Excuses, excuses

I've been in a writing funk lately--where I want to write, but I think "I don't know what to write about," so I just do something else. What the hell? When has not knowing what to write ever stopped me before?

So I'll just write about my life. About what's right in front of me. No agenda. No big reveal. Just writing down the bones.

The kitchen window is open. I turned the heat back on yesterday, and I keep discovering windows open around the house. Last night, I walked into the bedroom and saw the curtains billowing out from the wind. My mind mother scolds me for wasting energy.

I started a new big project yesterday. Last week, I gave up everything I was doing, rolled it all up and handed it to someone else. My status as manager. My client work. One week passes and I am a new person. It's a good experience to have now and then. No one really needs me. The work goes on without me, and people will find their way, not matter what that is.

When my parents retired, they were both so scared to leave their jobs. They didn't know what to do with themselves. But I could hear another question they weren't asking out loud. "Who am I without my job?" I couldn't imagine it. I pitied them for not seeing retirement as a giant gift. Free time to do projects, complete their own work, and follow their own passions. But I can see how it happens. Years and years of being the person with the answers. The person who needs to be at the meeting. It's tricky. You start believing that's why you're important.

When I was going through Lionheart, I had a revalatory moment and wrote this down:
*I* am important.
I am not *important.*

Meaning, there's really no function out in the world that I alone can fill, nothing that is so worth the cost of losing myself. It's my experience on this planet that counts.

It sounds selfish, but actually, it's the opposite of selfish. Thinking you are *important* is actually the selfish thing. That's the ego talking--and it tells you no one can live without you. It adds layers of meaning on top of your identity, to the point where you are no longer you, you're a writer, a creative director, a manager, a leader, an expert, blah blah blah. And those meanings remove you from you.

I like stripping away the meaning now and then. It brings me back to why I am here. Which is maybe why I am writing this morning after all, no longer able to hide behind that curtain of "I'm so busy, so stressed, so important so I don't have time to write/can't think of what to write." I am just me, a person up too early and sitting at the kitchen table, coffee in hand, feeling the itch to write, and taking a moment to scratch.

Why I write and why I don't do drugs

Last week I went to hear Ruth Ozeki read from her new novel, A Tale for the Time Being. I love the Q&A session at these type of events, sometimes even more than the reading. I love the little glimpses into the lives and personalities of the authors. And I am always amazed at how open they are, and how genuine and human they seem to be. They tell little jokes. Make funny comments. Just talk, like the real people they are. Ozeki was delightful. She told stories about how her characters come to her. And about how she rewrote A Tale several times before she got it right.

Sometimes I pretend I am the one up there answering questions from an audience of readers. Today, on my way to work, I was enjoying this daydream. I conjured up a fan who asked me the question "What motivates you to write?"

Here was my answer:

Two things. The first: I can't help myself. Sometime it takes me years to write a story. But it's there. And I can't stop thinking about it. I work on it for awhile, and decide it's not right. But it keeps coming back. Eventually, maybe years after the first idea comes to me, I get another one. The idea that allows the story to be told. But all that time, the story just kind of hovers, looking for a place to land. Right now I've got three stories I keep thinking about. I know I will eventually rewrite two of them, and finish the other. But right now they are hovering.

The second: death. This may seem like a tangent, but I promise, it will connect. I don't do drugs. I certainly enjoy the buzz of a strong margarita or two, but nothing more than that. In college, I did pot once. I ate some pot brownies that friends of mine made. And maybe I ate too much of one, or it was too strong (my friend did spend several days cooking the weed in oil in order to get every drop of THC possible and then used the oil to make the brownies) but it was a bad ride. I sat on the floor of my friend's room and I'm sure it was just the drug messing with my short term memory, but it felt like I'd open a door, then head down a hallway, then open another door and head down another hallway. I couldn't make it stop. The doors just kept opening.

After that, I was scared to die. Because that bad trip was what I imagined death to be: always stuck in a loop of nothingness. No past, no future. Eternal present.

How very zen. And being stuck in the present is probably why most people do drugs--to escape from the pain of past failures or the anxiety of the future. But the present means nothing without the past. And it doesn't mean anything withou a future either. 

