Burrowing time

When your head is down and you're doing the work, and you must, if work is to get done, allot great swaths of head-down time, you will start to think you're going nuts.

I'm not talking abut the hard-work times when you throw yourself into something to make it: the writing of the five-minute, 20-slide Ignite presentation, or the mad throwing of paint onto the canvas, or the endless and endlessly exhausting (but invigorating) hammering out of physical details during the mounting of a play (mount that sucka!) or what have you.

I'm talking about the in-between, unplugged, unmoored time Between Big Goals, where things are stewing and churning and sorting themselves out. The wandering in the desert years.

These are the times that try Type-A souls. The time between "clicks," or getting It, or synthesis, for you Hegelian types. The mooshy, squooshy, ambiguous times where your only answer to "What's new?" is "I dunno...not much...", delivered with a rictus of a smile and a fervent wish for either the floor to open up beneath you or the Star Trek transporter to kick in and for the love of all that's holy, get you the h-e-double-hockey-sticks outta there.

This is the part where four-year-old you is tempted to dig through the soft soil to reassure yourself the seed is, indeed, sprouting roots, or the seven-year-old you is tempted to pick at the scab or the 16-to-33-year-old you (assuming you're female) is tempted to ask where this relationship is going, anyway.

It's going. It's stitching itself together. It's growing and happening and doing all the stuff it's supposed to, so leave it be and do something else. There are these things called books, and there is this practice I've heard tell of called "reading for pleasure" and this other practice of sleeping in between regular sleep times called napping and...well, lots of stuff. A unicorn, too, I think.

Sometimes you work-work, and sometimes there is burrowing. I will not lie to you, I am one of those who forgets, every damned time, about the burrowing, and fills time that could be spent "reading" or "napping" or "riding" my "unicorn" with worrying and gnashing of teeth and endless reorganization of files.

Please. Do as I say, not as I do: let your sub- and unconscious selves do their heavy lifting when it's their turn.

And yes, this message comes at you from someone who is, I believe, coming out of burrowing and is being written by what I believe is a thin slant of light from the other side of what I can only characterize as the world's longest, blackest tunnel.

Stay with me. Better yet, stay with you.

Stay the course...

xxx
c

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

The rewards lie just beyond the fear

For the record, throwing yourself out there does not get easier. Because while you get more practiced at doing it, the hurling is still effortful and terrifying and completely unnatural in feeling.

On the other hand, not throwing yourself out there gets easier and easier each time you don't do it. Or do do it. You know what I mean. (You will also note that I said "do-do.")

Notice that neither one of these gets a qualifier of "better" or "worse." They just are what they are: choice "a", or choice "b".

When it gets hard to make the call, try considering this:

You can do the thing that terrifies you and watch your world get a little bit bigger. Or you can do what you have done before and have your world shrink imperceptibly. As in, you will not notice it, whatever the size.

There are still no rewards for the former but the former. There are no consequences to the latter but the latter.

On Thursday night, I will get up in front of 800 or so strangers, and the few of you I do know are pretty strange, too, now I think of it, and tell the story of my bloody epiphany. In five minutes, with the aid of 20 slides which, god willing and the creek don't rise, will advance automagically every 15 seconds. (They kinda-sorta did during the rehearsal, when they were there, only five seconds off.)

Am I not terrified? Of course I am. I would be a damned fool if I wasn't at least a little bit nervous, and I am nobody's fool, so yeah, I'm terrified.

So what?

SO WHAT?

If I do it, whether or not I do it well, my world gets a little bigger. And this is a choice I made seven years ago, when I decided to keep my colon, and 15 years ago, when I decided to quit advertising, and four years ago, when I decided to quit acting, and two years ago, when I decided to quit whatever the hell it was I did for five minutes after I quit acting only to have it not feel exactly right, even though there was no other ridge in sight. I want a bigger world for everyone, or at least the choice of a bigger world, or maybe even just the knowledge of the choice of the bigger world.

I talk about fear to drag it into the light, to help myself see what exactly it is that I'm dealing with. I thank you for being my witness. I hope that it provides something helpful by way of illumination for someone else, too...

xxx
c

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

Over the river and through the woods

Comparison, according to the Sufi tradition (by way of my friend, Mark Silver, I'm no Sufi, believe me), is of the Devil.

As someone who has long struggled with envy, I get at a deep, deep level how comparing oneself to others can be one's ruination. What's been rather more surprising to me is getting smacked upside the head by the evils of comparing myself to...myself.

A little past last year this time, I was freshly back from another trip up to this beautiful part of the country, also to clear my head and get a little distance from the day-to-day-ness of my woes. I came back invigorated and refreshed and full of new plans and new skills.

This year? Not so much.

My first week here was wonderful, don't get me wrong. I caught up with my friend Chris (and met his wife, Jolie); hung out with my gal, Jean, partner at the place that makes one of my top five pieces of software for the Mac (and at a schmancy ladies' party in the Pearl, no less); and finally met the aforementioned Mr. Silver (and his lovely wife, Holly, and their lovely boys) in person. I'm now happily ensconced in Bend for the next couple of days, visiting my friend, Sam, and his lovely wife, Linda, for Sam's Work the System Boot Camp. Two days of systems stuff in one of the most beautiful corners of the world? That alone should be enough to thrill me to my toes.

