Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 2: Out of the closet

This is Day 2 of a 21-Day Saluteâ„¢ devoted to addressing the physical (and attendant intangible) clutter in my life. To read the entire series in reverse chronological order, click here. To read about this 21-Day Saluteâ„¢ thing, click here.

A very wise fellow you'll be hearing a lot more about over the course of this little Saluteâ„¢ gave me a great piece of advice for reframing my clothes closet quandary: if you were in a store today and came across this item, would you purchase it?

Bam. Straight to the heart of the matter, that goes, barreling through the familiar and venerable barriers of "...but I'll wear it someday" and "...but it's still perfectly good" and "...but I paid so much for it."

Or maybe it neatly sidesteps them, which is really the point of reframing. You don't exactly win by arguing with the Great and Powerful Oz; you can, however, really shift things around by sending old Toto around back to draw open the curtain for the big reveal. How you like them apples, Naked Emperor?

If there are two types of people, those for whom dressing is a burden and those for whom it is an everlasting delight, I fall firmly in the latter camp. I'm a performer and a rag-picker and a seer-of-potential: few things ring my bell like unearthing an expertly home-sewn, fitted denim duster with frog closures and passimenterie (for 12 bucks American!) that I can throw over a crisp white shirt and, well, anything but jeans, and look fan-fucking-tabulous with hand-sewn bells on. Except maybe my Kelly green, wide-wale dandy suitcoat (purchased new at a sample sale). Or any one of the six vintage leather jackets I seem to attract like other lucky folk do Kojak parking (mint & <$40 is to vintage leather jackets as pull-in at the door of the gig is to Kojak parking).

The problem, like anything else in this great world made up both of intangibles that really matter (love and ideas) and stuff that really doesn't (food and clothes are nice, but you get my drift) is in what constitutes enough. Or, as the alcoholic answered when asked, "How much did you drink?", all of it. If some great old stuff from a thrift store is good, more must be better. Plus, it's not like I'm breaking the bank, here: it's $5.99 for this shirt; if it doesn't quite work, I'll dump it back into the stream.

Which is great, we love renting and recycling, but even if you are the holiest of holies and put that sucka right back in the giveaway pile (and I have), there is still the little issue of time cost. What opportunities have I lost by spending this time dealing with a $5.99 shirt that may or may not work with those pants and that scarf, but that absolutely has just required a non-returnable measure of my attention.

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

Clutter has a weird gravitational pull to it. It pulls us to it and pulls itself to walls and floors and then the very piles it is made of. I've addressed my clutter time and time again, and it is only on this last go-'round that I feel like perhaps, perhaps, a corner has been turned.

Here is the one thing I can say with absolute certitude about things and my attachment to them: for as painful as the letting go can be (and boy, can it ever), the release that I feel just after, the opening in my heart that opening in my closet creates, is as close to the sitting-in-the-hand-of-God-0r-whomever that was the brief, temporary gift of my epiphany.

What one thing will I let go of today? What one thing will you?

xxx
c

Clearing my (psychic) clutter: a 21-Day Salute™

It is all very well and good to go on mad tears through your household, weeding out that which is no longer useful and beautiful, and passing it along to its next stop on the train, a person, a holding bin for persons unknown (a.k.a. Goodwill, Out of the Closet, the consignment shop, etc), the recycling station or the city dump. For anyone. I've not met a single person who doesn't feel new winds blow in where old stuff leaves.

For a sector of us, though, it truly awesome in the non-new-millenial sense of the word: huge, inspiring and, the part the hipsters and lazyfolk tend to blip over when bandying the term about over everything from naked ladies to a McFlurry, not a little terrifying. (Although both of those things can be kind of terrifying, if you're paying attention.) Because serious weeding or decluttering or whatever-you-call-it means addressing some pretty deep attachment issues for pack rats and clingers and other absolutely human folk whose response to a great and scary (or awesome) world is to stuff the cracks and fill the holes with stuff.

I get this. I do. While an almost irrational fear of vermin stops me just shy of hoarding, I feel a strong attachment to the stuff I imagine will anchor me in time and space. Or, as my alcoholic mother was wont to say when she'd show up to my place of work looking for money (to pay the rent, not buy booze, although in retrospect, I'm sure I was contributing to the Franzia fund, as well) and see her fancy-schmancy ad gal daughter with the corner office literally down at heel, sporting a 12-year-old shirt I'd bought new for five bucks, "You do like hanging onto things." And this was a lady who in her richer days had an entire room devoted to crap which we literally called "The Junk Room."

But this project of physical de-cluttering has had an interesting, not exactly intended tangential effect: noticing the less tangible clutter that clings to me just as tenaciously as the rest of it. Some of it is emotional (jealousy, or, as it was expressed to me recently, "lack of sympathetic joy"), some of it is digital (four Macs plus 6 hard drives, I'm looking at you) and some of it is mental.

Okay, all of it is mental.

This particular "salute" is about acknowledging the intellectual roots of my clutterphilia, and hopefully, addressing them in a way that will be helpful to you as well as to me. I have no particular expectations of curing myself in three weeks (although I live in hope!); as I say in the intro and new footnote to the main 21-Day Salutesâ„¢ page, these little exercises are meant to focus my attention on something, which in turn serves to kickstart a new program of...whatever. Looking on the sunny side. Cultivating gratitude. Or even more mundane, cleaning-type stuff like scraping a layer of filth off my apartment or tackling the hive of old photos and memorabilia that fills me with dread rather than love.

Fall, with its crisp weather (hallelujah!) and its new school year shininess is as good a time as any to start a project like this. And I'm hoping that shaking a few more things loose will make this year's sabbatical in the PacNW even more fruitful. It's all about laying groundwork, baby. Plus, I'm moving. There! I said it out loud. And while I've let a lot go, I've miles to go before I sleep in another place, unless a gigantic windfall blows in and I can suddenly afford two homes.

I don't want two homes, though. I don't want two of anything anymore, except original equipment like eyeballs and kidneys. (And boobies. Let's not forget, we're smack in the middle of breast cancer awareness month.)

One small thing I am going to add, rather than subtract, and that I would like your help with: treats!

They can be time-based or physical, but I would like to tie them, the additions, to the subtractions, in a way that's mathematically responsible (i.e., a sound ratio) and that honors these actions. So, for example, for every four bags of clothes or goods I haul off somewhere, I allow myself one coveted, precious object to remind me of this step forward. Or for every boxful of books, I allow myself an hour to browse for one new one. You get the drift.

I'm welcoming ideas now, to help me keep my enthusiasm up and my eyes on the prize, as it were. And I will likely ask for help on individual entries, as well. Because I have good ideas, sure, but lots of them are still buried under mountains of crap.

Let's get to it then: away with files and clothes, ideas and notions, bric and brac. With a little luck, enlightenment and fine ideas (and a few truly delightful doodads) will breeze in to take their place.

After all, nature abhors a vacuum. Of course, that phrase was coined pre-Dyson. But still...

xxx c

Image © rgdaniel via Flickr.