I never did pot or anything else again. It was horrifying.

Death is the mother of beauty, wrote Wallace Stevens. I guess that experience of feeling dead, made everything more beautiful to me. Even the pain that comes with being human--it means something. And writing about that beauty that I see and feel, before at some point, I see and feel nothing, seems incredibly important.

Pink spring

Pink spring.
I can smell it--
earth and honey.

I open my windows,
let the world in,
unwrap this heart,
from its woolen blanket.

Turn my face
to feel the sun.

100 haiku challenge, 62

Neighbor's christmas lights
still twinkle on in late March.
Leave them up all year!

New habits?

Again, I have some work to do tonight, but I'm blogging first.

What I posted yesterday has continued on like a conversation in my mind. I wrote,

Asking for help, admitting things are not alright invites others in. You reveal your vulnerability. And with that, you release your control. When you ask for change, it may not be exactly the change you are looking for--there are two people involved in the outcome now.

So I'm trying to figure out how to reframe it. When I'm feeling abandoned, should I think differently about it so that I can keep my independence but not feel miserable? Or should I just ask for help, and let go?

But I realized I was not acknowledging one of the big components in this swirl. Fear.

Asking for helps from others is scary. You need to let go, not just of your independence and your control of the situation and outcome, but you need to trust as well. When you ask for help, you open up the possibility that the other person will disappoint you.

But what's the alternative? A never ending cycle of feeling abandoned, then shutting people out.

So I think my task is to reframe things this way--when I'm feeling abandoned and needing help, I need to make the goal to connect with others, rather than getting the help to achieve a certain outcome. Focus on connecting, and the help will come.

Old habits

Today, I'm blogging BEFORE I do some work, rather than the other way around, which is what I usually do. But then, by the time I'm done working for the evening, I'm too tired to blog, or it's too late. This time, the work can wait.

Yesterday I had this revelation that I was re-living a childhood trauma. Am I saying that right? What I mean is, repeating bad ju-ju from my past.

Lately at work, I've been feeling pretty beat up. I won't go into the details (you already know one reason why: I'm working too much). Everyone in a position to help seems too distracted to really notice. My manager has cancelled or missed our one-on-one meetings for six weeks in a row. Quite honestly, I was feeling a little abandoned.

But that's when I remembered  what I was like as a teenager. My mom was newly divorced, working and going to school, trying to keep us clothed and fed. She was pretty distracted. I know I felt abandoned at the time.

And my reaction? No matter how bad I was feeling, I pretended everything was OK. I guess I didn't want to add to her burden. She had so many other things to worry about. I didn't want her to worry about me.

That's exactly what I've been doing at work. Just soldiering on, acting like I can handle it. Like I'm just fine amidst the chaos.

But here's the thing: back when I was young, I'm not sure I would have wanted my mom to pay attention. I gained a lot of freedom out of her distraction. If I had said something, things would have changed. She'd have been all up in my shit, and that would have killed my free-ranging abilities.

Which is where I get stuck. Asking for help, admitting things are not alright invites others in. You reveal your vulnerability. And with that, you release your control. When you ask for change, it may not be exactly the change you are looking for--there are two people involved in the outcome now.

So I'm trying to figure out how to reframe it. When I'm feeling abandoned, should I think differently about it so that I can keep my independence but not feel miserable? Or should I just ask for help, and let go?

Worth reading

When Paul Graham says it's worth reading, it usually is.

Burning woman

So I said I'd be fearless. Here's something I was too afraid to post when I first wrote it. It's sat in my drafts folder ever since. Why was I so scared? I don't know--maybe I thought she'd read it. Maybe I wasn't sure I was being honest with myself.

Interestingly, there are new developments on this front. I might write about them a little more this weekend.
_____________________________________

This Lionheart leadership thing--it's burning through me. I feel like a raw nerve right now. Boy, does telling the truth and following your heart lead to so difficult and interesting places.

So here's where it may have led me: to the end of a very long friendship. I don't really know if that's the case, but right now, it's a possibility. I may have just lost one of my oldest friends.