And I am thrilled, don't get me wrong. So much beauty! So many lovely wives! Plus tonight, there were meatballs, on a salad!

But because there was a benchmark trip, I keep comparing it to this one. This time last year, I'd had more revelations. My writing was better. I'd made bigger strides, both intellectually and emotionally. It was sunnier.

I thought of that last one today, as I drove onto the sunny, high-desert side of the Cascades, after white-knuckling it for a half-hour at the snowy top of the mountain. It was sunnier and warmer and more inviting everywhere I went last year. Because it was September? Or because it was last September, a whole year and change from this year?

Yes. No. Both. Doesn't matter. I'm calling bullshit on myself. Pretty easy to tell other people to live in the moment; pretty hard, apparently, to take my own medicine.

On the other hand, there's no learning like on-the-job learning...

xxx
c

Image by jfowler27 via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Poetry Thursday: All in good time

Some rest
some road
some work
some play

And in between
the waiting
and waiting
and waiting
and waiting.

You can't yell at answers
to hurry up

Or you can
but they won't.

They reveal themselves
in good time,
after rest
on the road
during work
before play,
but always
in their time

So rest
and walk
and work
and play
with no intention
but full attention

It will not speed your answers
but often
it pleases the gods
enough to throw in
a free gift
with purchase:

life, well-lived.

xxx
c

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

The delicate thing that is a mood

It's been four days since I split from the ever-lovin', everlasting sunshine of Southern California to the decidedly cloudier, grayer skies of Portland, and on this fourth day, which Nature chose to fill with uncharacteristic amounts of bright and cheery sunlight, I find my mood has shifted dramatically for the better.

Uh-oh.

I harbor these dreams, you see, of me, living elsewhere. Somewhere with a chill to it, and some weather. Somewhere I can wear one of my 14 light-to-medium-heavy jackets (accessorized with one of 25 complementary scarves and 10 or so pairs of leather gloves) every ding-dong day. Non-bikini, non-shorts, non-sunblock-wearing weather, where it is crisp all day, punctuated by an extra chill morning and night. Where politically incorrect fires can burn wastefully, beautifully in brick fireplaces, allowing more politically incorrect wastage of heat up the chimney than they emit from the hearth. Where soup and chili and roasty meats (again with the political incorrectness!) are perpetually on the menu, and the principal fruits and veggies are apple and winter, respectively.

Now I'm wondering whether I'm built for unrelieved gray or not.

When the one thought that punctuates the fog that wraps itself around you is "Damn, I feel low," and it only squeaks through at around 3 or 4pm, when the bulk of the sad, sad day is trailing forlornly behind you, you might want to have another think about this relo thing. Yes, I feel instantly at home here in Portland, weirdly, eerily at home, almost in a deja-vu kinda way. Maybe, however, that is less of an awesome thing than once I thought. Maybe it's better for me to be a somewhat uncomfortable stranger in a strange and sunny land than it is right at home in a place where my happiness baseline seems to float a good 15 inches in a downwardly direction. Maybe I am so unbelievably mundane that my naturally sunny disposition is not, in fact, natural at all, but like most folks', a byproduct of extra light during the day.

I get the whole as-much-coffee-as-humanly-possible thing in a way that I did not last year, up in Seattle. And I think it is because last September and October while I was there, Seattle was uncharacteristically sunny. The misty rain and gray I found so noteworthy was, you'll forgive the expression, a drop in the bucket compared to the usual fall weather. Dour skies call for more coffee, they just do.

Oh, well. Time and circumstances will tell. The BF and I have also toyed with the idea of relocating to a different yet equally grim climate, in a place far less fabulous in other regards than the naturally glorious and culturally significant PacNW. Part of getting away, much like peeling away and paring down, is making it easier to see what's really there, like it or not.

"Liking" is almost beside the point...

xxx
c

Fab is busting out all over

We have established that to a great extent, we see what we have put it in our minds to see. So it's tricky, this saying "thus and such is happening more and more" where "thus" and/or "such" are not quantifiable, measurable things.

I will go out on a limb, though, and say this: in difficult times, there may or may not be a chance of more fabulous happening, but the likelihood rises that we will witness it. Is it because in difficult times, we are more raw, exposed nerves than myelin sheathing? Because there are fewer resources to devote to the kinds of super-shiny objects that grab at our attention in plush times? Because time seems to slow down? (I don't know about you, but this is the longest short 10 months I've lived through in a looong time.)

So many, many good things seem to be coming from so many different directions right now, almost too many good books, good business ideas, good blogs, good you-name-its to enumerate: shows; podcasts; art; food. Throw a rock in L.A. and you will hit some phenomenal food truck (our track record with coffee is not there yet, alas). This year saw the introduction of a hall devoted to sausage and beer, an event devoted to architecture, sunsets and wine, a pop-up bistro devoted to that which could be handcrafted on a hotplate, a countertop convection oven and a jury-rigged smoker out back. Locally. Who the hell knows what's up in your burg? And I'm not even what you'd call a "foodie."

