Greatest yet to be given gift? I was recently given the advice that I need to pay more attention to what I want. In the sense that sometimes, I have no idea what I want or need. This means to figure out the GREATEST, MOST amazing gift anyone could ever give to me, feels like a tall order.
I have been surprised from birthday to Christmas with some pretty spectacular gifts this past year. What could top these?!
How long do I have to think about it? Who am I asking for this gift? Do I know them? Do they know me? How well? Or is this like a Santa gift? Like my greatest wish ever? I can’t decide. I definitely need more time.
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
I am playing every day lately. I have been hanging out with three adorable kids who have different ideas about what is fun.
They finally decided that they liked Monopoly. It took a few tries though, because none of them liked paying taxes or going to jail, or anytime their turns went badly. Getting all three to agree on anything is a big win. Monopoly was a hard sale. My son said it wasn’t designed for this generation. We had a few laughs, but then, guess what happened? They started begging to play, somehow all of them turned into deal making real estate moguls.
Tag and catch at the park. I’m getting ‘styled’ today by the girls. There is a doll house waiting to be set up. New markers to try out, a bat and a ball, a drone with a camera and a video to make. Thank goodness the grownups all have to work, I’m not sure how we will fit it all in…
Later…. Well, we did. Plus we made cookies, raced in teams to the park, played impromptu two on two baseball, walked the dog which turned into a game of ditching and spying and ended with more Monopoly and then more pretending with the doll house people. A full twelve hours of mostly uninterrupted playtime.
The best thing about kids is that they really just want to have fun. We probably all do, but kid energy seems to insist on it. They turn everything into a game and all they need is someone to play along. The more the merrier,when G joined after work and gave us all baseball nic-names they were delighted. Plus he could throw.
The day before I left New England, I went to a yoga class that included dance and music making. I had been avoiding this yoga line up since joining the studio, but a few people were talking about it and it was my last day before getting on a plane. It was also the last day of 2023. I decided to be a little brave…
I had fun. It was playful. I have been living in an ultra serious situation with a lot of chore doing and grownup conversations. I might want to bump some play into my schedule when I go back.
My challenges change. It seems like as soon as I figure one out, something else becomes a challenge. Is this just me?
My biggest challenge lately, is probably this trip. I am having some nice moments with the kids for sure, but oh my. Peace and easy going ness are being tested randomly and often! I am tired from lack of sleep and probably the time difference. Maybe I haven’t caught up from the epic night of travel delays.
I am living without knowing the plan from one day to the next. Everything is contingent on so many variables and people. Living moment to moment is what we are all doing, it’s just that I’m really feeling my lack of control in real time. Today I found out that the 6th was not a Sunday and that threw yet another monkey wrench into my already non plan plan.
Luckily, train tickets can be cancelled. No fees were incurred. Eating helps ground me. I do get to see my other son. Th e kids are fun, G is taking it all in stride. (I’m not winning any awards for my good attitude), yet I’m pretty sure it’s all going to work out perfectly and so far has. wheew!
If you could read my mind, you would be watching my thoughts bounce in every direction. When I’m lying in bed, I’m trying to list things I’m grateful for while fending off thoughts of worry and panic.
Is this anxiety? I don’t think so. When I traveled to Kenya, I was not in control of anything. I was with a group of twenty some people and someone else was in charge. Things did not always go smoothly, but I had no choice but to roll with it. There came a moment when I had a big choice to make which did segment me off, affecting everything. I made up my mind in a moment and it ( though stressful at times) turned out to be amazing. This is travel. This is life concentrated into quickly changing moments. This, I am reminding myself, is exciting. This is what being outside a rut feels like.
Who said ‘life is a daring adventure or nothing at all?‘ I can’t remember. I am not navigating a foreign country, there are no language barriers or unfamiliar roads. I am still navigating. I read somewhere that our brains can’t always tell the difference between excitement and fear. Sometimes you have to pick one and tell your brain that it’s that.
I am thankful for this exciting time! I am thankful to be witnessing my own bursts of regulation. I am thankful for the speed of change. I truly am thankful for these ever changing, fast paced moments. I am thankful for ALL of my people and each precious moment I get to spend with them. I’m thankful for the love that I feel steeped in. I am so thankful to be standing at the top of yet another full day that is sure to be filled with vast possibilities and who knows what kind of fun.
I have relationships with different people, places and things. Ideally I like to spend as much of my time with positive people doing positive things in uplifting places. This is easier some days than others, but generally I do my best to gravitate towards positivity, and flee when things get too negative.
Yoga, easy upbeat conversation, comfortable friendships, music, books and outings that inspire me are some things I like to be impacted by. There are many different kinds of positive activities for me to spend my time doing and positive people to do them with.