Poetry Thursday: Shit that don't fit

The two-wheeled
stationary
coat rack
that mocks your hatred
of exercise

The hideous lamp
you snatched
off the side of the road
whose torn shade
matches nothing,
including the base
that supports it

The heirloom
dining-room table
that seats sixteen
(with the leaves)
but far more efficiently serves
to remind you
of using rooms for the reasons
dead people say
you should

The 14 days
of MP3s
not played

The yard-high stack
of "information"
you have no need of

The books you bought
because the time you wanted
to read them
was not for sale

Throw them out
Give them away
Send them back
Pass them on

Because life is too short
and far too precious
to waste on too-tight pants
and too-small ideas
and all the rest
of that shit that don't fit.

Let go of the stuff
and ideas
will shyly float in
to replace it

We are made
for thoughts
and poems
and love
and the space
to enjoy them

How sad
we can't see that
for want of a way
through the clutter.

xxx
c

Image by via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Singers who move well

As the weeding out of the old, outmoded or less-than-"HELL, YEAH!" continues, startling things have begun sprouting up in the freshly emptied spaces.

Ideas, for starters. Crazy, wild tangles of ideas, some related, some seemingly random (I suspect that patterns for much of this will only start to emerge further down the road).

And not just for art projects or even business projects, but for processes and actions and ways of thinking. I work in metaphors a lot of the time, this whole notion of weeding and gardens to describe the clutter-clearing phase I'm in is a good example, and the metaphors are flowing more easily. So are the ideas for system tweaks, including everything from a better way to handle the recycling to how to order my errands so I actually do them. (Hint: simple stuff like having a capturing mechanism for every idea and then actually capturing it has made at least as big a difference as the excellence of the capturing devices themselves, although I'm finding it true that elegant tools you want to use mean a greater proclivity to use them.)

All that is marvelous. Anyone who's ever cleared out a sock drawer of singletons knows how this sort of thing goes.

What is not so marvelous, or, what is marvelous AND terrifying, is the nakedness and the lightness one feels along with the roominess. Because part of the process of clearing is asking some really tough questions about what's serving and what's not, what's valuable and what's not, what you have time for and what you do not. Choosing one thing means not choosing something else. At its best, there's a certain wistful sadness to it; at its worst, you can end up with startlingly nasty, super-judgy feelings about someone else's choices. (Cartoonist/essayist David Kreider calls this tendency the Referendum, and so beautifully, you really should jump over there and read it. After you're done here, of course.)

The other thing that gets a little gnarly in the decision-making process is, as you get down to the very, very precious stuff, the top of tops, say, your three favorite things to do in the whole, wide world, which one you choose. Because you can kid yourself all you want, but the number of people who are stupendous at one thing and then equally stupendous at one, or two, or, god help us, three, thing(s) is so small, you have a better chance of turning into a leprechaun tomorrow than becoming one of them. Fred Astaire had a thin, reedy (albeit charming!) singing voice and passable acting skills for the style of the day. He was also one of the greatest dancers who ever lived. Gene Kelly had a far better singing voice than Fred Astaire and even, I'd wager, superior acting ability. He was also one of the finest dancers who ever lived, but he was no Fred Astaire. There's a sweaty, exertive quality to Kelly's work that is nonexistent in Astaire's: with Gene Kelly, you could see how hard it was to get there; when you watch Fred Astaire, it looks like the simplest, most natural thing in the world.

At a certain point in the musical performer's career, she needs to decide: will I be a singer who moves well or a dancer who can carry a tune? You can get steady work as either. You may end up being so good at both that to the casual observer there is no difference but trust me: the truly great know what they are the very best at. (Or, paradoxically, they are insanely humble and profess to be middling at both. It's a weird but real exception I've found to that rule.)

I have finally stuck my flag on the hill of writing. It's terrifying because no matter how good I get (and I'm a lot better than I'd ever hoped I could be when I was really, really, really bad at it), I'll always know that there are writers I will never be as good as. But jettisoning some of the other stuff that I've been hanging onto to stoke my pride, this idea of me as an actor (yes, I toy with thoughts of going back) or a designer, makes it a littler easier to justify the insane logging of hours required to get as good as I can at this writing thing.

You have to give up something to be really great at anything. And you have to do it full-out, and now; deferring is a sucker's game, more mental clutter that gets in the way of you realizing the full potential of Whatever It Is that you're good at. (And by "you," I hope it goes without saying, I mean "me.")

More and more will fall by the wayside, I know, with no guarantee of future success as many define it. If I define it as full pursuit of the awesome, though, and I follow through, then I could get hit by a bus tomorrow (although I'd prefer that not happen) and die 100% fulfilled. Not the hackneyed "doing what she loved," but pursuing it. Pursuing the shit out of it.

Maybe you already know what your Thing is. Maybe you need to go through some kind of excavation process to find it. I'm always recommending The Artist's Way for creative types who need to unlock their inner whatever. The Creative Habit, which I reviewed here recently, is another great, less woo-woo choice, although it's also geared toward artists. If you know of fantastic books written for those outside the creative arts field, I'd love to hear about them in the comments section.

Me, I know. My job in the immediate is to clear as much room as possible to facilitate the work of writing. That means plotting out the handoff of my few remaining design clients, wrapping up whatever projects I have outstanding and instituting a really strict and sensible system for deciding what to take on next. The aforementioned "Hell, yeah!" strategy of Derek Sivers and the corollary "No-Brainer Scenario" of Victoria Brouhard are two tools I'm playing with right now. Again, other strategies that may have escaped my attention are welcome.

Image by Arbron via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Poetry Thursday: What consumes you

In my youth
I thought
I had to be dark
to be interesting

Which
for a girl
who was lighter
than helium
and
whiter
than 14 Presbyterians
having high tea
at the Ritz
was problematic.

Not
exactly true
but proves a point:
how black
or blue
can a child of privilege
with a naturally sunny
obviously buoyant
basically optimistic bent
be?

Dark
as it turns out
is a relative thing.

You can adjust
your vision
to prisons
of every variety,
from plush-lined, air-conditioned luxe
to pits dug out
from dirt
you displace yourself
at the end of an insistent,
dispassionate
lash.

Or so I've heard.

I have said before:
my darkest days
took place in full daylight
surrounded by blessings
and love
and riches so bright
their shine shames me still.

And my brightest days
I spent
shedding blood
the hard way
amidst people
who were on their way out
for good.

Dark is neither glorious
nor foul
it is just the opposite
of light.

You can try it on
in your youth
to mimic the burdens of elders
and other, less fortunate souls
like children dressing for Halloween.

But not for too long
and only for play.

Dark exists always
to remind us
of the choice of light.

The sometimes hard
choice of light
that people in times
and circumstances
of such blackness
we cannot imagine
chose
time and time
again.

Today
I do not dress for Halloween
nor do I pose in black.
Too much real pain
to play dress-up
unless it serves
to illuminate
or charm
or coax a laugh
from the darkness.

And so, my friend,
I say to you:
I see your darkness
and raise you a candle,
a glowstick,
a toothy grin, in a pinch.