Where were these things when it was 1986 and I was dying slowly inside? I don't know. No, literally, I don't know. Maybe they were happening then, and I couldn't find them. Maybe they weren't, because we didn't yet have the means of production.

Maybe, as Seth suggests, we are collectively at a point where the means are there and the need is there (i.e., the bar has been raised) yet the traditional path to monetization has been blown to kingdom come, so WTF, hoist that freak flag as far up the pole as it'll go, and see what's what. I'm really not sure.

What I do know is this: I was wealthy in dollars and the prospect of more and never did anything like this. I could buy my way into a lot more and never met people as exciting as these. I had health, youth and prospects and never lit out for parts semi-unknown for month-long or half-month-long sabbaticals with no "purpose" other than to clear my head, open my heart and maybe tell a story (for free, of course) to some fellow travelers.

These are crazy times, dear friend. Crazy and fabulous. If you have yet to cast off the shackles of "normal," fat times, I offer you my somewhat rusty key (and an axe and bottle of whisky, should you have to free yourself the hard way) and say, "Have at it!"

Never a time of more, nor more intense fabulous.

Or, as we say around these here parts, "fabulosity"...

xxx
c

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

Poetry Thursday: Happy trails

You will need sweaters
and books
and toothpaste
and a pair of socks
or two
or five
and one more pair of socks
just in case.

Add extra pants
and those three extra shirts
and your maps
and your earplugs,
your mints and phone
your playlists and away-messages
your doodads
gee-gaws
flotsam
jetsam
belt
hat
lucky quarter
sippy-cup
missile-launcher
and you're set
for at least a week
most likely.

Or maybe
you need nothing
but a hopeful heart
to be filled with adventure
and a mind
with a hairline crack
to let the light in.

xxx
c

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 21: Butlers, books and room for what matters

Depending on your age, location and/or proclivity toward old shit, you may or may not have some experience with the mid-last-century cultural icon, Auntie Mame.

The character, drawn in fiction by author Patrick Dennis from his real-life experiences as ward of his real-life aunt, is a free-wheeling spirit (or maybe a high-spirited free-wheeler) who exhorts her buttoned-up nephew and anyone else in earshot to grab life by the horns and ride the shit out of it. I paraphrase**, but you get the idea.

What I didn't realize, and I'm a big fan of the film, as was my father before me, was how much Dennis took that message to heart. I dialed up Facebook this morning and found the most interesting post from my friend, the lovely and talented Polly Frost. She described a recent serendipitous walk she'd taken through the streets of New York City with Dennis's former editor, Peggy Brooks, during which said editrix confided, "You do know he ended up working as a butler for Ray Kroc who didn't know he wrote Auntie Mame."

It blew Polly away to think that such a talented writer would just walk away from novel writing to become a butler. A few people on the discussion thread suggested, and really, if you're not participating in discussions like this, you're kind of missing the whole point of Facebook, that perhaps Dennis had made the move out of financial necessity, not absolute free will and desire. And it's possible that money may have played a part: he burned through what must have been a considerable sum generated by the books and the rights (Auntie Mame was also the source material for the Broadway play, starring Rosalind Russell, a Broadway musical starring Angela Lansbury and the film versions of both.)

I like to think, though, that he was just done with one thing and ready for another. Having had a recurring fantasy of being the Mailcart Guy for a while, and actually having had the exotic and deeply humbling experience of going from Corner Office Lady to 33-year-old gofer, I get that. It is wildly liberating to shuck off something as big and fancy as a career, especially, perhaps, one that has earned one money and acclaim, and embrace something totally different. Not as an "eff you" move, either, although it does tend to shake up people's ideas of an ordered universe. It's about acknowledging that something no longer serves, and releasing it to free yourself up for something that does. Because if it ain't serving you, it's clutter.

I ran up against it again with family mementos. Earlier on in the purge, the night of the workshop, in fact, I tracked down and sent an email to one of my father's old friends, a fine illustrator by the name of Stan Tusan whose work I well and fondly remember from my childhood.*** They had collaborated on a children's book, apparently, and I found what may be the one copy extant in my Pile O' Shit that I'm sifting through. While I was fine pitching photos, I could toss 90% and still have more than I could view regularly in a lifetime, it's much, much harder to throw away a project. I've made too many of my own not to get the insane amounts of love and energy, not to mention time, that go into such things.

The email reply stung.

Pitch it, it read, and just about that tersely. I was sure I'd offended somehow, which I generally bend over backwards to not do, as I'm (still...STILL!!!!) so concerned with what people think of me. But pitch it I did, and further down the line, I received more emails from Stan, we're fine, we're good, we're back in friendly touch and neither one of us has to worry about this old thing he made with my dead father. Which, I have to tell you, is probably 100% fine with old Tony Wainwright. The man was sentimental about music and good times and great Spaghetti Westerns, but a keeper of crap he was not. I know: it drove his father, my grandfather, king-god of hoarding against future use, right up the wall of his cluttered-to-the-end study.

Here's the thing: no one's right. No one's wrong. No one can tell me or you or Stan or my grandfather what to keep. (Especially my gramps, unless you're one of them psychic types.) In the end, though, my grandfather died alone, in a hospital bed, of a broken heart. The most meaningful thing in his life was a person, my extraordinary grandmother, and she'd left the planet several weeks earlier. And her constant refrain, even as she'd hand over some cherished object still warm with her unbelievably beautiful energy? "Sell it!" she'd whisper, gleefully, conspiratorially.

