writing Archives - Adulting: Second- Half

Monday – Funday

I know that I haven’t given the blog the attention that I usually give it these last few days. I’m in a pondering state of mind. It’s like I’ve finally fully accepted that my husband and I are truly empty nesters and now my mind wants to go to all of the “what ifs/what’s next/what do we do with this extra “freedom”/what is my/our vision for going forward.” This line of thinking takes me down many rabbit holes. It’s exciting and daunting and frustrating and interesting and something my husband and I both need a consensus on, in order to go forward with anything. I’ve written about this before, but this is an unsettling time in life, much like any other milestone period. It was mostly a well-defined path to drive the boat down the narrow stream of working, raising the family, limiting our choices to people/places/things etc. that made the most sense for “raising the family” in the best manner for us. Now our boat has landed from that narrow stream to the wide opened up mouth of the Gulf of Mexico. What makes the most sense for us right now? The paths are lot more wide open, and not quite as clear, than they had been for most of our adult lives. Having multiple choices can be formidable. And yet, my least favorite state of mind is “hanging in limbo.” I hate feeling directionless, and yet I know that the pondering and the considering and the weighing of options is vitally important before heading out to sea. Thankfully, my husband and I are yin and yang this way, in relationship to each other. So while we sometimes get really annoyed with each other, we also save each other from too many over-the-top impulse decisions, and yet also from sitting with too much paralyzing indecision, in equal form. We’re good for each other in this way.

And so my dear, wonderful readers, please bear with me in the coming days. Getting around to finally writing the blog this morning has actually been really cathartic for me. (Even though I was really wanting to stay exploring one of my deep diving rabbit holes.) Writing always helps me to see “where I am at”, and it helps to give me clarity. Writing is as good a reflection of oneself as any mirror, if you are willing to be honest and vulnerable with yourself. Writing helps one to “see” any situation more clearly.

To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard. ~David McCullough.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2538. What is the most daring thing you’ve ever done?

Monday – Funday

The writer Joe Lansdale says the key to his success is, “I write like everyone I know is dead.” Most writers are told to write about what we know. The famed writer Anne Lamott says this: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

It’s a tough line that we writers walk. Most of the world lives behind screens and masks and passive aggression and fragile egos. It’s hard to be direct and honest and “say it like it is”, full well knowing that someone else’s “say it like it is” about the exact same situation, may look like an entirely different “is” than yours. Many times, my truth is not the same as your truth (and yet confusingly, these opposite truths can be mutually accurate, all at the same time) And then we’ve got the whole “cancel culture” thing going on. And on top of all of this, we have our natural human beings’ need to be liked and to be loved and to be understood. We don’t consciously want to hurt anyone – even those who have hurt us. And we don’t want to be hurt in the process, either.

This is why journals and diaries are wonderful. This is also why it is also important to get your own personal take on things, out there in the world, in one form or another, even if it is just opening up to a trusted friend. Honestly, the world doesn’t need ten more of the same “Awhoooos” wolf songs in a row. That gets rote and boring and tedious. It feels fake, easy and sometimes conniving and controlling. What I have found, many times in my own life, is that when I am more open and honest and vulnerable in my communication, it seems to give others permission to do the same. And it makes me feel closer to people and it also makes me realize that a lot of all of our “Awhoooos” in all of our different lives, are more similar and relatable than we would have ever expected. And in intimate moments, the next song is called “Awhooo” and instead of rolling our eyes, we all smile at each other and we often nod in appreciation of what we share in common.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

1325. Do you have any phobias?

Blocks and Cones

I think that the turkey gravy has made its way up to my brain. I’ve got nothing today. I have a lot stirring up inside of me which I haven’t made sense of yet. Sometimes mixed emotions keep the words/thoughts in a whirling cyclone in my head. And trying to force a cyclone to stop and get orderly, just doesn’t work. See you tomorrow. (The good thing about all tornadoes in that they are typically short-lived.)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

