Writing her first symphonies

First, she wrote her name. Now, she’s writing symphonies. Okay, not really…but sorta.

It’s nearly impossible not to write about watching my 4-year-old discover writing. Because she’s my baby and because writing is my soul sister. To see the two of them combined is…well…beyond the beyond.

Here’s what she’s up to.

She’s mastered the letters. She can identify them in books, on t-shirts, on my computer—you name it, she’s calling them out like muggers in a precinct line-up. And, she can write them. Not just her five, S-O-P-H-I-E, but all 26. Which is where the composing comes in.

She spends hours (in 4-year-old years, which is like 20 minutes in grown-up years) arranging letters into magnificent combinations. With her pen and paper, with the alphabet magnets and the smooth surface of our fridge, she creates wordy masterpieces. Sometimes they are short: P-O-H-P. Sometimes they are long: S-O-P-H-I-E-J-A-C-K-D-P-E-X-I-Q-W-N. Sometimes they make sense: P-O-D.  Sometimes they don’t: G-H-N-O-O-F.

But they always end the same—with the question: “What does this say?”

We sound them out for her, of course, because the point is to help her learn phonics. But I long for her to tell us what they say, you know? What it means in her mind when she takes the notes she’s been given and arranges them just so. In that way that feels like the sweetest sort of mastery…and connection…and song.

Sitting on rapture

I just had a good long talk with myself. Because I was driving myself crazy.

• Staring at the screen.
• The blank one, that is.
• Not allowing myself to type even one word.
• Until I was positive it was The Perfect Word.
• Therefore, me = paralyzed, inactive, stymied.
• Not writing.
• Worrying.
• Ridiculous.

Just start, I told myself. Maybe not at the beginning…but somewhere in between, at some point along the way.

Because even those car ads that boast ’0 to 60′ admit that it happens over the course of X number of seconds. It is not instantaneous, it is a progression.

Albeit from static and silence to rapture.

Image credit: valkyrieh116

It’s the cushioning that kills

As I told you the other day, I just devoured and obsessively loved Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.

I loved everything about it. I love that it literally pulled me out my door to run on a Saturday night at 7pm—when I’m a certified, card-carrying, morning runner. I love that I think I’m going to go again tonight. I love that it has made me feel like anything is possible. (When you read what these runners have done (eg. running 100 miles straight across mountains in the dark), you suddenly know that you can make it for a measly ten.)

Most notably, I love that I learned this: cushioning is bad for us. Sounds weird, right? Many instances spring to mind where I would literally beg for a little cushioning—feedback on my writing, the end of a relationship, a pillow when you’re trying to sleep on a plane…I could go on and on.

Killer cushioning…since 1972

Did you know that running shoes, as we know them, were created as recently as 1972. 1972. Remember Chariots of Fire? It looked like those dudes were running in jazz shoes. Go back farther and farther until you get to the people who didn’t even have shoes (or go to remote places today where they still don’t)—they were still running. For sport, for survival, for food and because it feels really, really good. Many of them ran 50, 75, 100′s of miles at a time. Barefoot.

Duh. Of course they did. But in our westernized minds, we think we need fancy cushioned shoes to run. Because that’s what we’ve been told. By these guys:

Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman, Nike’s founders, created the concept of ‘jogging’ and they created a running style that had you reach forward with your leg and hit the ground with your heel first (up to that point, everyone ran by landing on the fat of the midfoot pad with shorter strides). Because there is no natural padding on the heel, you simply couldn’t land on it unless you suddenly had a shoe with a cushioned heel. [Note: read that last sentence again.]

In an astounding marketing move, these two men created a new sport (jogging) that depended on a new way to run (the heel strike), neither of which could exist without their brand new, never before seen, bright and shiny, product.

Excuse my French, but, holy shit.

I read this part of the book five times in a row, my mind churning. How many other ‘cushioned shoes’ have we been sold? And what have they done to our bodies, our minds, our crafts? How else have we cushioned ourselves and therefore deprived ourselves of our true connection to the art and pure love of what it is that we do?

• With the advent of cushioned shoes, running injuries skyrocketed. While they promised to make us go faster.
• With the advent of processed and fast food, obesity and degenerative disease skyrocketed. While it promised to make our lives simpler.
• With the advent of marketing schemes, bad writing that is unconnected to heart or soul skyrocketed. While it promised to make our lives successful overnight.
• And with the advent of _______ , _______ skyrocketed. While it promised to make our lives ______.

Go ahead, fill in the blank. And then kick off those shoes, bring your feet back to your ground…and see what happens.