Trade that thing for freedom is what I now realize she meant. Don't get burdened by your choices; let them liberate you. Let each thing that touches your life enrich you in some way, with joy, with experience, with the understanding born of pain, and let it the fuck go. It is not that thing you want: it is the thing that thing makes you feel.

This is the last day of the clutter-clearing salute. But it is the beginning of a brand new, completely thrilling and not a little bit terrifying chapter of my life.

May it be the same for you, only completely different. And may we both meet up again at some point to share the things we've really kept...

xxx
c

*I've given up assuming that we all share the same cultural references which means, I think, that I have a shot at becoming a responsible grown-up in the back nine of my life.

**The actual quote I was thinking of is this: "Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" There are quite a few more at IMDb, along with a page for the movie starring Roz Russell. It's a fab flick, and I recommend you rent it, or check it out from your public library. If you must be acquisitive about it, though, I'd be honored if you'd purchase it via my Amazon affiliate link.

***"My dog has fleas!" I still think of it every time I (try to) whistle. Thanks, Stan!

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 20: To-don't lists

When you take a cold, hard look at them, most to-do lists can be boiled down to a few essential items: work on something important and play with someone important.

I cannot think of a more appropriate way to celebrate today, the fifth anniversary of this ungodly-long-winded blog, than doing just those two things.

xxx
c

(Thanks to Miss Dyana Valentine for pointing out that it was, in fact, the fifth anniversary.)

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 19: Contact clutter

I wiped almost a thousand people from my life today in less than two hours.

To be fair, many of them were 'bots, duplicates and other sync-rot from Google Contacts and Address Book. But a fair number were people, actual human beings, whom I've met along the way, one way or another, and either lost touch with or wanted to lose touch with, but didn't have the nerve to delete.

Pruning one's address book or Rolodex back in the hard-copy days could be a melancholy affair. Did you cross out that dead (or dead-to-you) person, or let it ride? Did you pull the little white cards from their metal (or later, plastic) spools, conceding defeat, acknowledging opportunities abandoned and hills not conquered? Or did you leave them in there thinking "Maybe...maybe this year I'll go back and reconnect with Ken over at Spacely Sprockets?"

Today, it seems easier but really, is it? The select/delete action is so simple, but so brutal. Just like that, these people and the promises those relationships once held are gone forever, again and again and again. Almost 1,000 of them, in less than 120 minutes. For every one that was a relief to let go of (and trust me, the photo exercise from Brooks' workshop primed me for some serious eradication action), there were 10 that were harder, and one or two that made me downright melancholy. Decluttering photos made me feel lighter; decluttering my address book just made me feel that much closer to death.

Okay, it also made me feel like a loser. When I'd see all the information I'd plugged into some of these entries, contacts that I added to be a friend or opportunity collector more than anything else, I felt like there was a big, red "L" stamped on my forehead. Talk about sunk costs! These entries represented hours and hours of my life I'll never get back: hours I could have put into making something or reading something or just actually being with someone.

We have versions of The Container Store and IKEA's excellent storage solution porn aids all around us. It is so much easier to feel virtuous rearranging and categorizing than it is to take a cold, hard look at what we legitimately have at our disposal that is of utility.

I'll talk more about my criteria for cutting (and keeping) later on, in a screencast showing how I organize my contact management system (if you can call Address Book that without laughing).

In the meantime, may I repeat my mantra of the past almost-three weeks: Let go, let go, let go...

xxx
c

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 17: Let go

One old sock
one cracked mug
one pair of outgrown pants
one set of unused silver

One full-on ensemble
of antique dining room furnishings
worth their weight
in baby pandas
and the dreams
of dead people

One of anything
now unloved
still here
will weigh you down
will hold you back

Will fill
the space you give it
and slowly kill
what drew you to it
to begin with.

But,

One of anything
once beloved
let go
will let in
an infinite measure
of the love it held
(or that you hoped
it would).

Let go
let go
and let in
what is not quite there
what has yet to be
what is all around you now
but that you cannot see
for want of room
to view it.

xxx
c

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 15: When to add, when to subtract

Earlier in this hellish undertaking, I tossed off a remark about wanting treats, and wondered aloud what form they should take.

Should they be consumables and services, things like journals and soaps, massages or coaching sessions? Stuff that I can use and enjoy, but that doesn't stick around and add to the problem I'm working hard to eliminate?

Or should they be strictly time-based: an afternoon off to putter as reward for blasting through a shoebox of old photos, or a couple of hours of daily reading in exchange for 20 minutes of hard-core weeding in my "@action" gmail tag? Given the nature of what I'm trying to accomplish, the removal of items that are blocking my path and obstructing my vision, it would seem counterproductive on the face of things to bring more items into my life. At least, not immediately.

