luminous debris

Writing the blues

Day One - starting again

I am back to my morning pages, out of which this morning came this question: why am I so busy at things that don't connect to the core of what I want and need to do?

Does saying “yes” to everyone make me feel important or sought after or does it just prolong the procrastination of sitting down by myself, alone, to determine my own direction, my need, my focus and dreams and possibilities?

If I am constantly driving from one place to another - to speak, moderate, help, meet - where am I in all that? I'm disappearing, atomistic, gone. What are the things I do to keep myself from engaging fully around my own work? How is busy-ness a protective shield?

I am facing such resistance and such acceptance so simultaneously that it is confusing. Out of the morass of my morning pages came questions and a plea for a sign, some small affirmation that I am doing the right work - the real work (ironically, RealWork is the name of the business I started 10 years ago...it has taken until now to see what that real work is). “I need for that to happen now. In February, not March or April or May, but this week. Please let the universe affirm me in a way that sustains me,” I wrote this morning.

And shortly afterwards, I opened The Artist's Way to receive this message, clear, for me:

“I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.” - Duke Ellington

I had to laugh. And then I cleared my calendar and sat down to write some blues.

Regret, recommit, renew, get up

Day 30

"You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down." - Mary Pickford

I am lost in this journey. I have lost my way. I have fallen, stopped, bent over by the wind or a fire or a tornado of the mundane, snapped like a twig. I don't know why.

So this evening, I'm moving from regret and shame to stand up again, not to stay down.

All is not lost. This past week, while my work along The Artist's Way has suffered, something that kept coming up in my morning pages moved me forward, propelled me, finally. After months of hesitation, I sent a book proposal for 37days to an agent. What was my hesitation? Was it perfectionism? Was it fear? Of what, I wonder, of what.

Vicious and virtuous circles

Day 23

In my work, I use something called "vicious" and "virtuous" circles to explore about how human beings relate to Otherness and diversity issues. This week, I started creating them for my life outside work. Something happened in the process. A learning, a recognition.

A vicious circle is an acknowledgment and a voicing of the cycles we fall into--they are unending and impossible to get off of unless you consciously work to do so. They feed themselves, like a snake feeding on its tail. They reinforce themselves, reinvesting our energy in the negative.

The virtuous circle is an aspiration of what could be or must be. It is a voicing of what we want for our lives.

The examples shown here (click to enlarge) are ones from my diversity work.

When I started looking at what circles have come up for me as a result of doing The Artist's Way thus far, here is what emerged (not in picture format yet, but read each circle to the end and then go back to the first line and read again--each forms an unending circle):

Vicious Circle

I believe that I’m not that talented
And rather than prove that to myself
I simply don’t put my work out in the world
For criticism or appreciation
In fact, rather than risk being criticized
I don’t produce anything at all, because…

Virtuous Circle

(I) celebrate the talents I have
And every day I create something new
To put out into the world
For others to read and respond to
So I can learn more about myself from their responses
And become a better writer in order to…

Try making your own vicious and virtuous circles--about creativity, money, love, parenting, weight, procrastination--whatever topic you want to investigate. You might discover something.

Once defined, of course, the next step is to figure out what daily actions are keeping you on the vicious circle...and which new actions would move you to the virtuous circle.

Do what you love

Day 19

This is one of the most cogent and brilliant essays I've read, possibly because I find myself so much in it. As he says, I find myself using the hazy vision of the grand novel I plan to write one day as an opiate rather than sitting my butt in the chair and actually producing it.   

Here are a few excerpts:

"...if you have a day job you don't take seriously because you plan to be a novelist, are you producing?  Are you writing pages of fiction, however bad?  As long as you're producing, you'll know you're not merely using the hazy vision of the grand novel you plan to write one day as an opiate. The view of it will be obstructed by the all too palpably flawed one you're actually writing."

"...if you asked random people on the street if they'd like to be able to draw like Leonardo, you'd find most would say something like "Oh, I can't draw."  This is more a statement of intention than fact; it means, I'm not going to try.  Because the fact is, if you took a random person off the street and somehow got them to work as hard as they possibly could at drawing for the next twenty years, they'd get surprisingly far. But it would require a great moral effort; it would mean staring failure in the eye every day for years. And so to protect themselves people say "I can't."

It's a long essay. Eschew our soundbite culture and read the whole thing.

Who is the teacher and who is the learner?

Day 18

A student of mine was murdered this week, on Wednesday.

No, she was actually assassinated as she prayed at a Buddhist monastery in northern Thailand. I had met the day before with a colleague to finalize plans for this student's independent study on global leadership.

A member of Laotian royalty, Princess Oulayvanh Sethathirath was working to help Laotians in Thailand get a good education--she was getting her own education in leadership here at a U.S. university so she would be prepared for the task when she went home to assume her role. She and her husband, Prince Anouvong Sethathirath IV were both assassinated. Their young sons are left orphans. Thai police have said they believe the couple was targeted for assassination by the Laotian government under a belief they were working against the communist regime in neighboring Laos.