Image credit: R. Motti

Walking away

How do you know when something is no longer working? Could be a client relationship, a blog post, some marketing copy, your novel, a relationship, your life…take your pick. You know because:

• You no longer feel good when you’re doing it.
• Or after you’re done.
• It’s no longer offering solutions.
• It doesn’t give you what you need.
• The pervasive feelings are dark: sadness, worry, fear.

So…you should stop doing it right?

But still, even knowing all of those things, it’s hard to walk away.

Because you used to want it, more than anything else. Because it’s familiar. Because change is hard. Because trying new things can be terrifying—stepping into the unknown. Because if you just try a little harder, you can make it work. Dammit.

Yeah. But I also think it’s this:

Junior High Syndrome

(which is oddly synchronous with the Stockholm Syndrome, now that I think about it)

There are certain things I remember about junior high. My bad, bad, bad short and asymmetrical haircut. Mean teachers. Making out with my first true love. Painfully matching Esprit outfits.

And I also remember the feeling of needing to be everywhere at once—and this is the Syndrome. That if some of my friends were going to the mall and some were going to the pool—I was screwed because I felt a dizzying desire to be in both places at once. It was scary not to be ‘there’, not to have a presence.

Why? Because something might be missed! Back then it was being in on a private joke or meeting a cute boy or having your best friend bond with someone else.

Today, what could be missed seems more critical: the chance to work on an incredible project, writing the best thing you’ve ever written, connecting with someone who could network you into the stratosphere, the single most important dose of inspiration ever, the truest of loves, real happiness and fulfillment.

But, wait!

All evidence up to this point has shown you that your current situation is 99.99999% likely not to give you any of the things that you want it to give you.

So why? WHY WOULD YOU STAY? Will you miss the struggle that much?

Why in the world wouldn’t you decide there was something better over there—better words, better people, better opportunities, better betterness. Why in the world wouldn’t you get up and walk away. Why?

Image credit: Shannonyeh

I’m not sorry. Are you?

Call me a linguistics geek, but I prefer to ‘apologize’. And there is a difference.

Sure. You did something less than nice. Or maybe you just bumped into someone by accident. Maybe you made an error.

But, are you really sorry? I do realize there are two separate definitions for this word, but I can’t say the word without thinking of definition #2, which reads:

in a poor or pitiful state or condition

I can regrettably make mistakes, but I’m neither poor nor pitiful.

Which is why I simply apologize.

*********************

Recently, Naomi Dunford wrote a post about an interaction with a client gone awfully wrong. It’s an intense post on several levels, and in it she says,

“We sometimes have this belief that we have to tolerate anything a client puts out. No. You don’t. Be understanding if you want to be understanding and forgive if you want to forgive. But don’t squash down that part of yourself that says, “HELL NO I’m not going to get treated like that” because you’re afraid of losing clients.”

There was talk about the mislaid belief that if you’re being paid by the person, you have to take it. Um…they’re not paying you to feel bad. They’re paying you to do a job. See the difference? I don’t know about you, but there is no ‘pile on the abuse’ clause in my contracts.

Is this also about semantics? I wonder. Ish.

Like I said, apologize, but don’t be sorry. Don’t grovel. Find a solution, make it better and move forward. You do not suck, you made a mistake (unless you really suck, but hopefully you don’t and I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt).

Isn’t this the same conversation we have about getting paid what you’re worth? Isn’t this the same conversation we have when we feel blocked?

You’re the only one who can name your value and then stand behind it—and deserve it. You’re the only one that can get it done. Two things that are terribly hard to do when you’re feeling sorry.

And now I’m kicking your virtual ass out of this virtual plane. But I highly recommend you use a real parachute.

Image credit: jcarwash31

Learning to write: lessons from S-o-p-h-i-e

I was greeted this morning by a yell that was beyond exuberant. It thrilled like this:

“Mama J! I can write my name!”

And indeed, she had. Without copying someone else’s letters or asking which letter came next. Sophie did it all on her own.

“When I was a baby, I couldn’t write. But now I can.” She told me.

After she’d written her name about 50 more times, she looked at me and said purely, “I’m so proud of myself that I can write.”

I hear you, baby girl. I totally get that.

I’ve been watching her process and progress with this writing thing for the last few months, totally fascinated. Here’s what I’ve noticed.