Be dark
if you like
but remember:
the light
is always there
on the flip side
or the end of a tunnel
or what have you
when you are ready
to turn into it.

xxx
c

Image by Paul Stevenson via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Working toward siesta

If each week got its own word, last week's would be "painful."

Painful overcrowding. Painful frustration with not being able to get enough done. Painful sense of shame over both of these.

Worse, even as I built this week on my calendar over the past month or so, I knew it was going to be painful, because I could see the over-scheduling and overcrowding and lack of room developing before my eyes. And while I couldn't anticipate the exact nature of the failures, which balls would be dropped, which plates would come crashing to the ground, I have been at this long enough that I knew I was making trouble for myself.

The key culprit was the addition of a two-day conference a few weeks ago. I'd already built up a hefty week of commitments when I decided that it would be fun to go to this one. Several people whose work I follow and whom I'd like to meet at some point were scheduled to be there, along with a few other people I already know and jump at the chance to see whenever they pass through town. Sure, it was two full days away from work, but really, what could go wrong?

The quick answer is "just about everything": traffic, last-minute client emergencies, too-high temperatures, too few clean socks. (Seriously, how many outfits have been a major fail and days an uncomfortable wash for lack of a little clean laundry?) I detailed the business-type version of the agony and subsequent ecstasy over at my marketing blog, but here, where I can let my hair down a bit more, I'll confess: Day One was far, far worse than I could begin to describe (because while I'll talk about anything here, I stay away from something like World's Worst Case of PMS over there).

On the other hand, Day Two was far, far better than the scope of a marketing blog allows for describing. Because here's what lies on the other side of hell, in virtually every circle I've rounded to date, that too few people talk about: heaven. Fucking glorious, in excelsis Deo-style heaven. It's release after tension, explosion after accumulation, fabulous belch after McDonald's Extra Value Meal #9. I felt freer and happier than I had in some time, because after having it shoved in my face so that I could not look away, I finally realized that I have a problem and the problem is me.

Hi. I'm Colleen, and I'm a workaholic.

I work (almost) all the time. Ask The BF, or my poor ex-husband, The Chief Atheist, or any other partner I've been with. Ask the Jans, Chicago or L.A. varieties. Ask my family, ask my nosy across-the-courtyard neighbor, ask anyone I've ever worked for, "Slacker or workhorse?" and I can almost guarantee that you'll get served up the latter.

Note, please, that for a long time, this was a badge of honor: that I, Colleen Wainwright, could work longer and harder than anyone around me. That I would be Last Man Standing. That all y'all could eff off and go grab a slacker Coke because I WIN THE PRIZE.

Now I know not only that is this all about wiring (Virgo!) and some really messed-up conditioning (love dangled as carrot for a job well done), but that it's kind of a stinky prize. The prize, she is stinky! And not in the good way, like Arnie. I learned this after I got knocked upside the head with the Crohn's seven years ago, but UH-OH, I forgot. I learned this again when I got knocked upside the head again earlier this year, but UH-OH, I am a dumbass and forgot again. Work-life balance, in my case, means that I now work at home so I can wear comfy clothes and spare myself the kind of hateful commute I found myself in last week. It also means that I have moved my work closer to my life's work, which is certainly awesome but can also be used as a smokescreen. Because baby, I don't care what your life's work is: if you don't take time to cook yourself good food, eat it with delightful people and otherwise recharge your batteries, your life's work will be cut as short as your life. Period.

So.

The first step, according to Bill & Co., is admitting I have a problem I'm powerless over. Which I do, and I don't. I'm not an atheist, exactly, but I'm also not a God person, exactly. My neat sidestepping around this one is that I do see myself as some kind of vessel for something, the collective unconscious, the Big Soup, what have you. And the job I have identified for myself-as-vessel (or, in my specific case, Joyful Conduit of Truth, Beauty and Love) is first and foremost to keep the vessel in good working order. That kind of covers all the bases, the learning and getting better/stronger/faster parts, and the rest UP, dillmeister parts. I've been making steady progress on Part A, but have acted retardidated, as my friend, Justin, likes to say, about Part B. You are witnesses. Thank you for listening. Coffee and (SCD-legal) doughnuts in the back, although you'll have to step outside to smoke.

My plan for dealing with the rest of this B.S.? Many-pronged, with redundancies. Lots of experimentation, because really, I have no idea what will work at all, much less best. Here are some things I've already put in play:

1. Daily Walk (a few months) So far, I'm only doing this in the morning when I stay at My Country Home. It's good for the dog and good for me and good for the environment, since 5 days out of 7, we're usually walking to the neighborhood TJ's to pick up groceries on foot. Love this, it works like gangbusters and keeps me established as Arnie's favorite human. (What? I told you I was competitive!) Recently, I added hills and carrying lumpy objects, per Mark Sisson's RX. (Good site, by the way!)
2. Implementing systems (several weeks) Since reading Sam Carpenter's Work the System and having the lights go on, I've taken very seriously the notion that systems are what help make for sanity, and that I need to get my shit into systems now. Paradoxically, this is a little more work up front: I'll stop in the midst of something I'm doing to note an idea for systems, or to iron out a small bit of one if I can. Eventually, like anything else, it'll become second nature (thanks, Merlin, for the Dreyfus model, my new-favorite term). Oh, and full disclosure: I dug on Sam so much that we wound up chatting a lot, and then he wound up hiring me. But trust me, I ain't selling you nothin', here: he's giving away the book for free on his site.
3. Breaking for meals (several weeks) The heat wave we've been, er, enjoying, has screwed this up a bit, but I've taken to taking my morning and sometimes noon meals outside on the patio, with an actual book. It's part of the reason for the increased number of book reviews on this site, as well as some sanity.
4. Consolidating my shit (years, but hard-core over past few weeks) I'm taking time each day to weed through stuff. I'm also putting my money where my mouth is, signed up for a terrific jumpstart teleclass from Charlie Gilkey and Jen Hoffman called the Work Party, and I'm going to a de-cluttering workshop next week where I actually have to bring a bag of clutter to go through. Public humiliation is a big motivator for me. I also finally upgraded my 4-year-old laptop, and am committing to making my brand-new MacBook Pro my main machine. This will mean clearing out my old machines and selling or donating them (or at least two of them), which I will do methodically and non-crazily (see #2).
5. Retreat! Retreat! (coming up) I'm committing to spending the time on this year's trip to the PacNW on me. That means input, help, reflection and, god help us, recreation.

