Sparklette #56
[This photo was taken a few weeks ago and she is already so much bigger!]
Tilda is now 15 weeks old, and has already accumulated quite a list of nicknames around here:
Tilda Bear: When she’s sleepy and super cute
Tilda Beast: When she’s in a manic frenzy
Goober: When she’s clumsy
Pomplemousse: Courtesy of her Auntie Nita
Little Brown Terror: Courtesy of her Uncle Justin
Little Brown Poo: Ditto above
Little Pooper: A catch-all, any-time-of-day nickname, which begs the question, at one point will we need to start calling her Big Pooper?
Snake Charmer
[Photo taken by my grandpa many years ago, not sure where.]
permission slip
Determined, the writer looks at a slip of blank paper with hope
that she will know what to do, that in quick succession a string
of sentences will begin to appear, and these she will manage to rope
into beauty and order. But one by one, the paragraphs cling
to each other muddily, and the writer must choose between wrestling words
and the more difficult task of unclenching from her pen. She wants an anchor,
of course, the one she’s so familiar with, to keep her tethered to her task, like birds
pecking at a half-opened tin until the lid collapses. But sometimes work is just ardor,
and she has to release from the grip of her own good intentions, until she is lighter
than the paper even, until she can erase herself and let the pen write her.
This poem landed in my mailbox this week. Such perfect timing considering I was under the gun to finish the first two chapters of my book, which are due tomorrow. Except that I didn’t really feel like I was “under the gun”, I simply had a goal to meet. This work was due, so I had to finish it. Plain and simple.
The work always gets done, and if it doesn’t, the world continues to turn. I am rather worthless without a deadline, but with a deadline I’m the most reliable person you’ll ever meet. Deadlines tell me when it is time to stop; deadlines tell me when it is time to let something go and send it to whoever is expecting it. Meeting a deadline means I’ve done my work, and if I’ve done my best, then there’s nothing more for me to worry about. If someone on the other end isn’t pleased with it, perhaps there will be more work to do and a new deadline to meet, but that’s something I can’t control, so I tend not to fret over such possibilities once my work is in the mail, en route or uploaded.
My first two chapters are due tomorrow, and I just sent them in five minutes ago. A day early, which means today I can paint, and write another story, and walk in the sunshine, and know that, for now, this work is done. The snake charmer in me managed to pull forth the right combination of words and and arrangement of paragraphs that conveyed what I was trying to express. They were waiting in a tangled heap when I started, and all I had to do was still still, breathe deeply, and let them show me the way.
On the Calendar
I’m in the home stretch of getting new work ready for my upcoming show. I’ll be sharing the studio space with four other astounding artists ~ I hope you can join us!
MESSY and BRAVE
Five Artists ~ One Night Only
Saturday, October 23, 2010
6:00pm – 11:00pm
Gus Harper Studios
11306 Venice Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90066
For more information, email christine@swirlygirl.com
Featuring my work (pictured above) alongside:
…and Trevor Meeker
How to Raise a Puppy
[The Tilda Bear]
Well, I’ve got it ~ the topic for my next book, as I’m now clearly an expert who is enjoying nothing but smooth sailing with my perfect little puppy Tilda. Cesar Milan better watch his back, because as I’ll demonstrate here, I have got this whole thing down.
How to Raise a Puppy ~ Part One
1. Invest in Petco stock and have a shot of tequila before you go there for the first time. The number of leashes on display alone can send the most stable, grounded person into a fit of paralyzing confusion, especially with other dog owners and their yippy, yappy dogs trotting all around you.
2. Take the rest of your savings and invest it in Johnson & Johnson, as you’ll use up boxes of Band-Aids faster than I can type “razor sharp puppy teeth.”
3. Always take the time to appreciate how wonderful it is to be able to sleep in as late as you want once your puppy comes home with you.
Oh wait ~ my bad, I was caught up in one of my latest obsessive fantasies…
4. Get ready to experience a new level of gratitude and appreciation from people like your dry cleaners. They’re going to make a little extra income thanks to all the torn pants you’ll be bringing in for repairs.
5. Make sure all of the following are above your puppy’s reach at all times: Food, newspapers, toilet paper, shoes, clothes, books, cell phones, suitcases, blankets, pillows, plates, rolls of masking tape, art supplies, laptops, cups, rugs, bowls, folders…
I could try to list every item in our household here, but I think you get the picture.
6. Be prepared: The poops only get bigger.
7. Remember: A puppy that runs! and runs! and runs! and runs! will soon be sound asleep, and then, for a few brief hours, you’ll have your life back.
8. Buy your puppy dozens of toys, because you can’t imagine the joy you’ll experience knowing you spent all that money so she could romp with your plastic watering can more than anything else.
The Tilda Bear from Christine Mason Miller on Vimeo.
Pen and Ink
[Photo of the Avebury Ring, taken by my husband around 1981.]