1. This thing is a gusher. Yes, we’ve been reading to her since she was in the womb. Yes, she’s always loved books and stories and songs. Yes, she seems to have massive amounts of my DNA. But suddenly, in the last two months, something has been unleashed. When the time is right, the learning and understanding steamroll, snowball, avalanche, whatever you want to call it. Suffice it to say, it all comes together—in a rush. She sees letters and words and the sounds they make everywhere. She’s constantly discovering and tying the pieces together in her mind.
2. Letters, Words and Content: They’re everywhere. The radio in my Subaru flashes the singer, song title and radio station across its display systematically. One morning, on our way to preschool, Sophie shouted, “I see my letter! I see my letter!” I’m looking at the trees we’re driving by, thinking, there’s an S hanging off a branch? Only to discover that she’s pointing at the ‘S’ in Single Ladies.
3. Mantras help. When I write something in my head and have absolutely and tragically nowhere to write it down, I repeat it over and over in my head—like a mantra—cementing and sealing it into my brain so I won’t forget. So it was really no surprise that Soph created a little ditty (to the tune of the cha cha to be perfectly honest). The lyrics are simple: s-o-p-h-I-E. There’s a nearly imperceptible hipshake to the right on the ‘I’ and to the left on the ‘E’. She walks around chanting. With emphasis.
4. Make it your own. Now that she knows how to spell, my dad decided to teach her how to play tic-tac-toe. Besides the moment when she told him (after winning the first game), “Now it will be your turn to win”, my favorite slice of the game playing was when my dad made the first ‘X’ and sophie decided, on her turn, to make a ‘J’. He, of course, made another ‘X’, and then she made an ‘S’. He taught her a game, yes, but he had also given her several boxes to fill with her beloved letters. And dammit, she was going to fill them as she saw fit. It was her turn, after all.
5. Enlisting the troops. And, just in case seeing your name spew from your own mouth and pen isn’t enough, there are always your lackeys. In Sophie’s case, it’s her little brother. Just 7.5 months younger, my little guy’s primed and ready. And she’s taken full advantage. First, she convinced him that his name is spelled J-e-c-k instead of J-a-c-k. (I’m not clear on her motivation here.) But more importantly, if you ask him how to spell virtually any word other than his name, he replies, ‘S-o-p-h-i-e’.

That’s right, Soph. Find the words, write them proudly and spread the gospel far and wide.

I’m training for everything

“Are you training for a marathon or something?” Was the question I was asked in response to the 11.2 mile run.

“Nope.” Was the answer.

But it was a lie.

I’m training for everything.

When I get out of bed at 5 a.m.ish to run or rollerblade or bike or swim every morning, I’m:

• Strengthening my body. Feeling good in my skin is vitally important to my productivity, self-esteem, health. I literally write stronger, sit in my chair stronger, think stronger and create stronger when my body feels like this. The muscles, the solidness, the firmness, the lines, the curves, the soft bits—they are all an integral part of my writing. When I don’t feel good in my body, when I feel heavy and frumpy, I feel bad about myself and it contaminates my creativity.

• Fortifying my will. It takes determination to get out of bed. To run when I don’t feel like it. To trust that the nervy feeling in my knee will go away if I just relax. To go farther than I’ve ever gone. To do the same damn run I always do. To take a day off (I think that’s the hardest, actually). To stop if it doesn’t feel right. To practice rich self-care.

• Reinforcing my belief that I am good, full of follow through and fruition. I like to have a lot to do. Boredom destroys me. So I usually have many projects going at once. And while this is a choice and typically feels good—there are those days. Where I’m drowning in my to-do list, terrified that I can’t get it all done. Sometimes it’s just the blank screen with a new project title at the top and that feeling that I won’t be able to pull this one out, that the words won’t come, that I’ll never be able to write ___ pages. And then I remember that I got up early this morning in the snow or humidity or wind and sweat for 8 miles before the sun was even up. And then I start writing…or living, as the case may be.

• Taking comfort in the fact that there are always lessons to be learned. Should we count how many posts I’ve written in the last year about the correlation between my work and my running, my life and my rollerblading and my writing and my _____? Maybe because ‘on the road’ is the diametric opposite to ‘in the chair’—and the juxtaposition is the great revealer.

• Plugging into the source. My mind writes when I move in the methodical ways that these workouts invite. I don’t listen to music. I don’t try to think about things. I just put one foot, or hand, in front of the other and literally make space for my own personal ticker tape feed in my brain. I don’t plan it, it just happens. Problems are solved, clarity surfaces, decisions are made.

• Single-tasking. This is the only time that I’m not multi-tasking. It’s single-pointed focus. It’s meditative. It’s rhythmic breath and step. I can’t help but be present to the sensations in and around me. And it forces me to listen to me—when I shut out all the other noise.

