, Oh brother they’re all
gay anyway. By now I’ve walked in a loop,
I have arm pit sweat yes, me, Tatyana Mishel no
middle name no nick name I believe
in circular patterns, standing work stations and Fibonacci
I have walked into the middle of my own personal spiral
call it a womb pattern where I began this pilgrimage
today at the market after hearing whispers
of “Alec” and “around here somewhere”
so I buy three red dahlias and three peppermint chocolates—
in case his crazy-ass daughter is here, too.

An ! In a White Bed

2007-12-11T19:58:00.000-08:00

Picasso's Portrait of Jacqueline

Lady Hezbollah

You are the exclamation point in a white bed where I cover my eyes lying near the wall where I think I am not a coward.

Three petals in a bud vase and I pretend you are coming for dinner I am making nothing to eat there are three Luna bars on the coffee table and the Kinks are on my tinny speakers. Do you ever look at the phone and will it to ring I even sometimes see the outline of my body in the sky at night.

I have three children they live in my toes sometimes I step on them run over them they get back at me with ganglions neuromas plantar fasciitis I house them in wide shoes give them space sometimes they come home to me rested pain-free.

To-do list: bed sheets, goggles, eye cream, renew passport, Frank O'Hara poems, tampons, lube, condoms, pregnancy tests just kidding.

One year I was done with everything Where is the exit sign I asked I was like a baby lion in the big city too much noise and fast-moving people blank eyes and chords plugged into their ears. Nothing to do but find food and someone to rub my mane I was alone during wartime looking for home but I was already home god I hate it when that happens.

I thank all types of water for being good to my body and the clocks for getting me places on time and my clothes for fitting and the sailors for walking in their white uniforms with their strange languages along the waterfront.

Once I wanted you not unlike the way I wanted to reach out and touch the giant dahlia at the contest I was five and yelling Touch Touch Touch and we left to eat dinner at i-Hop and the next morning ripped up our flower garden planted carrots and other root vegetables some herbs.

I am a daughter a friend I am an aunt godmother lover I can be more anything you want it will hurt only a little I am not so broken anymore I buy my own dahlias I follow a stranger down the street until she looks over her shoulder to see if I am her younger self or just another person running for the walk sign.

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart Etc ...

2007-12-10T19:59:00.000-08:00

Painting: Picasso's Blue Room

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart for No Good Reason Other Than I Feel the Need to Get Back at Someone in the Same Way You Used Me As Your Emotional Scratching Post

Because I had no face left to see the day just a pillow against the wetness of my nose and animal crackers in my teeth

Why did I say I loved you after we got off the roller coaster and you found my keys in the bushes I said I’d move to Alaska with you—what was I thinking I avoid snow and bears and small airplanes

Just because I cooked eggs for you and flew home with you when your father died stayed in a hotel with an empty pool don't think —

Have you noticed how cold my ribs had become it's because my bouncy blow-up house was growing brittle

I was starting to live more in my pelvis and toes up in my larynx and then one week after you couldn’t drive me to the airport or ask me over when my power went out I returned to my bouncy house and it was dark and no fun and I was lonely and I wore my old jeans and a baggy shirt even tennis shoes—even to work!—I had animal crackers for breakfast two days in a row and went to bed at 8pm

There was a pin pricking at some intestinal location and it hurt I tried wearing mascara it still hurt I tried running ten miles before work it still pricked pricked away now at my kidneys

I went to the blow up house and it had turned into tin it was dark you were lying with your back to me it was the way we slept each on our own side of the bed I lay awake all night willing you to turn your big body over and spoon me claim me I woke up without sleeping

It was going to be a long day

At the gym on a Saturday night swimming in a dim lit pool with a retarded man splashing away
An old Korean woman brushes her hair in the Jacuzzi I tell her Not in the hot tub she nods at me nods and nods as I point at her brush

Because I don’t answer the phone instead listen to old Carol King albums I watch movies about musicians who chain smoke I think about buying some cloves

I stop reading stop writing stop smiling at the coffee girls I wear red I swim faster slapping hands with lane mates I listen to Bob Dylan covers

My niece and nephew ask me what words we used to end it

I have CDs they’re used they’re yours the sun comes up like any other day I have a face to see it my eyes are dry there are petals growing on some winter trees: pink, sweet

I am pink sweet you never tasted it I am here stirring tomatoes and sausages with a fire popping and snapping with a friend on her way over I wish it was you I’m glad it’s not

What does it mean this twist of fate

It means nothing it means I didn’t sleep enough it means I ate too much at dinner it means another lover across town is watching his girlfriend cry and one day I will hear about it—

Saturday morning I get up for swimming I want to stay home in bed reading Joan Didion instead I show up late there are wet happy faces

I pull myself through the chlorine butterfly to the far side of the pool back and forth back and forth there is light some kicking

blues and greens shimmer curtains open windows rise streaks of sun wave at me from the watery floor I am warm again.

