Saturday, The Sabbath

So it's Saturday, and this is as far as I have gotten with my day so far:

[caption id="attachment_1168" align="aligncenter" width="300"] This kitty could not be more relaxed. Note the belly flopping over the railing.[/caption]

Okay, so I am actually not lounging quite like that, but close. For someone who doesn't have a nine-to-five J-O-B, you'd think my days would be a bit more relaxing than they are, but with a 6 a.m. wake up and a day filled with furniture construction, recipe writing and testing, writing for The Man, general household sorting, and Teenager raising, by the time 10 p.m. rolls around, I am done.

Some days as I settle into bed to jot down some final thoughts, I just write a list of things I have done, just to prove that I did something. Time has sped up in recent weeks, and it's a way to hold things down, to anchor myself firmly in the present and what is happening. Turns out that the big moments are rooted in the little moments that lead up to them. As Ferris Buellar says, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

In an effort to not miss it, today is for coffee, farmer's market, and a brief period of navel gazing. There will be some minor outdoor furniture assembly, and maybe a stroll down The Avenue for some furnishings, and a graduation party later in the day.

A Sabbath, of sorts, except I have already turned on the oven and am technically working. It seems okay if it's something you love, though, right?

What are your Sabbath plans?

 

The Road To Hell

So my 30-days-of-blogging extravaganza came to a screeching halt on the 15th when life intervened in the form of malware.

I am going to go ahead and give myself a big fat pass for missing the last five days because, well, just because. We all of us sometimes need to just forgive ourselves for not following through. It doesn't matter a bit sometimes why we don't follow through. In my case, a substantial malware infection, a yoga teacher training weekend, and a renovation intervened, not in that order, but even if I just felt like taking the weekend off because it was a gorgeous two days strung together, that's good, too.

This yoga weekend was not particularly fabulous for me, on a couple different levels, but the one thing I had reaffirmed was that it's really important to figure out what it is you want and go for that. The guest teacher talked about the word "should" as the heavy cat-o-nine that we flagellate ourselves with. He called it "shouldistic behavior" and said we were "shoulding" all over ourselves, two clever plays on words to indicate the painful and grotesque ways in which we sometimes attempt to motivate ourselves.

This applies even when your intentions are good. If you say things like "I should exercise more," then maybe your inner anti-cheerleader is talking shit in your head about how flabby you are. Maybe it's comparing you to the toned arms or buff abs of other people. In this way you perpetuate the cycle of feeling badly about yourself instead of focusing at the core of why you aren't doing what you feel you "should" be doing.

And here is (one of the places)  where the teacher and I parted ways. He said that motivation is about changing the word "should" to the word "want," and then everything will be just peachy. Turns out that is kind of bullshit. I have studied what motivates people for the past 18 years and have found unequivocally that just changing the words, although that may be a start, is not nearly enough to change the behavior. Even just changing the behavior (like forcing yourself to exercise more) doesn't really silence the anti-cheerleader or change the internal dialogue.

And here's the unfortunate punchline: motivation is a complex issue that I have no answer to (nor do experts, really. Just suggestions.). Neither did the speaker in the workshop (although he seemed to feel that he had the only answer, and any time there were objections it meant the objector just wasn't ready for his message or the objector was lying to themselves or  some other something. I felt like this teacher's ethos was very deeply rooted in est, the cult founded by Werner Erhard. I can speak directly to my interpretation of his premise because my father forced the entire family to go to an est weekend when I was younger, and the humiliation of that remains a vivid memory).

In other (somewhat depressing) words, motivation is unique to each person and can change over time. Key components to following through seem to be a mix of factors that are both internal and external. People who spend their lives being externally motivated (by gold stars as a child in school, by money in a job, or by compliments on appearance) may find themselves at a loss should (when) those external things disappear. Internal (intrinsic) motivation is far more valuable in the long run but far harder to cultivate, especially in a culture that is so comparative (and competitive)  in nature.  And, as evidenced by this weekend's computus interruptus, internal motivation can still be affected by the vagaries of life.

And here's where the rubber meets the road to hell:

"Notice that the stiffest tree is most  easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind." ~Bruce Lee~

It's good to have goals and develop persistence and internal motivation. It is satisfying to meet the bar we set for ourselves.

What's not good is beating ourselves up when shit happens. What's not good is comparing what we are doing to what other people are doing. What's not good is "shoulding" all over ourselves to the point where we are a puddly mess, incapable of taking the shape of the next move (that's  a Wonder Twins reference).

So today I am back on the road to hell. Expect blogs this week covering writing like a motherfucker and why Deepak Chopra made me cry. But if it doesn't happen, that's fine, too.

Have a beautiful week. Or don't. Either way, don't beat yourself up.

Namaste.

(image source)

 

Spark It Up: NaBloPoMo

Today is April 1st, and already I have been the victim of a very well-played practical joke by my friend Andrew Odom. Turns out, you can't actually believe everything you read on the internet.