For Your Life

“I think we’re losing something. One hundred years ago, everybody wrote. Everybody wrote letters. Lots of people kept journals. People wrote down the events of the day. Today if you say to somebody you meet, “That’s an interesting story. You should write it down,” their first response is, “I’m not a writer” — and by that they mean that writing now belongs to those of us who do it for a living. I think that’s wrong. I think writing should belong to everybody and I think everybody should write because it’s good for our history and it’s good for our psyche.” – Anna Quindlen

“Being a reporter taught me how to write even when I didn’t feel like writing. People ask me all the time about writer’s block. Can you imagine saying to the city editor, “I’m blocked today”? Being in a newsroom also taught me to write tight, look for telling details, and write dialogue that sounds the way real people talk.” – Anna Quindlen

I didn’t realize that Anna Quindlen wrote a book called Write For Your Life in 2022. I haven’t read it yet, but I will now. Anna Quindlen has always been one of my favorite writers. The quotes above are from an interview that she did last summer, with the The Saturday Evening Post, about the book.

Write. You have a story. It’s a good one. Writing will help you make sense of your story and it will help your friends and your family make sense of you (maybe even after you are long gone). Make yourself write every single day. Sometimes I come to this computer with that ho/hum feeling that I truly have nothing to write about it, but I make myself do it, because I am committed to writing a daily blog, for myself, and for you, my dear readers. It is important to me to strive to be a person of my word. In this way, you help me stay accountable and I am forever grateful for your presence. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Everyone has a story. And it’s a better story than you want to believe. Yesterday, right before dinner, I decided to get a quick nail polish change on my toenails (not a full pedicure, I didn’t want to spend the time or the money – just a quick polish change). The manager of the nail salon sat down and she took only about ten minutes to do my polish change. In this time, she matter-of-factly told me that she had just returned to work after her father-in-law’s funeral. He was of Laotian descent, and he was a Buddhist and she said that Buddhists tend to have long drawn out funeral ceremonies, so she had been to different parts of the service for four and a half days. “I’ve been doing a lot of eating and sitting,” she said. Her father-in-law was a sweet, quiet man, who wanted to please those he loved so when he was diagnosed with cancer, he agreed to do the chemotherapy process, even though he didn’t want to do it. Late this summer, he finally told his family he that was done with partaking in chemo. He wanted to enjoy his last days. Her father-in-law died peacefully about a week ago, after small stay in hospice after refusing a feeding tube. During his funeral planning and service, the manager told me that it was so interesting to see what grief brought out in the different people in her family. The so-called “most responsible” eldest daughter fell apart and wasn’t able to do much of anything. At times they couldn’t even locate her. On the other hand, one of the granddaughters, a busy woman in her early 20s, who hasn’t had much to do with her family at all, became everyone’s rock, particularly for her grandmother, the heartsick wife. The salon manager’s son is in middle school. He considered his grandfather to be “his best friend.” In their Buddhist tradition, as a sign of mourning, the men in the family shave their heads. The manager’s son has a big head with big ears which makes him feel self conscious. Her son is in that emotionally volatile and often mired in insecurities, middle school stage. He was torn as to what to do. Thankfully, the elders in his family, and the elders in his tradition decided that enough men had shaved their heads to honor his grandfather, and they reassured the young man that his job was to honor his grandfather/best friend, in his heart.

In ten minutes, I learned so much. I learned about this woman’s family, and things that I didn’t know about Buddhist traditions. I felt connected to this woman who has painted my toenails off and on throughout the years. I could relate to her heartsickness for being the wife and the mother of a grieving family.

It took me about ten minutes to write the paragraph above. Listen to others. Listen to yourself. Write it down. Write it down, because as Anna Quindlen says, “It’s good for our history and it’s good for our psyche.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

A Journey All Its Own

The painting above is called “Mountains and Sea“. It hangs in the National Gallery of Art and it was created by Helen Frankenthaler, a famous American abstract expressionist painter. I started researching Helen Frankenthaler because I read one of her quotes, and it reverberated with me. Here is the quote:

“Every canvas is a journey all its own. There are no rules. Let the picture lead you where it must go.”

The word “canvas” can be replaced by so many other words in this quote and still make so much sense. “Life” works. “Season” works. “Relationship” works. “Vocation” works. I think this is an utterly divine quote.