The Lionheart assignment was this: remove an obstacle in one of your relationships. When I heard that, the first thing that flashed in my head was that I needed to talk to E. I'd been doing this thing for more than a year, where I'd wait to see how long it would take for her to call me, or reach out to me, and then when months would go by and still no call, I'd finally break down and call her. It's sounds stupid, I know. But every time, I'd think "Man, why doesn't she ever call? Why is this so hard? Why do I feel like I'm always making the effort?"

So I called E and told her what was on my mind. At the very worst time possible. She was back East, dealing with a very ill family member. But at the time, she listened, and it didn't feel totally resolved, but it was an okay conversation. We agreed that I'd come up with the ideas for what to do together, and she'd make more of an effort.

Then, flash forward a month later--I know she's back, I know she's been through a lot, I don't hear from her, so I call. I leave a voicemail, "Just wanted to see how you're doing..." Nothing. The next weekend, I invite her to go to a holiday craft bazaar. She texts back, "Thanks for the invite, I can't go." I feel like it's all kind of chilly, but I'm trying to just be understanding of what she's been through. I text back, "OK. I miss you. Hope we can get together soon. Hope you are doing ok," and leave it at that. But it's bugging me.

Then last night, she calls. She tells me that our conversation has been on her mind and bothering her. She feels I'm judging and measuring her. She'd heard things like this from me before (true, I have tried to have this kind of conversation with her in the past) and she never gets this from any of her other friends. She is who she is, and that I shouldn't expect her to change. She doesn't want to hear this kind of thing from me again. That I told her this at a time when she needed to focus on her family, and I made the conversation about me.

And what did I say? Yep. I've got some lousy timing. I didn't mean to cause her an extra pain when she was already going though so much. And that my intention wasn't to make her feel judged, but tell her I value our friendship, I miss her, and that I want to feel valued too.

And then we hung up the phone and cried.

So there you have it.

So I don't know where I'll be tomorrow. But right now, I think I'm done. I opened up what was in my heart, and asked for a deeper connection, to be more involved in her life, and to have a better relationship, and I was told in effect, "take it or leave it."

So I guess I have to. It is what it is. I can't change that.

I actually imagined trying to talk to her again. Perhaps this time, telling her about what my vision is for what the friendship would look like. And I thought--well, there's a chance she's say "That's not my vision, and not something I want." So more rejection. But what if she says "Ok." Then I have to follow through on that vision. And that feels like it would be a pain in the butt. And I realized right then that I cared more about making her see my point of view, and feeling right, than I did about the friendship.

Ultimately, I think my focus on the friendship and how I'm dissatisfied, or what I can do to make it better, and am I being the better person, or doing the right thing, blah blah blah, has just been a distraction. And it has held me back. I need to focus my energy and time on people and projects that boost me. My family. My creative work. Friends that make time for me. Who don't fall back on "I'm too busy." And now that I'd thought of it that way--that's I'm not losing something--I'm potentially gaining something, I don't feel so bad about it.

I'm not pretending that..

1. People don't disappoint me.
2. Pictures of food are interesting.(Fucking stop posting them!)
3. I like board games.
4. I don't talk to myself. Especially when alone in the car.

The gift of fearlessness

I committed Facebook suicide this week. Totally pulled the plug. It's likely why you're getting a blog post from me today!

I used to blog a lot more. When I signed up for Facebook more than four years ago, that all ended. The time I used to spend here, or in my journal, or just in my head--pondering--dissipated. Instead I was spending my time on Facebook.

I came to realize it was not just effecting (goddam it! affecting?) my creative life, but my social life too. Instead of calling a friend, I lurked on Facebook. It was too easy. Too addictive.

How many hours did I spend scrolling through status updates, instead of playing with my son?

So I ended it this week. I couldn't think too hard about the consequences. I just had to do it. Thinking about who I'd lose touch with, or what I'd miss out on just paralyzed me. I got up early one morning, and in that hazy mind-space time when you don't really think about anything, I logged on and deleted my account.

Yay!