It is rare that a piece of writing makes me cry. Most of the time when I feel tears start to make their way up and around my eyes, threatening to spill over, they gently ease back. This is probably because if whatever I’m reading has moved me that powerfully, I only want to keep reading. The few times I have allowed such tears to flow are at the end of whatever I am reading ~ the novel is finished, the story is over, and then, with empty page before me, I can cry. (Although by then I am likely weepy because the book is over, and I’m still hungry for more.)
I just finished reading a profile piece in The New Yorker about an Israeli writer named David Grossman. The piece is right here, so I won’t try to summarize; all I can tell you is that when I finished this story I felt a tug at my heart that inspired me to take the tears that were forming in my eyes and channel them into my work. This is a piece of writing, and this is the story of a writer, that I will turn to again and again when I need reminding of why it is imperative I keep writing.
For the past few years, as I’ve expanded the focus of my work to include more writing, I have lived and worked with the knowledge that my writing has barely scratched the surface of all I want to explore about the human condition. This awareness comes in the oddest of moments ~ when I am in a heated discussion with my husband, when I see someone weep at an airport, when I try to remember the texture of my grandma’s hands. I have these moments ~ these glimpses ~ of recognition that I still have work to do. I have so much more to examine, share, and express.
Recently my husband and I answered the question, “If you could focus solely on one endeavor for one year, what would it be?” My answer was writing. (His: Violin.) I write now on a regular basis, and am still marveling over the fact that most of the deadlines in front of me are for pieces of writing. I set an intention not so long ago to make writing a bigger part of my work and life, and here I am: I am a writer.
But as I say, I acknowledge and celebrate this with the awareness of how much more I need to do as a writer. I don’t say this to put pressure on myself or take away from what I have accomplished, but to motivate myself to keep going. After reading this piece about Grossman I am inspired all the more to not just continue along the path I’m on, but forge new ones ~ to carve out larger chunks of time to experiment with different genres of writing (i.e. to finally finish the short story that kept me in a trance many months ago) and to begin more detailed examinations of the stories in my family, the fears I’ve overcome, the joys that will never leave me, and the instances of perfect bliss that slip in and out of my consciousness like the hummingbirds that flit about our neighborhood.
I have so much more work to do as a writer, and I am grateful for it. But gratitude isn’t enough, I must sit down and write.
I’ll wrap this up with an excerpt from the article, which is a quote from Grossman explaining the kinship he felt towards another writer, Bruno Schulz, a Jewish writer killed in the Holocaust and profiled in another New Yorker piece that blew me away:
“Reading his works made me realize that, in our day-to-day routines, we feel our lives most when they are running out: As we age, as we lose our physical abilities, our health, and, of course, family members and friends who are important to us. Then we pause for a moment, sink into ourselves, and feel: Here was something, and now it is gone. It will not return. And it may be that we understand it, truly and deeply, only when it is lost. But when we read Schulz, page by page, we sense the words returning to their source, to the strongest and most authentic pulse of life within them. Suddenly we want more. Suddenly we know that it is possible to want more, that life is greater than what grows dim with us and steadily fades away.” ~ David Grossman on Bruno Schulz
Five Things
1. Next month my friend Marianne offering a special version of her online yoga course. Usually costing $100, the October course is offered on a pay-what-you-can basis and Marianne will donate all the money to HIV/AIDS projects in South Africa. Whether you’ve been wanting to try yoga for the first time, or you’ve been going to classes for years but struggle to practice regularly at home, this course will help you take better care of yourself while you support a great cause. Registrations close 3 October. Sign up now.
I’ll also be helping Marianne raise funds next month…more details to come.
2. Don’t miss Chris Guillebeau’s Unconventional Book Tour, coming to a city near you!
3. I met this lovely soul at Squam Art Workshops (SAW) last week and love her blog.
4. Didn’t make it to SAW? Check out the Fall 2010 Flickr Gallery...hopefully it will inspire you to join us next year!
5. I have two new essays and an interview on the world wide web ~ at the Wish Studio, Gypsy Girl’s Guide and Girl Habits.
The Smile
[Photo taken by Gus Harper.]
After looking at Gus Harper’s photos from a journey that took him through Kenya and Uganda this summer, we kept going back to two photos in particular. It was the little boy in the center of the photo above – great big smile with two front teeth missing – that pulled us in over and over again. It was as if his spirit somehow leapt out of the photo and into our hearts, because I found myself fighting the urge to say, “Again! Again!”, wanting nothing more than to turn the photos over just so I could turn them back over and feel the joy from his smile shine on my face.
I can’t tell you how many times Gus and I pulled those pictures from his huge stack of photos, always eager for the burst of laughter that never failed to come out of us. Who is he? What is he doing right now? And how can we learn from this boy we’ll never know? There is so much wisdom in that smile ~ so much genuine love. Even to look at him here as I write this, I can’t keep a smile from forming on my own face. I couldn’t keep it in if I tried.
I read a story recently about how powerful our faces are ~ how easily our moods can be read just by the way our we hold our jaw, look at the world, and react to everything around us. This story has stayed with me ever since I read it, and I have developed a much greater awareness of what kind of messages my face gives the world. As I’ve tried to put this awareness into a daily practice, I’ve found that nothing is more immediately effective than a deep, mindful exhale. For the few seconds that I allow as much air as possible to release from my lungs, I can focus on the truth that in that moment, all is OK. And once that sinks in, there’s nothing left to do but smile, and take delight in my life with the same enthusiasm as this little boy ~ a little boy an ocean away who I’ll likely never meet, whose smile made a difference in my life.