And here are the things I'm working toward (because hey, workaholic overachievers have to have a goal, even when the goal is relaxing!):

1. Streamlining focus I like too many things. I have the curse of being semi-okay at a lot of them. It's my blessing and my curse, moving me forward but never quite the kind of ground I'd like to cover. Everything I've ever read about success says that a key ingredient is focusing. For whatever reason (impending death?), I'm finally taking this seriously.
2. Taking Sunday off It's shameful, my utter lack of disregard for the usefulness of time off. I haven't managed a full day off for a long time (road trips don't count!), but I'm getting closer. Is it embarrassing to be "getting closer" to doing something normal? Yes. Yes, it is. Remember? Public humiliation is a strong motivator for me.
3. Hiring an assistant I'm a ways off from this. I don't make the kind of income yet to justify this. Hopefully, clear-cutting commitments and focusing like a laser beam will help here, but I'm open to windfalls, a personal Medici or other solution. Have your girl call my, oops. Never mind.
4. Moving The BF and I have been working toward me moving in. Having one household, not two, should seriously reduce my stress levels. Plus, I think a change of venue is good. I've been in my current place for 10, count 'em, 10 years, and the building has changed vastly over that time, mainly for the worse, I'm sorry to say.
5. A daily "spiritual" practice In quotes because, as noted already, I'm not a god lady. I don't really even want to call it a contemplative practice, because then my mind immediately leaps to yoga and meditation, and I'm not or a yoga lady or a zazen lady. Not that I couldn't be, it just doesn't draw me closer to where I know I need to go now, which is less work and more groundedness. I really like the Remembrance, which I learned from Mark Silver; I also like what I've read and experimented with thus far re: chanting, which I discovered via Adam Kayce.
6. More music! I started off the year with such good intentions. Music makes me happier. It both relaxes me and stimulates a different part of my brain. Plus then I get to make more crazy shit. Which is always good, right?

I do realize that there's a certain irony in an 1,800-word blog post devoted to the subject of conquering overwork. Trust me, I've dealt with this, too, from within the friendly confines of a system, with an eye toward keeping that precious, precious Sunday free. Although I will say that even with my Sunday Experiment, I reserve the right to write everyday, whether that brands me a workaholic or not. There's a wonderful story about Charlie Chaplin and some contemporaries frolicking at the beach, South of France, or somewhere delicious like that, and at one point during the day, he took his leave to go back to his room to work, because he felt that that's what writers did. And I do, too.

But we're experimenting, here, so I'm playing with different things. I hope you will indulge me, and perhaps encourage me, and maybe even play along, if you feel like it.

As always with these kinds of entries, any thoughtful suggestions, resources, inspiration or just plain old sharing is welcome. Have you dealt with this? How?

For the love of all that's holy and the few hairs left on my head, how?

xxx c

Image by masternet82 via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Leaping again and again until we all get it right

Can you throw yourself
in, again
and again?

Can you rip wide the wrapper
safety-sealed
for someone's protection
and let spring forth
what will?

Butterflies, maybe
or dirt
or blood
or a full-court dance-press crew
of pirate gremlins
playing mad fiddle music
and tapping out code
with their crazy, nonsensical, wooden-shoe
dance?

I was so afraid
for so long
of opening up
for I had no idea
what would spill forth.

Wisdom, I hoped.
Lunacy, I suspected.
Venom, surely, from the hordes
of slathering
hostile
standers-by
I was sure.

In case you hadn't noticed
I am still here
with most of my parts
and some of my dignity
and so, for that matter,
are you.

I was so afraid
of the meter
that I clung
to the prose.

Yet here we are,
together,
basking in something,
not quite normal
not entirely strange
and maybe just a little bit
marvelous.

Jump
jump
jump with me

We will catch our own breaths
with the thrill
of it all
or we will fall
with a thud
to the hard, hard ground.

I have news for you:
it was there anyway.

Leap
leap
again
and again.

No choice
but to leap
again
and again...

xxx
c

Image by DragonDrop via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Advancing and retreating (and an invitation)

Earlier this week, I alluded to my definition of a vacation, which differs quite a bit from a lot of other folks', and whichdiffers greatly from how I was raised to look at vacations.

It wasn't like we were the EnormoSlackers of the Fat Midwest: on summer and winter holiday from school, I was expected to keep up with my reading, and usually to take some sort of additional class to better myself.* When we stayed in the city, we went to museums and the library as often as the beach, more, when it got really hot. (And in Chicago, it is definitely the heat, at least as much as is it the humidity.)

But as a child of divorce, there tended to be a bit of the indulgent stuff on Dad's part: spring breaks in Scottsdale (his favorite) filled with banana splits, miniature golf and trail rides; winter weekends skiing in Wisconsin (for practice) and Vail (for real); a 16th birthday trip to New York City. When, as an adult, I took "vacation" vacations, they ended badly: one horrifically sunburned week in Ixtapa leaps to mind, as does a trip to a posh resort in Montego Bay that felt more like Whitey Internment Camp (it was for our own safety, they swore!). The final nail in the coffin was the most hateful week I've ever spent in the most beautiful place I've ever seen, aka "The Wainwrights Go to the Big Island." I still have nightmares about that one.

My preference has always been for a kind of working vacation: me, somewhere else, doing some kind of work. It can be a different kind of work, or even the "work" of unplugging, giving myself some time and space to let new things bubble up. That's what Seattle was about last year, and that's what this year's slightly shorter trip to the Pacific Northwest is about. I take myself places like conferences and meetups to bump braincells with nifty people, many of whom I've been somehow exposed to online first. I think that's the finest use of the Internet, a virtual sort to bring the right people together in real life.

This year, to give it some structure, I'm building my trip around a four-day (FOUR DAYS!?!?!) retreat outside of Portland: my (online, for now) friend and colleague Mark Silver's Path to Profitability Retreat. That's an affiliate link, so you know, and one of the rare times I'd even consider linking to anything I'd not yet consumed myself. But over the past few years, I've derived such huge value from Mark's stuff, culminating in my great success using the Heart-Centered Websites thingy (more like "the Miracle that got me off my goddamn ass") and my recent head-opening with the Heart of Money teleclass (which I will now and forever shamelessly flog, as doing it actually did start making me money, and kind of scary-fast), I'm pretty much sold in advance. Plus he wisely offers the best money-back guarantees in the business, so I never feel like I'm really risking much.

I share this for a couple of reasons. First, because investing in myself, while terrifying, has made the past couple of years the most professionally and sometimes personally rewarding ones I've had in a long time. And second, because I have a secret hope that some other Right Person who's meant to come to this place outside Portland will be tipped by this confession I'm making, and decide to come, too. Not that I don't think the retreat will be filled with all kinds of right people: I'm woowoo enough to believe that there's a reason when I showed up at Danielle's FireStarter session a ways back, the room was packed to the rafters with rockstars. Maybe you & I are supposed to work on our crazy shit together at this hippie-dippy outpost outside of Portland. Maybe not. You'll know, I know.

Finally, I realize that this is one of the more profoundly uncool posts I've written in a while. Maybe since I started writing the crazy poems. I'm sure that every time I let my seams show, people leave. But that's cool. And even if it wasn't, I'd have to get down with it, right? Might as well argue with gravity.

But to slow just a wee bit the wild, wild beating of my heart, feel free to let me know how you're letting your own freak flag fly. Or what and how you're investing in yourself. Or even your feelings about vacations. I get that I'm a little intense; maybe I'm missing something with the whole vacation-vacation thing.

This is me, advancing...

xxx
c

*Or, once, an unintentional course of learning rather gothic in its horror at a genteel girls summer camp.

