Pen and paper kind of gal

NaBloPoMo writing prompt for Friday, November 4, 2011: When you are writing, do you prefer to use a pen or a computer?

I do so much writing for work on the computer that taking a pen in hand to write on paper is like taking a deep breath of fresh air. Most of my creative writing endeavors begin with pen…in spiral-bound notebooks, pocket-sized Moleskines, the back of butcher-paper preschool artwork…and sometimes in a hand-made leather bound journal that my ex got for me up in the Northwest.

Jagged cut leather edges, thick beige hand-made paper pages, a stone button to wrap a leather tie around. I know my eyes were bugging out of my head when I first saw it, touched its soft warmth. I’d never wanted a journal so badly in my life. He saw how much I wanted it and bought it…one of the best gifts from him ever. And then I let it sit. I picked it up, opened it, admired the workmanship…and set it back on a shelf. I couldn’t bring myself to start pages, to make mistakes on them, to reveal my soul on paper that I wouldn’t recycle. Those pages would never go in a recycling bin. So beautiful and pristine…and empty.

Until Sept 11. I needed somewhere to pour my heart out, to mark down for future generations what I felt that day. And maybe I also realized that our time is so brief here, there is no guarantee of tomorrow…when would I be good-enough to start writing in those pages? And so I started. The entries run in fits and starts, spaced by weeks, months and even a year. But it accumulates–this record of living, hopes dashed, mistakes made, dreams forgotten and realized. And along the way, there are several other notebooks–not beautiful, but they serve a purpose. To keep writing…long-hand in pen…where most of that creative part of my brain finds solace.

It’s weird in a way that the only creative bits on computer are done on this blog. Sometimes I still must write in pen first and transfer it through a keyboard later. But my fingers will always find haven wrapped around the smooth form of pen that allows my soul to flow out.

Well, I haven’t written here in a spell, so I have joined forces with NaBloPoMo to kick my butt into gear The goal is to write every day this month. I’ve only just found out about it, so yes, I missed Nov. 1-3.

Running away from myself…

I’ve gotten really good at running lately. You wouldn’t know it from looking at my thighs, but my monkey mind takes off running like a bear is chasing it every time I have an hour to sit down and write a few pages for my memoir. And I see the most amazing things…like the black mildew in corners of the shower that I didn’t notice yesterday. Just a sec, I gotta go get the bleach spray bottle.

Then I have to go pee and notice the toilet hasn’t been scrubbed since last week when company was coming over. Where did that fine layer of hair and dirt come from on the floor? Ok, the broom will take care of that. Opening the laundry area doors to get the broom reminds me to start a load of wash so I can hang it to dry while the sun is still out. I’m thirsty and go into the kitchen to make a glass of iced tea. A little caffeine will help get me going on this writing project. Damn, I forgot about those dishes from last night. No worries, they can wait while I make a pot of popcorn ‘cause now I’m a little hungry.

I grab the step stool to reach the vegetable oil from the top cabinet shelf and feel nasty grime over the door pull. Grease spatters from the stovetop below are covered with dust up here. It’s really gross. I need to grab the bottle of 409. Wait, is that good for painted surfaces? I should use the other cleaner under the sink in the guest bathroom. The cat comes out of the litter box as I get there and the stink reminds me to clean out his litter box. Ya know, the toilet in here needs scrubbing too. I finish and as I’m washing my hands, I see the soap container is nearly empty. I need to start a grocery list so I won’t forget it next time. What else do we need from the store?

I open the fridge and a funky smell wafts past. Where is that coming from? Veggie drawer is the likely culprit. Sure enough, the kale I should have used in my super green smoothie a few days ago has reached the slime stage. Into the compost bucket…that is now full. I take the compost bucket out back and see I forgot to deep water the tomatoes this morning. It’s been a couple days. And the basil is looking a little peaked too. But oh, there’s a lovely green dragonfly. I run inside to grab my camera. After taking a few shots, I’m getting warm, so I head back inside to get that iced tea and bring it out to the back yard. Think I’ll just put my feet up for a few minutes. I can’t remember what I was going to do anyway.