• Dramatically sweeping. I live entire lives on my runs. From elation to defeat to having massive brain bursts to having my heart break to memories that come sweeping through with the force of a rhino to exhaustion to floating. There is always a beginning, a middle and an end. Like any good story.

• Sharpening my brain. How do you melt something frozen? You put it in the heat. I sharpen my brain by taking it as far away from my computer and the work and the think tank environs as possible. I get the most out of my brain by putting it in the place where it is needed the least.

How do you train? And what are you training for?

Image credit: TheOwl84

Writing: The view from the ground

This past Saturday, I did something I swore I would never do again.

I ran more than 10 miles. In fact, I ran 11.2.

The swearing was because, nine years ago, I ran a 10 mile road race and hurt myself so badly that I couldn’t walk, let alone run, for several weeks.

But this morning, I ran and I ran and I ran. Nothing hurt, though it was so muggy it was hard to get a full breath, you know, the kind that catches deep in your lungs.

A few things we can deduce from the above: 1) clearly I hold grudges and I’m stubborn as hell about letting them go, when usually I’m the only one being hurt by them; 2) never say never—you just end up with egg on your face.

Running that far (or doing whatever your equivalent of running that far is) is as much a mental test as it is a physical one. I got through my run by balancing the fact that I could stop at any point, with my desire to reach my goal, with my pride, with my fierce competitiveness and with my insistence on winning.

I knew exactly where the 10 mile point would be, and told myself I could stop there. But, instead, I ran all the way home.

The view from the car.

The longest part of the run was around one of my favorite parts of the island, Lambert’s Cove Road. It’s a 4.5 mile, crescent shaped road that curves quickly around and through woods, meadows and old dirt roads that lead to the ocean. I’ve driven it in my car countless times over the last twelve or so years, so I knew it was fairly long and full of fast twists and turns.

But it wasn’t until this morning that I experienced it with my body. And I learned quickly that those curves don’t only go side to side, they also go up and down. None of it was flat.

It’s always nice to have some variation on a run, and none of the ‘ups’ were huge, so it was okay. But I was shocked that I’d never noticed. I was mind-blown by how easy it had been—from the fast, high-level view of the car—to miss the finer points, to miss what it was really like to travel on this road.

On the ground.

Writing a book sounds like fun. So does writing a blog. Or a crafting a speech for a client. Or making enough plates, bowls and mugs to fill your pottery shop. Or starting a webinar series on WordPress design. Or running 11 miles.

The high level view of the pitch (or what it looks like when your brain mulls through your project) is the same as being in the car. Yes, you notice the length of project, you see that there are loops and switch backs, that you have questions. Yes, you can troubleshoot—but it’s not until you start, ’til you get in there and get your fingers sticky and your brains dirty that you see the project for what it really is.

I invite you to really hear that. You won’t know what it really looks like and feels like, what it really takes, until you are knee-deep, neck-deep, (maybe even) in over your head.

And, as such, you must give yourself permission, once you’re in there, to go harder or softer, to stop or persevere, to ask for help.

And, as such, you must also give yourself permission, once you’re in there, to be proud. That even though you didn’t see some of it coming, you kept going.

And, whatever ‘kept going’ looked like for you, it had to have been good. Because it got you here.

Image credit: GElisbeth

So frickin’ predictable: The creative process

Let’s get it out on the table now. In this post, I talk about the female reproductive system. It’s an exquisite, natural and magical process that I beg you not to be squeamish about. That said, men, there are things here for you too, on several levels. Even if you spend most or all of your time on Man Island (which, from what I can tell, sounds very, very boring). If girly, reproductive things didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be here, after all. Word to your mother.

I generally consider myself to be a smart person. but every 28 days or so, something happens that makes me doubt this. And I mean really doubt this.

It starts physically.

I wake up one morning and I’ve apparently gained 20 lbs. while I was sleeping. It makes no sense. I haven‘t been eating more than usual. I have been sweating profusely for at least an hour every morning on running shoes, blades or bike wheels. But my clothes now resemble the casing of a sausage, several parts of my body suddenly favor the contents of an overstuffed sandwich.

About 30 seconds later, I come to the only logical answer: I’m old and I’ve reached that point in my life where no matter what I do, it’s a downhill slide to old, out-of-shape and ugly.

I get pissed. Why today? I ask, shaking my hands at the sky. It’s been going so well. I’m not ready! NOT YET!

The next thing that happens is equally as startling.