So now I have some time to do what I've been meaning to do for awhile. Write here. Back in January, as my birthday was approaching, I was thinking about giving myself a gift. The gift of fearlessness. I thought about the power of just posting whatever was on my mind--which I often don't do because I wonder what you all will think of me. (Ha! All three of you reading this blog.) Maybe if I write about what I really think, and really feel, you'll think I'm terrible, unworthy of friendship, a totally negative bitch.

Well, maybe you will. But I'm going to risk it. Because the consequence of not writing what's on my mind is...nothing. Nothing happens.

There is a saying: "The universe asks you to go first."

Here I go.

100 haiku challenge, 61

Two and a half beers,
Some duck boots and a raincoat.
Raindrops can't touch me.

100 haiku challenge, 59 and 60

I've been writing these for a year now. Perhaps with some effort, I can make it to 100 by New Year's day!

#59
I mourn the earthworm
on concrete, but do nothing
to alter its fate.

Self portrait
Blue light--me with pen,
paper. Animals gather,
waiting for me to rise.

You know you've got something when you cry

So I'm revising my Superman piece. And revising it. And then revising it some more.

I'd already gone through a round of revisions on my own. But then I met with my editor, and his observation was that I could use more of a set up to make the pay off at the end stronger. He suggested the intro in the bookstore to be its own little scene.

Ugh. I was resistant. I liked my in-media-res opening. But I did it anyway, just to see what would happen. And as usual, once I got over the inertia, the rewriting wasn't that hard after all, and now I'm happier with the opening.

And I knew I needed to do a little bit more with the ending, so I kept going, rewriting, and adding and tweaking so that now my piece grew by about a third.

And there was one line I added, right toward the end, that as soon I got it on the page, I burst into tears. Sobbed. And that's when I knew I'd gotten to the heart of the piece. I won't tell you what it is...I just hope that when you read it, it makes you burst out crying too.

Feedback please!!!!

Here's about the first 2/3 of a new piece. Thoughts, comments, nudges--any and all feedback is appreciated and will help me get this "done." (As much as it ever will be!)

Falling in love with Superman (or, Why Superman is my hero again)

“This one, Mama. I want this one,” Dante said.

I turned away from the shelf where a collection of Leo Leonini’s artsy children’s books had been lovingly displayed by a bookstore employee.

He was holding a cheaply produced little paperback number, flashing its vivid primary colors. Superman and the Mayhem of Metallo. The cover pictured the man of steel pummeling a giant, grimacing cyborg.

It looked violent. I stalled.

“Are you sure, honey? Look at this one. It’s called Swimmy.” I flipped through a few pages’ worth of dreamy sea creatures.

But nothing could compete with Superman’s red cape and muscles. Dante’s eyes were locked on its pages.

“Mama, read it,” he commanded. And I did—reluctantly so—pausing every sentence or two to contemplate editing the roughest parts. In it, Lex Luthor commands the evil cyborg, Metallo to smash through Metropolis in an attempt to lure Superman. Little does the man of steel know that Metallo has a heart of kryptonite. Mwhaa! ha! ha! Superman is down for the count, and everything appears hopeless. Lex Luthor looks on from the penthouse in his corporate tower, laughing at Superman in his weakened state and anticipating world domination. But then! Batman makes a special guest appearance and tasers the robot into submission until Superman can regain his strength. They hurl the short-circuited metal man into space and lock Lex in a maximum security prison.

From the way Dante sat—barely breathing, eyes unblinking, his small, warm body leaning into me at the scarier parts—I knew there was no arguing, no persuasion possible, no contest. And it had all started so innocently too. A rainy Sunday afternoon. We were both bored, and Dante, three-years old, was catapulting off the furniture for fun. “Let’s go to Powell’s! You can pick a new book out!” I imagined myself browsing the literature section while Dante sat cross-legged with a new Richard Scarry book. Never did I contemplate the possibility that he could fall in love.

We bought the book and Dante scanned its pages in his car seat, all the way home.
Over the next week, we read that book—a lot.

And over that time, a very curious thing started to happen. I started liking it.

I could really chew on sentences like “The Dark Knight zaps the cyborg. Zzzzzzzakrk!” Way better than Goodnight Moon, with its bland bowl of mush!