Helen Frankenthaler also said this:

“I don’t resent being a female painter. I don’t exploit it. I paint.”

To give this quote context, Helen was born in 1928. She did most of her major works in the 1950s-1970s. During this time period, art was still dominated by male artists. Today, we seem obsessed with labels. We label everything, even by giving people labels that essentially mean “label-less”. I think the people who are arguing for and against categorizing people in certain ways, are missing the point. Labeling anything takes away the individual essence of anything. So if anything, we need less labels. The quirky cardinal who frequents my yard and likes to noisily bark at me to remind me to fill my feeder, gets severely limited in the way of his own special individuality when I call him “cardinal” or “red bird.” Of course, he doesn’t give a damn what I call him. He doesn’t “resent being a male red cardinal. He doesn’t exploit it. He flies.”

“What concerns me when I work, is not whether the picture is a landscape, or whether it’s pastoral, or whether somebody will see a sunset in it. What concerns me is – did I make a beautiful picture?” – Helen Frankenthaler

Sometimes friends or family will discuss one of my blog posts with me and they will say “thank you, they really need to hear “such and such message”, and sometimes that message which they supposedly got from my post is a message which is equally new to me, as well. And I am so delighted by this. I believe that really good art, whether it be paintings, or poetry, or dance, is a medium that brings people closer to their own inner selves. Really good art stirs people’s emotions and inner worlds and messages from their intuition like nothing else can do. Really good art makes us more open to exploring what is behind the hidden doors of our spirit. The only thing that I ever want people to get from my writing, is a feeling of understanding and more intimacy with their own souls.

“In relations with people, as in art, if you always stick to style, manners, and what will work, and you’re never caught off guard, then some beautiful experiences never happen.” – Helen Frankenthaler

With this quote, I believe Helen is saying to live and to create with a little imagination and fearlessness. Sometimes you have to change course, add some extra ingredients, don’t get stuck on the “tried and true”, in order to experience magic in your life. Is there anything as cheerful and interesting as a “pleasant surprise”? Or as Helen Frankenthaler says it plainly in this quote:

“I’d rather risk an ugly surprise than rely on things I know I can do.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Automation

Last night, our middle son showed us something on the internet called “ChatGPT”. It’s an artificial intelligence that appears to make Siri seem like an inexperienced child and apparently, ChatGPT is only in its own infant/rudimentary stages. To show us an example, our son asked ChatGPT to write a poem about a lonely turtle. In less than a minute or two, the ChatGPT wrote a four stanza poem that rhymed perfectly and was quite clever and added a lot of details about a forlorn little turtle. Our own kids, who are still college students, admitted that some kids use this tool occasionally to write their required essays. I like to believe that those “some kids” are not mine.

As a writer, I find this new technology heartbreaking. I’ve often curiously questioned technological advances in the past, and their moral implications, but this is the first time something that I am fully passionate about, is being touched by and taken over by automation. Will the kind of writing that I like to do, become some quaint relic from the past? Will we grow to assume that everything that we read in newspapers, magazines, on the internet, and even in books has been written by some algorithm/artificial intelligence? Will anything be original and human anymore, or will everything that we do be handled and created by robots?

My son reminded me that artificial intelligence only works with what we “feed” into it. He said that he could ask ChatGPT to write a poem about a lonely turtle with more of a Shakespearean feel to it, and he reminded me that AI could only do that because Shakespeare existed first.

I fear sometimes our need for perfection. I fear that we worship at the holy grail of getting everything done quickly, easily, and flawlessly. We disdain the imperfections which we find on our faces, so we have filters for that. A machine can do surgeries precisely. Who needs a human touch? Are those science fiction shows about babies being birthed into labs in order to mine them for replacement organs going to really come to fruition?