Image by Samuel Gordon via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Shedding what no longer serves

I am deep into purge mode these days. And I'm not alone in this.

Not that we're ever alone, with almost 7 billion souls on the marble, chances are good that whatever you're going through, you've got some fellow travelers somewhere. But suddenly, or perhaps it's a creeping sort of suddenness, I see people all around me letting go of their shit. Moving on from relationships and jobs and systems that just aren't working for them anymore. I have no idea if this is A Thing or another manifestation of Yellow Volkswagen Syndrome or both. I'm almost certain that, like my friend and fellow Virgo, Adam, it has something to do with marking the passage of another year the way some of nerdlier types mark it: the end of the summer, the beginning of the new school year.

I love the idea of filling my life up with learning, which is why I've always gotten a little schoolgirl-giddy for back-to-school time. New books! New clothes! New gadgets! All wonderful things, especially in a simpler, less stuff-filled time, the 1960s, when everything had a higher acquisition cost: it took you longer to find the stuff you wanted and it was more expensive to buy when you finally found it. Even the rented stuff, like library books (remember card catalogues?) and flat-out free stuff (remember life B.C.L.?) And at six, or even 16, that cost was insanely high: no wonder I clung to every new bit of input so ferociously; who knew when tiny, carless, broke me would get another shot?

Stuff is abundant now. Forget how easy (and cheap) it is to get almost anything you might have a passing thought about wanting: these days, physical stuff seems to breed in stacks and piles. It's as though they embed crap-sprouting seeds in all that cheap crap from China we started glutting ourselves on a few decades ago.

Yet the oldsters among us, those raised by and around Depression-era survivors, without whiz-bang search and delivery tools like the Internet, are still operating in scarcity mode.

Save the rubber bands, the recipe clippings, the Shirts to Clean the Car In.

Save the orphaned Tupperware and gym socks, the never-quite-comfortable shoes, the stop-gap Fat Pants.

Save it save it save it lest you find yourself, what? Unable to wash the Toyota for want of a selection of 25 shirts in which to do it?

With each previous purge, I've filled up the empty space with new stuff. Nothing wrong with that, provided it keeps moving through: the Catch-and-Release Planâ„¢ for books; the assimilate, not accumulate method of information consumption. But too often, it's been just tiny, greedy, scaredy-cat me, stockpiling crap against some kind of dreadful winter sans stores, power and people. When really, if it came to that, who'd want to stick around anyway?

This purge feels different. It feels both urgently needed and centrally right in a way that it never did before, as though I am on the brink of getting somewhere big, but can't fit through the tiny passageway with all this stuff clinging to me. So I am shedding it in a way that works for me: quickly, then slowly. Or slowly, then quickly. Stuffing great heaping loads of things into opaque blue bags, the better not to be be eyeballed again before they're sealed and trotted off to Goodwill. Finding good homes for a few cherished treasures that no longer serve. Asking hard questions not only about each and every item that touches my hands, but that floats past my eyeline: does this serve? When it inevitably no longer does, will I be able to let it go with relative ease?

Some things that have helped me to get here, I think:

• Removing myself from my mess. The trip to the Pacific Northwest last year was central to this shift, even if the high-intensity purging didn't start happening until recently. I see huge value in the occasional long-ish retreat from everyday life, now that I've done one. Others, like my friend Chris Guillebeau, remove themselves more regularly, via travel. (More on retreats soon, as I've another one coming up.) Note: I see both retreats and travel as very distinct from vacationing or holiday. They're vacations/holidays because they're a break from routine, but that's about it. This is not pina-coladas-by-the-pool stuff.
• Getting serious clarity on some short and long-term desires. Nothing fires one up to actually get shit done like white-hot desire for a specific thing, or even a white-hot dose of truth. I do not know what exact shape my next living situation will take, but I'm almost certain it means moving somewhere that pets are allowed and quietude is in greater abundance. (Do they let people live in the library with a small pet?) Reducing my possessions to what really serves right now clears the way for further reductions as the goal gets even clearer.
• Support, support, support. Almost two years ago, at the start of 2008, I decided to shift my goddamn paradigm to one of "Help is everywhere." And since then, it has been. Help has turned up in the form of accountability partners, coaches, mastermind groups, teachers, classes, products and, yes, books. Help is so much everywhere that I've now started to trust there will be a net when I leap, or a hand extended when I need a leg up. The unexpected bonus in all this? That I have become a trusted source of support in various ways for all kinds of people I never imagined might find my help useful. This makes getting up in the morning a delight. Well, most mornings. And it's been the handful of magic beans that started my new business. Huzzah!

I am wired to cling, I think. But I no longer fear it, because I know it.

Add to that my deep understanding that help truly is everywhere, and it becomes much easier to shed what no longer serves. What you cling to tends to cling right back. I cling now to the moment, and to my bigger truths, and to my growing belief that the glorious, chewy center of the entire bleeding universe is love love love.

Let go of my old books, and there is room for new ones.

Let go of my old way of thinking about myself as a writer, and there is room for poetry.

Let go of my old career, and a new one springs up in its place. (A little slowly, that fucker, but whatever.)

What I ask for now is support, in a very specific way: what are you letting go of, and (if you're so inclined) how? And, if it's started to happen yet, what do you find it being replaced by? Are you scared? Are you exhilarated? Are you both, or neither, maybe some other thing I've not even thought of, because I'm still clinging to my way of looking at shedding?

We are in this together, more than we know. We will explode with awesomeness once we get down with this, more than we can possibly imagine...

xxx
c

Image by visualpanic via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Bonus links!

• My friend Gretchen's fascinating insight into clothes clutter
• "We're Only Renting," verse-style
• Clutter-clearing for actors (you know who you are)

Poetry Thursday: Enough room

You either give yourself enough room
or you give yourself enough rope.

Your choice
every day
even when it doesn't seem that way.

You choose
the new project
or the space to let the old ones breathe.

You choose
crowded or airy
light or heavy
even or wobbly
caff, half-caff or decaf.

You you you
no matter how much you want
it to be
them them them.

God hands you a can of paint
for to spruce up a wall
or a chair
or a hall
or a door

Is it Her fault
you use it
to paint yourself into a corner
again?

No matter.

There is rest there, too,
where vectors collide.
And much time
to ponder
the thrills of a full plate
as you multitask
and learn
precisely how much fun it is
watching paint dry...

xxx
c

Image by zap the dingbat via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Starting to stop, adding to subtract: changing habits the sane way

There's a thing about starting the year afresh with the chronological turn of it; there's another thing about aligning your restart with the turn of your personal turn on the planet, which is often more useful. (There's a third, entirely different thing about restarting wherever you damned well please, but I'm too much of a coloring-inside-the-lines, goody two-shoes for that.)

I've always liked when my birthday fell, in September (yesterday, the 13th), coinciding as it did with the turning of seasons and the returning to school, something all inside-the-line coloring types enjoy. We've been enjoying a break in the heat here in Los Angeles as well, so we can even pretend that our seasons have shifted (although god help us all when the inevitable heat wave that is early October slams us sideways).