While I write this to make fun of myself, it’s all too real. There are scenes that I have tried to write lately only to get one sentence down and then I find a wall blocking my way. J says it’s because there’s something deep there I haven’t dealt with yet. Mind you, these are events from more than 20 years ago that I’m trying to write. While some of that time comes out of me in waves, this experience apparently won’t be so easy. 

On the water again…

For many years, tradition had it that our family would load up the canoe on my birthday and head up to Lake Natomas, near Folsom, for a day on the water. We brought plastic buckets and other containers to pick blackberries from branches overhanging the canoe. My dad always joked that for every berry that made it into my bucket, I must be eating two. By the end of the day, I had purple lips and teeth. We’d often make homemade vanilla ice cream out on the back porch after getting home and a blackberry cobbler with luscious crunchy crumbles on top.

This year J made sure we were back on the water for my birthday–a sojourn out to Putah Creek up near the Berryessa hills. Thanks babe!

Roxy’s first canoe trip!

Captain Hamilton

Pelicans on Putah Creek!

Great blue heron and Canada geese

Berry thief!

Flight dreams…

Sometimes we just need to be reminded…

Got an email today from friend and sole sister, Margot, with this photo attached and the subject line “Sometimes we just need to be reminded.” I know she is thinking of her uncle (and my friend) Chuck, who is in the hospital awaiting his bone marrow transplant tomorrow from his brother. We thought he had whipped this lymphoma thing in the ass, but it came back a few months ago. Whenever I think of Chuck’s struggle, I want to kick myself for every moment I spend worrying about the loss of a job. In less than two weeks, I don’t know where I’ll be. The uncertainty gnaws at my self-confidence. I know I won’t be on the street, but where will I land?

But this…this poster…this manifesto for how to approach life—it seems so simple and yet challenging to enact day in and day out. And yet a wonderful reminder. Who knows what tomorrow brings? One of my favorite quotes comes from Thich Nhat Hanh…”The best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment.” I can’t say I’ve gotten good at this yet, but I will keep trying!

Thanks Margot for the reminder…

Indiana Jones…you got nothin’ on this kid!

“Mom, look, an entire skull!”

You would have thought B had just made the latest dinosaur fossil discovery—right in the middle of the co-op parking lot. He held up a tiny skull, grey fluff still intact in some spots.

“Look—see the brain case?!”

“Um, yeah, can you find ones that are completely dried? I’m not sure what that will smell like in your room if it’s not entirely decomposed—the bugs still have some work to do,” I replied.

“Ok, good idea.” He placed the cranium back among the other bones littered under the large sycamore tree.

A cool breeze ruffled B’s hair as he bent over another owl pellet, pulling it apart with a small twig and separating bits of bone from fur. We were enjoying a rare July day in California’s Central Valley when it wasn’t much above 80 degrees—such a welcome respite from the triple digits two weeks earlier.

I left the house a short time before to run errands, feeling a little impatient that I had so much on my to-do list and a seven year old who kept stopping to investigate life’s minutia. After a few minutes of watching him sift through the dirt, I realized that rushing him into the store and risking a melt-down because I wouldn’t let him look for bones wasn’t worth the trade-off of giving him another five or ten minutes of investigation.

I stood with my purse slung over one shoulder, looking at the people giving him quizzical glances on their way to load groceries into cars and bikes. What was this kid doing crouched in the dirt under a tree on the fringes of the parking lot? A sweet-faced older woman wheeled her cart toward us and stopped.

“What are you looking for there?” she asked B.

“Bones,” he mumbled, a bit embarrassed.

“Show her what you have,” I encouraged him.

He lifted up the clear plastic container that we had gotten for salsa at lunch and hadn’t used. It was nearly full to the brim with femurs half the length of my pinky finger, narrow pelvic bones, jawbones with bits of teeth and vertebra still fused.

“Wow, quite a treasure trove there, I see,” she smiled down at him. “Where did those come from?”

He pointed above his head to the owl box installed in the sycamore’s branches.

She patted me on the arm. “Congratulations, Mom.”

I wasn’t sure what the congratulations were for. Was it that I was showing patience in letting him explore? That I wasn’t freaking out about him touching all the bones and fur (he could wash when he was done)? That I had a curious child enthralled and excited about these rodent bones as if he was on a dino dig in Utah?

