I am being called upon to let go on so many levels these days, most especially with regard to our living situation. We continue to exist in a not entirely unpleasant state of limbo – we’re getting settled in Santa Barbara, the house is still for sale in Santa Monica. My studio is up there, my computer is down here. I have a work space down here that works well enough, but most of my files are up north, and each day down here I have to tidy things up so all looks ship-shape in the event of a showing. It isn’t a terrible situation, but it is one that requires much patience, flexibility and surrender. There is much I cannot do at the moment – focus on serious writing or get started on – gasp! – a new series of paintings. But I can get to work on an entirely slightly-out-of-left-field idea I’ve been dreaming up for a long while, one where progress can be made in small, easily-interruptable spurts of activity. And I can let another project evolve slowly, organically, with plenty of light and fresh air and wide open space.

I am, in many ways, hunkering down and working under the radar – humming along quietly and lining up new creations like beautifully iced cakes in a shiny glass display case. But the blinds are drawn on my studio, so the work I am doing still feels very hidden, very unseen. And that is a strange place to be when social media makes one feel like every day must be an announcement-worthy day. These days my main “announcements” involve nothing more than photos of Tilda and some typewritten musings. Beyond that I am laying low, keeping things as loose and soft as possible so that when the house sells I can leap into action and get us moved gently and seamlessly. And because that magic date when the house sells is a complete unknown, I have to let go – of wondering or guessing or planning or strategizing. There is no figuring this out or lining up goals on my calendar. Instead, my intention is to take advantage of what each day has to offer, and be grateful for all the tiny nooks and corners that a state of limbo encourages me to explore.

Five beautiful books by five amazing women ~

1.  Reinvention: Sewing with Rescued Materials by Maya Donenfeld

2.  Brave Intuitive Painting – Let Go, Be Bold, Unfold! by Flora Bowley

3.  Nomad:  A Global Approach to Interior Style by Sibella Court

4.  This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart by Susannah Conway

5.  Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed Media Mapmaking by Jill K. Berry

For my interview with the Lovely Laurie Wagner, I decided to try a different approach than a standard Q + A. You see, Laurie, to me, will always be “Laurie the Word Wrangler.” When I first came across her work ~ many years ago ~ Word Wrangler was the name of her website, and it had a beautiful image of a dress hanging on a clothesline, a sparkly sun shining through the fabric. Sometimes I would go to her website just to look at that image and soak in the words “Word Wrangler” – they felt wild and free and purposeful, and she was someone I felt immediately inspired by.

So in true Word Wrangling spirit, I have pulled a few snippets from Laurie’s recently refurbished website - www.27powers.org - and have asked her to wax poetic on them for us. Now that I’ve read the interview, it is so brilliant I just might have to approach every interview this way from now on. Get ready to be I-N-S-P-I-R-E-D.

* embrace your messy writing *

You know, I’m too smart for my own good some times. I over-think things, I try to make everything the BEST, say the WISEST things – even in this interview with you Christine. So for the last 20 years I’ve practiced just getting the words out there quickly – from the gut, intuitively.

All my writing starts messy because that’s like inviting all the juju to the party; the dancing elves, the dirty varmits, the rotten scoundrels, the better-not-say-thats, the know-it-alls and the uppity school marms. All of the voices have something to offer.  For me that’s a lot more interesting than sitting down and bringing only the smartest parts of me to the table – at least in the initial stages of making something. My smart, brainy parts want me to look good, so they’ll try to protect me by making me too shiny. The wilder, messy parts actually carry the golden magical bits that come from my unconscious, stuff that my smarty pants self can’t even conjure.

* humbled by what it takes to want something and see it through *

Taking on a creative project and seeing it through is like crossing some terribly rocky, utterly beautiful terrain filled with wooly mammoths and dancing cha cha girls. It is not a walk in the park, you can’t do it alone, you will hear voices,

“YOU CAN DO IT!”

“NO I CAN’T”

“MY PROJECT IS ABOUT…”

“OH SHIT! WHAT’S MY PROJECT ABOUT? WHAT WAS I TRYING TO SAY?”

It can be like stumbling through your house in the dark, bashing your knees on the furniture until you get to the light switch and the big A HA!