Re-Entry
[Taken near Squam Lake, New Hampshire last week.]
I keep trying to write this blog entry, and I keep deleting everything I write. But my time to work quietly while Tilda sleeps is precious, so I can’t continue using it up here when I have, um, a book to write. So bear with me as I let loose with a free form brain dump.
I headed to Squam Art Workshops (SAW) just over a week ago feeling incredibly peaceful inside despite an emotionally rocky week just before. Creating these tiny notes and sending them all over the world was just the exercise I needed to pull my focus outside of my self ~ a reminder that each and every one of us is struggling, carrying, and/or working through something difficult on any given day. I headed to SAW with so much compassion and gratitude in my heart, wanting every single person I came into contact with to feel some sense of that awareness on my part ~ the awareness of their vulnerabilities and tender spots. Not for any kind of recognition towards me, but so that for those few moments ~ maybe without really being able to explain why ~ they felt more seen, or a tiny bit more centered, or a little more safe.
It was a beautiful weekend, which started with Ms. My Red Tutu and I enjoying a tiny trip to Maine before making our way to SAW, where I soaked in all the beauty, laughter, fierceness, passion, and courage of all those who gathered for four days of creative adventure, which I will write more about later. For now, I have to share that my re-entry back home has been a wee bit bumpy, and I’m feeling rather raw and exposed at the moment.
During my first couple of days on the east coast, I had an almost overwhelming urge to find an internet cafe so I could post a follow-up entry to this one, wanting to express the love and light that swept into my heart after the dark clouds of the previous week cleared. I wanted to clarify that I did not lose hope as much as I released it, and that the letting go was the greatest gift I could have given to myself. I was having a difficult time letting those last few entries hang there, feeling like I had left rotten fruit out, wishing I could go back and drape some kind of pretty fabric over it so that there was always something nice to look at.
Having said all of that, I can tell you that I am still feeling rather wobbly inside, but I am getting my work done. I experienced a week of internal calm last week that I didn’t know I was capable of, and that hasn’t gone away. Yesterday I unpacked and did my laundry, today I’ll ship some orders. In between I’m training Tilda, working on my book, and eating peanut butter toast. I’m in the thick of deadlines, an upcoming show, family events, and life with a puppy. I’m seeing where I need to take better care of myself and working towards creating the support system I’ll need to make small but significant adjustments here and there. I’m discerning where I need to engage and when I need to stay still. I’m breathing, I’m laughing, I’m taking it all in.
“Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.” ~Buddha
Squamward Bound
“Thanks for the toy, but I’m happy with your plastic watering can!”
I’ll leave you with one of the latest shots from the ever-expanding Tilda portfolio. I’m headed to New Hampshire for Squam Art Workshops, where I’ll be teaching, resting, and selling my wares at the Squam Vendor Night on Saturday, September 18, 2010. I hope to see you there, otherwise I’ll be back in action next week.
Five Things (Not)
I just don’t have my act together this week. Or ~ if I want to put a positive spin on it ~ I’ve just needed to do other things in place of the things that I feel like I’m supposed to be doing.
(I think I just tied an entire string of words into a tight little knot, not entirely sure I’ve made any sense at all.)
This week…has been a challenging week on the personal front. Here, in this world ~ where this new site launched and I was showered with good wishes and compliments ~ life is grand. All my work and projects under one magnificent roof, very few kinks to iron out, and a wonderful new way to communicate with everyone through my website. Everyone’s comments are now emailed to me directly! I know I could have set that up over at Typepad, but that was always one of those things I never got around to, so this is quite a happy new routine for me.
In another part of my world, what happened is simple: Hope was lost. Which sounds very dire and dismal ~ and it did wreak havoc on me for a solid 72 hours ~ but beneath the surface of that lost hope was something else, which was the realization that my “hope” was based on a desire to control the outcome of the situation. Once I let go of “hoping” it would turn out differently, I let go of trying to control it, and once I did that, I could breathe again.
There is tremendous sadness in this story, this story that is far from over, but there is now a new kind of light on this path. More importantly, because I followed my intuition, bought some cards, wrote some words on them, and then offered those cards to anyone who requested one, my attention was steered in a different direction. All day today I have been reading emails, which have beautiful little stories and astounding words of kindness. I know I’ve just spent my time and energy creating these cards, addressing the envelopes and attaching the stamps, but really: I am the one who has received the greatest gift here.
This is what I know: The smallest acts of kindness make a difference. What I’ve been reminded of with this little spur of the moment pet project is that we are all carrying around burdens, difficulties, trials, and losses. We all are. I am neither alone or unique with these struggles, and I am blessed beyond words by a support system that makes it possible for me to sit here right now, absolutely drowning in the truth that I am OK, and my life is perfect just the way it is.
In other words, I am exactly where I belong.