I asked if she had children. Yes, two grown now, a son and daughter. And one grandson, but he had autism, she said. She glanced at my son and when she looked back at me, her eyes were shiny with unfallen tears. I could see her unspoken dreams, her disappointment and acceptance. I wanted to offer hope and solace, but what could I do but nod and offer a sad smile?

We wished each other a lovely day and I turned to sit on the concrete edge of the parking lot to marvel over each of B’s new finds and to let the tears come—the tears of gratefulness, of living in a perfect moment, the here and now full of wonder and possibility.

Looking for true north…

“I’m always where I want to be, doing what I want to be doing.” How many of us can say that and actually be honest in doing so? Leo Babauta’s post on zenhabits today got me thinking of this.

I often fall into the trap of playing what Leo calls the “fool’s game” of wishing I was doing something different—or better or more exciting or traveling to more exotic places. And then I think of what I would be missing…and all that I have found myself grateful for in small moments of clarity and grace lately.

Moonlight glowing on my son’s healthy brown cheeks as I watched him sleep last night…cherry tomatoes picked from the garden exploding with juice in my mouth…the gentle Delta breeze keeping temperatures delightfully perfect this week…warm skin against mine throughout the night…the dog running along a dirt path with the pure abandon that only a dog must know…the sweet fragrance of alfalfa through the car’s open windows as we explore country close to home.

I’m limping along these days…literally with a broken foot. I have to slow down, no running for a bit. And figuratively…I was told I have until August 5^th at this job and so I’ve been grappling with ‘where do I want to be, where do I go from here and how do I get there?’ I keep picking up the compass, looking for true north and the needle spins, unable to settle in place.

A few images from adventures close to home…

A wee bit of frisson…

Something clicked today…a wee bit of frisson. Not the hair rising on the back of my neck kind, but the crackling of neurons making a brief spark of connection—the spark I’ve been missing lately. The click came while reading Leo Babauta’s blog, Zen Habits. He created a new word, Joyfear, to describe “a mixture of intense joy and intense fear into one ball of powerful emotions that both lift me up and make me see things clearly when I hadn’t before.”

He writes that every single defining moment of his life has been filled with Joyfear. And then, this is what really hit me in the gut…he writes: “Having only joy is great. Having only fear sucks. But having both … that’s life-defining.” Ok, I’m posting that one above my desk. Leo, you really need to make bumper stickers, frig magnets, the works with that line…I LOVE IT! He goes on to finish with this: “Do not shy away from Joyfear. Seek it out. Recognize it when you happen upon it. Joyfear will change your life, and you’ll never forget the moment you find it.”

The round-about way I found Leo’s post today (from chookooloonks) reminded me of the little circle of connection I found last year after reading a small article in the local paper that referred to Chris Guillebeau’s book, The Art of Nonconformity. I looked it up, found his blog and somehow from there found Karen Walrond’s chookooloonks blog (writer, photographer extraordinaire and the author of Beauty of Different.) Through her I found Susannah Conway’s site and blog. Susannah was participating in Reverb 10 and I checked that out. Reverb is an online project that provides prompts for writers—exactly the boost I needed. So I took the plunge to start a blog as a way to share my posts with other writers following Reverb 10. See what a little searching on the internet will get you?!

Starting this blog was a major moment of Joyfear…but it has been so rewarding. I may not have many readers yet, but I’ve made life-affirming connections with a small handful of people…the kind of connections that make me feel less alone when I am struggling to make sense of where I should be and what I should be doing in this world. I don’t know that Karen, Susannah, Leo or Chris will ever read this, but THANK YOU.

You’ve encouraged me to try new things, to examine my life with renewed vision and to share that journey with others. And maybe someone has stumbled across this post looking for direction, for that ah-hah moment of connection, for the courage to step beyond a comfort zone into a Joyfear moment.

Definitely felt a frisson while shooting in a storm at Mono Lake a few years back!

I first heard the word frisson at the Book Passage Travel Writer’s Conference in 2007 and it has stuck with me every since. From the Old French fricon: a brief moment of excitement; a shudder of emotion, thrill. When I’ve been at a loss for words before finding this one, I’ve simply expressed those moments as: “I feel so alive!” I can’t expect to feel this intensity all the time. (And yet I want to—the term adrenaline junkie comes to mind.) When was the last time you experienced Joyfear or frisson?