Where I’m Headed
{Photo taken in Santa Monica, California last month.}
News Ticker ~ My latest interview for Global Inspirations is now up on CreateMixedMedia, and I am thrilled to have a great review of Desire to Inspire in the current issue of Inspirational Woman Magazine. See what else people are saying right here.
~
There has been an idea floating around my head for more than a year now, which is to write a book about my family. Less a memoir and more a testament to the best that we are capable of as humans (lofty, I know), my vision is that the stories would be so compelling and meaningful that the name of the author ~ Christine Mason Miller ~ becomes irrelevant. In other words, I’m not particularly interested in “sharing my life story” so all kinds of attention can be turned towards me. I am interested in giving the world a glimpse of what my family and I have created and nurtured and worked for, because I believe our stories are powerful beyond words. And I think the world needs more examples of blended families that not only work, but soar.
This idea exists in a fairly crowded space, where I have already pitched two more book ideas to my publisher, have visions of two major art shows, and am about to work some mixed media magic on a piano (more on that later.) It would therefore be woefully easy to decide, “I don’t have the time, so that is that,” not only because that statement would be true, but also ~ and more importantly ~ because I really don’t know what this book would look like, how I would write it, and whether or not I would even be able to pull it off. How on earth can I write a compelling narrative about the journey I have taken towards and with my family that doesn’t spill too many personal details about those I value more than any other on earth? It would be a tricky exercise in balance, restraint, discernment, and language, one that requires focus, commitment, and time. That feels like a pretty tall order when I look at my laundry pile every week.
To get my creative mojo going for this at least a little bit, I ordered Jen Lee’s Telling Your Story at the end of last year, and just started diving into it. And I am thinking about a story I once heard that swooped into my ears and nestled itself in my consciousness like the aroma of woodsy smoke that lingers in my hair after a campfire. I don’t know who told me this story, or when I heard it, but it speaks to this very dilemma I keep thinking I have. I’m not sure I have the details of the story quite right, but here goes…
A man walks into a small shop and sees a painting of a rooster on the wall. He asks the shop owner who created it, and the shop owner replies, “I did.” The customer, thinking he is just a simple shopkeeper, doubts his claim, so the shop owner pulls out a new sheet of paper, and proceeds to paint another one, even more beautiful than what was on the wall. “How on earth did you do that so quickly?” asks the customer. The shopkeeper takes him behind the counter, and then back behind a curtain to another room, where dozens and dozens of paintings and drawings of roosters were posted all over the walls, and the shopkeeper says, “Practice,” and proceeds to explain that he has been doing one drawing or painting of a rooster every day for the past year. Just one a day, every day.
I love this story for its very simple yet potent message ~ that if anything is to be done well, or done at all for that matter, all it takes is a willingness to do the work, which can be done a little or a lot at a time. It doesn’t matter that I’m unable to devote eight hours a day to a book about my family, what matters is that I make a commitment to do something. Now. Because if I let 2012 slide by saying, “Later, later…” then all I will have done is lost another year when I could have at least given this a go.
I have written about this before, and have, in fact, done some writing and brainstorming and note-taking for this project. I am not starting from nothing. But with Faryn now in our midst, I feel even more inspired to get these stories on paper, especially considering the profound impact she is already having on all of us. And maybe that is the nudge I needed to release all the excuses I’ve conjured up to keep me at arm’s length from this idea ~ someone who has been with us for just a few days, who I already love beyond words, who deserves to know the legacy her extraordinary family is creating for her. Funny how such tiny beings can exert such a powerful influence ~ one day I was sailing along with a gentle wind at my back, and then a new light poured in, and suddenly I saw the possibility that had been hidden beyond the horizon.
Slight change of course, full steam ahead.
Five Things
Welcome to the most narcissistic Five Things post ever! I hereby present you with five ways you can support Desire to Inspire!
1. Buy the book! It’s available on Amazon and signed copies are in my Etsy shop.
2. If you like it, tell your friends…spread the word!
3. Write a positive review on Amazon ~ this will be a HUGE help!
4. Write a positive review on your blog or website, and send me a link.
5. Ask your local independent bookstore to carry Desire to Inspire.
Thank you for all of your lovely notes and reviews. Desire to Inspire has gotten off to a tremendous start! If you haven’t read the first rave reviews, they are all right here.