We Bloomed Midway Through Life

2007-11-08T18:59:00.000-08:00

"Death and Life" by Gustav Klimt

I will show you fear in an hourglass
it’s a beast your hand growing older on my knee
all the neighborhood girls wiped clean.
We have fights quilted into our hamstrings,
the chroma of our courtship is thick with summers.
One June there was so much rain no umbrella
the stitching on my bra bled through my shirt
I thought your grin was mine all mine but no at dinner
still damp from a shower you told me
I was transparent to everyone even my underwear—
I threw the rest of my spaghetti at you
your face all marinara red you all ready to
get up I sat with you pinned my legs around you
slurped the strands falling over your forehead
I licked the tomato sauce from the cavity of your nose
I fed you like a mother bird,
importing olive bits from your chin past your lips,
my tongue on your tongue your hands on
my hipbones I could taste the smell of you in my throat—
I felt you rising the ground tilting my head dropping
gently I was a baby again my father putting me down
the layers stripping off I felt the air of childhood on
my belly I felt your lips sliding up the bone of my shin
I saw the alligator cake of my fifth birthday my mom
holding out her arm to me in the department store
spanking me for getting lost; I feel your knees against
my ribs the cotton sliding from my body I remember
the last time my dad sang Brahms to me the stern voice
of weekend mornings, “Grounded young lady not a word.”
I remember teaching you how to say my name.
I remember being lonely one summer I still feel it
sharp like glass in my ribs sometimes it grows stronger
strong like the shadow of you pressing down on me
my breath your big skin soft body I am just a girl again
out past curfew enter me I am a woman teenager-
scared sometimes lonely often lovely and I know it.

Is truth beauty or beauty truth?

2007-10-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination. What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth - whether it existed before or not." -- John Keats

Are: "Two Women Running," by Pablo Picasso

The Fountain of Youth

2007-07-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

The Fountain of Youth by Lucas Cranach the Elder

The Fountain of Youth can be found in the US's oldest town, St Augustine. It's true of course, I was there this weekend and if you saw me now you'd want to find me a baby sitter or give me a lollypop.

Race Report: Victoria "Half" Iron

2007-06-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Isn't it great we we completey suprise ourselves, in a way that is re-meeting/re-introduction of what we're capable of but somehow forgot? Victoria half(ish) was that way and in part I should credit a two week taper and my body itching to RIDE.

Here's the quick story told non-linearly:

fab race, raced my balls off (look ma!) in a way I never have in a long-d race.
placed 6 in age group out of 38. got an IM CA spot but was at hotel napping during the offering and don't want to do it. I need to get a poetry manuscript finished this summer -- IM training doesn't fit in with this.

swim: hated every stroke of it for some reason but came out of the water 3rd (masters women). i feel really confined and claustrophotic in my full-lenth body suit, even in my legs. hmm

bike: for once wasn't passed by everyone and rode to keep up with #75, passed her in the end, but she got me on the run. ride was beautiful, bucolic, rolly--just 50 miles this year. two loops. it helped to not be riding alone. Alone, i cherry pick; with others I push myself, gleefully.

run: #75 passed me on the run but i felt like i ran my best and during second lap, i had three of the hardest race miles of my life but god it was invigorating; It was a total experiment in what I could do all-out in a race this distance. A woman told me I was her guide and inspiration for the second lap and with that great title and job description my tail wagged a bit and it was a good for f-ing hard last lap.

Discovery: I LOVE this distance.

The weather was cloudy; didn't rain, no wind storms (as predicted). BEAUTIFUL course would do it again in a heart beat.

Time: 5:23
Swim: 33
Bike: 2:53 (50 mi)
Run: 1:50 (12 mi)

As always, couldnta done it without all my sports buddies.

Other highlights: Hallie Truswell won her age group; speedy Tom Schutte got a Canada spot; Team Shimizu (Liz and Ben, my traveling companions) did a great job on the relay, and we all had a good ol' time.

Let's get a big group and go up next year.
Side note: are all canadians totally friendly and foxy? Jesus...
Next up: Lake stevens half.

The Question Healed the King...

2007-04-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

I went running with a friend who said she made a big personal discovery after being asked the right question by a wise woman. Another friend told me how she was moved by the simplicity and innocence of her 8 year-old-son's question to a rival tennis player/classmate: "How did you get to be so good?" Milan Kundera, in a book I read ages ago, has a character acknowledge a lack of love through a lack of questions asked.