A course in global leadership stands undone and irrelevant in such a world where change is so feared it leads to murder. She was actually teaching me about leadership, not the other way around.

I’m reminded of these words by Martin Luther King, Jr:

“If you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit to live. You may be thirty-eight years old, as I happen to be, and one day some great principle, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand up for some great issue, some great cause. And you refused to do it because you want to live longer. You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid that somebody will stab you or shoot at you or bomb your house.

So you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at thirty-eight as you would be at ninety. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announced of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right.”

What do I believe in so deeply that I would die for it?

Focus on the questions

Day 15

Two months ago, I attended the NC Writers' Conference, the first time I had ever put myself in the company of writers. One of the sessions I attended was taught by poet and memoirist Sebastian Matthews, a workshop on “Stepping through the Threshold: On Memoir and Authentic Voice,” an examination of the form of literary memoir. “A memoirist walks into the form with trepidation,” he said.

The questions he asked us to consider were compelling, and have come up again in my morning pages:

Who am I to tell this story?

Do I need to tell it?

What is the reason to tell?

What ground do I need to clear?

What is the occasion for speech?

Where do I stand telling this story? (a moment, a place, a season, a morning walk…)

Who am I telling the story to?

What speaking voice is telling this story?

“We talk about needing to find our voice,” he said, “but it's not missing – sometimes it's just inaccessible.” The morning pages make my voice more accessible, present, here.

“Come into your voice, walk into the threshold of the story you’re already telling, write about what you see,” he told us.

What I see is different from what you see, and yet there are important points of recognition between us, writer and reader, aren't there?

Learn from your own reaction

Day 12

Several years ago, I went to a yoga class in Washington, DC, where I lived at the time.

It was a most remarkable experience; I felt placed in my body for the first time. I left and emerged into a bright sun on Connecticut Avenue feeling better than I had ever felt--a lightness, an energy, a connectedness, a sense of physical-ness that I hadn't felt in a long time, if ever.

I never went back.

Why?

I missed two days of morning pages this week--is it the same? Coming to the edge, getting close, watching things emerge, yet not giving myself permission to go there. I wonder why. I think this is a Big Question.

With gratitude

Day 10

Being acknowledged feels good and embarrassing all at the same time. My blog, 37days, is a finalist in the "most inspirational blog" category of The Best of Blogs Awards (BoB). All along, I've tried to divorce the writing from the audience, to detach in order to write fully and freely and without regard to what people would like, but focusing on what I needed to write. So this honor is a surprise, I'm humbled that someone felt strongly enough about my words to nominate me, and I realize now how hard it is to separate from the world of reaction.

Artist's Date

Day 9

"Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life." - Natalie Goldberg

My Artist's Date today began with a solitary breakfast at Early Girl Eatery, my notebook in hand, my solitude providing the opening, the access, the door. I savored my biscuit with vegetarian herb gravy (which is addictive and should be outlawed by the FDA or some important government agency), my hot tea, and fruit bowl. I read and I wrote and I enjoyed my own company immensely. I navigated the solitude and quiet with grace and ease; I crave more of it, out there in the world of people and sunshine. I wandered through artist's galleries downtown, touching handwoven scarves and clay pots. It was an extravagant two hours.

Detach

Day 8

In talking about our new venture on Tuesday, my business partner David and I started talking about money. Money, money, money. It is a subject we invest too much energy in, a conversation we continue having, blocking us from actually doing the work.

Rather than do the work we know we must and need to do, the work that we are being called to do--that we have seen make such a difference to people's lives--instead, we try to figure out what will sell. It is not the pure intention and direction we need to flourish, yet there the money stands, at the door, stopping us. Sometimes, we can't even find the door.

David told me about seeing downhill skier Bode Miller being interviewed recently for "60 Minutes." Miller, a star skier and Olympic athlete, talked about detaching from all the money around him--otherwise, he said, you become a prisoner to the money. He baffles coaches and judges, skiing to his own drum, so to speak, out of the ordinary, moving his own way in the world--he can only do that because he has detached from the money; he isn't performing for the money, no, but for something more meaningful.

I realize now that money is our Censor: "No one will ever pay for that." "You can't make a living doing that." "Who are you kidding? You think you can do fulfilling work with an amazing business partner and not suffer like the rest of us?"

I know this works. In fact, my greatest example of how detachment, intention, and direction create powerful things is my blog, 37days, created so I could leave part of myself to my daughters, detached from any outcome, with no expectation, no desire, no business plan. The process was the product--there was no other. It has brought me so very much; it has literally changed my life.

As Julia Cameron writes, "Make no mistake: the Censor is out to get you." So, here's my focus: detachment from money. Do the work. Leave your base camp. The rest will follow.