I'd like to say that this is an April Fool's Joke, but what I am about to write is true and a bi-annual occurrence. In April and November, I commit myself to writing a blog a day for 30 days. Formally known as NaBloPoMo, the official span is just in November, but I think April is a great 30-day time to do it as well. I wrote my book in 30 days in April 2012 (took another year and a half to edit and publish), and every time I force myself to the discipline of keyboard and blogging, it tends to spark things up a bit, something that is necessary right about now.

I can say in all honesty that I am not even remotely excited for this at this point; everything about my being has tended to the sludge-like, the monotonous, the tedium of daily routine. I feel like molasses uphill in January; yoga has become a chore that I have to get through (and I always feel better after, but still), and although my mercenary writing life is fine, my personal projects have come to a standstill as I actively avoid looking at what I am supposed to be doing.

So I read Steinbeck's six tips on writing, and this is what stuck:

"Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised."

His rules mostly apply to his fiction, but there is extreme value in this rule. Abandon the hope of being done; writers know that a) it's never done, and b) even when it's finished it's still not "done." Just one piece of my own writing daily is my goal, even something beyond this blog. A paragraph. A line.

I am in a funk, no doubt, and 30 days, two more days than rehab, may be enough to get me out. At least until November.

Bloggers, won't you join me?

(Image)

Productivity And The Narrative

(have you done anything today?)

In spite of myself and the snow day yesterday, I managed to be minorly productive, editing for a couple hours and finishing up a job that's due Friday.

And then the "t" on my laptop's keyboard went out.

It's still not really working, in fact. I have to press the hell out of it and then proofread very, very carefully. Turns out, there are a plethora of words that utilize a "t." And just like that, all of my happy feelings about being productive drained away and I started thinking about why when I have time and the urge I spend it on work for other people. After all, I have two perfectly wonderful book ideas, both of which are almost completely outlined and have been started.

I also happen to have quite a few handy excuses as to why I "can't" write them right now:

1. One of them requires a better kitchen and more tools than I have unpacked. 

While technically true, this excuse is rendered invalid by the fact that much can be done while my new, beautiful kitchen is being constructed.

2. I don't have a camera to take pictures.

Not even technically true. I have a camera (not a good one, but it exists) and an iPhone. Tammy Stroebel works almost entirely with her iPhone and has all sorts of great recommendations for cheap or free editing tools. Plus, any blog named "Rowdy Kittens" must be authoritative on the subject. I do have a lovely camera picked out, thanks to my lovely friend Mandy, but in the interim, learning how to use what I have can only benefit me.

3. That damn "t."

And we arrive at the only excuse that holds any water. It has taken me four times as long to type these 296 words because I have to slow down and make sure I have hit the "t" in the correct place. I have also been trying to limit my use of the letter, which is proving highly problematic. I would like to throw this computer at the wall and buy another. That may have to happen sooner rather than later (see also "Computer shutting off when I move it"), as we pay rent with the writing I actually get paid for.

The main issue with #3 for me, though, is not dropping the cheddar for a new computer. It's what I need for work, and it's tax deductible.

It's whether or not #3 is just another excuse to avoid my own writing, and, if it is, why. This past weekend at yoga teacher training (YTT) we talked about the stories we play in our heads, the ones that keep us from letting go and moving forward. Like the ones about what we deserve and what we are good at. Every time I sit down to write those stories fire up in my head, and I think what keeps me away from my own stuff is how bad they make me feel. My name for this voice is the Anti-Cheerleader, and she is a loud, bossy bitch. In YTT we went through several meditative ways to get past these voices to see our true nature, and one among us went through Byron Katie's process of The Work.

Boiled down, it is remarkably simple: figure out if the story you have about yourself is true or not. If not, let it go.

Ha. Joke's on everybody because letting go of the narrative we have about our lives and ourselves and the people around us is incredibly hard. That narrative is why we stay in the crappy job and the bad relationship. It's why we follow the herd out of high school into college and don't actually choose a path so much as allow it to be chosen for us by what others say and think we should do.

It's why even when I write 10,000 words a week and complete a huge editing job and manage a rehab and take four yoga classes and docent two museums tours and do two days of workstudy and parent a child in one week that I still feel guilty for taking a nap in the middle of the day sometimes.

This narrative is what stops me from leaping more into my own writing: maybe it's not good. Maybe I don't deserve the success it could bring. Maybe it will bring more pain. Maybe I don't deserve a new computer.

You have a narrative, too. Maybe it says if you don't make XX amount of money you aren't successful. Maybe your story deals with how you parent or what life is supposed to be like (versus what it actually is).

Letting go of the narrative is incredibly difficult, but as with any process, the first step is identifying your story. What is your narrative?

(Today's blog was brought to you by the letter "T," that sonuvabitch)

 

Creative Entitlement And Responsibility

This quote popped up on my Facebook feed this morning.