And why do we go to our therapists, counselors and advisors? So they will give us the questions that will lead us on the right path and discoveries--into our selves, others, the world.

Which leads me to...
The myth of the Fisher King. There are many versions of the story.

Quick take: it's a quest story, after the holy grail, and it involes the young innocent "fool" named Parsifal (Wagner made him the star of an opera) who, on the search for the wounded Fisher King, finally asks him the question(s) that heal him--the questions are simple-- along the lines of "How are you?" "Who are you?" He did so, finally, after thwarting advice from his teacher: that he not ask questions and spare looking stupid.

Sound familiar?

So, I'm thinking about the power of a well-placed question.

I'm thinking of the friendships, relationships, dates that have been completely dulled by one of us lacking to ask questions. So--for more:

Here are some films and other arts & cultural references that pulls in this Quest/ion Story.

Eric Rohmer's Perceval le Gallois (1978), a fairly faithful rendition of Chrétien's Conte del Graal.
The Fisher King (1990): The humorously rendered story of Perceval is recast in a modern setting in the film

A couple other arts references I didn't know--not suprising: Quest stories are everywhere:
T.S. Eliot made extensive use of the Fisher King legend in his poem The Waste Land.
The character appears again in opera in Michael Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage, partly inspired by Eliot's poem.
The Fisher King appears as "Pop Fisher" in the novel and film The Natural.
Matt Wagner's comic book series Mage.
Joan Didion compared U.S. president Ronald Reagan to the legendary king in her critical essay "In The Realm Of The Fisher King," published in 1989.

Here's a poem I wrote about a year ago that winks to all this...

FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE UNDERSTANDABLY TOO BUSY TO

love the right person:
relax. You’ll be alone shortly.
But first, smell the waves sex in
on the electric bill as you turn
your back on morning. Return to the school
you erased, say hello to the girl in headgear, see
if the smoking section still exists. Say hello to
the homeless fool on the bus. Don’t
be so blind. Or are you too busy? Busy
writing the alternate ending to the dinner
where he told you about the beauty with the nose ring and a PhD?
Here’s what you do. Read the myth.
What is the right question
that will break you, make you free?
It was the question that healed the king.

The Joy of Aunthood

2007-03-14T14:45:00.000-07:00

You know what I like about kids? They remind me of who I am--temper tantrums, sweetness, rawness and all. We're lucky to have our younger generations. My niece--sweet, devilish, willful, fearless, beautiful--is in some ways a role model. She's aware of herself and her beauty and her power but then I catch her running around in her little swim suit completely unattached to her physical self. There's such beauty and freedom in it. Who could say no to that?Taya Mishel, top age 5 3/4; left, about 4 3/4.

Living With Fire: To late bloomers

2007-03-01T15:25:00.000-08:00

Two decades of my youth, I lived on fire,
trapped in a deep delirium of desire.
I was the spirit’s wastrel and a fool,
and I have taken fifty years to cool.

By Virginia Adair, from “Living With Fire”

Here's to all the late bloomers out there.

Bulbing and Tilling

2007-02-02T13:53:00.000-08:00

"Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny."
-- Tryon Edwards

Thanks to Liz for the quote. After spending three weeks thinking about my 2007 goals, I find myself wanting to bury them in the earth and start again.

You know when you think you're heading in Direction A, which is founded on your longing for, passion for and ambition for said goal/process/activity? And then in the middle (or beginning) of going about your happy li'l life and routine, you're suddenly scratching your head and wondering, Why the F-- am I doing this again? Do I like this, do I feel loving and happy and breezy and frilly? Or cranky and closed and tired? Have I already shed my snakey skin to desire something new? Or is it not a desire FOR something new, but a desire to GO ABOUT IT in a new way: from focused and serious to more playful and romantic?

So just as I got my lists and charts and workout logs and all that org-crap I'm terrible at laid out, now I'm thinking of shredding it all and trying something new. New?
There's the story of the wise man, Solomon, who advised his newly free, devoted servant, Don't take the new road home.

As the slave traveled home after a 20-year absence, he met a posse of adventures who invited him to join them and take a different route. He was tempted but remembered his master's advice. He continued on the old familiar path and soon after leaving his pals,heard their screams and cries, as they were killed by banditos. So, taking the old way home saved his life. But how does this translate to an existential query, circa 2007?

Maybe we should look at our lives as a story--or a mystery--that the answers we seek are left in clues and breadcrumbs within the map of our already-lived lives.

What if we already are the treasure we're looking for?
Painting, "Village Stairs," by Van Gogh

Love: Get Used To It

2007-01-12T14:07:00.000-08:00

Painting: Mark Rothko, #2

"We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

What's your habit: loving, or regretting? Loving, or resenting? Loving, or defending, judging... what would it be like if you turned your default setting to Love, and pushed away the other un-loving thoughts and feelings--even laughing them away?