I was loving the language, as lean and powerful as the superheroes were drawn. Taut words, sentences that hurled forward with a staccato of consonants: “Batman throws flash bombs at the metallic monster, trying to blind him. “Aah, my eyes!” yells Metallo.”

Dante had a thousand questions.

“Mama, what’s heat-ray vision?”
“Why aren’t Superman and Lex Luthor friends?”
“What’s a cyborg?”
“Mama, what’s an alter ego?”

I answered each one with pleasure—feeling like I was part scientist, part magician, part poet—explaining each of Superman’s superpowers. His freezing breath and x-ray vision, super speed and super strength, the fact that he can fly but Batman needs a plane. Together we inspect Batman’s utility belt, trying to pinpoint the pocket in which he stows his Bat taser.

I grow nostalgic for the Superman of my youth: the hunky Christopher Reeves version and find myself delighted that I can stream the movie on Netflix. It’s a special event in our house—movie night! Dante and I snuggle under a blanket while the opening credits roll by.

I forget how long the first part of the movie is. Kal-El’s home planet of Krypton, his childhood in Kansas, his angsty trek to the arctic circle to build his Fortress of Solitude. Dante asks me every five minutes when Superman’s going to show up. He is not satisfied when I keep telling him Clark Kent is Superman. I consider bailing on the movie—maybe he’s just too young. But we stick it out and the awe on his face at the first glimpse of Superman in his red and blue super suit with the underpants on the outside makes the barrage of questions worth it.

…Despite my gung-ho attitude, I’m still conflicted about the violence. There is no way around it. But more significant, this is the first time my son is exposed to that fact that some people are bad on purpose. And though Superman and Batman are the good guys, it’s hard for him to tell the difference—they use their fists and superpowers just like the bad guys. It feels odd, but I decide it would feel odder—dishonest even—to soften it. We are talking about superheroes, sure, but my boy need facts. There are bad guys in the world who steal money, destroy things, hurt others. And sometimes the good guys are just as scary.

100 haiku challenge, 58

The earth holds its breath.
But soon it will exhale, ahhhh--
and all the leaves fall.

100 haiku challenge, 57

Sweet, crunchy, fall leaves
already. It's September.
I wear my sweater.

I am/not

It's been a rough couple of weeks at work.

I am
Not a manager.
Though I may attend weekly management meetings
Where we wade through forecasts and org charts
Policies and programs
Though I’ve hired
And fired
And have now laid off
What some call human capital
Though I have nine reports whom
I hold accountable
For the duties of their jobs
And to meet the goals
We set annually.

I am
Not strategic.
Though it is
The thing to be these days
And god forbid
You like to get things done
For you may forever
Be labeled as tactical
Or merely, “good at execution.”

And I don’t make decisions
Based on the reality of the business.
Though I have added up dollars and cents
Cost and ROI
Weighed risk and opportunity
Because the reality of our business
Is that the business exists because of us,
For us.
We are the business.

And though it may
Not be what you want to hear,
I am
not a leader.
Because using that word
Presumes I have followers
Ready to walk with me
into the distance
When everything right here
Is worth staying for
And the only true destination
Is deep inside
And that, by necessity,
Is an unguided journey.

I’d rather dream than plan.
I’d rather love than profit.
I’d rather feel deeply than forecast.

What I am
is the one
Who unsynchs
Unsynergizes
Unfocuses
Unfollows
Wandering off to
Look for treasure
Buried deep.

I am the one
who doesn’t think of it as a job
Or a business or a paycheck
Or a career path
Because what it is
Is a craft
An art
A science
A curiosity
An itch.

I am a garden
of green light
I am a heart
A body
A thinker
A dreamer
A poet
An artist
A creator.

I can teach you
how to see
how to listen
how giving away
everything you've got
can feel like a privilege
I can teach you
how to tell the truth.

100 haiku challenge, 56

Grasshopper
No summer haiku.
I compose them in my head
then they leap away.

Coincidence?

What rock is hitting me now?

I hate being told what to do, even when I agree with it.

I'm also really annoyed with people who won't do what I tell them.

Why rock?

"The rock that hit you could not have missed you, and the rock that missed you could not have hit you."
--Sufi saying