Sometimes when I write, I think to myself, why do I do this? Everything that I write about has already been written about, by other people, at least 100 times over. But then I remember reading an article by Anna Quindlen, a great writer and teacher, who told her students that we all can write about the same thing, but nobody brings the same “voice or soul” to any one topic. Like fingerprints, each writer has their own intrinsic voice. I believe that this individual voice from each creator/artist/writer is connected to our deepest souls, and that’s something that machines don’t have – they don’t have feelings or passion or a true connection to Creative Intelligence, which is the true source to all things alive and wonderful. Machines don’t have souls. In my mind, Creative Intelligence dwarfs Artificial Intelligence any day. The most beautiful creations in the world, whether they be natural, or manmade, are beautiful because they were created out of passion and longing and feeling and desire. Feelings are messy. They are not perfect. Feelings are jarring, and fleeting, and overpowering, and intense. Feelings are not analytical and systematic and perfect and predictable. Feelings are human. Feelings come from our souls. The best creations in the world come from harnessing the chaos of the fervor and the zeal of our feelings and of our intuitions and of our passions. Intelligence without feeling is aptly named “artificial.” Creative intelligence is as real as it gets. We humans are the channels for Creative Intelligence. I hope and pray that this never changes.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Last night we attended my husband’s annual company Christmas/Holidays party. Although it hasn’t been so annual lately. Due to Covid and whatnot, this was the first Christmas party the company has had in three years. We had a marvelous time. However, since this three year break, I am starting to realize that my husband and I are now fully in the “elders camp” at company parties. All of those older people at business functions that I used to look up to, defer to, feel a little nervous around, and also admittedly, sometimes crank about with my other younger associates, are now “us”. We are the elder people. It doesn’t help that our neighbor’s grandson, and a handsome young man who used to carpool to soccer with my son, in their stinky, sweaty cleats, smelling up my SUV, are now young, energetic executives at this company. The thing is, I still feel like that young woman whom I once was, trying to impress my elders at the company parties. And now that I am “an elder”, I realize how silly and unnecessary that is to do. I just delight in seeing young people making their paths in this world. I’m excited for them and their futures and I realize that I have just as much to learn from them as they do from me.

Okay, that paragraph was a digression from what Sundays on the blog are truly about. (I feel a little distractible today.) Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. When I opened up the computer today, I read this quote from Alan Cohen: “If you feel overwhelmed by responsibility, you have assumed more than what truly belongs to you.” This prompted me to look up some poems written about “lightening the load.” We were up late last night, so I don’t have the bandwidth to write a poem of my own yet this morning. The cobwebs have not been cleared. However these two poems popped up on my search and both of them spoke to me. I hope they connect with you, as well. Have a beautiful, peaceful, meaningful day. See you tomorrow.

Soul Sunday

Good morning. It feels so good to be sitting in my own little writing corner, in my comfortable home with the beautiful, still sunlight filtering in. It feels so good to be unscheduled after a lovely, restorative night’s sleep. My husband is headed out on his bicycle. Riding his bike is one of my husband’s favorite things to do. I am writing and reading and sipping coffee, so I am utterly exhilarated, in the process of doing my favorite things. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog, and in my own little corner of contentment (both inside and outside), this is the poem that popped out of me (see below). What poems are trying to pop out of you? Put pen to paper, or hands to keyboard and give it a whirl. What a wonderful way to get to know yourself better!

CONTENTMENT

“What is contentment?” In meditation, she asked.

And from something inside of her, the answer was grasped.

Contentment is feeding your passions,

With time and energy and focus and love.

Yes, just feed your passions with all of the above.

Well-fed passions equal contentment, it’s true.

When you do this, you’ll find your purpose anew.

Ah, so now I clearly can see,

Contentment is living purposefully.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday – Funday

I am feeling a little “deep” this Monday. It must be the eclipse or the fact of my youngest child’s looming high school graduation. As Rumi, the wonderful poet said (back in the 1200s, no less), “Life is a balance between holding on and letting go.” Timeless. As Carl Sagan said, “Magic.” I think that Rumi’s quote is the very definition of creating a loving, warm, happy family – finding that just right balance of “holding on and letting go.” It isn’t easy. Balancing anything takes concentration, stamina, and determination and desire.