One minute I’m happily typing away thinking about how great life is and then—BOOM. It all sucks. And I mean to tell you that the suckage is hoover-sized, black and sticky. I can’t find one thing that’s good. I’m irrationally angry at everyone. It’s like road-rage without the road or the cars, but with everything else within spitting distance. And beyond.

I call my beloveds and cry and bemoan the fact that this is all for shit. That I don’t even think my dog loves me anymore. That I don’t even want to write. Just cry and sleep. And sit on someone’s big, warm, comforting lap.

It always ends the same way.

(By the way, if you didn’t see this coming and you’re a woman, then ‘I’ll have what she’s having.’ If you didn’t see this coming and you’re a man, you will never, ever be my boyfriend.)

Yes. A few days later, I inexplicably get my period. And it’s the ‘inexplicable’ part that really gets me and makes me doubt my intelligence. Because here’s the thing: this brilliant reproductive phenomenon has rained down upon me an estimated 301 times, thus far. THREE HUNDRED AND ONE TIMES.

That’s a lot, wouldn’t you say? And you would think, then, that I would get it, that when my entire body bloats up like a dead frog in a pond and I’m more irritated than a teenager at a family picnic, I would calmly think to myself, ‘Oh! It’s just my period, this too shall pass!’, take a deep breath and go about my day.

But nope. Every time, every single time, I’m shocked. And, because I love to be validated and surrounded, I will share that I’ve been told by several other brilliant women, that this happens to them too. I wonder if it’s because we’re so busy living fabulous lives, that we just don’t hold this nastiness front and center. Yes, yes—that must be it.

Happy endings

And this is the good news. Every month, after the disaster—comes a flood of relief. My body is beautiful and strong and my clothes do fit. My life is happy and sweet and I can see good coming at me from every view.

Just like the crap that hits with the certainty of taxes or, you know, death. So does the relief and reality of the fact that everything is really okay. That there was a reason. That it was just mother nature at work.

Now. How in the hell does this have anything to do with writing, arting and creating?

It applies to the moments when instead of your clothes not fitting, your chair doesn’t fit and neither do your fingers on your keyboard. The moments when you don’t know why you bother—because no one is reading, because you think your work sucks, because you won’t ever make a living from it.

I think there’s a writers equivalent of getting your period. It’s that aha! moment when we realize we were tired or needed an hour away from the computer or a good talk with a friend or a roll-around with a lover or a good meal or 12 hours of sleep. The writers’ equivalent is whatever it is that hits us with the realization that all is not lost, that this is the way it goes—that we stumble into holes on a regular basis and often sit at the bottom of them staring at the dark muck…before inevitably pulling ourselves up and out.

The writer’s equivalent of the period is that we always survive, we always find the strength to come back to center, back to good, back to okay. It may not be once a month, but it’s always there.

It’s that as uncomfortable and messy as it might be, it’s a vital part of the creation process. We have it in us. Period.

Even when we forget.

Image credit: dahlstroms

If only my brain were pregnant.

You know how everyone makes all the usual jokes about pregnancy and food cravings? Pickles and ice cream will always be hilarious, but these cravings are a serious force to be reckoned with. If I could bottle them, I’d be rich.

I remember distinctly a feeling of almost possession when I was craving something. Like the baby was calling for protein and my stomach wanted carbs and my bones wanted calcium and my mouth wanted butter and salt – so I ended up eating dark sourdough toast with a 1/4 stick of butter, feta cheese and smoked salmon, sprinkled with jalapeno stuffed green olives. Ah, satisfaction.

And who was I but the vehicle, the deliverer of the goods? None of it was my doing – not the urges, not the recipe development, nuthin’. And it works, right? The body calls, we give it what it needs and wowza, we make a baby. Another human being. How magnificent!

Today, I was trying to write a piece for a client and I was thinking – I wish different parts of my brain would activate like my pregnant body. (FYI, this next part is actually biologically correct. Ha! You do have to be a brain surgeon to run a blog!!!)

• My hindbrain would call for the smooth flow of muscle function so that I could type and sit up straight,
• my limbic system would insist on emotion and sense memory,
• and my neocortex would demand exciting verbs and perfect wordage.

And I’d just sit there at my computer on autopilot spewing viciously remarkable prose until at last I had created a glorious final draft from what was once just a blank page. To the writer? Yes, it’s just as magnificent a feat as the production of a baby. Plus, good copy doesn’t whine or spill milk and it pays for itself. Now that’s a thing of beauty.

Image credit: Bob Fornal