"While we have the gift of life, it seems to me the only tragedy is to allow part of us to die -- whether it is our spirit, our creativity or our glorious uniqueness." - Gilda Radner

The best of ourselves--spirit, humor, compassion, creativity, and uniqueness blooms in the act of love. So go for it--be a love cat.

"Silence is so accurate." --Mark Rothko

Mythologize Yourself

2007-01-10T19:15:00.000-08:00

A friend is posing the following questions I've been marinating in. Well worth it. Here are some of them and a few off-spring:

What is a myth or fairy tale you're currently living? Where are you in that story right now?

What are you afraid of? Think big--think small, ask yourself this question while you go through your day. I found it lurking in dark corners--the way I react to a question at work, the way my Good Girl trembles slightly when she worries she won't be good enough, smart enough, fast enough--human but silly. I try to giggle at it, pet it, send it away.

What act of bravery could change your year?

What are five words you could use as guiding value principles?

When you write down your goals, can you line it up with at least one of your values?

What is your personal mission statement for 2007?
What's one that's big enough for you to take with you into all elements of your life?

Give Me Bed!

2006-11-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

Here's the only place I want to be these days: Beddie-bies. Not in that depressed I-can't-face-the-world way, but that Wintery, hibernating, let-the-fat-layers-commence, I live for reading and eating in bed cave-woman ritualistic way. Or so I'd like to think. Have you ever noticed how descending into a state of lower energy, lower motivation, or what I like to call a state of Mojo Descendent can make you feel panicy, like: Is this how it will always be? Ach! What if I just rode those energy tides in Hang-Ten surfer style and didn't worry about it so much? What if I even liked them, coddled them and used this as breathing time, waiting to make a next new move when the New Year comes? Who else is in Mojo Descendent with me?

Now for a little Jewish mothering: Don't forget to have a good supportive bed. If you wake up with pain in you rmid-back and your bed is over 5 years old it may be time... even though warranties last 10 years, the Better Sleep Council says a mattress really loses its shabang after five to seven years.
It's a great pleasure to love your bed. Go for it!

Painting: Vibrant Bed II, by Marc Whitney

.. And This Waterbaby Stays Home

2006-11-13T19:41:00.000-08:00

Well that's enough of that. Run-a-day November is over. It occurred to me that while it's been great to "get out there," oh the dreaded saying, but really, there have been some beautiful surprises, however: almost all of my runs have been laborious, and not one good long(ish) one in the bunch. So, experiment tried, failed, and I'm going back to quality over quantity. Plus, I have a stomach ache.

Yesterday I went to see Pacific Northwest Ballet do a series of cool dances, including one by Twyla Tharpe "Waterbaby Bagatelles." She has the best book called The Creative Habit: Written in plain, beautiful language, the woman is disciplined as well as gifted, and she has wise words and philosophies for all of us, because we are all creative, whether choreogrpahing a world-class dance or balancing our checkbooks or walking down the streets, it's all there.

2006-11-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

November is run-a-day month. Which means I can't stay on the couch with my laptop, poems, and a movie. The idea of the run was partly inspired by Dean Karnazes, crazy-man ultra runner who just finished 50 marathons/50 days and is now running home from NYC. He lives in San Francisco. Granted, my runs have been tiny, and I'm out of glute muscles, but there are some cool surprises: mainly, the beauty of a rainy November.

Goal: to take off from home and run 3-4 hours pain free. Train for a 50k this summer which means returning to the trails.

More rain fell this past Monday than in all of August in Seattle. Still, when I talk about it, I describe it as "colorful," "amazing," "spectacular," because I've had to go out in it, often at night or dusk, when I would otherwise be holed inside. But daily duty summons and I discover earthy beauty and forget I should be cranky and lazy (well, I do have a bit of the lazies).

A Very Doable Daily Run Chart
Saturday Nov 11 -- tbd, said runner gobbled up by couch right now.
Friday Nov 10--2.25 on treadmill
Thursday Nov 9 --3 miles (puny swim)
Wed Nov 8--4.5-5 miles at work
Tues Nov 7--3 mi, walked 1/3 of it. (swim)
Mon Nov 6--3 miles eve run
Sun Nov 5--2x around greenlake, some walking, 5.6
Sat Nov 4--post swim greenlake run, 2.85 (swim)
Friday Nov 3 -- 2.5 on treadmill
Thursday Nov 2 -- work run: 3.5 miles (swim)
Wednesday Nov 1 -- track workout, about 4 total.