So I've been thinking a lot about what I'd like to change, along with why I'd like to change it. Digging in and getting at the roots of things has proven much more useful than anything else for actually changing my behavior. For example, when I quit smoking, my third or fourth round of brochitis was struggling to gain purchase in my lungs; while "health" was a nebulous goal, staying out of the hospital and not feeling like I was being drowned were both wildly compelling. Ditto with getting on the SCD the first time: at barely 90 pounds, having suffered a horrible summer of illness capped by four weeks of riotous fever, stomach cramps and bloody diarrhea, the idea of food I could keep in me long enough to put on the weight that would make me ambulatory again was right up there with no-brainers like oxygen and shelter.

You can't fight City Hall, Mother Nature or your fat ass

At officially-48, I'm dealing with the first serious signs of physical breakdown. My hair is thinner, I tire more easily and, most horrifying of all to me, I pack on weight I can't easily take off. I'm told I still look relatively young for my age and I still feel like a nimrod youngster most days, but the physical realities of gravity and hormone depletion are winning on too many battlefronts. It's time to take action, and that means tying action to meaning.

You'd think that watching friends and relatives start to succumb would be enough, but it's not. Death isn't particularly compelling unless it has its rank breath smack up against your open nostrils. For me, what I want is more obvious and basic: to feel good when I awaken, and to keep feeling that way until I fall asleep. That includes but is not limited to:

• being able to climb the local hills without getting winded
• being able to sleep through as many nights as I can (this getting up in the night and peeing thing ain't the worst, but it ain't fun, either)
• being able to pick something up off the ground without making Old Man Noise
• being able to fit comfortably in the reasonably-sized clothes I already own
• being able to avoid colds, flus and other stress-susceptible illnesses
• being able to get off these goddamn meds for good

A lot of us who use our brains and our extended brains (i.e., The Google) for a living tend to be dismissive of the fact that we are not just a brain, but a body. Forget "spirit" or "soul", we fight the reality that at the very least, the pile of gray goop has to be carted around by muscles, tendons and bones. And that's not even getting into the idea that good food and rest and exercise can keep the gray goop itself functioning at a higher level for longer.

Subtracting from my fat ass back the additive way

Most programs of change seem to focus on the subtractive, talking about how you must deprive yourself of this or that, just like they emphasize Massive Overhaul rather than tweaking. All well and good when, perhaps, you're really up against it, but what about when you're looking at something squishy and less pressing, like feeling better or taking the dog for a walk with more joy or something long-term-good like possibly better hair for a wee bit longer? Then you're looking at implementing the kind of long-term change that takes, well, long.

In his latest newsletter (which you really should subscribe to, it's as good as mine, only different), Chris Brogan talks about a simple reframing that seems to be working for him: adding good stuff in rather than taking bad stuff away. He's lost 20 pounds so far by doing stuff like adding water and adding a higher percentage of greens to his dinner plate. Is he really cutting back on Diet Coke and fatty carbs? Well, yeah, like I said, it's a re-frame. But it's a small reframe that seems to be working.

I've been thinking about how I might use this to get myself back on the SCD. Ordinarily, that means things like "no more pizza" and "so long, cupcakes." But I considered it and wondered if maybe I couldn't start making my way back by doing things like "carry SCD-legal snacks with me" and "switch morning walk to Trader Joe's": the former would likely keep me from falling off the wagon by keeping ferocious hunger at bay, and the latter would mean I could turn grocery shopping (kind of a chore to me) into a normal, semi-fun, fairly regular part of my routine.

A few weeks ago, I'd been thinking of today with a big, heavy red circle around it: Monday Is the Day I Quit Eating Anything Fun and Get Back On SCD. And it may turn out to be; frankly, I've gorged myself on so much sugar, starch and processed crap in anticipation of it, the thought of eating clean is pretty appealing. But as long as I'm still feeling pretty chipper, health-wise, I think I'll try this slow, additive thing first and see how it goes. It's in keeping with my friend, Matthew Cornell's idea of testing lots of small ideas and measuring the results (Matt, if you drop by, leave better links in the comments so we can nerd out, please!)

I also have some thoughts about other small, additive changes that might enhance my life a bit, like the Leo Babauta-inspired music experiment I started (and subsequently stopped) earlier this year. But first this. There's enough other stuff swirling around right now, and the point is to make life easier, not more complicated.

In the meantime, I'm very curious to know what sort of luck other people have had with additive change, and whether it's been easier (and stuck longer) than the subtractive kind. What say ye: yea or nay?

xxx
c

Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

One day

One day
you will be gone
which is neither here
nor there
(much like you will be
on that day)
except to say
this:

Every day
would be fuller
and richer
and brighter
and lighter
if you started it
by thinking
of that other day
down the road.

You not here
has a great effect
on you here, now.

And "them" not here
(whoever "them" may be)
ain't a bad thing
to remember, either
while we're at it.

Because whether it's them you love
or them you do not
none of it matters much
when no one is here tomorrow.

On that one day
I wish you peace
and love
and a rainbow-tailed unicorn
to ferry you
to your final destination
wherever that may be.

But for this day
and every day
in between
I wish for you
and for me
and for "them"
to remember
that one day.

xxx
c

Image by alana jonez via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Limits vs. tolerance: knowing the former and cultivating the latter

I'm perpetually about five steps behind the smart kids like Merlin and Julien, so I'm just now reading Twyla Tharp's absolutely outstanding, OUTSTANDING, I tell you, book, The Creative Habit.* (Julien, if you're reading this, you were 100% right, and I owe you a beer. Or something.)

Since Merlin first started talking about the book some time ago, I've noticed a term creep into his writing more often: tolerance.** As in, tolerance for ambiguity when it comes to approaching the making of stuff, and tolerance for sucking during the process of making it.

Possibly in turn, or possibly because it's part of the zeitgeist I'm soaking in, I've noticed the term floating up into my own consciousness a lot lately. I've worked steadily at cultivating my own tolerance for ambiguity and for sucking, as well; I lump them together as tolerance for "mess," which I've built up a much, much higher tolerance for both physically and psychically.

Interestingly, my tolerance for clutter has decreased as my tolerance for mess has increased. On the surface, you might see them as the same, but I see them as quite distinct:

Mess is the inevitable by-product of creation, the few eggs you're going to have to break to make an omelet (or the few thousand you're going to have to break to make one expertly). Mess is the artist's studio during work hours, or the writer's office halfway through a book, or any creative person's brain at the beginning of a huge, and always scary, undertaking.

Clutter is the crap that gets in the way of creation, the weeds and distractions that keep you from the business at hand. It can can be thoughts that no longer serve as well as tools that are broken or outdated. It's the fat and the noise and the junk that stands between you and your goal: if you're an actor or a dancer, it might be literal body fat; if you're a singer or a speaker, it could be a weak diaphragm or shit habits that are destroying your pipes. It is almost always TV, for everyone, but it can also be any number of bad consumptive habits, from too many beers after "work"-work (getting in the way of your artistic work) to excessive reliance on gossip rags, chick lit or internet forums.