One of the peculiar things I've grappled with all my life, though, is this Depression mentality. Or rather, Depression/Rockefeller mentality: either I'm clipping coupons and plotting out which things I save more money on by buying with gift cards vs. paying for with a credit card (my final rule: buy tax-deductible shit on a credit card, and household essentials or groceries or other fun stuff with gift cards), or splurging on a maxed-out 15" MacBook Pro while I still have a perfectly zippy iMac and an operable, if sluggish, 12" PowerBook G4. I blame my crazy parents and my even crazier grandparents, both sides, for the problems I have with letting go and with going to town (although admittedly, most people, my shrink included, laugh at my idea of "going to town.")

So I decided that as long as I was experimenting with pitching crap that was no longer useful, I'd also play around with adding things that I really and truly needed, or at the very least, that would make life easier without putting too much of a dent in things. As LPC, wise scribe behind the magic that is A Mid-Life of Privilege (which you should be reading, if you are not already), said in a comment on my post on traveling cheap, sometimes one must spend a bit of money in the right places to get the most out of both those places and the getting-to them.

Here, then, a list of three pairs of things, stuff I've pitched and corresponding new things I've put into rotation:

OUT: Almost a full year's worth of monthly disposable contact lenses for astigmatism. I bought and wore these while I acted, because Casual Moms do not wear nerd glasses (usually). These cost a fuckload of money and were integral to my getting hired and being able to work back in the day. Today, they had become things for which I once paid a fuckload of money and now sat neatly lined up in my top bureau drawer, taking up room and making me feel horrible every time I looked at them.

IN: A new pair of glasses I will actually be able to both see out of and read with. That's right: bifocals! I've tried them once before, but wasn't ready. Now I admit defeat. Also, the Highway Patrol in OR will kick your ass across the state if you screw up along certain stretches. With a two-year-old RX, I was looking at some PacNW ass-kicking.

BOTTOM LINE, $-wise and lesson-wise: I suck. Okay, I don't suck, but hoarding doesn't work. I've bought up multiples of lots of things thinking it would save me down the road. Inevitably, I grow tired of the thing before I run out, or grow out of it before it wears out, or the weevils get it, or...you get it, right? Don't end up like my grandparents, dying with a linen closet full of 20-year-old bottles, glass bottles, of separated hair conditioner. Let it go, Joe.

OUT: Charming and stylish and perfectly fine cosmetics bags with black interiors.

IN: Charming and stylish and brand-new cosmetics bags with light interiors. Because after age 40, you cannot get enough light into your eyes, ever, it seems, to suss out the contents of the Black Hole of Cosmetics Death.

BOTTOM LINE: I foolishly spent 20 perfectly good dollars to replace two perfectly good items. Only they weren't. Because I've already saved a good 20 minutes of fishing time. Ladies! Rise up against the dark interior!

OUT: Bags and bags and bags of clothes. Some that were barely worn. Many that were worn through, "squinty" clothes, where if you squint when you look at yourself in them, you almost can't see where they're bagging or threadbare or pulling. Others which didn't pass the Dorie Test ("Does this make me feel sexy  or not?") or the Palmer Test ("If I saw this in a store today, would I buy it?"). These, by the way, are the two GREATEST questions to ask when shopping or weeding, especially in combination with a style consultation by the brilliant Dorie or her ilk.

IN: Two pairs of brand, spanking new pants from the Gap that actually fit, one of which I took immediately to the tailor to make sure it did. Two new bras, because everything looks better when the girls are in good hands. A slew of new underpants (Mom, I'm ready to get hit by that bus, finally!). And, because dammit, it's fun, a couple more vintage leather jackets and a pair of completely useless, 100% awesome pants with a Pucci-esque print.

BOTTOM LINE: Like it or not, clothes are costumes. You'll feel better if you're well-turned out. I can almost guarantee this.

The most important thing, of course, is the Getting Rid Of. But it is worth looking at where life might be made better by loosening up the purse strings and acquiring: a book you've checked out of the library five times might be worth owning your own, non-scum-crusted copy of. A good pair of shoes makes walking easier, and may save you big on knee surgery down the road. The right jacket makes you feel killer delivering a presentation, which can lead to all sorts of wonderful things for you and the recipients of your awesomeness.

And the digging out might turn up a few things of new utility that can stay in rotation. I found a spare USB hub, set it up with a mouse and pad at The BF's, and now have one less thing to trundle back and forth.

Of course, once I streamline locations, I'll need to renegotiate my ownership of mice and pads.

But that is another post for another day...

xxx
c

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 14: What goes with an empty desk?

My favorite declutter types, Karen Rauch Carter (whose book I wrote about), Brooks Palmer (whose book and workshop I wrote about) and Karen Kingston (whose book I really need to get around to reviewing here), all use one common descriptor to characterize the nature of clutter: sticky.

"Sticky" as in it sticks to what you put it on, sticks to other clutter, and generally, sticks around in your life.

It is also quite sludgy, in that it tends to make you get stuck on stuff, or in stuff, instead of feeling free to move forward freely. Literally, when things get really bad, you'll find yourself not being able to move around freely in your dwelling space: a box (probably full of more clutter, honestly) that needs to get hauled to the P.O. instead gets put down in your hallway or the center of your office until you can get around to it, and you end up literally walking around it each time you need to move from point A to point B.

Or you have eight black tops hanging in your closet which you have to sift through each time you want that one exact one without the rip you're really, seriously going to get around to mending one day (if you haven't put it in the sticky dry cleaner's pile).