It’s not for the weak at heart, you have to be fearless in the face of your self doubt, and it’s really helpful to make promises to people who will hold you accountable. Coaches rock!

What I think makes us the saddest is when we want to do something – like write or make art – and maybe we set out to try, but then we fall back because we get scared; we listen to the pesky voices, we don’t trust ourselves. Then we put the work down and walk away – not just from the project, but from the beautiful part of ourselves that dreamed of making something. I see this over and over again with students – they disappear and I know they feel bad about themselves. I think they think that because it’s hard means they’re not good at it. Not true! It’s hard for everyone!

And so to make it all the way through a project, confronting all the things that get in your way is a huge experience. It took me a year to create my eCourse, Telling True Stories, and when I was done I felt like Sylvester Stallone at the end of Rocky doing that dance with his mitts punching the sky and the music blasting, “Gonna fly now, flying high now!”  I was happy to have the product, but even more proud that I showed up for myself day after day, especially when I had no idea what I was doing. The humility in this is that I know the next project will bring me to my knees again, but because I’ve crossed the terrain once, I know I can make it through.

* stories that are knocking at your soul’s door *

Everyone has them – here’s one of mine.

My grandmother drove her baby blue jaguar into her swimming pool one rainy February day in 1988 and drowned. For years and years I went to a writing retreat that my mentor Deena Metzger held – that’s where I met Maya Stein and Sherry Belul – and every summer I wrote the same stories over and over, but in different ways, always returning to the image of my grandmother’s pool, always returning to her purse, which had landed at the bottom of her pool and which the cops had dumped into a sink in the house. I wrote about how I’d come to the house and rummaged through that purse looking for clues as to what had her blast through the azalea bushes that day and into the pool. I wrote about the one black orthopedic shoe that someone had dredged from the pool and left in the sink, how I turned it over to see the scuff marks on the sole, as if to gauge how my grandmother walked. I was ultimately trying to figure out how a beautiful Jewish girl from Salt Lake City had landed at the bottom of a swimming pool. That was 20 years ago, I’m still thinking about Mama Ginny, but I’m also thinking about my Mother and my sisters and my daughters and myself, all the women in my family. I’m imagining us all standing around the perimeter of that pool and looking in, reflecting on the power of our own choices. My grandmother chose to go into the pool. What will our choices look like? Picasso said he painted the same painting over and over all of his life.  I’m going to be writing this story forever, just trying to get to the bottom of it.

* truth inside of ourselves *

Layers and layers and layers of truth. I’m a person who cannot hide what I feel – it shows on my face, in the way I move. I’m a terrible liar. I love the line, “What I’m really trying to say,” because it helps me get to the creamy center of what’s important to me. People have called me the most honest person they know, but I know that’s not entirely true – there are so many more layers for me, a lifetime of layers.

* yellow marshmallow chicks *

You found these words on my website? Fantastic! I slightly remember writing them – but have no idea where they are on my site. Clearly they came from messy writing. My smarty-pants self couldn’t have come up with those darlings.

Be sure to check out Laurie’s next eCourse – Telling True Stories. All the details are right here.

1. Sounds True ~ Many Voices, One Journey

2. The Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts

3. Mixed Media May is here! I’m a happy contributor.

4. Deanne Fitzpatrick sent me an oh-so lovely note recently, as well as a copy of her beautiful book Inspired Rug-Hooking. Her creations are extraordinary, her kindness and generosity glows.

5. Jess Greene is hitting the road this summer, wants to connect with you, and needs your support! Learn all there is to know about her Jumpstart Creativity Tour and support her on Kickstarter.

I went to see David Sedaris last night, and I ended up going on my own. The plans I had made with a friend weeks ago fell through when she got sick, and no one else was available on such short notice, so I walked into a crowded Arlington Theater with two tickets, one of which remained intact. The theater was full and everyone looked to be in a good mood. I have been wanting to see David Sedaris for quite a few years now, and when I saw his name on the UCSB Arts & Lectures calendar months ago, I grabbed two tickets immediately. Me Talk Pretty One Day made me laugh so hard I cried, and I also love his features on This American Life and other NPR programs. Whenever I’ve made a list of Writers Who Inspire Me Most, he’s on it, because he creates that lovely balance between being funny and poignant, all in the same sentence.