It’s interesting that despite my best efforts, I will still bump up against some big challenging moments. I just had a weirdly bad travel day. It was long and extremely uncomfortable. I’ll leave out the details because, we’ve all had at least one and know how they go. So much happening and not happening, and so many details. Then, there was some family drama I didn’t know about, but was suddenly getting snippets of, and felt. Finally, a big feeling of negativity crashed into my personal space when two women fanned the flames of a disagreement and some retaliation by one of them. They went on and on, rehashing details no one wanted to hear about. It was hard to stand clear. You could see and hear and feel it escalate. Even the kids were affected. Most of us were bystanders, it wasn’t a small group, I’m surprised how all encompassing the energy became.
Talk about wanting to flee, and not being able to. It was a little like being stuck on the airplane only instead of tired disgruntled strangers, we were an intimate group. Still the negativity crackled around us, me, and I am left wondering about trouble shooting because it’s pretty clear, I have not recovered.
How can I encourage a few of my positive relationships to crowd out and replace the residue of these encounters? I want to have a good day! I want lightness to replace heaviness. I’ve seen energy shift in a moment, I know it’s possible!
At the end of it all, I know that I am responsible for my own energy. Oh, I would like to blame these happenings for pushing me out of regulation, but I know so well, it’s not the happening as much as my reaction to what happened. It’s me not taking charge of my own thoughts and opinions. I know positive impact when I feel it, I know how to turn my attention in it’s direction even. I know I have to let the past be and look in the direction that I want to go.
I know these things, I’ve practiced these things. I guess I’m grateful for some more practice. This has been the beginning.
We played monopoly with the kids. They don’t remember playing when they were younger, so I found myself telling them that there are stages of this game. In the beginning you buy anything, you don’t try to save. In the middle you buy houses. Anything can happen and it did. They all ended up in jail trying to roll doubles. They all got discouraged and wanted to quit. There was a point where things shifted and houses started being able to be bought. I think monopoly might be more like life than I thought. Not in the money part as much in the momentum. Maybe trips too…
I sometimes feel nostalgic over the littlest, silliest things. Other times, it’s the significant and memorable, that send me down memory lane…
My brother and I have the best childhood memories of living in California. We moved there twice from Canada. We were never close to a beach. We were culturally out of step with Californians. We weren’t even there long, but everything Californa was seared into the dopamine regions of our young brains forever.
I later married the most stereo-typical surfer anyone could ever find, Californian or not, and I wasn’t even living in CA when we met. My husband once said of himself, people think everyone from California has blonde hair, blue eyes and a great tan, when they meet me, they think they’re right. I went on to have four blonde kids. Three boys who’s hair I let grow long, contrary to our at the time community norm. I was born too late to really be a hippie, but that never stopped me. It’s the best way to describe what I’m like and trust me I TRIED to blend, for years before just giving up.
Anyway, I liked California. Or really, I LoVED California, and it loved me! It was the first place I ever lived or found myself, that I felt at home. It was and still is, like returning to my mothership. I, for whatever reason, make sense there. In other neighborhoods and classrooms, I was one of only a couple of blondes, if not the only long haired blonde girl. I love that a good percentage of women have their hair lightened. I like to blend a little without much effort. Very refreshing.
It was a lot of things. The wind, the sun, the energy. I loved the music, the fashion, I was smitten with all of it. I liked the way things flowed. As a kid, I didn’t think much about why, I just accepted that it was what it was. Fun.
Also, I loved and love the easy-going approach to most things. The over the top indulgences. Who doesn’t love abundance? No one cares if kids get big headed or bratty. No one didn’t compliment and encourage children, even in the Mad Men era. Disneyland was almost a literal metaphor for our life in California.
Swimming pools and pie. Hot chocolate and stuffed animals. Rides rides rides! Treats and fun all day long. Even school was a bonanza of incentives. Ice cream bars, and extra credit. I actually excelled at school. I freaking LOVED school, which was a first for me. I, who they wanted to fail every year since kindergarten, shot straight to the top of the class. Uh. Hmmm
Oh I’m not saying Californians are perfect, they are just different. When I was a kid I’d never met anyone like them. For most of our lives, there were rules and budgets and disappointment.. It was cold, it was gray, it was often a bit stodgy. California for us was Canada’s opposite evil twin.
My parents could hardly handle all that sunshine and joy. They seemed to like it at times, but soon we had to move back. This was like when anything wonderful comes to an end, devastating, but you know, life…
Now, my brother and I still have conversations about our Californian nostalgia. How lucky we were to have it be a bright spot in our childhood.