Your Inner Golden Fish

2006-11-07T13:07:00.000-08:00

"The Golden Fish," by Paul Klee
I found this on my fave art site,
WebMuseum Paris, and used this fairytale story as a Writing Gym workout:

The Golden Fish glides through the kingdom of its underwater freedom, all lesser fish leaving a clear space for its gleaming body. This is a magical fish with runic signs upon his body, scarlet fins, and a great pink flower of an eye. He hangs majestically in the deep, dark blue magic of the sea, which is luminous with secret images of fertility. The great fish draws the mysteriousness of his secret world into significance. We may not understand the significance, but it is there. The sea and its creatures are arranged in glorious homage, belittled but also magnified by this bright presence. This quiet nobility, the brightness, the solitude, the general respect: all are true of Klee himself. Whether the art world knew it or not, he was their "golden fish."

Can you feel your inner Golden Fish?

Coming soon: more Daylight Savings Time!

2006-10-29T19:52:00.000-08:00

Do you feel like you got away with an hour today?
I can't tell. I went to bed an hour later and still dragged my ass out to run this morning, but what beauty in Discovery Park.

I've always assumed time change were leftovers from agricultural living, working in the fields at night... but absolutely not. It's all about energy saving, an idea that's over 200 years old.

Here's a little time-twisting history:
The father of Daylight Savings Time is our favorite Renaissance Patriot, Benjamin Franklin. He suggested the idea when he was minister to France, in an essay titled "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light." This was 1784 and it wasn't until 1907, when an Englishman named William Willet suggested it after walking passed a home with drawn shades on a bright summer night.

Here's what's in store for us: more of it.

Starting next year, 2007, for most of the U.S., DST will begin at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March; and it will end at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November.

Sometimes I lie and go along with the crowds. Right now the crowd is saying, Christ I hate this darkness boo hoo, and I nod my head and scowl. But I actually rather like it; the warm sulky cozy blanket of darkness is luscious for some privacy of the soul, creative time, writing, reading, and for getting home after work and going straight for the pajamas, eating dinner and heading off to bed with a pile of books. Aren't we all a wee bit tired from those long active days of summer anyway?

Also, there is always a new wave of flora unfolding in the fall and winter. Even sweet smells. Keep your eyes and nose peeled--something beautiful always awaits you in the dark seasons. Just be awake enough to catch it.
Get more history behind Daylight Savings Time.
Arwork, "The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali.

Snakes et al on a plate

2006-10-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Is this the most deliciously gross serving dish ever?
This platter is from the last quarter of the 16th century, School of Bernard Palissy (French, 1510–1589).

Rebaptize your badness

2006-10-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

"The great epochs in our lives are the points when we gain the courage to rebaptize our badness as the best in us."
--Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche is best known as the goth philosopher who promoted nihilism in the late 19th century. In truth, he was a rebel who challenged the traditional Christian doctrines and moral compasses, and is credited, by some, as kicking off existentialism.

He believed in life, creativity, health, and living fully in this world, instead of waiting for a pastoral afterlife. His central theme was "life-affirmation," which, today,would have put him on an author tour faster than you could say "Oprah." See how timeless he is?

Nietzsche was also big into quesitoning any docrine, no matter how popular, that drained one's energy, and bummed out the creative human spirit. His philosophy inspired social and culture leaders, artists, revolutionaries, and writers.

I heard on the radio once that his famous saying, "God is dead," had been abbreviated. What he really said was "God is dead, and it's a damn shame," the second part loosely remembered/adapted by me. This could be completely wrong, but it ripped open a curiosity in a philosopher I thought of as being all Black Sky nihilism.

He wrote his "God is dead" line in a book called The Gay Science. The title was influenced by the poems of Southern French troubardours. Pretty well-rounded guy, don't you think?

If Nietzche were your personal life coach he may just ask you this:
How do you take your badness and rebaptize it into something good?
It just means turning towards it, claiming it, accepting it, seeing what it gave you, and moving on in peace. That's living in THIS life. Wanna play?

Imagine if you didn't have that badness haunting you and instead turned it on its head and loved it for what it is, what it gave you. What if....?

Here's a closing quote from our Herr F.N.
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. " --Friedrich Nietzsche

ps: I love the spirit of the quote but don't agree with "lonely often" part; how often or deeply you want to be lonely is your choice. And, consider the source: Nietzsche gave up his German citizenship and didn't claim Swiss citizenship (where he worked and taught), and travelled around a bit like a gypsy, writing, thinking, and eventually having a breakdown that could have been caused by his medications; depression, or syphillis. Nobody really knows.

Feeling faint?