Or you have a bunch of stuff on your desk, each piece of which had a perfectly valid reason for being there at one point, but whose time or purpose has passed and now just remains because you've not taken the time to return it to someplace where it "lives" (maybe because that is a mythical place of dragons and fairies).

One of the things I loved about Jen & Charlie's Work Party was the smallness and fun-ness of it. As in, take five minutes and go put one thing that's on your desk back where it should go, or sort through one pile of papers, or pitch some crap which was once useful but is now just clutter. Five minutes. Or maybe it was two.

The result of doing a small thing like that is that it is a smackdown, tricky and sneaky-like, of clutter: I'm not clearing my clutter; I'm just moving this one thing five inches to the left. And then at best, you uncork the Mad Power of Creating Order, and go to two, which at the very very least, you reclaim one square foot of precious desk space.

You also (if you're me, anyway) regain purchase in a busy, cluttered mind. Just a couple of weeks of concentrated letting-go of stuff and I've grown much more sensitive to the presence of physical clutter and how it distresses me. I've noted how I feel in cluttered space and clearer space, and how much more mental work it is to block out clutter or fight the sticky feeling of clutter when I'm around it. I mean, it's possible, but with energy in somewhat limited supply these days, I'd rather spend it on the stuff that really matters: work and loved ones.

I do not have eight black tops in the closet anymore; I barely have eight tops, period. But to paraphrase my friend, Chicago Jan, now when I look in my closet, I feel like I can't make a bad clothes choice.

I'm working on that same feeling with my desk, and that big, sucking hulk of digital detritus perched upon it, my computer. Clutter seems to get stickier as you dig into the layers that are really scary to let go of: old files, someday/maybe ideas and projects, sentimental items or "taste" items like software and media files. The old files, ideas and projects feel like my work, and letting go of them feels like the work never happened. The old media and software files seem to define me, and represent cold, hard cash going out of my pocket.

Time and time again, I have to remind myself that what I really needed from most of those things, I've long since integrated. And the stuff I haven't yet is getting in the way of the stuff I need now, or need next.

How do you, or do you, let go of music and movies, ideas and photos, all the accumulation of a medium-long lifetime?

One at a time...in batches...as you have the strength to...

xxx c

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 13: Calendar clutter

And on the Seventh Day, the Lord said, "Clear that damn clutter off your calendar."

And so I did.

And in its place, the Lord spitballed an idea for an uncharacteristically short, ultra-meta post.

And it was good.

xxx
c

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 10: Dirty, dirty truth

Pull things away
from their resting places
and you will suddenly see
the dirt
that has gathered on
and in
and around them
while you were busy
with something else.

That is the truth
of neglect,
whatever its source.

Look, though,
at the spaces
you uncover
that are pristine.

They are the truth, too.

The truth
of what lies hidden
beneath whatever
would dim its shine

The truth
of things changing
in every moment
(and the one after that),
like it or not

The truth
of the way things work.

The truth
of what is possible
all the time
in any moment
with effort
and attention.

xxx
c

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 9: The "why" behind the "what the hell?"

And now, over a week into this little adventure, we come to the question of "why."

Why spend one's time weeding through old objects, rather than working on creating new ones?

Why toss what there is room to keep? What one might need, sometime, later on? What is a perfectly good book/recipe/dress/idea/your-clutter-here?

For me, I have finally realized, the issue comes down to focus: where will I put my time and attention, these precious and finite and rapidly dwindling resources I've had dumped in my lap? And while the wanderings and the questionings and the experiments of my life up until now have led me closer, especially the years since my hospital-bed epiphany, and especially-especially the few years since I quit acting, I had reached a point (I guess, I suppose) where the poking-prodding kind of exploration and the picking-peeling kind of excavation were not enough.

It was time for drastic measures, and for me, that meant hard choices.

Will I carry around the dreams of my parents, my grandparents, of all the intentions that were good enough but still only approximations of what I could dream up or synthesize on my own? Will I continue to be the living steward of the dead items of the dead?

Deeper still, will I stay in habits or look at them, rip them from me and put them under a good, bright light, to see whether they are habits that support or habits that make me sleepy, that keep me from doing the Next Big Thing, or even from freeing myself enough to start the hunt for it?

I am a big one for comfort, possibly because I am so brutal with myself. What if I were to find the ways that really deeply satisfy, that truly create room and support instead of these approximations of it? Not that there's anything wrong with Mad Men marathons, a few glasses of wine, the ritualistic bedtime viewing of Play Misty for Me (first two reels only!). Pleasures are a valid thing, and I'm fer 'em!

In the same way, though, that a daily morning walk can be irksome at times, it is the daily-ness of it that provides a great deal of its utility: you don't floss your teeth all at once and expect that to work, either. (Or you maybe do, but one trip to my dentist, a fine woman, but with a Mengele-like thoroughness when it comes to her job, will strip you of your delusion right quick.)