"All the resources you will ever want or need are at your fingertips. All you have to do is identify what you want to do with it, and then practice the feeling-place of what it will feel like when that happens. There is nothing you cannot be or do or have. You are blessed beings; you have come forth into this physical environment to create. There is nothing holding you back, other than your own contradictory thought. And your emotion tells you you're doing that. Life is supposed to be fun—it is supposed to feel good! You are powerful creators and right on schedule. Savor more; fix less. Laugh more; cry less. Anticipate positively more; anticipate negatively less. Nothing is more important than that you feel good. Just practice that and watch what happens. There is great love here for you. We are complete."

 

I went to sleep as early as my grandmother last night and woke up at my birthday time (3:14), wide awake. The dog liked the idea of getting up, so rather than lie in bed, twirling my hair, I gathered the dog and the cat and headed down for early morning coffee, and maybe some guilt-free Facebonking.

I read the above quote, then saw something else posted on Elizabeth Gilbert's Facebook page, and it was like an epiphany this morning. She is talking about the idea of creative entitlement; that is, the idea that we are all entitled to the space of creativity. To wit:

"Creative entitlement doesn’t mean behaving like a princess, or acting as though the world owes you anything whatsoever. No, creative entitlement simply means believing that you are allowed to be here, and believing that — merely by being here, merely by existing — you are allowed to have a voice and a vision of your own."

I have been thinking a lot about this lately, as my mercenary writing work picks up and I ignore Pantanjali's Sutras that I am supposed to be reading for yoga teacher training. Along with being entitled to creative space, voice, and vision, there is a responsibility (should you choose to accept it) to take advantage of it. I fall into the easy trap of distraction frequently. I use the excuse that it's all research and reading and that should be okay for a writer.

Except it's only okay when it is done to a purpose, not just following clickbait until you suddenly find yourself reading an article on the ten best places to retire in the mountains and you realize that two hours of fluff have gone by.

I write and talk and think a lot about the cult of busyness, how everyone says, when asked how they are doing, "I'm BUSY!" like it's a badge of honor to be so busy but it's kind of complaining also. But we have exactly the same number of hours in a day as Einstein or da Vinci or Curie. And it many ways, we have more time created by our modern conveniences. So when we say we are busy, we are really neglecting to utilize our time. I am not utilizing my time.

If the resources are right at my fingertips, and I am entitled to my creative space, then it is my responsibility to fill that creative space with creation.   Gilbert talks about why we shirk this responsibility so often, and it is spot-on for me this morning. She talks about David Whyte and "the arrogance of belonging":

"Without [the arrogance of belonging], you will never push yourself out of the suffocating insulation of personal safety, and into the frontiers of the beautiful and the unexpected.

The arrogance of belonging is not about egotism or self-absorption. In a strange way, it’s exactly the opposite; it's a force that will actually take you OUT OF YOURSELF and allow you to engage more fully with the world. Because often what keeps you from living your most creative and adventurous and expressive life IS your self-absorption (your self-doubt, your self-disgust, your self-judgment, your crushing sense of self-protection)."

This is psych 101: if you don't try you will never fail. If you don't step away from the computer or the other distraction, if you don't shut up the voice in your head and all of your fears, you will never escape the "suffocating insulation of personal safety" (this phrase bears repeating for me, and all of us who fall into the trap of routine. To quote Coehlo: "If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal.").

After realizing that you are entitled to creative space, then it is time to show up and do the work. It is your responsibility to do so. It makes you a better person.

This is my meditation for today: I am entitled, I am responsible. What is your mantra?

Food

I love it.

All kinds.

I have a particularly fussy belly, though, so it has been problematic, this love of food. I also am not able to physically eat very much, so quantity is also an issue. I will never be able to sit down to a 35-course tasting menu. That might amuse my bouche, but not so much my belly (Anthony Bourdain writes about the gastrointestinal perils of large tasting menus in graphic and amusing fashion at the beginning of his second book, Medium Raw, right after he tells the story of eating ortolan, an illegal albeit delicious activity in most of the world. But I digress.).

But I. Love. Food.

Real food. Sweet, juicy peaches from the local orchard that taste like the sun has been captured in their warm, fuzzy flesh. Sandwiches from Parts & Labor, tender and succulent thin slices of pit beef drenched in tiger sauce and stacked with thinly sliced red onions, or an epic BLT with bacon that is neither too fat nor too thing, too crispy or too flimsy - Goldilocks bacon, if you will. Spicy chocolate gelato, with a dusty brush of cayenne on the finish. Pizza with fresh tomatoes and homemade mozzarella. Basil-honey-lemon salad dressing that is like tangy velvet on the tongue.

Oh, my.

Recent freelance writing opportunities have included recipe development, food blogger, and food website content writer. When you are a freelancer, one of the things you do is apply to everything that is interesting, send it out into the universe and hope that something comes back. You can't get too invested in the outcome because so many people are doing the same thing.

Still.

I would very much like to broaden into food as a writer. I need an excuse to try new things and an expense account to help me do that. I am still planning to make everything on my Pinterest Food board and everything I have reblogged to Tumblr once we get settled into a permanent house, but that could be awhile.

So I humbly petition the universe to throw me a bone (with warm marrow and toast points) and let one of my food freelancing jobs come through in the meantime.

Bon appetit.