2006-10-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

When you're at home getting cozy, reading watching TV, do you ever sit on your couch? I never do, unless I have guests. But without them, and sometimes with one or two close friends, I am stretched out on my back. Some of us are not physically able to read in any other position than lying down. So. When I went sofa shopping and saw this beauty and reclined on this beauty at the end of a long day I was sold. I can now have a second, even a third person on this thing with me and we can be comfortable beyond words and literally hang out. I can toss in some big harem-y pillows to work in the back rest and couch-ify it.

The "fainting couch" has always enticed me: the name, the curvy and/or a-symmetrical lines. Let's face it--couches, sofas, whatever we call them--they can be so boring, ugly, staid, evoke gramma or bachelor pads (black, leather, ick); and when they are beautiful they're really expensive. When they're ugly they're also expensive. Now fainting couches, there's an image, a mood, a story there. Isn't it charming that at some point in history, people needed something called a Fainting Couch? What the hell was going on? It could be that "fainting" was a euphemism for "passing out."

Couch vs. Sofa
The word "couch" comes from the French "se coucher," to go to sleep. Throughout the 17th century the couch was considered a daybed (And where do most of us take our naps? Clever French! ).

A sofa, or "sopha" is an arabic word for a raised section in the floor of one's home. Once raised, it was covered with rugs and cushions and reserved for the Esteemed Only.

The Romans put their couches in the dining rooms and called them "tricliniums." The men would pull up their tricliniums and eat together in reclined position while the women sat and watch in their upright chairs; you'd think the women had to be pretty turned off.

The sofa/couch/divan/setee/ made the transition from high-brow to every-brow during the industrial revolution when they found their way, mass-produced fabric and all--into every home.

Then came Freud
Dr F originally used the couch for his hynotherapy patients. When he moved from hypnosis to his stream-of-consciousness psychoanalysis, he kept the patient on the couch. The Good Doctor, you see, believed the visual separation between shrink and troubled dreamer was necessary.

Post-modern deconstructivism
I have no idea what that means. But my version of it started with a new carpet. I then (thanks Mom!) got the idea of a new sofa, a couple new chairs, replacing my round silly dining/writing table, and now it looks like my entire condo living room is going to get broken-down, analyzed, re-considered; old ideas and way sof living are already being thrown out and a whole new era is on its way in.

Isn't it cool how we all have our own little historical movements, births and rebirths and reincarnations within one tiny lifetime?
Simone Daybed at top of page from Crate & Barrel

A pastoral love story

2006-10-10T17:51:00.000-07:00

The story of Daphnis and Chloe

Once upon a time there were two orphan kids romping around on a bucolic Lesbos around the year 2 AD... they were friends, raised by shepherds and then ...

This is a sample of Marc Chagall's suite of 42 lithographs based on the story. Longus' Daphnis and Chloe is considered one of the original love stories, even inspiring Romeo and Juliet. To see and read more, and get titles, see: http://www.weinstein.com/chagall/marc-chagall.html#DaphnisChloe

... they got married and actually did live happily ever after. On their wedding night, Chloe realized that her childhood pal had been schooled in a few things by a helpful Lycaenion (sex ed was in back then). -le fin-

To see the titles and more about Chagall and this story of lithographs go to:
http://www.weinstein.com/chagall/marc-chagall.html#DaphnisChloe

If you put on a Chagall Daphne and Chloe mood, or persona, what would it look like and feel like? What would you have for dinner, what clothes would you put on (or not), how would you sit and position your body while talking to a friend, a co-worker, a family member?

You do not have to be good

2006-10-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

For seven years after I quit drinking, I had a scrappy piece of paper with an author-less poem glued to the inside cover of my datebook. I looked for the author for years, but just couldn't find it and finally got rid of the dayplanner with the smeared, ripped, untitled but still legible and perfect orphan poemlette. Yesterday, my friend Tim sent out an email with a poem by Mary Oliver and my first reaction was: groan, nature poetry.

And there it was. I found my "poem" inside of a bigger poem called "In Blackwater Woods."

From In Blackwater Woods

Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Mary Oliver ~ (from American Primitive)

When Oliver gets philosophical she can really rock the Kasbah.
Another Mary Oliver knock-out is "Wild Geese." Killer first line.

You do not have to be good.

If life is about seeking freedom--the freedom to really be yourself, to love fully, to follow your passions and fill out the canvas of your life in meaninful ways that you want, rathr than what you think you should want or what other people want--how does the ideal of being "good" hold you back?