Oddly, or perhaps not, the fresh space and openness that this decluttering creates makes me feel (slightly) braver about switching up habits. I'm fond, perhaps overly so, of my glass or two of wine when the sun goes down; not taking it makes me look harder at why I was taking it, and sorting through which of the times was out of relaxing, a desire for conviviality, a small pleasure, and which out of a need to buffer, anesthetize, ignore. Ditto TV (or rather, digital video entertainment of some sort) vs. reading or talking before bed, email and other Internet pleasures in the morning, third cup of coffee, same pair of ill-fitting-and-beat-to-shit pants, saving magazines to pass along to Miss Pat, saving clippings, and notes, and ideas, against some "future use."

Don't get me wrong: I know that as a writer, a translator of emotions into thought and thought into words I will always collect some kind of stuff Against Future Use. But a part of the program has to be use, and that requires actual review. Or, to paraphrase my wise friend, Matthew Cornell, "God help your system if you don't have some kind of review built into it." (Feel free to point us back to the actual link, Matt, God help us if we trust me to find it in the rats' warren of delicious links, Stumbles, Evernotes and .txt files I've built for myself over the years.

So. The "why?" Well, clarity, for starters, or more clarity. Freedom, definitely. Tired of feeling bogged down by my environment, and trapped (rather than supported) by my stuff.

As the piles start to dwindle, though, I get the sense that this particular stripping down is me getting ready to say, "I'm a writer; this is what I do, I write."

Without the song and dance (for awhile). Without the "slashes". Without armor or defenses. They'll come back soon enough: I got the music in me and the postmodern world is all about slashes.

I will stop apologizing for being a writer, though, or waiting until such magical time in the hazy future when I am as good at it as my heroes, and just do the fucking work.

Do the hell out of the fucking work...

xxx
c

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 7: Process and purpose

From the almost universally stunned reactions to my current wave of decluttering, especially around the family photos, which started last week, I'm feeling that perhaps stepping back just a bit to review my own process with this process of unloading stuff in general and really sticky stuff in particular.

First, because it cannot be reiterated enough, this is a process, not an event. There are significant milestones here and there (me heaving blurry and/or grim snapshots of Mom and Dad into the trash can was one); there are even significant stretches of processing here and there (although the stretches are really clusters of events, but so close together, they feel like an unbroken stretch).

But this is no more a magical occurrence of me waking up one day, walking into a class and deciding to let go of 48 years' worth of emotional baggage than a brilliant performance is the result of an actor waking up one day and walking onto the stage, or a brilliant book the result of a writer waking up one day (or series of days) and banging out a 50,000 words in the right order, or any other peak experience of an endeavor. This shit takes time, and the time can't just be hours logged mindlessly: it's me, looping around a mountain much like the one depicted on the cover of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, over and over again, at a slightly more elevated level each time, and eventually hitting enough laps that it becomes impossible not to realize "Hey! I've seen this view before, I know what comes next!"

Even the most cursory of searches, for "we're only renting," a phrase I came up with several years into my personal quest to rid myself of the well-intended but burdensome physical and emotional detritus of generations, conducted solely within my blog archives turned up three separate entries on the process of divesting: a poem, from this summer; a post from a month ago; and, embedded in the post, a year-and-a-half-old link to an article for actors about the necessity of purging their shite, something I'd been-there/done-that to a long, long time before. A search for the "clutter" tag pulls up additional pieces, from March of this year, about the beauty of white space, and from January of last year, about the "I want" trigger that helps you fill up that white space before you get the chance to enjoy it. And that's just what I've organized well enough to tag: who knows what crap is buried in this rat's nest of archives I've yet to go through and weed? Or what I never even got around to mentioning there? I know how many times I've checked out decluttering books from the library and started clearing out my crap (and subsequently stopped, and subsequently slid backwards into acquisitive behavior). Well, actually, I don't, but a lot. Quite a lot.

The times I've been most successful at decluttering, or pretty much any endeavor, come to think of it, is when I had a purpose fueling my intent. Sadly, I was probably most productive in the tossing department when I decided it was time to leave my marriage; it's rather amazing how much you can relieve yourself of, not to mention accomplish in two weeks, if you've got a meaningful goal behind it. People routinely declutter by force when they flee encroaching floods or fires or quakes. Not the way you want to do it, but boy, is it ever effective.

So if you're a little stuck with your decluttering efforts (and that clutter is sticky, tricky stuff), maybe try another tack. Maybe instead of saying, "UGH. I really want to get rid of this sh*t!", try thinking about what you do want that's really, really important and could conceivably not only make your life better, but even make the world better. For me, it was mobility in the long run and the clarity in the short run. I think better when there's less stuff, and I know for sure that I move around better. I remember when Merlin went through a major decluttering phase. I've no idea how it worked long-term, but we all learned after the fact that it was sparked by the impending arrival of the delightful Eleanor (those cheeks alone are reason for decluttering!)

What are you after? What's stopping you from getting it? What would you need to get started?

xxx
c

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 6: Getting away to clear away

I remember a story my first shrink-slash-astrologer told me about the sticky and useless nature of stuff.

She and her partner, who worked a Big Corporate Job, and had to move around for it, relocated to a spot which shall be unnamed, but that neither of them wanted to spend a hot minute in longer than necessary. So they stuck 90% of their stuff in storage, and moved to this unnamed location for roughly a year.

When they moved into their more-final destination in the Bay Area of Northern California, they had all this stuff shipped from storage to their new digs. And their reaction, box after newly-reopened box, was, "What the hell is all this crap?"