While I was waiting for the program to begin, I looked around at everyone in the theater, and took a moment to consider what each of these audience members had brought into the theater – what were their stories, their losses, what dreams and memories and experiences were they carrying? I imagined each person in the 2000+ seat theater holding an entire universe, each with countless details and breaths and blinks, and it was actually awe-inspiring. And – unexpectedly – it made me soften inside, made everything in my body and breath settle down just a tiny bit. For how could I not breathe more deeply in the presence of so much of what the world has to offer? What journeys had these people been on? Who among them has seen the pyramids, given birth, buried a friend, built a business, planted a vegetable garden, owned a parakeet, flown a plane, earned an A+++ on their third grade science project?

We come across these worlds everyday, in every moment, as we hustle and bustle through the grocery store, picking up our children from school and even writing our blog entries. What do I know of the worlds that anyone reading this holds in their souls right now? I know nothing, except that in each of those worlds there is beauty and grace, sorrow and joy, and magical memories of long-ago summer evenings, the laughter from yesterday and all the love in the world.

{This entry is part of a series of stories chronicling recent transitional developments in my life. These stories, and my brief explorations of them, are offered here as a way to share inspiration, experience and truth. To follow them all, click here.}

This photo was taken many weeks ago, the day I cleared everything out of my studio so the room could be staged as a bedroom in preparation to put our house on the market. There is now a cozy single bed in the corner, a small table and lamp, a comfy canvas chair. Everything is pretty well set up in my new studio space up north, but most of my work is still being done in Santa Monica. Only now I’m in another room – more open and exposed to all the activity in our household. We continue to live in a state of limbo – existing between here and Santa Barbara, not quite settled in either place. But life has still managed to develop a quiet hum, and my weekend has been one of beautiful creative play and soulful connecting.

One project that is now getting some attention is my website. It is time for a hefty round of revisions, and I got them all figured out today. Part of the revisions are related to what will happen here on the blog, and I’ve started by updating some category names, deleting ones I’ve neglected, and re-organizing a few others. Here’s how things are shaping up right now:

100 Books Project ~ All about the 100 copies of Ordinary Sparkling Moments that were left around the world by the most beautiful Book Fairies on earth.

Beauty ~ A new category, which will be a virtual bulletin board of beautiful images.

Creative Business Toolbox ~ Entries meant to inspire, guide and teach. The time is long overdue for a new one in this department!

Dear Diary ~ Used to be “Musings”, but I thought I’d re-name it in order to better communicate that these entries are the ones where I muse over my life, my work, my creative process and my day-to-day.

Desire to Inspire ~ All about my latest book.

Five Things ~ All my favorite finds!

Guests + Interviews ~ …is exactly what it sounds like.

Life in Transition ~ The story I am living right now…of moving, of my husband’s retirement, of things like my website re-design.

News + Miscellany ~ I’ll be getting rid of my Calendar page, so this is where you’ll go to find out all the latest + greatest.

Quotes + Poetry ~ Some of my favorite words by some of my favorite writers.

Selected Entries ~ This category will eventually shift to an entirely new page on my website, which is going to offer an ongoing series of substantive essays, explorations and philosophical ruminations.

Sparklettes ~ Tiny snippets, glimpses, whispers

Travel Tales ~ Stories from my travels around the world.

Video Creations ~ I like to make videos. And they’re all here.

It will likely be some time before other changes are incorporated, but that’s just fine with me. Everything is happening at its own pace these days, and, for the moment, I feel a deep sense of surrender to it all. The story is unfolding, the roots are burrowing deeper, and I get to savor it all.

Today, while playing with Tilda outside, I had such a powerful urge to lie down beneath the sun, I sprawled out right there on the tile sidewalk in our backyard. And it was heaven.

1.  Marianne Elliott is back in Afghanistan ~ follow her journey right here.

2.  Jolie Guillebeau’s beautiful new book is here!

3.  Did you know today is Plant a Kiss Day?

4.  Congratulations to Maya Stein for reaching her Kickstarter fundraising goal for Type Rider. She leaves in less than week!

5. And did you know? Honey Badger Don’t Care!