Don’t get me wrong, Canada is a beautiful place with plenty of lovely people. It was my home for many years. Weird that I fit better in a place so far from where I was born. I know now as a grown up, I can always seek out and find like minded people. They arent all living in one place like it seemed when I was a kid. I looked hard as a grown up for community and found it in many different ways. Now, on the East Coast, I’ve found some like minded people as well. Always fun and it does make me a little nostalgic for those days around the pool hanging out with the nicest, most generous grownups ever, who actually seemed to LiKE children! Even if they were faking I couldn’t tell. One time three different neighbors made me a birthday cake! THREE cakes! Who wouldn’t be nostalgic for that?!
Oh I’ve changed! Yep I have. Even over this past year. For one thing, I’m a writer now.
I’m learning to live a life I want to live, to be who I am and like it. I’m learning that it is not about circumstances. Its not any of the things that I wish for that make happiness happen or possible. I’m learning to hold out for surprises. To be patient as solutions arise. To stay open to possibilities. I am finally, at long last, surrendering to my path, and all it’s unexpected twists and turns I used to think weren’t right or shouldn’t be part of it. I’m learning to just step out into the unknown and not care what anyone says or thinks.
2023 has been surprising in so many ways. I guess that’s what keeps life interesting . The unknown. The unpredictable. Being new. Being a beginner.
I heard this today: “In the mind of a beginner there are many possibilities, in the mind of an expert there are few. To none.” Im grateful tonight for not knowing too much. I’m grateful I ended this year by doing something new and different and I’m grateful to be starting this next Year with a trip back to California.
I’m grateful for Lakshmi and her steady flutter of petal like possibilities raining down on me and swirling like a thick blizzard of hopefulness all around me all of the time. I’m grateful for an entirely transformative year. Write a book about a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly and why wouldn’t my life transform as well?
I would not have planned to be here. I would not have put this chapter in my book about me, but you know what? I’m thankful it came about. I’m thankful for all of it.
Happy New Year, my friends, thanks for being out there, allowing me to share.
Today at yoga, Megan our instructor, told us about the goddess Lakshmi who is the goddess of possibility and fortune. Apparently she is for not only for material riches, but spiritual riches as well. She rides on a white owl and sprinkles out flower petal like blessings as she flies over head. I picture something like that golden buzzer moment on America’s Got Talent. Why have I never heard this story before? We did a whole yoga practice dedicated to Lakshmi, complete with owl poses and letting go of resistance poses and even surrendering to our own path poses. I love this idea. I love a good metaphor. I always love a story with a point.
Megan closed the class with the suggestion to allow ourselves to let go of all resistance, to open up to all possibilities and to surrender to our path. The last part stuck with me. I have been in this free fall for a little while now. I am learning every day how to surrender. It occurred to me that what I’m surrendering to is actually just my own path.
That seemed a little funny. I am living so entirely on everyone else’s agenda these days. Im not suggesting I didnt agree. I did sign up for all of it, but it has felt like someone else’s life. So not mine.
Is the joke on me that this IS my life. This is what I’m doing. This. All of it. Right now I’m writing children’s books in New England while supporting my husband as he helps out aging parents with a barage of age related medical issues. That, my friends, is my path.
I’m going to open my hands and let go. Let the possibilities rain down on me. Stop resisting what is. Have at it Lakshmi, I’m ready!
It’s interesting that the energy changed again. Things started falling into place in many surprisingly good ways. (before and after yoga). Life can be so unpredictable. I guess why NOT surrender? It’s not like I have much control anyway. This is it. This is my path. Twist, turns and all the craziness. Fun and adventure factored in.
I have to think surrendering has a little bit of embracing in it. Maybe that’s my own swing. If lm going to surrender, I’m going to find ways to like it. I am absolutely going to make the very best of this stretch of the road, because, well, apparently it is MY path.
You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like?
I guess I kind of built mine. It’s in the attic over the garage where no one ever goes. I can hide up there for hours and work or read. It has a good view of the ocean. It’s cozy. Even with a tiny heater and sometimes maybe an extra thick coat, I’m comfortable. I have those fingerless gloves…
I refinished a table we found at a historical society flea market. I sanded it to buttery smoothness and wax/oiled the natural color wood. I found a white chair also.
It’s a simple space with very little besides my computer, iPad and a few art supplies. I arranged boxes so you don’t see the few things stored up there. Oh and one card table covered to the floor by a cotton drop cloth extends my table and gives me a painting zone. I have an electric kettle for tea and some healthy snacks. The sun streams in through two good size windows. I also have a good light for when it starts getting dark. Lately, that’s around 3 pm.
I LOVE this little space. When I was first putting it together, I was inspired by the scene from Little Women where Jo sits up late at night writing at her own attic window desk. I even decorated for Christmas feeling that civil war era vibe. I found actual holly with bright red berries growing and tons of ever green branches while out walking near a forest one day. A little store in town had beautiful vintage inspired ornaments at amazing prices. I got a handful for my birthday. Also my hundred year old bowl! Filled with organges of course.