The New Year
{My granddaughter Faryn, born January 4, 2012}
Whirlwind doesn’t even begin to describe things around here ever since, oh, Thanksgiving. And at the end of all the holidays, the birthdays, the book launch, and everything in between, there was Faryn, who just joined our world a little over 24 hours ago. Because I am headed back to the hospital soon to visit her and am short on time, I’ll share a snippet of a recent email to a friend, which captures much of this past week, which has been a roller coaster of emotion, love, and beautiful madness.
It was an amazing day. I have witnessed two births before, but this was in a league of its own, and such an incredible opportunity to play a very specific role that really could have been my only possible role. I literally did not say a word the entire time I was in there, and I was pretty well planted right behind T so I could get good footage of the birth from overhead without having to do full on va-jay-jay shots. Her mom was there as one of her coaches, her best friend was there for the same reason, she had a doulah, the nurse, the doctor, her husband, and his mom was sort of hovering in the background coaching and praying. So T needed no other voices, and I would have felt like I was infringing on her mom’s territory if I started to get involved in any sort of coaching capacity. I wanted to be respectful of their bond and these moments.So I was silent, and totally focused on my work as the photographer and videographer. In the background, capturing it all, taking it all in, and also, as much as I could, keeping it together emotionally. (Big tears = shaky camera!) It was an extraordinary place to be, and I LOVED just being there as an energetic support more than a vocal support. And I got such amazing photographs and videos…the light was kind to me.Everyone was convinced this was going to be a boy (they didn’t find out the gender), and after the baby came out, it was placed on T’s stomach. It took her husband a solid 10 seconds or so to remember to turn the baby over and announce the gender (we decided ahead of time he would be the one to make this announcement), and when he exclaimed, “Oh my god it’s a GIRL!” we all lost it. Unreal…and just about the best f***ing surprise I’ve ever had in my life.~I rang in the new year getting violently ill. T, and then C, and then me! all got some kind of monstrous 24-hour stomach bug. When I woke up around 1:00am feeling insanely nauseous, I was laying there thinking about how much I wanted to avoid throwing up, as it has been years since I have. It wasn’t to be avoided, naturally, and there you have it. I was on the couch all day New Year’s day, but then on January 2nd I woke up determined to go the Rose Bowl, so like a crazy woman I went. I was literally grateful to be alive (I’ll spare you the gory details of my life flashing before my eyes), so said to hell with it, and off we went to cheer on the Badgers, who lost, but it was a great game.Of course I have to think of this as a very literal metaphor for clearing things out as the new year rolled in, but I also can’t help wonder why that clearing out had to be so brutal. And I’m also thinking a great deal about the fact that I got sick four times in 2011, which for me is totally batty. Before that I bragged that I hadn’t been sick in years. Years! So I can say 2011 was an extraordinary experience of living in possibility, but I also need to take a look at why all that extraordinary-ness wreaked havoc on my body.~And your words about the book…geez…can I get them tattooed on my forehead? I want to read them everyday. I think people really are getting it, and that might not mean it will sell a lot, but the ones who are buying it and writing about it really getting it. And that is the most extraordinary gift I could ever ask for.
All Of It
“And so, here I am again, years later, still dancing, faced with yet another opportunity to describe my life. My life so far. This compulsion to scrutinize my existence, to evaluate my experiences as one long personal archaeological dig, might seem to some to verge on the obsessive, not to mention the narcissistic. But I view the exercise as my job, even my mission. It was my mother again ~ the real star of the family ~ who said to me at my most impressionable: ‘an artist’s work is the reflection of his soul.’ A bit of a grandiloquent statement ~ if not a corny one ~ but which I took as seriously then as I do now. As an artisan, I’ve come to realize that work must reflect, honestly and unsentimentally, my own personal values, obsessions, emotions, even neuroses ~ a documented record of real life’s experiences, romantic or the opposite; all human encounters, all commercial endeavors, personal conflicts, all of it, to be examined and revealed under and unforgivable microscope ~ beauty marks and all.” ~ Jean-Paul Goude