For some of us, clutter is simply too many things we've said "yes" to that we don't really want to do, or that aren't moving us forward in significant ways. I have become much closer to my little friends, No Fucking Way and Not a Snowball's Chance in Hell, although I have to constantly remind them to use their indoor voice and smile politely when out and about in the world. My new-favorite dish is the "no" sandwich: slipping a big, bad slice of Wild Horses Couldn't Drag Me There between two pretty slices of "Oh, aren't you sweet to ask!" or "That Sounds Like So Much Fun" or "I Reeeeeeeally Wish I Could." The point ain't to stomp on someone else's delicate mess with your big clodhoppers, but to recognize what works for them may not for you, and vice versa.

I get a little panicky about how much time I have left to get the music out of me every year about now. And yeah, I realize that worry is a form of clutter, too. Still, addressing what's standing between me and what I've decided I want becomes more and more important as I creep inevitably toward what I hope is a natural and long-off death, but which I recognize could be lying just steps away, up on the fire escape, Acme anvil in hand, waiting for me to turn the corner.

So I say "no", or at least, "let me sleep on it", to more things, that I may say "yes" to the right things. Creating limits, so there's a safe space to cultivate tolerance...

xxx
c

Image by "T" altered art via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

*I'll be reviewing it next week, but feel free to buy it now, even without the review. Because the first 100 pages are better than most of the pages of about 2,000,000 books put together. It's just the best book I've read for working creatives ever. Juicy, full of ideas and inspiration and exercises. Funny. Well-written. No fat. Blowing-my-mind good.

**You can read the central post about it, which also links to a really nice talk he gave at this year's MaxFunCon on dealing with The Resistor during the creative process.

Poetry Thursday: The small, still voice

On the nose
or off by a mile,
you know.

You always know.

Your head will scream otherwise
because of what it wants,
a word of praise,
a veil of darkness,
escape,
assurance,
a parallel universe
where, apparently,
the clocks run backwards
time is infinite
and downsides
are all up.

Your heart
does not whisper
but neither
does it scream.
It speaks the truth
in simple terms
and waits.

And when you screw up
and give voice to the head
yet again
it remains
the small, still voice,
never angry
never loud
not even mocking.

Just a touch
of gentle bemusement
to color
the infinite love
you know exists
below
under everything
you know...

xxx
c

Image by Editor B via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Break out of the mold

It can be terrifying to put yourself out there. I know: I've made a living at it, and it's still hard.

Acting. Writing. Just showing up to a networking event, or posting a profile to an online dating site, much less walking up to your hero/dreamboat, sticking out your hand and introducing yourself.

And what I'm gathering, as I slither on up the mountainside, is that no matter how good you get at whatever, that "whatever" just gets scary in new and significant ways. In other words, the Thing We Must Do is always mildly terrifying for some of us: it just becomes terrifying more in the good way, like how skydivers must look at things like hurling themselves from aircraft 10,000 feet up, or Olympic gymnasts must look at hurling themselves over whatever in front of ever-more judgmental people (they're judges, for crying out loud) for ever-greater record-breaking stakes, or other aficionados who manage to get really, really good at what they do, throwing off the feeling of "easy" when really it's more like "habituated."

This is my truth: every new hand I reach out to shake mildly terrifies me. Every room I walk into, every stage I step onto, every camera I step in front of sends a wisp of a thread of fear through me. Pray for me when it doesn't, while we're at it; the worst you can hope for as a performer is that you sleepwalk through a performance, that the thrill doesn't scoop you up in its palm and rattle your insides a wee bit.

Here's a short list of what scares me right now:

• Succeeding.
• Failing.
• Succeeding again, then failing.
• Losing my friends.
• Losing my limbs.
• Losing my glasses and having no pair handy and having to drive somewhere blind.
• Auditioning for something I really, really want and not getting it.
• Or getting it.
• Meeting Barack Obama and having to explain why I gave money instead of campaigning for him.
• Meeting Michelle Obama and having to explain why I gave money instead of campaigning for her husband.
• Meeting my Maker (I'm really, really hoping the atheists are right on this one) and having to explain everything.
• Losing my rent-control apartment here in a tony section of Los Angeles.
• Never leaving my rent-control apartment here in a tony section of Los Angeles.
• Letting people down.
• Dying with the music in me.
• Being poor.
• Being rich.

With the possible exception of the apartment and Barack Obama (okay, and "being rich") this is a list I could just as easily have scribbled into my freshman-year journal (I couldn't have predicted such a long-term stay in Los Angeles nor a black President). In other words, nothing really changes, as my first shrink-slash-astrologer said a long, long time ago, you just get better at doing an end run around yourself.

I did three terrifying things between yesterday and today. When I think about it, that's kind of my prescriptive for getting out of most dumbass, self-induced jams. Terrify yourself, mildly to wildly, situation-dependent.

Extend yourself, emotionally or financially (this, assuming you generally have your head so firmly affixed you run for the hills rather than do either as a matter of course).

Or extend yourself physically. Or hey, pull way the hell back, if your default mode is extension.

You know. You know better than I ever could.

It will keep you alive. It will keep you raw, and on your toes, and in the joyous, explosive, terrifying, exhilarating game of life.

Extend. Withdraw. Switch it up.

Plug into the juice. And go, baby, go...

xxx
c

Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Heat sink

Several miles to the north and east of me, the hills are literally on fire, outing my complaint about high temperatures and no air conditioning for the pansy-lightweight-whinerfest that it truly is.

And yet.

There are realities to every season, turn turn turn. And one of the realities of Southern California from late August to late October is that it can be unbearably hot for large chunks of the day over great swaths of time. Add to that some big commitments I've just wrapped up, a few that are ongoing and some mamalukes, as The Chief Atheist used to call them, coming up, then subtract the number of sweat glands it would take to bring me up to the normal cooling powers of your average sweaty bear, and it's no wonder I'm feeling a wee bit weak right now.

I'm not exactly Spanish yet in my commitment to the siesta, but I'm almost overly proud to say that yesterday, when the heat and smoke were at their worst, I had enough good sense left in me somewhere to retire to the one air-conditioned room in the house and lie down. And I'm not a napper, there's this horrible, residual-only-child thing in me that always feels like the real fun happens as soon as I leave the room, but once I got horizontal with a little snoozy reading material, my body took over and just conked me on the head. I awoke three hours later not exactly perky, but far, far less cranky than I'd been for the bulk of the day as I hauled my overheated carcass from here to there on even the abbreviated schedule I'd planned for it.

So here is my pithy thought for the day: there will always be a party going on as soon as you step out for a breather. You will always be missing something groovy and awesome. You will think wistfully of the good times you might have had as these groovy and awesome parties are recounted for you later on.

Also? There are only so many hours in a day, and you only get to be awake for so many of them at your peak energy. Choose wisely. Then stay well hydrated during them, especially during your hotter times of the year.

Also-also? My old shiatsu bodywork instructor used to carry around a teeny-tiny pocket calendar. Think those ones the banks used to give out for free, then cut in half. We're talking microscopic.