The non-meaning of life

2006-10-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

A wise person once told me: Life has no meaning.
Things happen and there's really no meaning attached, it's not personal. We give meaning to particular events through the stories we give them. And then we weave them together to spin one really big tale: happy, sad, tragedy, comedy, drama... For example: love affairs start, they end, love affairs come and go and someone like, okay me, could make up this story: I'm a failure at love. Or it could be this story: I've been blessed with rich and gorgeous love affairs with some great men. Story #2: my jobs have been a big roller coaster: hired, fired, self-employed, 401k-employed, back to square 1: unemployed: Sob, what a failure. Or, the story could go: what a varied quilt of cool and unusual jobs I've been graced with, and I had some balls to take some different chances, if I may say so myself. When I pass through the gates of heaven (or wherever), boy, will I have some good stories to tell. There. Much better!

Each of us can be our own best cheerleader. Others offer support and lifelines but do you give yourself the kind of unconditional support and love you expect/want/wish for from others?

e.e. cummings, both mysterious and beautiful, offers up these line in a poem (54):

you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you're young, whatever life you wear

it will become you; and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become...

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

I'm not really sure what it means other than the playing with the theme that we have a choice about how much we want to struggle and make life difficult/tragic/melancholic -- or be content. What if our default setting was to be Happy and we just f'd things up along the way.

Ever noticed how melancholia can be like potato chips--you have a little nibble (self-pity--so nice & salty!) and you just can't stop?

Years ago during a difficult time, the image of river's current came to me, and I saw life as a series of currents and that I just had to find the right ones and go with them, rather than against them. And when I feltswept up in an undesirable current, I just had to ride it out until it dropped me into a calm eddy or pool then be ready to move!

What story can you re-tell yourself to add some pink light to your outlook. What stories can you just drop? What if we could shed our past like a snake and just possess this day?

Top painting, "Death and Life," by Gustav Klimt

Just the right amount...

2006-10-04T16:12:00.000-07:00

Somewhere between 460-370 B.C., Hippocrates Father of Medicine announced:
“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health."

Hippocrates earned his crown by being the first known physican by making medicine it's own discipline, putting down a moral code of practice, and poo-pooing the going belief that poor health was caused by the possession of evil spirits and pissing off the Gods.

Still, do you ever feel like you've pissed the gods off a tad?

It's strange how Too little and Just enough vary. Almost three weeks ago I spent a day swimming, biking and running for 14 hours. That felt pretty triumphant. Today I went on a 15 minute walk. With three stitches in my foot, that felt pretty triumphant too.

What is just the right amount for you today?

Stay? Go? Futurism!

2006-10-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

How do you know that a particular unmotivating situation warrants leaving, or staying? When do you exercise patience and when do you put the pedal down and turn the steering wheel? Or are we always doing a bit of both at the same time? Do you know much about Hegelian philosophy? Me neither.

However, I spent some time this morning reading up on the Futurist movement that came out of Russia and Italy in the beginning of the 20th century.

Futurism was first announced on Feb. 20, 1909, in a manifesto published by the Italian poet and editor Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. The manifesto railed against the past, especially stale political and artistic traditions; proclaimed a love of speed, teachnology, and violence; their mascots were cars, planes and industrial landscapes and cities. The mood of the movement is reminiscent of Ayn Rand's stuff, no surprise since she came from Russia. Stylistically, I think of hi-fi black & white sci fi movies, like Metropolis. From the Italian front, one of the prominent artists (painting and scultping) was Umberto Boccioni. Above work,
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space 1913. Post script: Umberto Boccioni died in Verona, after falling off a horse during a training exercise for World War I. He was 33 years old.

The Russian Futurists however, were even more nihilistic. For one they paid no attention to Marinetti's paternal reputation. They hated the combo of history and art, going so far as to call Russian Lit Kings Pushkin and Dostoevsky total losers who should have been "heaved overboard from the steamship of modernity." But soon, a whole new wave of amazing Silver Age poets came riding in: Anna A; Maria T; Mandelstam; Block; Gorky, Mayakovski; and a whole bunch more I'm forgetting.

So, back to the original question: You have a Situation, it's been going on for a bit of time, it's bumming you out, and you wonder: wait it out or make a move? The Futurists would say Go, because to Stay would be to get gobbled up by your past. But they were anarchists and (in some cases, shhh, Fascists).

So, how do you stay and go at the same time?

Visiting dead artists and dreams

2006-10-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

I'm tending to a small post-op foot procedure that snipped away at a tendon to free up my neuromas so I can run for miles and hours without pain. I'd like to say being sedentary has been hell but god I can adapt to being a couch-riding lazygirl. I've been catching up with friends, watching one thriller after another and reading Runner's World. And not writing. But movie-wise here are some recommendations: "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" "Lucky Number Slevin" and the latest favorite, "Inside Man."