I feel the same kind of clarity when I get away from my stuff, both the mental and physical kind, for a bit. It happens whether I'm taking a walk or flying cross-country, but the most expedient clutter-scrubber is a good, long trip in the car. I start to see options and possibilities I just can't when I'm soaking in it, which can be great for creative problem-solving and devastating for my (mostly imaginary but no less powerful for it) feelings of personal security.

There was crying on this trip, as there has been on pretty much every longish driving trip I've taken in the past few years. I don't think it's because my life is particularly awful; mostly, I think it's about getting closer to the truly gnarly stuff. Let's face it: the first layers of crap, old magazines, useless kitchen utensils, that sheaf of resume paper you bought in 2002, are pretty easy to let go of; photos of Mom and Dad and baby You are an order of magnitude more difficult to deal with, as are looking at gnarly truths. And, if past performance is indicative of future results, when you strip away the core layers and grapple with gnarly truths without having some sort of ongoing practice in place to manage forward motion, crap rushes in to fill the startling emptiness. Nature and vacuums and all.

I feel the pull back into being lulled and numbed, here in my comfy, "safe," regular-usual life. Only I remember this time that I do not want a life that is regular-usual, unless I can redefine "regular-usual" as "constantly addressing fears and embracing change."

So we're clear, one of the pulls is toward work, toward the constant doing doing doing I'm so good at, versus the not-doing I pretty much suck at. And, because I would like to choose my not-doing, rather than have it chosen for me by illness or infirmity, I'm decluttering my actions for the rest of the day and checking out. And then after a brief, few days off from clearing physical clutter and this half-day of (we hope) pattern-breaking clutter, I'll be back at it tomorrow. With a (gentle) vengeance.

Wish me luck...

xxx
c

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 5: Traveling light

One of my frustrations with traveling is this fear I'm gripped with, usually just before zipping the bag to go, that I'll:

1. arrive ill-prepared for whatever climate (temperature and social) I'm traveling to
2. arrive without some critical doodad necessary for my immediate survival
3. arrive exhausted and disheveled from having to haul around too much

You can see how numbers 1 and 2 on the list might easily create a severe number 3 situation. (Ah, symbiosis!)

I've reflected on this conundrum quite often over the past couple of years, as my travel has inched back upwards and my desire to maybe-possibly do even more of it (or at least to be free to do more of it) has sharpened. I regularly grill the more well-traveled about hacks, tips and tricks that work for them: roll-y bag vs. duffel, FedExed luggage vs. haul-yer-own, specialized gear vs. off-the-rack, generic items.

The only truly common thread I get is to bring less. And so I put my mind to work on why I have issues with this and what I might do to correct them.

What I came up with were two main categories of fear that end up literally, by manifestation, weighing me down:

1. fear of there not being what I need when I need it
2. fear of spending adequately to ensure that doesn't happen, or happens as seldom as possible

Overcoming my first fear was all about holding it up to the light and seeing if it was the truth. And truthfully? There are very, very few places where what I need to survive isn't available for purchase, even if I don't have it with me, and I don't travel to any of them. My sainted friend, Brian Mullaney, who runs the amazing nonprofit organization SmileTrain, does go to a lot of those places, and he's still standing. Granted, he's also blessed with a more robust constitution, but again, I don't have to worry about what he does. They have SCD-compliant food, warm (or cool) clothes, and most personal care products at most every shitkicker hillbilly truckstop I could find myself in.

So it came down to overcoming Fear #2: spending a little to save a little. Sanity, that is. Because if you can coax an extra buck or two from your pocket, you can buy well-fitting clothes that match one another, clothes that are easy to create outfits from, rather than the usual thrift-store misfits you have to wrassle into forming some kind of ensemble.

Sometimes, the letting-go is psychic and there are physical acquisitions to be made. In this case, it worked for me. I bought a couple of nice pairs of jeans, moderately-priced, from the Gap, but still more than I usually spend on clothing from the rag bin. Had one pair tailored. Packed the lightest bag I've brought along on a weekend trip in 10 years, easily.

Next stop, who knows? Maybe traveling as light as airy sprite Havi, who buys herself needed items upon reaching her destination.

At thrift stores, of course...

xxx
c

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

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 3: What Lies Beneath

What lies beneath
the layers of dirt
the notes
the clothes
the ideas
we gather around us
is the truth:

No more.
No less.

This used to be white.
This used to mean something.
This once thrilled me so
I chose it
from among all other things
to live for that moment
in my home,
in my head,
in my heart.

So lovely.

But love
is fluid.
It moves through you
and me
and that fresh idea
and that fine article
and that beautiful note
and that smooth rock
you plucked from a beach
and secreted in your pocket
to finally place
on a shelf
somewhere
first, to be admired
finally, to be forgotten
and is on
to the next thing.

You cannot hold love
and holding the things
that carried it to you
becomes so heavy.

Letting it go,
the note that opened your heart
the book that opened your head
the rock that carried that thought
will bring it back.

Under that rock
is the feeling you found
then thought you had lost.

Let go of that rock
and the feeling will come rushing back in
to the glorious
and honorable space
you have given it.

xxx
c