Mundane
{Balloon stuck in a tree in New York City. Taken last week.}
Right now, this is what is on my July calendar: Nothing.
With all the color-coded events, obligations, travel plans, and work deadlines that have filled every month of the year so far, I love pulling up July and savoring its blissfully empty days – a sea of empty white boxes smack in the middle of all the activity going on before and after the middle of the summer. I open up July and take an immediate exhale, feeling my shoulders drop at the sight of all that gorgeous nothingness. There’s so much nothing I feel like can hold it, even knowing its moments sift will through my fingers like sand.
I was in New York City last week, tagging along with my husband on a business trip, and as much as I loved soaking up all of its style, energy, and creativity, I walked around with a strange sense of unease. I enjoyed myself, but deep down was happy to know all my wanderings around midtown were helping the clock to tick faster. Every moment that passed meant I was that much closer to going home. When we made our way back to California – to stillness, quiet, and our own bed – I immediately felt lighter. All the thoughts that I felt were gripping my heart and mind too tightly while we were away loosened and relaxed. A conversation I’m dreading still needs to happen, but I didn’t feel paralyzed by it once I got home. A project I’ve resisted for months suddenly felt less daunting. Everything settled down, even the details of my life I’d been resenting, avoiding, and getting myself worked up over.
As much of a gypsy as I am, I need a home base, and I need spaces of stillness in between the movement. I could very easily look at my wide open July and decide to fill it with some new project or trip, but my focus that month will be much more mundane. The more mundane the better, in fact. All the Big Important Projects will come soon enough, and there’s no need for me to hurry them along.
Summer 2011 ~ Book Releases
I am a proud contributor to two beautiful new books by two extraordinary women ~
Art Saves: Stories, Inspiration and Prompts Sharing the Power of Art by Jenny Doh
The Artist Unique: Inspiration and Techniques to Discover your Creative Signature by Carmen Torbus
More details about each book are right here.
Love, Love, Love
{Taken in Xi’An China earlier this year.}
Our home is a home of joy. It is a home of laughter, good food, made up songs, poetry workshops, book readings, Tilda romping, and music. Before this past weekend, that is what I would have said. Ours is a home of joy.
After this past weekend, that statement suddenly feels small, maybe a little bit flat. It isn’t that I treasure the memories we’ve created in this house less than the life force that filled every nook and cranny this weekend. It is more that after this past weekend, I can feel this house absolutely glowing. I can hear it singing. I can feel its foundation hover ever so slightly above the earth.
My friends – a family of six – returned to the United States after being away for nine months. They traveled to thirty countries in all but one continent by plane, boat, train, car, and RV. Their first stop back on their native soil was here in Los Angeles last Thursday. When they waved good-bye at 4:30am Sunday, they were headed home. Which means their time with us was a way station of sorts. It was a first and a last – first stop in the states, last stop before home. It was a time to settle in, exhale, be taken care of, and eat a great big cheeseburger.
I am still not able to articulate the level of emotion I felt while they were here. I can’t quite explain why I am still weepy at the thought of my friends, of all they have just seen and felt and experienced, and all the open arms that were waiting for them back home. I have known this couple since we were twelve years old, and they now have a daughter the same age. I am an only child, so these friends are two of a very small handful of people who have known me for so long. To have stayed connected for such a long stretch of time is not an experience I am familiar with, which I suppose could be one of the reasons why their presence here inspired such a surge of emotion. Maybe it’s a simple matter of unfamiliarity.
I have actually been feeling the tiniest bit embarrassed about the emotional outpouring that came during and after their visit. It felt over the top – too awkward, too intense, too clingy and needy and doting. I still feel that way, and this is why it is going to be a while before I can express what my time with them this year – here and in China – has meant to me. Or maybe I’ll never be able to share it in a concise, lyrical way. Maybe it will always feel like too much, and I’ll always be tempted to avoid diving too deeply into the strange confluence of memories, joy, loss, sadness, laughter and gratitude that filled every single moment I shared with them. Maybe it will always be more of a tangled bird’s nest and less of a neat row of twigs.