This is where Peaceful Hearts became an ebook. Where Beatrix was formatted and edited. Where blog posts are written and edited. Though I write on the couch in the evenings with everyone watching TV or on long car rides. sometimes in little coffee shops, back in the summer on beaches. I write everywhere. With my new IPad drawing ap, I can draw and paint anywhere as well.
I do love my solitude though. I can’t say enough about uninterrupted all by myself time. My little writing and reading nook is a dream space. it keeps the magic and romance of being a real writer alive every day.
I have changed my mind about which car is my favorite over the years.
Lately, I’m loving my white jeep. I used to love my Honda Element before the catalectic converter was stollen and the air conditioning stopped working. That little car was the ultimate art mobile. I could fit large canvases, boxes of spray paint, huge amounts of chalk and other paints, brushes materials, signs, staging paraphernalia, etc. I loved that car.
But now I’m in love with my jeep. I used to want a white jeep when I was a teenager. Long after my 12 year old self stopped wanting a purple sparkly (like a 1970s boat) corvette. I went through a short Porsche crush before buying my own real cars.
When I was in Africa, I was convinced I needed a LandRover. They are the badass-get-you-over-the savanna-car of choice in Kenya. I can still hear our driver rambling on in Swahili and then saying ‘land-rover’ as clear as day.
I’m not the biggest car person. I can’t really tell a bmw sedan from an Imfinit unless I see the logo. In order for me to get excited about a car, it has to have some cool components. A good paint job will impress me. A cool exterior. An amazing sound system. I like it when the engine has that good sound. What do they call the low rumble that sounds powerful? That.
I have for as long as can I remember, been over the top creative. I had a brief teenage time of self rejection, when I thought it was my curse. I’ve raged against my right brainedness from time to time, since, but usually end up grateful for it. Sometimes I feel other people’s eye rolls, or their exasperation, but usually, I’m too busy reinventing some odd wheel in my over active brain, to be bothered to care.
Oh I have longed for the conventional. Why didn’t I get a brain that wanted to study to become a nurse or an accountant or something real and tangible. Something that makes sense and can be stated without explanation. ‘I’m an engineer, I’m a paralegal. I go to work and do this… wouldn’t I be better accepted and way more useful?
Well. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there is no joy and certainly nothing to be gained by rejecting oneself or one’s personality (or brain). When I finally learned to embrace my way-outside- the-box- ness, I did find some peace. I’m very grateful for that peace because I do still wonder from time to time why I couldn’t be more of a balanced sort. Like an employee with a creative hobby…
Getting back to the question of how am I creative? HOW am I creative? How AM I creativitve? How am I CREATIVE?
I guess it starts before I open my eyes each morning. I go over what I’m grateful for and that gets me thinking of my latest projects. I start turning them over in my mind, thinking of improvements, exploring possibilities…
This turns into planning my day. What will I include? What am I excited about? What possibilities are there for me? What do I want to do to get my juices flowing? What am I feeling inspired by? Do I need more inspiration? Do I need more information? Creativity is like a fire. It starts with a tiny spark that needs to be fed. To keep a fire going it needs to be tended. If I let it die, I need only to start again and with a new spark. Sometimes things move me to tears, that’s what inspiration feels like to me. It’s a strong feeling of love or devotion that makes me feel deeply and then drives me to act and make something. Hence create. It’s such a familiar natural process that I’m struggling to find words to describe it. That strong woosh of inspiration like a full force wind is impossible to ignore, and I don’t want to! Fanning the flame, getting down to work is the harder part. Nothing comes out like the perfection in my head. I often put on music to cancel out the noise of criticism. (my own!) and pick my way forward.
Being creative is not always as fun and easy as some people think. There is real labor involved and often it’s a lengthy process. Hemingway once said something about writing like, you just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein. ( I think he meant a literal blood vessel) Many of the varibles aren’t known and some haven’t been invented yet. None of this can be over thought, because it’s easy to give up. Finding FLOW is the aim. That sweet spot where time falls away and I’m in a full mind/body meld with my project.
I have many tricks to fan the fire of flow. As an artist you know the importance of flow. It commands its own reverence because it feels like a collaboration with something much bigger, smarter, better than I myself could ever hope to be. It’s the closest thing to bumping up against the devine that I know. But it’s often in the form of tiny surprises or minute surety in a stroke or several strokes. It’s what lives on in art. The energy you might feel when you connect with a piece of art. It’s what gives me the confidence and motivation to keep going with something. I can’t unremember how words fell together or paintings painted themselves. It feels significant even if no one else ‘sees’ or ‘likes’ what I do. Thank literal God for not leaving me alone to shoulder the responsibility of my creations.
I wish I was a brilliant song writer because how they explain the process of words just coming out of them is exactly how I would discribe creations coming out of me. I’ll never have anything on iTunes though sigh…
Peace Kit 