Here's what I do sometimes when I need a lift--I go online and look at art. A month ago I hung out with Marc Chagall. In a book about his life and art he described how he didn't distinguish much between his dream life and waking life. Pretty fascinating POV, esp. for those of us who have active dream lives. What if we regarded our dreams as reality, and our waking lives as the dreams. What if we analyzed our waking life as dreams? I once rode my bike past two men I know named Mark, and wondered, if this was a dream I could make something out of the word and association "mark." Then, a few years later, two of my favorite most visited artists are "Marks"--Mark Rothko and Marc Chagall. What does it mean? Hell if I know... but it fires the synapses of the imagination and that's all I need.

Chagall's work is extremely dreamy, in the way dreams collide locations, symbols, people, faces, movements (walking/flying/falling)... all those floating brides. The print copied here is called, "The Promenade." And dedicated to today's birthday girl, the very talented poet and human, Marily Taylor.

I recommend, when your walk needs a little kick, do an image search on an artist.
I know it's naughty, but sneak it into your work day. I used to dip into The Web Museum Paris and read about art movements, check out paintings, find myself a desktop beauty.

Simple pleasures are so damn easy.

It's October--which means it's time to change my Monthly thing. June was mascara every day; July was reach out and get in touch with someone different every day; August was write every day; Sept was express your love month; Oct is make one positive choice and it relates to eating. More on that tomorrow.

Have you ever had a dream that felt like this?

Chagall, "Au Dessus de la Ville"

Always say "never"

2006-10-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

After years of screaming "I'll never train for or do an Ironman" I broke my rule. I should have known: "Nevers" always come true.

Originally I was going to do The Grand Columbian International Long Distance (“Nice”) and upgraded in August to a Full just to see what so many of my friends had experienced.

So my goals were pretty rudimentary: experience it, finish it, have fun and no GI probs.

It was a very intimate race—about 65-70 IM racers; only 10 of them women (I’m no dummy!) I did have to figure out a way to break the size of it up into bite sized pieces--something I figured out in the 11th hour. Originally a sprinter, the process of working up to Long-D has been a challenge, but rewarding.

On race morning it was 45d but clear; the water was in thigh 60's, and the swim was beautiful—we were surrounded by rock cliffs and sun, and at the swim Go!, a fan of birds took off into the sky right over us, which you could see when you breathed to the left. Water was smooth, beautiful (warmer than the air) and I had no panic attack, the latter helped along by keeping an eye on the natural beauty.

For the bike I did something I picked up from Coach Gordo's web site which I HIGHLY recommend. I broke the bike up into four sets of 28 miles. Ea. time I reached 28 mi. I set my computer back to 0. Let me tell you--that made the bike almost painless! I get so overwhelmed by all the miles to go I can snort and trantrum for hours.

There were some nasty (typical) headwinds but the scenery is primal and open and freeing. And the smell of sage. Delicious. So the bike ride goes by and the second quarter is always the hardest, psychologically. At 60 miles I picked up my special needs bag and filled my bento box with roasted almonds, spice drops, pringles, a few peaks of dark Toberlerone chocolate, a water bottle filled with Coke (and one with Perpetuem), and called the 3rd 28 my "cocktail party." Yes, there were winds, and I peddled downhill going 15 mph—but the last 30 miles were along the river, with the bordering cliffs, tail winds, a few eagles, no flats and it was a spectacular end to the bike.

The run. Sigh. The run. The first half went pretty well. I got a funky (*new!*) achilles twinge that made me wonder what I was in for but I stretched my calf and it subsided. The weather was obscenely kind to us—in the low-mid 60s, a clear evening, no heat. I’d rather run on a path, gravel included, but when I saw my time I was finally convinced that gravel is slower. Duh. I broke the run up into mile increments, dedicating each mile to someone in my life, wishing something positive for them; but by the 18th miles I was just pulling them in pacers and practically arguing with them. (I think I told my dead beloved grandmother that she wasn't helping and had to send her away; she was a worrier).

The piano fell on the second half of the run. Especially the last six miles--a whole 10k, no way! The last five felt hopeless; at four I thought I was going to pass out; at three I was channeling past relatives I've never met; at two I was thinking, "Last Ironman Ever" but I was also looking with awe at the lit wall of rock cliffs along the Columbia, and using my light stick to point to the stars and the big dipper so the runner behind me wouldn't miss them. And then there was the laser light show on the wall of the dam as I ran from the path up to "ground level."

So in retrospect, what I remember more about the run was the beauty of it—the sky at dusk, the smell of sage, the rock walls, the stars, the big dipper, the light show. The pain is a distant memory and I am only regretful that I don’t have a spot at Ironman Canada.

Final score: Swim: 1:01 Bike: 7 1/2 hrs Run: 5:11 Total 13.55
It was a strangely grand adventure.

But now I know …

Eat Dirt and Write

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Don't try so &$(& hard!