For now, that is neither here nor there. For now, it is only about the joy.
This
Sky
Where we live
Is no place to lose your wings
So love, love,
Love.
Five Things
1. Jen Lee’s Finding Your Voice: A Multimedia Course
2. Unfurling, A Mixed Media Workshop with Misty Mawn ~ another great new book!
3. Pocketbooth iPhone App. I just downloaded this one and am already obsessed with it.
4. Camera+ iPhone App. Ditto above. This and this were created with this app.
5. At Home with Handmade Books: 28 Extraordinary Bookbinding Projects Made from Ordinary and Repurposed Materials. I just ordered this one!
5.
A Gift
Whenever someone asks me what a typical day is – What are my creative routines? What is my writing discipline? – I always feel sheepish when I try to answer. Typical day? Hmmm…well, I brush my teeth, I feed Tilda, I make a cafe au lait, but after that my days are usually fair game for a wide array of people, tasks, and other responsibilities. My time is dictated less by consistent routines and more by the immediate needs of the day, whether for my husband, our house, guests, projects, or deadlines.
Despite this fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants approach to my time, I still manage to find pockets of space that allow for divine artistic intervention. This unique inspiration is able to squeeze through the smallest cracks of time, and it is in these tiny, easily brushed aside opportunities that my willy nilly schedule works to my advantage.
Not long ago, someone emailed me wanting advice on writing – how to do it better, where to submit work, etc. This email came to me when I already had a to do list that filled the day, so my intention was to respond to her email and then get back to those tasks. One of my suggestions was for her to look at Skirt! magazine, which publishes 8-10 personal essays every month, all around a specific theme. I had a few of my essays published with them a couple of years ago and have sent a number of other writers their way since then.
I wanted to send a direct link to Skirt’s submission guidelines page, and when I found it I decided to take a quick peek at Skirt’s upcoming themes. June was to be The Yes Issue, and when I read that I immediately thought of an experience I had with my family two years ago. And I thought, “Maybe I should submit a story,” before looking back at my to do list for the day and pondering how flexible those items could be. Which tasks could be put off until tomorrow? What could wait until next week? By the time my eyes finished scanning the entire page of “Very Important Things”, none of those questions even mattered. I needed to write this story.
And just like that, without a moment of hesitation, that is where my day went. I wrote the story. I edited the story. I revised and tweaked and got it under the required word count, and within 48 hours I submitted it. The muses came calling at what looked like an inopportune moment, and just as immediately as I respond to the needs of all the other people who come in and out of our home, I gave them my full attention, and the story flowed through me, right onto the page.
Once I’ve met a story deadline, and the work is turned in, I don’t see it again until it is in print. When my work is finished I move on to the next task at hand, rarely fretting that I did a good enough job. Which isn’t to say I always believe my work is A+ material, it just means that I’ve done the best that I can, and I’ve turned in my work on time. When the printed versions come out in all their black and white glory, most of the time I enjoy seeing them in print, but in some instances I read my pieces and cringe, wondering what kind of crazy editor decided it was a good idea to give me a byline.
And every so often, when I read a newly published piece, I get goosebumps, because I recognize that the story was written with the help of a force much stronger than my still evolving writing ability. Once in a while, I am rewarded for last minute decisions that take me in an unexpected direction even when laundry and other deadlines are beckoning.
I wrote this story - just published in Skirt! magazine – in one of those sparks of inspiration, on a day when I had other things to do. I was looking for information to share with someone needing advice, and I ended up writing a story I am immensely proud of. It feels a little weird to build it up this much – to present something I’ve created with such confidence – but it isn’t so much about flapping my feathers in honor of my ego. I am especially moved by this story, and the experience of writing it, because of the subject matter and the unexpected way it came into being. This story was created by my family, by the woman that asked me for advice, by the malleable nature of my days. This story was a gift.