Another quote I read yesterday that stuck to my heart was this quote from Alex Winter about the recent death of the actor, Fred Ward. “He always elevated the films he was in.” Isn’t that a wonderful thing to notice and to say about someone? Is this perhaps a wonderful goal for anyone to achieve? What if your goal was to be an elevation of whatever situation you are in, at any time? “He or she always elevated the life he or she was living.” Can you imagine what this world would look like if we all just tried to elevate ourselves in any situation which we find ourselves being in, on a daily basis?? I like to believe that if we all tried to do this, we would see a lot less of the pain and horrors that have become a staple of our everyday news.

I’m sorry to turn what is often a silly day on my blog into “Deep Thoughts”. I’ll close with a laugh, how about that? Here is one of Jack Handey’s best deep thoughts:

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you'll be a...

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

It’s Your Thing

I don’t believe that there is any decent writer who isn’t also an avid reader. Most days before I start writing, I do a fair amount of reading. Interestingly, no matter how randomly I seem to choose my reading materials in the morning: news stories, essays, book chapters, tweets, horoscopes, old journal entries of my own, text exchanges, magazine articles etc., a common theme often seems to evolve. Today, from my various readings, I jotted down these ideas that seemed to be “the message” which my most intuitive self was trying to bring to the forefront of my mind and into the guidance of my everyday life:

Don’t fixate on the negative.

Enjoy and fully appreciate the everyday modest delights in life.

Keep it simple.

One of my readings this morning included this quote:

“A multitude of small delights constitutes happiness.” – Charles Baudelaire

This morning, not long after I jotted the French poet’s astute quote down into another one of my almost full leather bound notebooks (On an aside, I consider these notebooks of mine to be some of my greatest treasures in life. These ever-evolving notebooks contain thoughts and wisdoms that provoke my own thinking, and they guide me and inspire me to my own innate wisdom and peace. These personal treasure boxes are available for anyone who can read and who can think and who can feel, to create and to accumulate and to savor. If you don’t have a “thought museum” journal/notebook/scrapbook, start one today. They are like potato chips. You won’t be able to stop at just one.), I started reading another excellent article by the New Zealander, Karen Nimmo. Karen Nimmo is a psychologist and a prolific writer and this particular excerpt from her article stood out to me, and enforced and validated this one main message that seems to be the theme of my reading today:

“Life is challenging, that’s the deal we all sign on for. But if you find one thing — one thing — that gets you excited even in small doses, one thing that makes you come alive, preserve it. Nurture it. Build it. Sneak back to it. Invest in it. Because it’ll be there for you all the days of your life.” – Karen Nimmo

I have often thought that if I am fortunate enough to grow old and feeble, I hope that I will always have the ability to read, and hopefully, even to write. (More than once, I have even pictured little old lady me, perched in her comfy bed, in the nursing home, reading to her heart’s content, all day long until it’s time for dinner, and then I even hope to be able to read, while I am eating my dinner.) Reading gets me excited, even in small doses. So does writing. Writing makes me come alive. And so every morning, as Nimmo suggests, I preserve these activities. I nurture them. I prioritize them. I sneak back throughout the day to look at my blog, and to read any comments, and to read other various written communications that have caught my fancy. I invest in these activities on a daily basis, because they are an investment in my own happiness and fulfillment and feeling of purpose. My happiness and excitement and contentment is positive energy that spills out to my home environment, and to my family, and to my pets, and to my friends, and to my community and to my world. My investment in my deepest, truest self (even in small doses) ends up being my gift of joy to the world. Win-win. What is “that thing”, that “one thing” that makes you come alive? What’s that “one thing” that brings out your most beautiful, positive, alive and happy energy, so that when you do “that thing”, it only adds to the bank of positive energy that our world so desperately needs right now? Whatever that activity is for you, doing “that thing” is your gift to yourself, to your family, to your friends, to your community and to your world. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to all of the rest of us, to do that thing that makes you feel the most alive, even if it is only in small doses. In a world where we are facing a horrific crisis that has absolutely no winners, we need loads and loads more of the magnificent, light-filled, uplifting, excited, loving, positive energy that is a “win-win” for all of us. As Nimmo says, find “your thing”. “Preserve it. Nurture it. Build it. Sneak back to it. Invest in it.” Do it for yourself. Do it for all of us.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.