After each session, when we'd set our appointment for the following week, we'd each whip out our respective scheduling devices: her teeny-tiny one (and, like, a golf pencil), my ginormous, Filofax-clone-of-the-moment (because, ever restless and in search of the Perfect Solution, I would change it up periodically). I had a slot for each fifteen-minute segment of my apparently very important days in one incarnation.

Anyway. One week, I couldn't take it anymore. "How," I asked, "can you possibly cram all the stuff you need to do into that teeny-tiny calendar entry?"

She looked at it, then up at me, and shrugged. "I can only do three things in a day; this means I can only schedule three things in a day."

Now, this was a gal who did shiatsu and was a working actor; she could have more going on in an afternoon than a suburban mother of five did in a week. But there were only three things she would schedule; the rest, well, they happened. Or not. That was free time, during which she worked on any (or many) of her other myriad projects.

Three things today: a little meeting, a little shrinkage, a little accountability action. And yes, a lot of driving in between (not such a hardship when it's the only other place you can enjoy a/c), plus...whatever.

And three things tomorrow, regardless of how finely I can carve up my calendar. And maybe three things daily until this heat breaks. Might as well make something pretty out of this mess, right?

Stay cool. Stay rested. Stay hydrated.

And if it fits your mood (and/or your calendar), let me know how you're carving up your day during this hot, hot end of August...

xxx
c

Image by Joe Lanman via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Poetry Thursday: All of it

All the joy
all the love
all the sunshine
and sodas
and puppy dogs
would mean nothing
without the rest of it.

All the work
all the tears
all the mistakes
and gaffes
and outright fuck-ups.

Sink through the floor
if you must
but remember
when you can
what put you on that floor
to begin with.

Then go find a ladder
and climb a little higher...

xxx
c

Image by fotologic via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Resistor, and what he has to teach you

After almost 48 years on the planet, many of them splashed over with big, fatty dreams, I know this: the more you want something, and the more it is the Next Right Thing for you to be doing, the harder you will push away from it.

It's sort of a glorious indicator, really. I mean, if you want to take the Pollyanna/Rabbi Yehuda Berg angle on it: (1) Pinpoint what it is you're trying to avoid; (2) then go, baby, go!

I've been gearing up for the Creative Freelancer Conference this week in San Diego. And by "gearing," I mean, "alternately sweating every moment of it and avoiding the hell out of it." It's not like this is a brand, new thing for me, I've given many, many talks on Right Use of Social Media, i.e., using it for good (like a non-tool), not evil (like a latter-day gladhander), in the year since I spoke at the last one. I know and love the people who are putting it on, and, unless they're a bunch of lying pirates, the feeling is pretty much mutual.

And yet, I've found myself putting off putting on those finishing touches I know I want to. Somehow, there's always an email that needs answering or a request that needs tending to, or or or.

This weekend, a half-hour into plugging photos into my address book application, yes, really, I stopped myself. As in, "STOP. Now. Close this application. Finish what needs to be done, then go to bed, so you are fresh tomorrow, and the next day, and this next week, when you will need every bit of energy to vibrate at the ultra-high frequencies being in the presence of so much awesomeness demands of you."

Amazingly, I obeyed myself this once. (This is me, obeying, how does it look? Also, don't get too attached to it, I'm not so much with the obedience in general.) Here is the last part of it, for now:

1. Think of the thing you really want, that you really, really want. More than a scoop of ice cream, or an hour vegging in front of the idiot box, or what have you.
2. Now, think of the one, next thing you need to do, that you really, really need to do, to get there.
3. Do it.

We will get there together, you and I.

And the Resistor? Well, a bad guy's gotta do what a bad guy's gotta do. Nothing personal...

xxx
c

Image © Erin Watson, via Flickr.

A small favor, from you to me

I had a long talk with an old friend of mine several months ago.

We knew each other back in college, when we both had our heads stuck pretty far up our asses. And then, over the years, we kind of lived on parallel tracks: getting into advertising, learning to be grownups, forming decent relationships, rekindling our secret interests in writing, getting published,

Oh, wait. He got published.

A short story, in a little literary magazine called Salamander. (It's good; you should buy it.)

As he said, he may or may not have been more talented than the other people in his writers' group, but he's the only one who submitted his stuff. And you know what? Like they used to say with the Lotto, ya gotta be in it to win it.

I am not ready to submit a poem to Salamander (yet). But when I read the tweet from the wildly talented Alice Bradley, whose writing* I adore about Creative Nonfiction looking for submissions from bloggers, I had two thoughts:

1. Hey, I'm a blogger who writes a lot of creative nonfiction, the fancy new word for essays!
2. Why bother? They'll never pick mine. (Wah wah. Sad trombone.)

This kind of crap has got to stop.

They might not pick mine, but you know what? They definitely won't pick mine if I don't submit something.

So here's what I've done: selected what I think are the best posts that fit the criteria for submission, written in 2009, and that will stand alone (e.g., not too insider-y, not part of a series, etc), and collected them here.

I would love for you to read one or two or however many and submit them yourself. Or read them and tell me in the comments which I should submit. Because hot damn on a stick, I am entering this contest. Yes, I am.

And if I enter and you enter on behalf of me, maybe I will have a better chance, so I am asking for that. Yes, I am.

And if you tweet about it or put it on the Facebook or tell your mom, maybe I will have an even better chance, so I'm asking for that, too.

YES, I AM.

I thank you for your time and attention. I thank you for being here, just reading this blog, because no matter what, you reading is a big part of what's kept me writing.

Now go forth and put yourself out there.

And me, too, if you would...

xxx
c

• Junking Jumbrage About fairness and letting go of needing it so much
• Why We Go Back and Look About fear and forward motion and the healing power of time
• Why People Hate Oprah About being true to yourself, damn the torpedoers
• Change and the Kitchen Sink About change. And the kitchen sink, non-metaphorically
• Why I Wasn't Colleen Wainwright (and why I am now) About getting down with identity

The deadline for nominations is August 31, 2009, but why tempt fate or failing memory? Vote now!

*And whose hi-larious site on motherhood she co-writes with the equally wildly talented and marvelous Eden Kennedy you should jump over and read immediately upon finishing this. Because I'm pretty indifferent to the topic and boy, howdy, I laughed my doomed, hateful, non-breeder ass off at this.

Poetry Thursday: Gaping maws

The attack of the blank page
of time
of the endless rabbit holes of possibility
is merciless
is sneaky
is eternal.

The two thousand contacts
waiting for you to connect
somehow

The two hundred ideas
competing for pole position
in your cranium

The two roads,
this one
or that one,
neither one saying
which one should be
the one not taken.

How do you begin
to address such abundance?

There will never be
enough time
enough energy
enough attention
to satisfy them all
to satisfy you at all

So don't.

Open your heart
with rest
or sound
or light
or anything handy,
really

And let it guide you
to the perfect spot
for setting down
your blanket
and unpacking your basket
and staying awhile.

There is all the time in the world
for the one thing
that you must do
now.

xxx
c

Image by sam crockett via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.